Novels

Beautiful!

Yeah, Another Blogger112 Comments

I tip my hat to the Philadelphia Horticultural Society (PHS), for it is the producer and director of the wonderful Philadelphia Flower Show, an event first staged in 1829 when PHS was two years old, and mounted almost every year since then. I’m very much into the show, something that wasn’t always the case. Pre-2016 I pooh-poohed it, certain that I’d have zero interest in its presentations were I to attend. Which only goes to prove I truly can be a dumb f*ck.

Anyway, in 2016 I woke up a little and decided to give the exhibition a shot. That year, I went with my wife Sandy to the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the show’s downtown-Philadelphia home, and was wowed. I’ve now been to seven editions of the extravaganza, most recently on the first Friday of this month. Though possibly not quite as enthralling as last year’s version, the 2026 flower show, which ran for nine days, damn well was more than good enough. Imaginative horticultural displays (from local, national and international exhibitors) abounded. Proof of the event’s high quality is that I more or less forgot I was inside a monstrously huge, cement-floored venue that in and of itself is completely devoid of charm. For two hours, Sandy and I wandered from one display to another, doubling back and circling around to re-examine the sights. And then, sated, we bade farewell to the show, exited the building, and disappeared into the fast-approaching night.

It’s too late in the game for PHS to change the name of the show. But theoretically it wouldn’t be a bad idea, because, for decades and decades probably, numerous displays have not been flower-centric. That is, other forms of flora (non-flowering trees, shrubs, vines, you name it) also have starred. And man-made elements, some as whimsical as can be, have raised the excitement and enticement levels of countless exhibits considerably.

Still, the display that grabbed me the most this year was all flowers: a wedge-shaped bed of, primarily, tulips. Its creator — Jacques Amand International, a British firm — arranged the tulips by color groups, all of them snazzy. Man, the energy radiated by this exhibit was palpable. The flowers were bursting with life, proud of their vibrant hues and eager to share their happiness with members of the human race. I soaked up the tulips’ good vibes and good will while hungrily looking them over. They were just so beautiful.

You never know when you’ll encounter beauty that takes your breath away. And in our troubled world, we need as much beauty of that sort as we can get. The tulips certainly did that to me. As did many passages in Baumgartner, a novel (by the late Paul Auster) that I read this year. A writing machine for decades, pumping out novels, memoirs, essays, poems and screenplays like there was no tomorrow, Auster passed away in 2024, about six months after Baumgartner was published. And so, strictly by chance, the first Auster novel I read turns out to have been his last.

I whole-heartedly recommend Baumgartner. It tells the tale of one Seymour (Sy) Baumgartner, a retired philosophy professor, age 70 when the book begins. Sy’s world was upended by the accidental death of his wife Anna, the utmost love of his life, some years earlier. At book’s start, he has yet to recover. As the next couple of years unfold, though, Sy begins to make headway as he thinks back upon his life, gaining not only insights into himself but also an expanded appreciation for Anna’s abilities and talents. Slowly, a meaningful future opens up.

Auster’s use of language is enviable. Throughout the novel, his word choices and their rhythms and flows often stunned me, the first time a book affected me this way since I don’t know when. Such as this passage from early on in the story:

It is the trope Baumgartner has been searching for ever since Anna’s sudden, unexpected death ten years ago, the most persuasive and compelling analogue to describe what has happened to him since that hot, windy afternoon in August 2008 when the gods saw fit to steal his wife from him in the full vigor of her still youthful self, and just like that, his limbs were ripped off his body, all four of them, arms and legs together at the same time, and if his head and heart were spared from the onslaught, it was only because the perverse, snickering gods had granted him the dubious right to go on living without her. He is a human stump now, a half man who has lost the half of himself that had made him whole, and yes, the missing limbs are still there, and they still hurt, hurt so much that he sometimes feels his body is about to catch fire and consume him on the spot.

See what I mean? Auster truly had a way with words. Beautiful!

