The Echo Maker by Richard Powers

When his little Jess was not a month old, he could get her to stick out her tongue just by sticking out his tongue at her. No counting the miracles involved. She had to locate his tongue relative to his body. Then somehow map his parts onto the feel of hers, find and order a tongue she could not even see, could not even know about. And she did all this at the mere sight of him, this infant who had been taught nothing. Where was the end of his self, the start of hers?

The Echo Maker

I've read one other Richard Powers book, Generosity. That wonderful novel wove a plot around genetics and the possibility of a genetic explanation for behavior, a happiness gene in this case. It was a little like the current wave of historical novels where some researcher stumbles across a startling new insight about this or that artist and in the process of uncovering this new "truth" takes the reader on a magical mystery tour through a period of history. The reader ends up entertained and educated to boot and the author ends up making lots of money by cashing in on this trope.

The Echo Maker is in this vein. Thematically it focuses on the idea of Consciousness and Self. What is it that creates our sense of Self and what how is it that we are conscious of Consciousness? Into this rather large idea we have Mark Schluter, a young man from Nebraska who rolls his truck one evening and ends up with a rare mental condition called Capgas Syndrome, a brain trauma that causes an individual to suffer the delusion that many close friends and relatives have been replaced by imposters, even robots.

For instance, Mark is convinced that his sister, who has abandoned her job and her life in Sioux City to nurse her brother back to normality, is in fact an imposter, part of a plot to drive him crazy. As the book progresses, this delusion branches out to include almost the entirety of Mark's encounters with people and places.

Mark's sister Karin writes Gerald Weber, a famous neurologist, for help. Weber flies to Kearney, meets Mark, and decides to use him as grist for yet another formulaic book about brain disorders. It becomes apparent that Weber is more interested in using Mark than helping him. Weber himself, spurred on by the crappy reviews of his most recent publication, begins to suspect the truth about his motives and begins to wonder about the kind of person he is.

Add to this Mark's two typically rowdy Nebraska buddies who he suspects had something to do with the accident. They aren't talking as one ends up going to war in Iraq (this is set during Bush II) and the other ends up in jail.

Meanwhile, Karin seeks consolation with Daniel, Mark's estranged boyhood friend who has become a crusading environmentalist, and with another man, a land developer, who she once worked for and who is currently trying to land a deal for an eco-resort to be built right on the land where thousands of Sandhill Cranes land each year during their migration.

All of these plot elements go through a satisfying, if predictable, denouement.

Above all of this we have the huge symbol of the cranes flying in and out of the picture. The book juxtaposes all of the ruminations about the nature of Self and Consciousness with the instinctually natural patterns of the cranes.

Mark is in a sense right. We are all of us imposters, alien from our former selves constantly constructing new patterns of consciousness, ending up in a kind of limbo, a nothingness, unable to be the naturally magnificent creatures we are.

Behold the lilies of the valley.

Even Solomon in all his glory had not so fine a cloak as these.

They sow not nor do they reap, yet God watches over them.

Are you not worth more than these?

This is a novel well worth reading.

Reading in Puerto Vallarta

We just got back from twelve days in Puerto Vallarta with Bud and Janet. High seventies every day. Lots of good restaurants. Every morning by the pool reading books and drinking Pina Coladas. I polished off five books during my stay and got half way through a sixth on the plane ride home.

High Fidelity - Nick Hornby

I am accidentally reading Nick Hornby in reverse chronological order. I first read Juliet Naked a couple of years ago and fell in love with Hornby's voice and self-deprecating sense of humor. I say self-deprecating because the main characters he writes about have to be thinly disguised versions of Hornby, a person who seems to love drugs, sex, and (especially) rock and roll. Next I read A Long Way Down. I didn't think it as good as Juliet because it didn't have the same acerbic humor directed at rock and roll groupies and fanatics. High Fidelity, Hornby's first novel, is the best of the three. I haven't seen the John Cusack movie version, but after reading the book, one comes to the undeniable conclusion that only John Cusack could play Rob, the music store owner with one foot in reality and the other on a musical banana peel.

Rob and his down and out employees remind me of the guys in Diner, especially Daniel Stern who submits his prospective wife to a sports quiz to make sure they are right for each other. In Rob's world, everyone who walks into the store is subjected to a music quiz. YOU LIKE TINA TURNER?! GET OUT OF MY STORE! But Rob, unlike his co-workers, is slowly beginning to see the shallowness masquerading as good musical taste that is bringing about his ruination. The fact that he has just been left by his girlfriend helps bring him to that realization. In the end, Rob sees the light and seems willing to let someone with a bad record collection enter his life.

