Month: March 2014

The Anatomy Lesson: A Novel by Nina Siegel

Nina Siegel’s The Anatomy Lesson is one of those wonderful novels that’s as solid in its realization as it is in its conception. The novel tells the back back story of Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson, that wonderful work commissioned by the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons in 1632. The surgeons and city functionaries are pictured gathered round a corpse, as one of their group explains the anatomy of the forearm. The light in the picture falls downward, illuminating the corpse, while placing the other figures in shadow, making death look like life and life like death.

The novel is written in an array of first-person voices, with occasional third person framing, all of whom are identified in ways suitable to the dissection process. We have “The Body,” Adriaen Adriaenszoon, the thief whose execution will provide the corpse for the dissection; “The Hands,” Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, who conducts the autopsy; “The Heart,” Adriaen’s lover Flora, pregnant with his child, who hopes to win his acquittal or, failing that, to claim his remains for burial; “The Mouth,” Jan Fetchet, dealer in curiosities and all manner of goods, who also serves as preparator for the Surgeon’s Guild, claiming and cleaning the bodies of the executed who will become the focus of dissections; “The Mind,” René Descartes, who like Dr. Tulp dreams of finding the location of the soul within the body; and “The Eyes,” Rembrandt himself, with connections to every other character in the book from thief to surgeon. We also get occasional excepts from the journal of a conservator working on the painting in the present day.

I can claim no expertise on 17th Century Amsterdam or the practice of science within the city, but it seems clear that the author has done her research carefully. The details of the city, its judicial processes, the dissection, the artistic process, and the later work by the conservator all ring true and are presented in sufficient detail that the reader engages in a kind of historical and professional learning while being carried along on the tide of the narrative.

This is a book that engages the reader on many levels simultaneously, eliciting consideration of scientific ethics, of the physical versus the spiritual self, of politics and self-promotion, of they ways in which lives unroll along clear but unlikely paths. Whether your greatest interest lies in historical fiction, the history of medicine, or the history of art, this novel will offer you a rich, rewarding read.

Resister: A Story of Protest and Prison During the Vietnam War, by Bruce Dancis (Cornell University Press)

Bruce Dancis was at the heart of the anti-draft movement at Cornell University during the war in Vietnam—and Cornell was one of the hot spots of that resistance. This memoir tells the story of those times in remarkable detail: recounting not just what happened, but how things happened, not just the moments of exhilaration, but also the difficult struggles and dialogues within the movement. As a man of principle, he recalls his ethical wrestling at that time without becoming pompous.

I was in grade school during the war in Vietnam, so I have a strange sort of nostalgia for that period. I wasn’t really old enough to be a part of the war resistance movement, and I didn’t actually know that much about it, but I was convinced of its rightness and wished I could contribute to it. My nostalgia is a sort of sidelines thing, a longing not for what I once did, but for a time I just missed participating in. As a result, I’m always glad to find memoirs from the period, particularly ones like this that combine narration and reflection so effectively.

Because of the level of detail, this isn’t a quick read, but its thoroughness adds considerably to its value. Dancis did extensive research, among his own papers, in traditional academic venues, and via interviews before he wrote this book, so it’s a particularly precise memoir that reads as history as well as personal story. If you’re a reader like me, who tends to “graze” from several books at once, this makes an excellent addition to the pile, a book to turn to when the truths of fiction don’t seem quite true enough.

A Death-Struck Year, by Makiia Lucier (HMH Children’s Books)

I read my electronic review copy of A Death-Struck Year this winter while I, like a great many other people, was suffering from this year’s round of flu. I managed to avoid spiraling hypochondria, but reading about the 1918 flu epidemic while dealing with this year’s version of the virus brought things home.

A Death-Struck Year is a coming-of-age novel, written for young adults, but with plenty of substance, so I’d recommend it for adult readers as well. Seventeen-year-old Cleo Berry lives in Portland, Oregon, and is being raised by her significantly older brother and his wife, since she was orphaned as a child. Her guardians take the train on a business/pleasure trip, and Cleo becomes a temporary border at the school she usually attends as a day pupil.

People on the west coast have been reading about the “Spanish” Flu (it probably originated in Kansas, despite the name), which is terrifying, but seems distant. That distance collapses as several soldiers with the illness arrive at an army base outside of Portland and the disease quickly spreads into the population at large. Public gatherings and unnecessary travel are cancelled; Cleo’s guardians cannot return immediately, so she’s quarantined at her school. Until, that is, she decides she’d rather face the terror of the flu in her own home, even if it means living alone during an epidemic, than remain at her school.

The rest of the action of the book results from this first decision. Cleo sees a call in the newspaper for female volunteers to nurse flu victims and, unaware of what she’s about to get herself into, steps up. Her education—in life, mortality, courage, class, even reproductive rights—is swift and shaking.

