Well, the weekend is winding to a satisfactory close. I definitely needed it. My first week of work was an exciting and stressful blur, and I am very thankful that I was given the weekend off as a mercy. Of course, it’s a double-edged sword as this break was a “enjoy it now, because it won’t happen again for some months” sort of deal due to the ever-increasing workload of the firm’s litigation department. But we shall not dwell on the future, but instead enjoy the present, and the fun that I feel I definitely earned.
The weekend began with a whirlwind of a Friday, which saw me leave a fourteen-hour work day to immediately hop a subway up into Chelsea for drinks with friends from law school. Standard youthful revelry followed, with the night coming to a close at 4 AM over pierogis and goulash at Veselka on 2nd and 9th. Over the course of this most delightful of New York nights, I did actually manage to get some reading done, seeing how I’m the nerd who always carries a book in his back pocket. It was not All the King’s Men, but instead a paperback of Truman Capote’s The Glass Harp and Other Stories.
A full review after the jump…
I managed to finish the core story of the book, the novella The Grass Harp, on the J Train as the evening took me into the East Village, and I am very glad I did. You see, I have a very hit-or-miss appreciation of Capote. I read In Cold Blood a couple years ago and was simply blown away. Everything from pacing and structure to the use of language and its characterization, the book blew me away by its sheer perfection. It also prevented me from sleeping since I read it in the middle of the night, alone in my apartment, and thereafter could not close my eyes because every creak in the floorboards of the old building seemed to promise my brutal demise. But then I followed up In Cold Blood with Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Answered Prayers. Neither particularly impressed me.
Both were perfectly fine in terms of writing, but neither really left an impression. I was fully aware that Breakfast at Tiffany’s was not meant to boast anything in terms of a plot, but rather was a vehicle for showcasing what was supposed to be one of American literature’s most captivating characters. I say supposed to be because I was never that fascinated by Holly Golightly. I found nothing interesting in that flighty, roving promiscuous girl who frankly never struck me as a believable character. I was constantly conscious that she was a creation, that Capote was straining far too hard to create someone captivating and exceptional. In the end, she just reeked of artifice. After reading her exploits, I felt like the only thing I gained from the book was a way to pass a rainy afternoon. As for Answered Prayers—the unifinished, posthumously published work that was the product of his later years when he was little more than a professional socialite—it really doesn’t even warrant much in the way of review. It was a sordid tale of a male prostitute’s adventures among the lower and upper classes, but so thoughtlessly done that it lacked depth and substance. It was just an exercise in prurience. After Answered Prayers, I really had no desire to read any more Capote; I was worried that any more disappointments would taint the experience of In Cold Blood. If it weren’t for my need for conveniently-sized paperbacks for subway reads, I might never had read another of his works.
The Grass Harp redeemed Capote in my eyes. The story is set in a small Southern town, centered an orphaned boy on the cusp of manhood, living in the home of his two aunts, the domineering miserVerena, and sweet, dreamy Dolly. Rounding out his family is Catherine, their servant who is fiercely and possessively devoted to Dolly. The impetus of the story comes out of a conflict between Dolly and Verena. Dolly, so good natured and content to live subordinate to her sister, awakens to rebellion when Verena seeks to claim the one thing that is hers: a dropsy remedy taught to Dolly by a gypsy as a child. It was Dolly’s great joy to spend her days in the woods picking herbs with Catherine and her young nephew, the narrator Collin, and her evenings around a bubbling pot making the draught that she would sell to penpals by mail. Verena, with a head for business and a lust for money, notices that the home remedy is in fact highly successful and, seeing an opportunity to mass market it, demands that Dolly give her the recipe. When Dolly refuses, denying Verena for the first time in their long lives, it leads to her fleeing her sister’s house with Collin and Catherine in tow as they search for a place of her own. The find themselves living in a treehouse in a Chinaberry tree, in the woods where they spent their days hunting for herbs beneath the leaves, to their own delight and the confusion of a scandalized town.
