Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

My “library reading list” is ridiculously long and out of control. Basically, it consists of books I do not own, and are not sure I want to purchase, but do want to read. The non-fiction section is the longest: I like to read a wide variety of those, but can’t justify giving up precious shelf space. That’s what the public library is for, after all. But I also have a long and growing fiction section. These are primarily modern novels or short story collections by authors I do not know or have not read. If I really like one, I’ll try to find a used hardback for my own collection. The problem with this list is that I started it years ago, and didn’t include who recommended it. Some were by friends, some were by other authors I like, still others were from reliable sources like NPR. 

My best guess as to where I found this one was off a list of modern books by Latin American authors - probably posted by a friend. But that is the most I can remember. Anyway, Faces in the Crowd was first published in Spanish as Los Ingrávidos in 2011. I read the English version translated by Christina MacSweeney. The original title translates roughly to “The Weightless,” which puts a slightly different spin on the book’s meaning.

It is kind of difficult to describe the way the book works, but I will try. I initially started it, got a few pages in, and realized that I needed an extended period of time to read it without distraction, because it wasn’t a straightforward narrative. At all. Rather, as the one voice in the book describes it, it is “a vertical narrative told horizontally,” or later, as “a horizontal narrative told vertically.” Which gives at least some indication of the difficulties presented by reading a few pages at a time.

There are essentially three stories being told simultaneously, and also interconnectedly. Like many of the great Latino classics, there is a supernatural element that blends seamlessly with realistic writing. In this case, it isn’t so much magical realism in the usual sense, but, well, it’s hard to describe. Let me start with the three narratives.

The most “realistic” story is that of the unnamed narrator. At the opening of the story, she is a young wife and mother of two, living in Mexico City, and deeply unhappy. (Well, happy people rarely make good fiction, what can I say?) Her marriage is failing, she is worn ragged by the demands of the kids, and works to create space by writing her novel.

The second narrative is the narrator’s story of her younger years living as a bohemian in New York City, translating obscure works from Spanish into English. While doing this, she first becomes interested in, then obsessed with, the poet Gilberto Owen. Owen was a minor figure in the Harlem Renaissance, and worked as a diplomat before drinking himself to death in middle age. Some excerpts of his poems are quoted in this book. The narrator, unable to convince her boss to publish translations of Owen, fabricates and forges a supposed translation of Owen by “Joshua Zvorsky” (basically a fictionalized Louis Zukofsky), who happens to be her boss’ favorite writer. The lie gets out of control, even though her boss doesn’t really believe her, and she has to bail out at the last minute, cratering both her career and her boss’ career.

The third narrative is a imaginative story of Owen’s last days in Philadelphia, where he battles with his ex-wife over his kids, writes, and hangs with other poetic figures of his time.

The first two narratives alternate, more or less, for the first third of the book. However, when the narrator fabricates the translations, Owen enters the story. First, she starts seeing him in the Subway (even though he has been dead for decades) - and he starts seeing her. A blind friend of Owen’s expresses his theory that we die many times, but continue to live. We are separated into the old us and multiple future versions of ourselves. The author uses this idea to mess with the nature of reality as the book goes on. Owen becomes another version of the narrator’s estranged husband, she as his ex-wife, and other characters past and present as other characters.

Within this interweaving, we become aware that the narrator is unreliable on more than one level. In fact, which is the real narrator in the first place? What is true, and what is fiction in this book? And goodness only knows how to interpret the ending, which is intentionally vague and inconclusive.

The first clue of all this is when the “modern” narrator mentions her husband reading her drafts, and asking about the old lovers she mentions in her book. Which we assume is the one about her bohemian days. But then, later, he objects to things about himself in the book - things which he claims are totally untrue. (Such as the idea that he is leaving for Philadelphia.) Is the tale of the New York days true about the narrator? Are they true about the author herself? Are they even true within the confines of the narrator’s novel?

Once the third narrative starts intruding on the others, and objects that should logically be separated by decades (and thus not exist in all the threads) end up showing up, and expressing meaning within each narrative.

The disturbing suggestion is that everything in the book is a fabrication, even on its own terms, much like the narrator’s spurious translation of Owen. In fact, one can say that the only thing we can be sure of is that Gilberto Owen was a historical person - but little other than his name, some poem fragments, and the rough outline of his life, are tied to reality. Did the narrator make up her own story as well as his? Can we trust anything? And, at a deeper philosophical level, is there an “us” which exists outside of the narratives we all tell about ourselves and each other?

