Page 6 - Boca ViewPointe - December '20

Page 6, Viewpointe December 2020
Book Review

Scattershot: To Write or Not Elisa Gabbert, like Amis and
Minot, points to the linkage
to Write between the political, cultural
and psychological stress upon
Martin Amis. Inside Story, How to Write, A Novel. New York: us. Ms. Gabbert is a poet and
Alfred A. Knopf, 2020 essayist, omnivorous reader
Susan Minot. Why I Don’t Write and Other Stories. New and journal keeper, very
York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2020 personal in her writing, and
Elisa Gabbert. The Unreality of Memory and Other Essays. draws upon the upscale cultural
New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2020. influences of our time, learned
“Much have I travell’d in realms of gold/and many goodly articles and books, but also
states and kingdoms seen.” John Keats, on the experience common pedestrian trending
of literature sources like Discovery
“The time is out of joint, O cursèd spite, Channel, Twitter, Instagram
That ever I was born to set it right!” Shakespeare’s Hamlet (photographed) in Israel, and America, long stays in Vermont and social media. Scattershot, she too explores the major
as the Nobel Prize winning author decays into incoherence, issues of our time, in essays titled “Threats,” “Doomsday
By Dr. Ronald J. Meyers his life-long chum Christopher Hitchens (photographed) and Pattern,” “Magnificent Desolation” and “Unreality of
his losing battle with cancer; and the biogra-fictional Phoebe Memory” that deal with climate change, Racism, the #metoo
This non-fiction essay Phelps (not photographed) who serves as sylph, friend and movement.
will address genre, i.e. the confidante, and not least as a shared object of affection with I found her particularly interesting in rendering the errors
manner by which an author his father, thus sustaining the gossipy title; as well as his of the mind in assimilating information, studies that show
chooses to convey himself mother Hilary’s relationship with his friend, the poet Philip tendencies of the mind to lose its accuracy in Morgellons disease,
and his truth to the reader. Larkin, that provides more meat to the inside scoop. Stockholm Syndrome, PTSD, phantom pain, alternate realities
How to write and/or why Similarly, there is no lack of disillusionment in Susan all rendering confusion in the victims. She identifies deeply with
bother are questions these Minot’s epiphanies of distressed women who typically have Christine Blasey Ford in her testimony regarding her relationship
three writers also have issues with their men. There is journalist and documentary with Justice Kavanaugh in spite of her lapses of memory, inability
considered. And whether film maker Daisy’s regret after spending the night in to recall significant detail like place, which of course can also be
to abide by and represent Nairobi with Mistah T and learning in the morning that he is attributed to the unreality of memory. In Gabbert’s own mind,
the plain and simple truth, married, and cruel, and she experiences Polepole, in Swahili, she heralds the arrival of Indictment Day, the release of the
which constitutes an essay, “accepting that things are what they are.” Andrew referred to Mueller Report, a trick on her own memory, since the President
or cloak the truth behind by his apparently neurasthenic wife as John in “The Torch.” was never indicted and further evidence showed that he never
the mask of fiction like an actor disguised in a dramatic role Or Ivy, a single mom with her son Nicky, who experienced executed any crimes except in some alternative realities rather
while “holding a mirror up to nature.” The disguise might 9/11 and the Occupy movement falls from her bike and is than disinterested conclusions.
be a fantasy of fulfillment, an effort to reconstruct the tide of seriously injured, and is disappointed that Dexter is not She draws a link between medieval Malleus Maleficarum
one’s life into a desirable narrative, or just kvetch. I would there to help her. In “While It Lasts,” Isabel laments that she (The Hammer of Witches) of 1487 upholding belief in
note that all three authors share an intense liberal sensibility, has brought Bonnie and George together, as the concierge witchcraft and Mein Kampf of 1925, both egregiously flawed
activist sentiment, fierce prejudice toward President Trump, Mr. Buffy reiterates the notion that “falling in love is anti- texts that were believed and consumed by a gullible public.
