Bookclub: "Desperate Characters"
Presented by Chris Lehmann
Book World Deputy Editor
Thursday, July 25, 2002; Noon EDT

Welcome to the online meeting of The Washington Post Book Club, a monthly program presented by the editors and writers of Washington Post Book World.

This month Chris Lehmann, Washington writer and editor, will be leading a discussion on this month's selection, Paula Fox's "Desperate Characters." Read this month's review of "Desperate Characters."

The transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Chris Lehmann: Greetings. The floor's now open for discussion of Paula Fox's Desperate Characters.

Lenexa, Kan.: Mr. Lehmann,

I read it slowly like a James novella--savoring every line. It does seem a classic--deftly depicting the values-clash of the late '60s, the festering of Lindsay's garbage-struck NYC, the unfolding disintegration and despair of the Bentwoods--all neatly staged in one late-winter weekend. The fevered, swollen "lips" of Sophie's cat bite seemed the perfect vehicle. Also as you mentioned, the flung ink was a great final symbol. One thinks of the postmodern notion of our signifiers no longer having referents.

There was an authentic ring through it all--the characters (most seemed foundationally good but hurting), the dissolving law partnership, the talented people at the party, the wee hours scene in the bar, the haunting memory of the affair. Your thoughts? Also, have you met the author? Read much else of her work? Thanks.

Chris Lehmann: Hello Lenexa,

Yes, the book's prose alone is so finely wrought--one critic somewhere said it feels not so much written as carved--that on style grounds alone I do think it something of a modern classic. But as you also note, it's a very powerful evocation of time and place--and the peculiar impulses of a particular kind of self-conscious urbanite to seal oneself off from experience, a process that come chillingly off track by the end of the book.

In re. Fox's other work--it has for a long time been disgracefully out of print, but in the last few years Norton has been reissuing it. The only other novel of hers I've read is Poor George; I also read (and reviewed for Book World) her memoir, Borrowed Finery, which recounts her remarkable childhood--and that, in turn, informs I think a lot of Fox's mordant view of the basic instability of domestic affairs. (She also is an accomplished writer of children's books.) I look forward to reading more of her work now that it's more widely available.

Burlington, Vt.: My women’s book group did not enjoy this novel. They found Sophie Bentwood to be an unsympathetic character. Otto Bentwood, on the other hand, was understood, "we’ve all met his type."

Over the years, our book group has a marked preference for characters the likes of which are found in books like "The Red Tent," women who are empowered, bold, resilient and noble. I know our next book, "Prodigal Summer," will be well received. Quoting from a previous Washington Post transcript, "Prodigal Summer" (washingtonpost.com, Sept. 27, 2001), Barbara Kingsolver depicts "women as strong or using their strength to it's fullest, brave, and independent."

Sophie Bentwood's listlessness is foreign to us. I can’t help but wonder if our rejection or lack of understanding of Sophie is an unwillingness to recognize that not all women are capable of living up to an ideal. And, it seems to me, there is an unwillingness to recognize the portrait of Sophie within us.

In 1970, feminism was still a relatively nascent movement. Was the take on Sophie different when the book was initially reviewed?

Chris Lehmann: Hello Burlington and thanks for writing:

I take your point re. Sophie's listlessness. I'm not certain how much of it is simply a function of the era's gender roles, though--to be sure, Sophie is not expected to move as independently through the world as she would be today, but she does have something of a career as a French translator. To be sure, gender definitely informs most of her frustrated interactions with other characters throughout the novel--her often combustible arguments with Otto; her late-night encounter with Charlie; her daytime visit to her Manhattan friend (trapped, in turn, in an oddly dysfunctional relationship with her exhusband). But I think that Sophie's condition is meant to be more generalized--a reflection of a wider sense of collapse in the city around her, a loss of the layers of insulation that make people comfortable in such settings. And I don't think Fox necessarily _intends_ Sophie to be a sympathetic character--she's a charcter in the midst of a fundamental (and rather catastrophic) state of transition. For some readers (myself included, clearly) that makes for a more compelling character study than a protagonist whose strong or heroic in a fairly uncomplicated way.

Arlington, Va.: Could you recommend some great gay books? Or some great books that include straight, bi and gay people?

Thanks a lot.

Chris Lehmann: Hmmm, I've not read widely in gay literature. Dale Peck--currently stirring up quite a fuss over his eviscerating review of Rick Moody's work--is supposed to be a good novelist (Martin and John, his first novel, got widely praised). And there are of course classics in the field, eg. The Well of Loneliness. But I'm going to have to plead ignorance on this one; apologies.

Crofton, Md.: This is really a gem of a novel. I came away believing in both Otto and Sophie as credible human beings. Their problem? A failure to communicate. At times I sympathized with Otto and then with Sophie. Both were in their own strange ways, sympathetic but terribly sad people. Would you recommend any other books by Paula fox and is communication the problem in the novel?

