Thirteen Moons
Just finished the new Charles Frazier book. I'll try not to include spoilers, but if you haven't read it yet you might want to skip this all the same.
I wasn't part of the Cold Mountain craze. I was aware of it, of course, but I'm not a fan of historical fiction, so I didn't feel any desire to read it. Long after the book had come out in paperback and the frenzy had died down, I ran across a copy in Heartwood books in Charlottesville (perhaps my favorite used book store). Anyway, I picked it up but didn't read it for awhile. But when I finally did get around to reading it, it absolutely blew me away. I fell in love with it. If I had to name a favorite novel, I think I'd name that one as my current favorite (though Fred Chapell's I Am One Of You Forever is probably tied with it). I still remember finishing Cold Mountain sitting on the beach on Bear Island, NC, early in the morning before anyone else was up, about two years ago. Christ, I love that book.
So I was eager to read Thirteen Moons, though I knew there was very little chance of it being anywhere near as good as Cold Mountain. It makes me sad to report that I thought that Thirteen Moons was somewhat disappointing. Disappointing in part because it starts out so promising, but in my completely unprofessional and unreliable opinion, declines fairly steadily throughout. Part of the problem is that (and I don't think this is a spoiler--in fact it may be an anti-spoiler) the book starts out with the protagonist, Will Cooper, thinking back on his life from the perspective of old age, and I formed the impression that we were going to hear the whole story of this long and varied life. In some sense we do, but Frazier spends so much space on Cooper's early life that towards the second half of the book I started to feel panicky and disappointed because there would obviously be insufficient space to hear about the rest of his life in detail.
That's a fairly lame criticism, but, then, I don't have a good mind for literature, so I can't say anything really informative about why I found the book disappointing. I guess if I had to point to one thing, I'd point to the scene in which a sheriff is hauling Cooper off to a trial and, while camping one night, he reads his report to Cooper, a report in which he says explicitly what Frazier has been showing throughout the book--the Cooper is a man of great virtue though he himself hardly recognizes it, and though the casual observer might not recognize it either.
Perhaps what Cold Mountain had but Thirteen Moons lacks is a kind of understatement that generates a kind of pain and longing. We come to love Inman not only because he's such a good man, but also because this fact...well, hard to say...something like: it almost goes unrecognized. Inman certainly doesn't represent himself that way, and Frazier doesn't really comment on it. Inman just goes along being quietly heroic, doing some very difficult right things without even reflecting on what a good man he is. Cooper is a similar type, but Frazier stumbles by over-doing it, by almost pounding us over the head with that fact. The sheriff's report is just the most glaring example of this error.
I suppose I should say that I enjoyed Thirteen Moons, and might even read it again some day. I'm compelled by Frazier's writing and by his vision of what's good in the Southern mind. There were passages and paragraphs and pages in the book that pierced my heart. It's not a book without virtues, not by any stretch of the imagination. I enjoyed it very much, especially the first chapters. But towards the end I got the impression that Frazier may have forgotten what he was trying to do, or that perhaps he never had a very clear vision of what he was trying to do.
Writing novels is a hard thing, though. It's a wonder anyone can ever write a good one. So it's odd how critical people can be of them. So I do want to acknowledge that there are many, many good things about Thirteen Moons.
Well, that's all I've got.
Just finished the new Charles Frazier book. I'll try not to include spoilers, but if you haven't read it yet you might want to skip this all the same.
I wasn't part of the Cold Mountain craze. I was aware of it, of course, but I'm not a fan of historical fiction, so I didn't feel any desire to read it. Long after the book had come out in paperback and the frenzy had died down, I ran across a copy in Heartwood books in Charlottesville (perhaps my favorite used book store). Anyway, I picked it up but didn't read it for awhile. But when I finally did get around to reading it, it absolutely blew me away. I fell in love with it. If I had to name a favorite novel, I think I'd name that one as my current favorite (though Fred Chapell's I Am One Of You Forever is probably tied with it). I still remember finishing Cold Mountain sitting on the beach on Bear Island, NC, early in the morning before anyone else was up, about two years ago. Christ, I love that book.