This book contains a few tropes common to its genre: Cleo is well-off, knows how to drive a car, and has access to her brother’s vehicle; there’s the inevitable love interest; we also see scene after scene in which Cleo faces up to challenges of the moment that threaten to derail her. The thing of it is, these tropes work. Cleo’s experiences feel genuine and vivid, even if they aren’t novel for the genre. Her independence and wealth are counterbalanced by a strong awareness of what’s expected of a girl of her station. The love interest (this isn’t really a spoiler, but stop here if you want) doesn’t end in a fairy-tale match transforming her life; Cleo remains a schoolgirl, but one whose horizons have broadened.

Makiia Lucien appears to have done her research well. She knows the pace at which the disease coursed through Portland, the emergency measures that were put into place during the epidemic, and the technology of the time (could you check the gas level on a tin Lizzie?). The etiology of the disease is rendered in appropriate detail. We see, again and again, a clear picture of how the epidemic would have been experienced by a young woman on her own for the first time.

When you’re hungry for story, this is a great book to turn to. The narrative arc is clear and sure, the central character is engaging, and events are both riveting and plausible.

The Man Who Walked Away by Maud Casey (Bloomsbury USA)

The Man Who Walked Away is not so much a novel as a series of meditations within the minds of two characters: Albert, the walking man of the title, who suffers from what will eventually be labeled “fugue states,” and the Doctor, who treats Albert and invents the label the condition is given. Instead of a narrative arc, we watch the developing sense of self within the two main characters.

Albert and the Doctor have more in common than might be expected: each has lost his parents and is haunted by the worry of not having properly fulfilled his duties as a son; each has a self-concept that is fettered by the rigid class structures of the society in which he lives. For Albert these similarities aren’t significant. He shares his story with the Doctor, but the exchange is one way. For the Doctor, Albert poses a puzzle both external and internal. In trying to help Albert, the Doctor is forced to wrestle with questions at the heart of his own identity as well.

The language of this work is beautiful: trance-like, abstract, repetative. Though the book is relatively brief (240 pages), it is not a quick read. One has to slow down while reading, treating each word as a footstep and the reading process as a journey that cannot be rushed. In a sense this is a book about being, not doing, and being is a difficult status to articulate—not necessarily action-driven, a stillness as much as movement. Once the reader can embrace this state, The Man Who Walked Away offers a great deal of satisfaction.

Illegal: Reflections of an Undocumented Immigrant by Jose Angel N. (University of Illinois Press)

Illegal, like its author, doesn’t fit into any of the usual categories. Because the author is undocumented, the book is being published without his full name, but it is being published—and by a university press at that. Jose Angel N., the author, immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico in the 1990s. He’d had a ninth grade education up to that point, came from an impoverished community, and was eager for hard work and regular pay. He wound up in Chicago, working first as a dish washer, then slowly making his way up to waiter.

While working as a dish washer, he pursued a GED. After the GED, he entered university. Once he’d graduated, he went on to graduate school. His major? Philosophy. Ultimately, he became a professional translator, married, began to raise a family,and lived what from he outside would look like the American Dream.

As American immigration laws tightened, he quit his job, rather than risk being identified and deported. Presently he’s a “house husband,” watching the ongoing bluster and stasis that is American immigration policy.

In a way, Illegal frustrates because it isn’t the “typical” story of an undocumented life. If one is looking for a narrative that can serve as an exemplar of the experiences of thousands, Illegal isn’t it. But “typical” is a label that rarely applies on the individual level. The label tells us more about those using it, ourselves, than it does about those we might apply it to. The fact is, as Jose Angel N. demonstrates, the U.S. undocumented population is hugely diverse, contributing to our communities and economies on multiple levels.

This book is as much meditation as autobiography, not surprising coming from a philosophy major. We are offered carefully examined snapshots of the intellectual and emotional experience of a life lived “in the shadows” (as one other reviewer rather dramatically put it). On a day-to-day basis, the author faces small events that, because of his immigration status, represent real dangers. Want to buy a beer at the ballpark? You can’t if your state doesn’t issue driver’s licenses to undocumented residents. Having a conversation about the current Presidential election with workplace colleagues? Think carefully about how not to reveal that you cannot vote; don’t get too engaged, so that others wonder why you aren’t wearing that “I’ve Voted” sticker come election day; remember your story, so it remains consistent.

Illegal gives testimony to both the promise the U.S. still holds for those outside its borders and to the contributions made by those often berated as “illegals.” Reading it will leave you, like the author, mourning the lack of a real national dialogue and policy on immigration, one that moves beyond political posturing and serves both immigrant and nation alike.