I know lots of Robs, but I am not going to mention any names on the off chance someone might actually be reading this. They usually have an icebox full of beer, a killer sound system, and a collection of concert tee shirts. Their homes are great places to hang out while getting lost in ear drum shattering recordings and good dope, but after awhile you just have to move on. Rob is on the verge of learning that lesson.

I loved the section at the end of the book where Rob is being interviewed by an undergraduate who innocently asks him to list his top five recordings of all time. Rob has waited all his life for someone to ask him this question and after much thought presents his list. But the list keeps festering and he calls back again and again to amend it. It is a funny moment and I can't imagine anyone who would be able to read on without stopping to make his own list. Here is mine.

"Cripple Creek" - The Band
"Eddie's All-Star Joint" - Ricky Lee Jones (Thank you Katie Hoffman)
"The Unsquare Dance" - The Dave Brubeck Quartet
"Wouldn't It Be Nice" - The Beach Boys
"Old Friends" - Paul Simon

Here is Kathie's list.

"Honky Tonk Woman" - The Rolling Stones
"Wouldn't It Be Nice" - The Beach Boys
"Come Together" - The Beatles
"Life Is A Carnival" - The Band
"Ain't Scared of Dying" - Blood, Sweat, and Tears

An Object of Beauty - Steve Martin

Steve Martin's Picasso and Einstein at the Lapin Agile is one of the smartest plays I have ever read or seen performed. It basically explores the idea that art and science both spring from the same creative impulse, the same need to explain. His new book isn't nearly as smart, but it taught me a lot about the inner workings of the art world. How art dealers deal. How art is valued. How to tell good from bad. It also gives a little history lesson about the state of the world the last couple of decades.

It is also a romantic comedy with a speaker who is a writer about art. This speaker unwittingly becomes involved in a little scam at an art auction which supplies the book with the bare bones of a mystery.

When I taught AP I would sometimes tell my students to go to a show at the art museum and rent the headphones. The descriptions of the paintings provided wonderful models for writing about literature, especially poetry. Steve Martin's descriptions of the various works considered in this book are masterful models of writing and thinking about art.

Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

I decided to reward myself with Catcher. I hadn't read it for about ten years, so I figured it was time. Let me tell you that Salinger's masterwork holds up quite well against all the stuff I've been reading lately.

I read a piece about Catcher by Louis Menand(I think)celebrating the book's fiftieth anniversary a few years ago. The article was fun to read, even though it didn't teach me anything new. The one thing I remember from the article was Menand thought Holden was more articulate and more insightful than any seventeen year old could possibly be and he saw that as a flaw in the novel. At the time, I remember thinking he was as wrong as he could be, and now having read it again, I am convinced he was wrong. I've known all kinds of seventeen year olds with the same insight and the same ability to express that insight. On top of that, I continue to maintain that Holden Caulfield is the most memorable character in American Literature. I also maintain that anyone who doesn't love that little boy and that great book is either illiterate or has no heart.

The one thing that struck me about the book this time is that I am basically the same person I was when I first read the book at age fourteen. I laugh at the same jokes, cry at he same frustrations, recognize the same fears. I am still the hopeless neurotic I was in junior high school. I'm not sure what I think about this.

In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

I have recently enjoyed watching Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Capote, so while picking out books for our Mexican sojourn I chose this one to refresh my memory about the whole Clutter thing. It was quite a juxtaposition to Salinger, but it was even more compelling. Very few people write sentences like Capote. You can taste them.

I taught the book two or three times years ago and I remember that kids almost always loved it. I'm not a big fan of mystery novels. Don't get me wrong; I read them, but I always feel guilty afterwards. Not so with this magnificent book. I knew what was coming, but I still couldn't put it down.

Generosity - Richard Powers

In the midst of making some pretty heavy indictments against everything from genetic engineering (and profiteering) to the evils of Oprah Winfrey, this terrific book creates Thassa, maybe the most memorable character you will ever encounter.

Thassa is a blissfully happy and content creature and her happiness infects all around her. I found myself wanting to go out into the world spreading joy and good will, but not ironically. For real.

She is a student in a creative writing class taught by a young man whose caustic vision tends to skewer everything he encounters, but not Thassa. The problem is that anyone who is unqualifiably happy (She is said to possess the happiness gene.) is not sufficiently armed to withstand the 24/7 media scrutiny that such a person would inevitably be subjected to and we are forced to witness the gradual eating away of her joyfulness.

Don't worry. The end is satisfying without being sappy. This is a wonderful book and a great way to end my reading binge.