A Cloudy Walk And A Rousing Novel

Yeah, Another Blogger134 Comments

A half hour shy of noon a few weeks ago, in need of some exercise, I raised my bony ass off the living room sofa, exited my house and took a walk around my suburban neighborhood. It was a hot and humid summer day, the type that normally causes me to spew sweat like a volcano. I guess the dermatology gods took pity on me, though, for my wrinkled skin became only mildly moist during the stroll.

I usually don’t spend a lot of time looking upward when I’m outside, not in daylight nor when the skies are black. Pretty foolish of me, because, obviously, the heavens are incredible. But, on the day in question I decided to alter that orientation by examining the clouds filling much of the sky. They were of two sorts, some of them bright and friendly and perfect partners for the sky’s blue areas, the others darkened and signaling that rain, which ultimately never arrived, might be a-comin’.

And I also had my eyes on trees, which are fairly abundant in my neighborhood (I live a few miles outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA). It would be cool, I decided, to snap some photos in which cloud-filled skies and trees appeared. But only cloud-filled skies and trees. This turned out to be harder than I thought it would be. I shouldn’t have been surprised, of course, since my neighborhood is jam-packed with houses, utility poles and overhead-utility lines, nearly all of which not only were in the way, but also cursed me out when I told them I wouldn’t include them in the photos. What a bunch of obnoxious bastards! Persevering, I found a fair number of vantage points that allowed me to meet my criteria. I tell you, the life of an amateur photographer ain’t a breeze. On the other hand, just about nobody’s life is a breeze. Hell, that’s life.

Two photos from my mini expedition adorn this essay. I regard them as semi-abstract compositions, the amorphous clouds offset by the tight structure of treetops. I bow before Mother Nature. Her variety of creations is dazzling and just about infinite, yet limited and uncomplicated displays of her wares, such as these, have no trouble awing me. There’s a whole lot to be said for simplicity.

Getting back to life, this month I was swept away by a novel that tells the tale of one David Granger, a 68-year-old American whose adult life has been the opposite of a breeze. Months and months of violent combat in Vietnam jungles in the late 1960s saw to that, not only while he was fighting the Viet Cong, but also every year since then, a decades-long period during which war-induced nightmares have bedeviled his bedtime hours. Granger is the narrator of The Reason You’re Alive, the madcap, profane and humane book by Matthew Quick published in 2017. (Matthew Quick’s best-known novel is The Silver Linings Playbook, which was turned into a movie starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper.)

David Granger is a piece of work, an over-the-top character who wears his lengthy list of opinions on his sleeve. A widower, he has an uneasy relationship with his one child (an adult son named Hank), and adores his young granddaughter, Ella. His friendships are pretty plentiful and also profound. And although he possesses a conservative, America-first outlook, he does not meet the definition of a Trumpster, because he is completely accepting of, and admires, the USA’s racial and sexual minorities. A complicated guy, Granger feels compelled to put his story down on paper before it might be too late, seeing that he recently went under the knife for brain cancer, a disease he believes was induced by heavy exposure in Vietnam to the poisonous chemical Agent Orange. Post-surgery, Granger gets it into his head that he should return a valuable object that, under shameful circumstances, he stole from a fellow soldier during the war.

I don’t want to spill too many beans about the plotlines, so I’ll say little more. I will add, however, that the sentences in The Reason You’re Alive barrel along like a high-speed train and pack a punch. Here’s a sample paragraph from the book:

Doctors had sawed through my skull. They had cut out part of my brain. I was still freeballing it in a lime-green fairy gown. I was in a fucking hospital bed, for Christ’s sake, and Hank’s machine-gunning me with entire belts of words just because I didn’t tell him about the surgery until after it was over. I figured, why worry him? We hadn’t been speaking since summer anyway. Ever since we had a blowout at the Phillies game.

See what I mean? Matthew Quick can write. I unhesitatingly recommend The Reason You’re Alive.