Chris Lehmann: As noted above, the only other novel of Fox's I've read is Poor George, which is much taken up with similar themes of miscommunication and loss of urban balance. (There's a truly hair-raising party scene in the book.) I also recommend her memoir Borrowed Finery, which gives a pretty sharp account of how she came to regard the behavior and habtis of adults as so fundamentally unreliable.

Lenexa, Kan.: There's no question inertia is binding. One would think Sophie--with her education and French skills--needed to get back to work. She seems almost desperate to feel useful--thinking again about adoption, randomly shopping for kitchenware, even responding to Otto's mid-sleep stealth sex by murmuring "Oh, well..." and reminding herself the next morning that even though "he'd jumped her" she'd "been maltreated but not feeling so." Comments. Also, just curious, what are your language skills? Thanks.

Chris Lehmann: Yes, I think that Otto and Sophie find themselves so at odds with their surroundings because they're rather hopelessly stuck with each other; they find themselves threatened by the world outside their walls, and the usual motions of their shared life--notably their language, but also as you note their intimate life--are leaching into chaos outside. Not a pretty picture, but an oddly compelling one--in part because, while neither character is entirely sympathetic (not by a long shot, in Otto's case), Fox shows them both in various states of struggle with their separate plights.

In re. my language skills: On a good day, I feel somewhat fluent in English. I long ago studied French and German, but retain less of both each passing year.

Arlington, Va.: What other books by Paula Fox would you recommend?

Chris Lehmann: I'm getting this one a lot today--andunfortunately, because her books have been so long otu of print, I've only managed to read one other, Poor George, which I do recommend. I also recommend her memoir Borrowed Finery. (See comments above on both books.)

Kensington, Md.: This is more a comment and a question about the general state of reading in our community.

This month's Book Club selection, Desperate Characters, was impossible to get at either of two very large and sophisticated public library systems, Montgomery County, Md. and Washington, DC. What does that say about this book and about the reading interests of the public?

I often complain about the availablity of "good literature" at my local library.

Do you consider the availability of books before assigning them for the Book Club?

Thank you.

Chris Lehmann: I'm sorry to hear you had such trouble with tracking down a copy of Desperate Characters at local libraries. Personally, I've had terrible luck finding books--especially older ones--at the DC public library. I can't offer any knowledgeable explanation of why this is so--though I suspect the culprits are the same ones behind other diminutions of other public services--scarce or badly allocated funds. And in answer to your question: Yes, we do take pains to establish that books selected for the Book Club are in print. Unfortunately we aren't able to consult with area libraries re. availability due to staff constraints of our own.

Lenexa, Kan.: There was so much beautiful writing. Jonathan Franzen (in the Norton paperback intro) wrote that after a half dozen readings he now has everything underlined so he's back to where he started. Just a couple of lines I particularly liked:

"It was...a little like the wish to be sentient at one's own funeral."
"At night, the street had a quiet earnest look, as though it were continuing to try to improve itself in the dark."
"Across the street...a short fat dark man...had the stunned immobility of a displaced man who had come as far as he could without further instruction."
(Listening to Leon and Claire) "Sophie felt that she was sitting in a rain of ashes."

Chris Lehmann: Yes, there's vrtually that sort of compact, epiphanic description on evry page of the book. Fox is especially great in making everyday objects suddenly eloquent and menacing. To say nothign of everyday gestures; I really like this diescription of Sophie trapped in a senseless smile: She didn't know how to violate that mutual smile of theirs. It was miasmic. It stayed on her face when she undressed. It would not go away, and she bore it home with her, a disfiguring rictus."

Washington, D.C.: I've heard that Fox's work nearly vanished during the '80s and was resurrected in part due to the efforts of some younger novelists. True?

Chris Lehmann: Yes, that is largely true, I believe. Jonathan Franzen, as just noted, is a big champion of Fox, as is Jonathan Lethem, who's written the introduction to several other Norton reissues of her books. I think she's being recognized now as a great practitioner of latter-day realism at a time when many writers have either grown too jaded or impatient to practice it.

Austin, Tex.: I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, but I found the depiction of neighbors across the street to be not very believable. She tells of the city's growing depravity somewhat subtly, and then has Sophie live directly in front of some terrible slums. I would think with their income they would live farther away from the ghetto.

Chris Lehmann: Well, I think they're in Park Slope, a neghborhood that in the late 60s and early 70s is a far cry from the gentrified Brooklyn nighborhood it is today. Even a somewhat comfortable partner in a law firm like Otto could be a pioneer in the pursuit of affordable New York real estate--as a former New Yorker, I didn't find that unbelievable at all. I do agree, though, that some of the depictions of downand-out people in the neighborhood--eg., the drunken African American man in the hat--are pretty lurid, sometimes discomfittingly so.

