what i’m reading
by susan mccallum-smith
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side dish to Flaubert’s tale, Flaubert’s Parrot ilustave Flaubert followed his 1857 potboiler lustrates what happens when one talented writer is Madame Bovary (the original desperate housewife) inspired by the melody of another, and, like a fearless with a very affecting short story in 1877 entitled A jazz player, improvises into the stratosphere, risking Simple Heart. A very, very slim volume (attractive some very high notes. to my waning attention span), it examines the life Another work containing an homage to a literof Félicité, a humble servant with an extraordinary ary forebear is Nicole Krauss’ The History of Love. capacity for hope and empathy. It’s not easy to write The sentimental favorite of many 2005 “best of ” a great story about a good person (the devil does booklists, Krauss’ story follows the parallel journeys tend to have the best tunes), yet Flaubert manages of a young American girl searching for her namesake it. After her father dies, her mother dies, and her sisand the heartbreaking love affair of a Polish refugee. ters scatter, Félicité is seduced and then abandoned (Krauss is married to wunderkind Jonathan Safran by her lover. She becomes the maid of a Madame Foer, author of 2002’s Everything Is Illuminated. Aubain, whom she serves loyally for the rest of her Wonder what they talk about over their frosty flakes days. As the years advance, Félicité’s beloved nephew in the morning?) As their stories intertwine, Krauss dies, then her mistress’ favorite child, then her misreferences the life and work of the Polish magicaltress herself passes away, and then, Lord help us, realist Bruno Schulz. Schulz, the likely literary heir to Félicité’s parrot, a creature she adores more than any Summer Camp 06 - Urbanite Kafka and Gogol, was shot by an SS officer in 1942. other, dies. Rather than finally giving in to complete 9.125 He left behind hints of his wasted potential in two despair, Félicité repositions the parrot in the center x 2.625 0106.094 sublime collections of short stories, The Street of of her life (with the help of the village taxidermist) Crocodiles and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the and it comes to symbolize for her the mystery and Hourglass (published in 1934 and 1937 respectively), majesty of God. thankfully available in English translations. When Not surprisingly, some of Flaubert’s contemread in conjunction with Krauss, they allow us to poraries were horrified by this metaphorical link experience, again, the jazz of the unfettered human between a stuffed bird and the Resurrection. Such imagination. irreligious content didn’t spawn any cartoons, as far If I had not been given Are Men Necessary? as a as I’m aware, but it did inspire Julian Barnes’ excelgift, the book jacket alone would have persuaded me lent novel from 1985, Flaubert’s Parrot. A worthy
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to buy it. The cover of Maureen Dowd’s examination of gender relations has a trashy, noirish quality: A strawberry blond in a red dress with an improbably curvy behind reads on a train, oblivious to the shifty glances of the other (male) passengers. The book itself is not quite as shapely as either its jacket or its author (Ms. Dowd would not find that a derogative comment, trust me), as it fails to build toward any major conclusion. It’s not so much an argument as a rant, albeit a witty one. Judging by some reviews of Dowd’s reductive lipstick feminism, many have taken her tongue-in-cheek cheekiness oh, so seriously. Not only do we seem to be losing the battle, sisters, we seem to be losing our sense of humor. One of the more startling revelations made by Dowd (whom I assume wears red stilettos and a bullet-proof vest) is that, despite dizzying advances in equality, a scientific study has proven a woman’s attractiveness to men still decreases in direct proportion to an increase in her IQ. Therefore, take my advice: When you are considering what to get your teenage daughter for her next birthday, forget that early nose job or those preventative Botox injections and book her, instead, for a mini lobotomy. Go on: Give the little dear a “head start,” or she’ll never get a date for the prom. —Susan McCallum-Smith is Urbanite’s literary editor.
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