and render disillusionment and despair, Sons of Beckett if social.” In “Green Glass,” incessant bickering between Fran She explores the role of disasters in history of our culture
you will, with lack of religious anchor combined with a touch and Tom over his seeming continued interest in his former from the medieval Black Plague to the sinking of the Titanic
of nineteenth-century Weltschmerz. girl friend. Then there are the two seduction stories, Ned a to the bomb on Hiroshima, Chernobyl, to 9/11. In an essay
Martin Amis, a Brit from a privileged background, the teen-age lad whose parents have just separated and Sophie written a few years ago, she projected the likelihood of
son of the major Twentieth Century beat writer Kingsley, a college student whose mother has recently died both fall Pandemic such as we are currently experiencing, zoonosis or
brought up in London, Wales, Oxford and Cambridge and victims to their seducers. The title story, “Why I don’t write,” leap of the virus from animal to humans as a result of animal
well schooled; he is a prolific author and scholar, who not catalogues the distraction that are both personal and societal, loss of habitat, overcrowding and close urban contact. All
only has followed his father’s profession as writer, but has a physical and mental ambling journey through the times, suggesting significant consequences to our accepted way
shared his rebellious and libidinous drives--as well as his kerfuffle over Trump’s supreme court nominations, frequent of life by potentially restricting travel, avoidance of human
famous agnosticism. Amis has travelled well, married two shooting sprees, late fees, cleaning the closet, open any page closeness, and decline of the city over the long haul.
American women, his second wife is a Jewish American artist of Emily Dickinson and have the top of your head taken off,
and writer (photograph included) and he has moved to Cobble and other fragments she has shored against her ruins. Dr. Ronald J. Meyers, a resident of La Paz, is Emeritus
Hill and now downtown Brooklyn to ply his trade. He reveals In The Unreality of Memory and Other Essays, Professor of English. rmeyers@esu.edu. 
in his prologue to the reader that his current work came about
after an earlier, discontinued Life, A Novel, also conceived
as autobiographical fiction. Inside Story is a hybrid of fiction Boca Pointe Community Association, Inc.
and non-fiction, driven by Mr. Amis’s odyssey through his
life-time in the literary world. And an instructional source 6909 SW 18th St., Suite A120 A special Thank You to our monthly volunteer contributing writers
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of footnotes and an Index, in no viable chronological order, Website: www.bocapointe.com Bob Kronish Harriet Rubin Robert Weinroth
dealing with being the son of famous divorced parents, his Mort Mazor Jack Kulick Lin Schader
work as an editor of the New Statesman, response to 9/11 Access Control Judith Levy Elaine Rubinson Justin Mocha
Barry J. Haberman
Dr. Ronald J. Meyers
Anne Gannon
and the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, life as a globe-trotting Operator: (561) 395-3392 Lisa Sileo Elyse Weintraub Brown Peter Sachs
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author, encounters and friendships with the smartest and Website: www.gateaccess.net Rayna Becker Helen Karpel Steven L. Abrams
most beautiful people of his time. He is not shy to namedrop, Staff Halli Moore Hillary Reynolds Arthur Dermer
drinks with Angela Merkel and beneficiary of her smile on Kathleen O’Donovan, General Manager
the rooftop of the Berlin Chancellery, friendship with Tina Lisa Cammaleri, Assistant Manager
Brown, Anna Wintour (photographed), and share his opinions Yvonne Rivera, Administrative Assistant
about literature, fondness for D.H. Lawrence, Vladimir Justin Mocha, Director of Security
Nabokov, W.B. Yeats, disdain for Norman Mailer’s works The views of the writers of the various articles in this newspaper do not
and mixed feelings toward John Updike. His offhanded Viewpointe of Boca Pointe is the newspaper necessarily reflect the views of the Boca Pointe Community Association.
of Boca Pointe Community Association, Inc.
The Association nor the individual writers are not responsible for claims
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Kurt Vonnegut would engage any student of twentieth articles for Viewpointe to lisa.cammaleri@ Viewpointe. Such claims and promises are the sole responsibility of the
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