Lancaster, Pa.: I must admit to a bit of a love-hate relationship with the novel. No doubt Fox is indeed a fine writer, and she draws her scenes with exceptional skill. (Boy, if Fay Weldon had made her deal with Bulgari in 1970, Fox could have made a deal with a number of sponsors for her novel--Tiffany, et. al). Language is great and sometimes memorable--"Physical love is all raw meat."
On the other hand, the Raymond Carver/Bobbie Ann Mason minimalism of the characters sometimes drove me to think I was reading a not so finely drawn portrait of human relations.
Now, did you choose this because of your affection for Franzen's "The Corrections" or for his Harper's essay in which he uses this very novel as a case study on how to be alone in the world? By the way, the Norton edition includes an introduction by Franzen. Seems to me that this novel and "The Corrections" do have a good bit in common, not least the attempt to paint listlessness in NYC.
Thanks for the chat.

Chris Lehmann: Wel, I think the uquality of the writing in DC is what saves the characters from being somewhat flattened out minimalist stereotypes; you'r egranted much more in the way of interior monologues in the cases of Otto and Sophie than you ever get in a Carver or Bobbie Ann Mason story.
And in re. Franzen: No, I came to Desperate Charcters before reading anything of Franzen's, though I can certainly see the affinities you describe between this book and The Corrections. I still haven't read Franzen's Harper's essay which evidently hails DC as a great hope of contemporary fiction; it sounds like the sort of essay I wouldn't have much patience with, and since I do like franzen's work a great deal, I've shied away from it.

Crofton, Md.: I had to go to California to find a copy of the book at a used book store Wessex in Menlo Park.

Chris Lehmann: Wow. I hope you didn't go to California for our sake. It's my general understanding that Border's, a cosponsor of the Book Club, tries to stock copies of our selections in advance. But this one selection got rescheduled due to a conflict with our originally scheduled July presenter. Again, I'm sorry to hear it proved so hard to trakc the novel down.

Lenexa, Kan.: Reacting to some comments on Otto: For some reason I rather liked the man--his intelligence, his pride, his sense of order. I thought the description of his father--a similar type--winning. Sophie said even as he slept he looked reasonable. Law afterall has the "Reasonable Man" concept.

The Norton had blurb superlatives from many including Kazin, Trilling, and Howe. Irving Howe said Fox's novel was a peer in the major American tradition of the "short novel exemplified by Billy Budd, The Great Gatsby, Miss Lonelyhearts, and Seize the Day." When Franzen first read it in 1991, it seemed to him "obviously superior to any novel by Fox's contemporaries John Updike, Philip Roth, and Saul Bellow." Care to comment? Thanks.

Chris Lehmann: I think some of the reasons you liked Otto were the same ones I was inclined not to--though as I say, Fox scrupulously shows even not overly sympathettic characters struggling to overcome their limitations. I think the passage he underlines in the law book--which Sophie finds even more disturbing than his sexual violation of her--captures the dilemma of his character. I still don't know if he was approving of stringing up young malfeasants, but I am reasonably sure that he admired the sense of social order the action symbolized--particular in the Bentwoods' present mood of impending collapse. I guess where we'd differ is that I do see that impulse on Otto's part as ultimately destructive.
In re. comparisons with other great short novels; I do think that DC does stnad up well in the distinguished company you name. In mood, it does somehow feel closer to someone like Nathanael West than Bellow or Roth--in part I guess because Fox, like West, is much occupied with teh greater urban landcscpae her characters occupy. But also because Bellow and (especially) Roth seem somehow more didactic in their tics of characterization than Fox does.

Washington, D.C.: If Franzen and Lethem admire Fox, do you know whom she admires, who her influences are?

Chris Lehmann: Good question. Off hand, I can't say that I do--her memoir, which is mainly taken up with her early childhood, didn;t mention any writing influences that I can recall. And she was profiled a while back in the New York Times Sunday Mag, but I can't remmber any influences cited there either. Sorry.

Washington, D.C.: Why not select any bestsellers, which are easy to find at all bookstores, for Book club discussions?

Chris Lehmann: Well, I don;t go out of my way not to select bestsellers--though I will confess that when selecting Book Club entries I do like to give a boost to writers and works that I think could use a boost. In part this is because I think bestsellers are getting plenty of recognition as it is. But it's also--frankly--because we ehre at Book World donate our time to the Book Club and it therefore is more important for us (or me, at least) to take on titles that are something of a labor of love. Not that I don't also love the occasional bestseller, mind you.

Chris Lehmann: Well, my webmaster has informed me that time's up for Paula Fox and Desperate Characters. Thanks, as always, for taking the time to write in.

washingtonpost.com:

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