So I was eager to read Thirteen Moons, though I knew there was very little chance of it being anywhere near as good as Cold Mountain. It makes me sad to report that I thought that Thirteen Moons was somewhat disappointing. Disappointing in part because it starts out so promising, but in my completely unprofessional and unreliable opinion, declines fairly steadily throughout. Part of the problem is that (and I don't think this is a spoiler--in fact it may be an anti-spoiler) the book starts out with the protagonist, Will Cooper, thinking back on his life from the perspective of old age, and I formed the impression that we were going to hear the whole story of this long and varied life. In some sense we do, but Frazier spends so much space on Cooper's early life that towards the second half of the book I started to feel panicky and disappointed because there would obviously be insufficient space to hear about the rest of his life in detail.
That's a fairly lame criticism, but, then, I don't have a good mind for literature, so I can't say anything really informative about why I found the book disappointing. I guess if I had to point to one thing, I'd point to the scene in which a sheriff is hauling Cooper off to a trial and, while camping one night, he reads his report to Cooper, a report in which he says explicitly what Frazier has been showing throughout the book--the Cooper is a man of great virtue though he himself hardly recognizes it, and though the casual observer might not recognize it either.
Perhaps what Cold Mountain had but Thirteen Moons lacks is a kind of understatement that generates a kind of pain and longing. We come to love Inman not only because he's such a good man, but also because this fact...well, hard to say...something like: it almost goes unrecognized. Inman certainly doesn't represent himself that way, and Frazier doesn't really comment on it. Inman just goes along being quietly heroic, doing some very difficult right things without even reflecting on what a good man he is. Cooper is a similar type, but Frazier stumbles by over-doing it, by almost pounding us over the head with that fact. The sheriff's report is just the most glaring example of this error.
I suppose I should say that I enjoyed Thirteen Moons, and might even read it again some day. I'm compelled by Frazier's writing and by his vision of what's good in the Southern mind. There were passages and paragraphs and pages in the book that pierced my heart. It's not a book without virtues, not by any stretch of the imagination. I enjoyed it very much, especially the first chapters. But towards the end I got the impression that Frazier may have forgotten what he was trying to do, or that perhaps he never had a very clear vision of what he was trying to do.
Writing novels is a hard thing, though. It's a wonder anyone can ever write a good one. So it's odd how critical people can be of them. So I do want to acknowledge that there are many, many good things about Thirteen Moons.
Well, that's all I've got.
posted by Winston Smith at
10:32 AM
5 Comments:
Winston-
Have you taken a look at Slate's review? I'd be interested in your take as to how much of the book really is trying to snag upper-middle class 40-something women, and how much of it is just typical reviewer snark covering for a lack of anything insightful to say.
Well, Chris, I gotta say...there's a good bit of truth in that review.
I knew there was something fishy about it, but didn't hit on the characterization that reviewer did. But once it's out in the open, it's gotta lotta force.
Maybe _Thirteen Moons_ IS a kind of _Bridges of Buncombe County_...
What I'm about to say isn't aimed at Frazier directly, but...I've always wondered why people think that people have more than one good book in 'em. That is, why we think of people as *authors*... Maybe most people have one or two good stories to tell, and that's it.
Just a thought.
I think that's part of it; the other part is simply that fame can be a kind of trap. I think it's entirely too easy for someone to achieve success with one thing, and consciously or unconsciously seek to emulate their previous success with diminishing returns. See, for example, the famous "second album curse" in music, where even good bands put out lousy second albums that are basically rehashes of their breakthrough debuts, before moving on to third albums that aren't afraid to experiment a little more.
I read and liked Cold Mountain, but it didn't, y'know, change my life or anything.
I've often heard, indeed, that everyone has one good book in them. I wrote but never published a novel; it's called Blues For Robots. I worked myself half to death for two years on it from 1997 to 1999. Roughly five people have read it. It ends with the antihero hijacking an Airbus with a fake bomb and a glass knife with intent to crash it into a far-right political convention in the year 2008, because the candidate is going to turn the country into a dictatorship.
I shit you not.
I've struggled with the second (unfinished) novel, but in fairness, I've foolishly taken on the most difficult challenge for a writer: the main character is of superhuman intelligence. Easy to do badly, of course, but basically impossible to do right.
I'm with you on cold mountain--beautifully written, and very good foreshadowing. Good insofar as I was able to see what was coming from very early on, and the returnee's progress seemed so inexorable.
-mac
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