A Geography of Reading

"It is by reading novels, stories, and myths that we come to understand the world in which we live." -Orhan Pamuk

Livability in Literature: From Jane Austen to Jon Raymond

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“Livability” has been an urban buzzword since at least the 1980’s. Hundreds and maybe thousands of studies have been published on what makes a city more livable. But did you know the word “livable” originated in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park?

Livability in Context

I work at a membership organization for architects, and when architects use the word “livability,” they are referring to the built environment and how the structures and systems we build affect our quality of life at a societal level. Livability by is a collection of stories that look at quality of life from an individual point of view. Just as Austen uses the eyes of poor Fanny Price to describe the life of the landed gentry in 19th Century England, Raymond’s characters show us what it is like to live on the fringes around Portland, Oregon.

Train Choir

In “Train Choir,” Verna awakes in the vast parking lot of a shopping center to the tap of a security guard on her car window. Raymond is making a statement on how unlivable Verna’s newly homeless life is. As she loses her dog, Lucy, to a series of bureaucratic snafus stemming from Verna’s transience, the reader is relieved to find Lucy fostered in a neighborhood of small bungalows with yards. In a sense the reader too has found a home, and though it is not a multi-family residence with easy transit access and a corner store, for Lucy, it is a big step toward a more livable life—a life Verna cannot yet achieve.

The Wind

Place is character in these stories and Raymond covers a range of environments (built and unbuilt) from strip mall suburbias to dense urban cores and even the deep woods. “The Wind” tells the story of “the creek,” a place where groups of teens meet. The daily lives of these teens are separated by geography: the rich kids over the hill, the girls on Stowe Lane, and Joe in a house with tire tracks in the grass. This interstitial space could not exist in Mansfield Park; it belongs only to the teens—unchaperoned—and the story becomes one of how people activate space.

Changing Notions of Livability

Our notion of livable communities has changed over time. Certainly Austen’s heroines longed for the excitement of London, but after finding husbands, they retired to places like Pemberley, Highbury, and Mansfield Park. A more modern dream is to live in a Spartan apartment in a glass tower merely feet from the nearest train, market, and collective living room. Yet urbanism remains a distant dream for Verna, Joe and many like them—it is these Americans whose stories Raymond tells.

Though not yet as frequently filmed as Mansfield Park, stories from this collection serve as the basis for the films Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy.

I originally wrote this post when I thought I would be doing book reviews for the architects, but I think it is important for all of us to think about how livable our environments are and what we are doing to shape that feeling. Livability also provides an interesting angle through which to view setting—something Austen and Raymond already know.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Livability from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying in Pen and Ink

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William Faulkner - As I Lay Dying

In Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, the title character tells Hana to read Kipling slowly because he “is a writer who used pen and ink…Think about the speed of his pen.  What an appalling, barnacled old first paragraph it is otherwise.”  William Faulkner writes as though he was using pen and ink—creating gnarled sentences that unfold when read slowly.  In reading As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner slowly, the voices of the characters become distinct and they reveal information about themselves and each other through the observations they make.

Darl

In a section narrated by Darl, Faulkner writes, “I could lie with my shirt-tail up…feeling myself without touching myself.”  This is a quiet passage, one that I overlooked on the first couple of readings, but it sexualizes Darl.  Because this passage follows shortly after Cora observing Eula’s attraction to Darl, an entire relationship blossomed in my mind.

Cora

I loved the way Cora’s commentary changed my understanding of characters I had already formed opinions about.  For example, Darl spoke of Jewel as though he was protective of Addie and upset over the noise Cash was making in building her coffin.  To Darl he was “a little boy in the dark.”  Cora takes a much harsher view of Jewel, saying that he wouldn’t “miss a chance to make that extra three dollars at the price of his mother’s goodbye kiss.”  Because of the choral way Faulkner constructed this novel, it is easy to have the reader’s understanding of the characters grow as each new character beholds them.  This observation also speaks to the nature of the observer.  Although Cora was not able to lash out in anger at the woman who reneged on her promise to buy cakes, Cora does have ill feelings toward Jewel.  She is not as saintly as she might have us believe.  In the first person narration of my novel, it is more difficult to get a myriad of views on a particular character.  However, I can better use my dialogue to this effect.

Cora’s character is further developed as she rants against transporting Addie’s body to bury her, “She lived, a lonely woman, lonely with her pride, trying to make folks believe different, hiding the fact that they just suffered her, because she was not cold in the coffin before they were carting her forty miles away to bury her, flouting the will of God to do it.  Refusing to let her lie in the same earth as those Bundrens.” It seems as though Cora is spiteful against Addie and against the Bundrens. Addie lies dying in the upstairs bedroom and in one sentence Cora talks about how the woman has isolated herself and that people didn’t want to be around her. In the same sentence she foreshadows that God’s vengeance will be wrought on this family (although the degree of flood, putrefaction, and other disasters isn’t even hinted at).  And of course the language that Faulkner uses speaks to Cora’s background and upbringing (each of the characters has a slightly different manner of speech).  In fact each of the characters has their own speech patterns—something else that escapes immediate notice—when read quickly the novel can come off as merely difficult rather than intricately crafted.

Reading Slowly

I am a modern girl: I write and think at a hundred miles an hour, but I also like to muse and rethink and ponder. This novel (and The English Patient) reminded me that good writing takes time and should be savored over time. I am certain that in spending more time with As I Lay Dying, I would see more and more layers in it and come to appreciate Faulkner’s craft all the more. As is, it serves as a good reminder for me to slow down in my own writing and take the time I need to in order to get the details and feel right.  And if I want a reader to ponder slowly, I can craft my own gnarled sentences.

If this review made you want to read the book, support indie booksellers (and reviewers—I get a commission) by picking up a copy of As I Lay Dying from Powell’s Books.