Perfect night for The Given Day

The Literature: The Given Day, by Dennis Lehane

The Scene: The south facing porch of John’s home in Fort Collins, home to many an Apes parlay, but perhaps most famously, (infamously?) the 150th book meeting for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Members present: Clark, Ed, Tim, “Doc” John, Mike “the Counselor – Your Shit is My Gravy”

The Food: As is usual, we had good food. Fort Collins is known for its vibrant “local” scene in food and many other areas (see beer*) but as Jeff has noted in other posts and in the Apes overview, several of us are foodies, and delight in cooking good food. The typical prevailed on the flesh side of things – the grill was hot and pork, chicken and beef all sizzled to perfection. From my garden came squash and herbs for a nice little pasta dish. I cannot make any claims on my own cooking other than that it is a passion, as is my garden. I think they came together tonight in fine Apes fashion – a great “squash medley,” and a really lovely pasta dish with fresh tomato, basil, peppers, lemon and of course a lovely olive oil.

The beverages: Apes are true adult beverages lovers and what better befits living in the “Napa Valley of Beer,” than two fine brews Odells “Mycenary” – a double India Pale Ale that lives at the altar of hops lovers everywhere; and an intruder from California but worthy of our palates – Stone Levitation from Escondido, a nicely done American amber ale. As befits the Apes' lust for life, we had two fine reds as well – Anignonesi “Rossi di Montipluleiano,” and Sirius Bordeaux – both excellent, affordable table wines.

The Book: The Given Day is by the now famous American author Dennis Lehane. As will be discussed later in this post, Gone Baby Gone, Mystic River and Shutter Island, are all previous novels by the author that have been made into award winning Hollywood movies. The Given Day has already been sold to Hollywood and will be a major motion picture.

The Discussion: Okay, the heart of the matter. While what holds us together is friendship – through thick and thin but also through good picks and bad – the core of our meetings is the literature – we discuss any number of things but always get at the book. Our differing perspectives account for many a lively discussion and such was certainly the case tonight.

The overall impression was that this was a good book, perhaps not a mythical “top ten” but well above the mean of our 170+ books. (I personally rated the book a little higher – personal bias since I picked it to be sure, but some things about it that others did not like did not bother me much).

A lot entered into our discussion, as, like it or not, this was an ambitious book, a sprawling book, an attempt to make the sometimes dry “historical novel,” come to crackling life.

There was no real agreement on whether or not Lehane was successful in that regard – but no one faulted his ambition. While some felt it was very compelling in terms of character, plot and historical context and others felt it fell short in one or another of those areas, no one disagreed with the fact that this was one of our most successful writers who was making a reach for something more than success – reaching for the realm of E.L. Doctorow at his best. Only time will tell if that level has been reached, but no one argued with the fact that this was well research history rendered in a highly entertaining and cinematic fashion.

None of us, (obviously) know the writer. But there was a great deal of speculation on how film has impacted his vision. It would be impossible (we all agreed) for Lehane, at this point to start a novel and not think of it in “cinematic” perspective, since three of his novels have been made into highly successful and highly acclaimed movies. But we also agreed that it is a little bit of a “chicken and the egg,” scenario here – his vision has always been “cinematic,” and so, does he write with that in mind or is that simply the way he envisions his work and thus it is friendly to cinematic interpretation? We do not and will not know, but as this talented writer moves forward in his career (he is only in his mid – 40s’) this could become a question of increasing interest.

A huge question was the use of Babe Ruth. Some (me included) agreed with the Janet Maslin review in the New York Times, “Ruth is the unlikely fulcrum of the book. En route to Boston in the midst of the World Series, the train breaks down in Ohio, and Ruth stumbles upon a pick-up game of black players. Ruth recruits players from both teams and things get along fine until the blacks begin to win. When Luther Laurence walks away from an easy catch to avoid an ugly showdown, Lehane creates the highly charged atmosphere in which the entire novel will unfold.”

Some Apes saw this as a metaphor for the “innocent brute,” element of the American Character as personified in Babe Ruth – highly gifted in a highly public arena, but aside from that – ignorant, ill-informed, striving in a bumbling way for decency but unwilling to stand up for real justice (the blacks were winning fair and square) in the face of approbation from his white colleagues in professional ball who could not come to terms with being beaten by a pick-up squad of blacks. Jeff chimes in: Lehane simply could not tell his tale of Boston in this era w/o including Ruth. Ruth was indeed a stud before becoming a Yankee. Casual readers and/or non-baseball fans may even have been surprised to learn he was ever a Red Sox pitcher/outfielder.

Character, plot and action are hallmarks of Lehane at his best. Some Apes were fine with characters who simultaneously were “caricatures,” – Danny being the prime example. For some Apes, he was too “pure,” and the circumstances of his survival through various adventures bordering on the cartoonish – some Apes said his continual survival was so improbable it reduced him as a character. Other Apes accepted some degree of realistic improbability in service of the larger story – positing for instance that Danny was far from perfect – that his flaws were at the heart of his inability to learn hard lessons from life – the main source of exasperation for his father.

So…what was this book about? As a clearly historical novel, we discussed quite a bit about “who works for whom?” Clark had a great insight into the Babe Ruth Character and Danny, (I paraphrase) “Danny was truly getting hosed by ‘the man’ in terms of what he contributed and what he got in return, while Ruth had an easy life by comparison, yet still felt he was being manipulated by ‘the man.’” We really got into the message of the book when we started discussing why anyone would behave in “moral” terms (the interest of others as connected to self) as opposed to truly selfish terms (what is in it for me?) and did not come to any real conclusions – hello, we are just the Apes and 2,500 years of Eastern and Western Philosophy has not come to real conclusion either, thank you very much!

What we liked the best was that in highly entertaining terms, Dennis Lehane has taken on a series of convulsive questions in American History that continue to play out in our headlines, and created a series of real and imagined characters that ask, through their everyday lives, essential questions: what is justice? what is power? what is ethical behavior? In all of these ways The Given Day was a satisfying and interesting read for the Apes.

A good night out on the porch – good food, good literature and the beauty of great friendship around literature these past 17 years.

Respectfully submitted,
John

A Report from Mr. Thomas

VS Naipaul's A House for Mr. Biswas was a bust--Karbula, Phil (absent) Liggett, Doc, Clark all failed to finish it--too slow paced, a "slog" in Karbula's words.

Hal and I finished it and liked it--"poignant" was Hal's word. Like the lifetime spent collecting furniture for a house they didn't have. Interesting that the author tells the whole tale on the first page--Biswas dies in debt, still, after living in his house, (that he got screwed on), only to die 10 weeks later.

I found the ensuing story fascinating (who knew there were ex-pat Indians in Trinidad?)and compelling. Naipaul gave Biswas a dignity he gave no other character by the use of the honorific "Mister," even referring to Mr. Biswas's birth. The detail of the social life and politics of the Tulsi holdings was frightening and hilarious--the Short Hills adventure, for example, where Biswas nicks a couple of pieces of fruit a day while other family members are carting away whole truckloads of lemons, as well as trees and anything else they can grab!

Anyway, it's kind of the story of most of the people on the planet--at the mercy of random chance and poor choices, we struggle to gain some kind of independence from family and responsibility, a place in the shade to rest, a room to be quiet in. We'll probably all die in debt, in a house not really our own.


The menu was fantastic (as always) baked artichoke dip for starters, steaks, chops, chicken, sausage, buffalo ribeye (me) done to perfection, an oreo crust ice cream cake for dessert, assorted beverages, a few mosquitos from Doc's lake, and a good time was had by all.

Respectfully submitted,
Mr. Thomas, recently retired