I am reviewing Richard Russo's "Empire Falls." This is a first for me in terms of the author. I had never heard of him before I received a large stack of excellent books from my uncle and aunt (thanks!!!), and now, post read, hope to delve into his literary repertoire.
So, I think I'm just going to hit this one head on. No big subtitles or anything, just a meandering flow of words which convey the river that was this book. Funny, a river (The Knox, to be specific) was actually a central catalyst in the novel. And the river, in classic literary fashion, is again a metaphor for the journey of life and death we all boat through daily. I am getting ahead of myself, maybe some boundaries are needed. Maybe a few less literary analogies pertaining to Siddarthian lore. Lets start....
Here:
The setting is rural Maine. Prologue: Backwater town, once a thriving little gift of life and land, booming with industry. The introduction of semi-main characters. Chapter 1 (and on): cut to present day (maybe 2000?) and the main character is an in-the-process-of-getting-divorced, heavy, humble, simple man named Miles Roby. He has a daughter whom he loves, he is smart and witty, and he has an intensely dysfunctional lifestyle. He is morose about it, but too much seated in inaction to move forward.
Miles' wife is divorcing because of his lack of manly appeal and well, bluntly, sex drive. She is on the road to further discovery. His daughter is early high school, a standout mind and a bit of a loner. There are the Whitings (particularly Mrs. Whiting and her cripple daugher Cindy) and the Robys (the father, the sons, the daugher, the distant relatives) and the priests and the past and the resturant, Empire Grill. Then there's Martha's Vineyard and the effects of old money on small populations, river pollution, mystical magic moments in Mexico, and a murder mystery. And...and.....and.....
.....and I could go on and on. (Through editing I actually covered most of it) What this means, people, is that this book is about characters. Each character is crafted like the statue of David. Russo chisels away, slowly but surely, at the history, job, education, and most importantly mindset of each of his characters. (Counting in my head now...of which there are eight or nine.) He chisels for almost 500 pages, and by the end you feel like all these randomly screwed over screwed up people in rural Main are distant relatives. Russo takes his time to create an intimate setting in a quiet place, gives little shoves to each of his protagonists (they are all good guys when it comes down to it) and then shifts his fictional world in such slowly stuttered filtered effects that it feels like real life.
You may be getting the impression that it was long, which it was, but this is not a complaint. I just want the potential reader to beware that it is a character piece, a languid study in the actions of humanity. And, historically, that has never been a quick process.
The plot of this book is like the tectonic plates. They shift always, they are movin' and a-groovin' to a deep earthy rhythm we cannot hear, and similarly, the little threads of life that Russo writes edge forward until they collide. I would say the uniqueness of this book lies in the collision. No, I won't spoil the ending or anything like that. But, I will say that the monumental discovery and emotional transformation of the main character (Miles Roby) is hinted at and hoped for, and when it does finally happen, it is small. What I mean by this is that, objectively, his discovery of self is pint-sized, there is no reshaping of human future (think Ice-Nine Vonnegut) or religious transformation including horns (Satanic Verses), but instead a simple fact. A simple fact that flips Miles' entire world upside down--much in the way our lives can be so altered by small realizations.
Overall, I don't really understand how one writes a book like this. So much is about building the world, not about what is happening, and yet the further you read the more all the pieces come together. There are adventures and stories, ridiculousness old world oddities and a strong tie to the modern man and his plight. Russo impressed me, which is always a plus. Read it!
-----
Just so you know, I love character studies. The building of a character is sort of the mindset I have been in for some time as a writer--how do I create a character worth reading about, regardless of what he/she is doing--and I have found it to be quite hard. Russo does it easily, and for that I am both jealous and proud.
A quote from the mind of Tick, the daughter of the main character, on this slowness of which I speak:
"And that's the thing, she concludes. Just because things happen slow doesn't mean you'll be ready for them. If they happened fast, you'd be alert for all kinds of suddenness, aware that speed was trump. 'Slow' works on an altogether different principle, on the deceptive impression that there's plenty of time to prepare, which conceals the central fact, that no matter how slow things go, you'll always be slower."
p.s. a lot of this post was about speed...it is nice to feel time having slowed a bit. Typing that I currently think about how the weeks fly by. What is time? Where is time? Why is time? Help??
No comments:
Post a Comment