The story progresses as the three defend their life in the tree from Verena and the town’s condemnation and at times violent interference. They are aided by Judge Charlie Cool, a man of deep wisdom, quiet dignity and charming chivalry, as well as Riley Henderson, a wastrel of scarcely realized potential and the object of Collin’s youthful admiration. This story of eccentrics in a treehouse is all at once comical, heartrending and engaging. The prose is more akin to poetry, every sentence perfectly crafted. But above all, the book is characterized by something overwhelming and essential, what Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Answered Prayers lacked: sincerity. The book is pervaded by something powerful and real, a yearning for a place and a life of one’s own; an emotional core that makes something wonderful of a book that would otherwise devolve into a farcical melodrama. I think that same yearning motivated Holly Golightly, but whereas hers was expressed in terms of a selfish hunger, Dolly’s search for an existence decidedly her own is poetic and heartfelt, easily identified with by the reader. I heartily recommend this fanciful tale, which definitely restored Capote to my good graces.
* * *
Of course, finishing The Grass Harp did not lead me to neglecting All the King’s Men. I spent the better part of the afternoon reading it in a coffeeshop. At the same time, I pursued one of the other goals of this blog: to listen to new music. My album of the week was definitely appropriate for coffeeshop listening; it was the newest effort by Ingrid Michaelson, an album entitled “Everybody.”
I have heard a few of Michaelson’s songs from previous albums, and a friend recommended her new album, knowing that I have weakness for soulful chanteuses like Tori Amos and indie pop starlets like Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley. So, I put Ingrid into my iPod and took her with me to keep me company as I continued my examination of the rise and fall of Willie Stark.
She was, over all, excellent company. She has a lovely voice, clear yet delicate with a good range and no shortage of emotional expression. However, the album was not what I expected. The songs of hers with which I was familiar were intimate and sparely instrumentalized, the sort of lyrcially-driven, emotionally ladden ballads you expect to hear at an indie coffee shop while kids in skinny jeans and black, square-rimmed glasses argue as if their discussions would settle once and for all the great controversies of mankind. This album lacks the small-studio appeal of her previous efforts. There is far more instrumentation, layered guitars and a number of tracks where Michaelson’s voice is used to provide a backtrack on the chorus. The overall effect is something that flirts with being overly produced and creates a disturbing lack of variety from song to song.
The increased production certainly makes for something with broad market appeal, an assertion evidenced by the fact that the album reached number 18 on the billboard chart, but I feel something essential to Michaelson was lost. For example, the title track, “Everybody” was so saccharine sweet I could barely take it seriously. While her songs retain the same sincerity (a topic of great importance today!) and vulnerability that made her previous songs so captivating, that emotional integrity is threatened by the excess ornamentation. Examples are “Soldier” and “Maybe,” which boast strong vocals and lyrics, but come across as tailermade for the top 40 charts.
The only song in which the increased production values meld harmoniously with her vocals and intimate style is “The Chain,” a heartfelt ballad that sweeps you up in a powerful melody that builds in intensity, perfectly supporting Michaelson’s voice. If the entire album followed that pattern, it would have been something special. Otherwise, the songs more reminiscent of her past work, with greater emphasis on her voice over effects, are the most successful. “Mountain and the Sea,” “Men of Snow” and “Locked Up” are all perfectly delightful and insure that the album is worth listening to.
Overall, it is an album of considerable quality. However, I hope in the future Michaelson returns to her roots. “Everybody” is filled with enjoyable songs, but the overall sound is worryingly stylized. A voice like hers does not need the crutch of heavy production; I hope she realizes that in her next effort, lest she lose her own unique sound and become just another pop princess.
* * *
Well dear readers, that is all for today. With a couple hours left in the weekend, and an evening all to myself, I think I am going to sit back on the couch with a glass of wine and watch a movie. I’m thinking I can’t go wrong with Wes Anderson.
Until next time…
No comments:
Post a Comment