The writing (and the translation) are poetic rather than definite. The writing is quite good. But it will drive those who dislike poetry a bit crazy. Meaning is seen, like faint astronomical objects, by looking adjacent to it, rather than directly at it. I walked away from the book a bit unsure of what to make of it, yet feeling like it had been a satisfying experience. It has no grand themes beyond what I have noted, as far as I can tell. (And other reviewers I read after reading it concurred.) The author attempted on grand narrative arc. Nothing epic happens. Most of the story concerns mundane, everyday stuff, with some introspection thrown in. But that is part of the charm. It is a book to be felt, rather than analyzed.

I do advise readers to set aside enough time to read it uninterrupted. It isn’t long, less than 150 pages. It just hangs together better when read without distraction.

Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte

Source of book: I own this.

Anne Bronte is the forgotten Bronte sibling. Emily (Wuthering Heights) and Charlotte (Jane Eyre) are well known for their striking and successful novels. Their brother, Branwell, is at least remembered for never amounting to much and drinking himself to death. Poor Anne is as little remembered as the two older sisters, who died of the family curse (tuberculosis) in childhood. 

 Anne Bronte as sketched by her sister Charlotte

However, Anne too was a writer and poet. Agnes Grey, her first book, is largely autobiographical, and feels like an early effort, rather than a great book. Anne took a series of jobs as a governess during her late teens and twenties - it was about the only work available to a respectable middle-class woman at that time. It was not, shall we say, a particularly enjoyable job.

In this book, she tells of the two families she worked for longest. The first involved younger children who were little sociopaths. Anne doesn’t pull any punches here, even though she writes in the style of her time. These are not nice children, and they are the product of thoroughly dysfunction wealthy parents. The son, in a telling episode, enjoys killing baby birds. Agnes objects and interferes, only to be reprimanded by the mother, who says, “You seem to have forgotten that the creatures were all created for our convenience.” To mom, the amusement of a child takes precedence over the suffering of lesser creatures.

The strong point of Anne’s writing is evident in this section, as she has a keen eye for psychological detail. I have met children - and parents - like this over the years. A good shorthand would be “trust fund babies,” and our current president is a prime example of the lack of empathy and decency that is created when children are taught to consider their inferiors to be expendable and created for their amusement.

This arrangement does not last long, for obvious reasons. The rest of the book is concerned with the second family, and with Agnes’ romance. Because you have to have a romance. (And since Anne never did, she had to write one into her book.)

The second family is also highly dysfunctional, but in a less pernicious way. The eldest daughter is a great beauty, and enjoys toying with men - at least until she gets married to a rich, but unpleasant man. She regrets this marriage, but, no help for that. The second daughter is a tomboy, given to hanging out with her father and other men, swearing like a stable hand, and being as uncouth as possible. There are two boys as well, but they are sent away to boarding school, so they really don’t come into the story much.

This second family is interesting in part because the real life Anne formed relationships with the children they are based on, and kept in contact long after she left employment. I thought the characters of the daughters were well written and complex.

Agnes Grey also serves as somewhat of a defense of Anne’s parents and their choices. In the book, a woman born to (moderate) wealth marries a poor clergyman, and is disinherited for her trouble. Agnes then follows her mother’s path and marries a poor - but kind and decent - clergyman. In real life, there is no evidence that Anne’s mother was disinherited exactly, but she died of uterine cancer a year after Anne’s birth. While her father attempted to find a second wife, he never succeeded. Instead, his late wife’s unmarried sister came and lived with the family. Upon her death, she left a modest estate to the children, permitting them to write, rather than work as governesses. So there wasn’t quite the bad blood as in the novel. However, it does appear that there was a certain amount of second-guessing their choices.

As I noted, this book feels a bit uneven, like many first attempts. Even Charlotte, writing after Anne’s untimely death, defends the book while acknowledging its weaknesses. The romance feels a bit tacked on as well, and Mr. Weston feels undeveloped as a character. (Anne, like Charles Dickens, seems to write her own sex better than the opposite.) However, there are other parts of the book that are excellent. As I noted above, she shows a keen eye for the characters of the children, and also the arrogance and contempt of the upper classes.

I probably would have read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall if I owned it. I had this one, so I chose it. It is a fairly short and quick book, and not a bad read. The second book, however, is more ambitious, and outright scandalously feminist, from what I hear. Charlotte prevented its publication after Anne’s death, so it remained relatively unknown for years afterwards. This may be one reason why Anne isn’t as well known.