Feldman's Faves: December 12, 2022

GOOD MORNING EVERYONE

First and foremost, I want to thank Aryan, Em, Emily and Alex for organizing our holiday party. It was really great and really fun. I think you will agree that the “Alton Video” deserves an Academy Award nomination. I understand the festivities continued long afterwards and WAY past my bedtime. I am happy people enjoyed a well-deserved and much needed night out.

Please join me in wishing our fearless leader, JC a very happy birthday from last week.

This week’s theme is the work and work process of Ann Patchett.

THE DUTCH HOUSE By: Ann Patchett – As I note below, the reason I read The Dutch House is because of how much I enjoyed hearing Ann Patchett’s story about how this Pulitzer Prize nominated novel was created. One added bonus is that I listened to the audiobook rather than actually reading it (on Patchett’s recommendation) because she somehow convinced Tom Hanks to be the narrator, and as expected, he was just amazing. I really loved this book because it dives deeply into family life and confirms the universal truth that every family goes through `stuff` but it is that stuff that shapes people for better or for worse in their own lives and the lives of their partners, children and friends. Danny and Maeve, a brother sister duo are the main focus of this novel and the suffering they go through and the strength of their relationship and their relationship to the Dutch House itself carries the story. Everything that is significant in their lives revolves around this house, and the use of “setting” as a literary device drives the story and all of its themes. Danny and Maeve suffer major childhood trauma, their mother leaving them, their dad marrying an “evil stepmother” and then their dad dying young, leaving them alone with their enemy at a very young age and things do NOT go well. One key theme that Patchett explores in telling this story is the impact of wealth on people’s lives, which to a large degree shapes the trajectory of this story. While most people focus on its accumulation others are disgusted by it and are shamed by it. Very interesting and nuanced here. As one reviewer notes, ``In her eighth novel, Patchett revisits the concerns of previous works, including Commonwealth (the shifting plates of family life after divorce; the bonds among siblings; the process of forgiveness) and Run (the absent mother, the creation of family). The “Dutch house” in a wealthy suburb of Philadelphia is the site of Cyril Conroy’s failed first marriage to Elna, a woman who flees the ornate excesses of the home. It is also the site of Cyril’s second, catastrophic marriage to Andrea, a cruel stepmother who disinherits his children after his death. It is, most crucially, the site of narrator Danny Conroy’s cherished conversations with Maeve, his elder sister. Following Elna’s willful departure, Cyril’s sudden heart attack, and Andrea’s dismissal, the now-grown siblings establish a habit of parking on their old street with a view of their former home to hash out the past and consider their future. In these sessions, which they conduct for most of their lives together, Danny’s love for his sister—her beauty, her ferocious intelligence, her caretaking of her brother, her general kindness and decency—grows and calcifies until it is greater than any love in his life. For Maeve, it turns out, this type of love is reserved for their absent mother. Elna is referred to in worshipful tones by everyone except her son, who remembers none of her merits but suffers the sting of abandonment. Danny is the only person who cannot absolve Elna. Other people in his life—including a chorus of former domestic employees at the Dutch House named Sandy, Fluffy, and Jocelyn—insist that his mother is a “saint.” This saintly behavior eventually extends to Andrea, who, in one of the novel’s strongest scenes, sees Danny standing on the lawn of the Dutch house, mistakes him for her late husband, and begins hitting the window “like a warrior beats a drum.” Though Elna is repulsed by the gaudy mansion, she moves back into the house to care for Andrea, who is suffering from either Alzheimer’s or aphasia, her family isn’t sure which. Her neediness draws Elna to her side.

Danny begrudgingly accepts his mother’s late appearance in his life, mostly to appease Maeve, whose heart attack precipitates Elna’s return. In the hospital, Maeve tells Danny, “‘I’m so happy. I’ve just had a heart attack and this has been the happiest day of my life.” Danny can’t bring himself to disrupt the newfound companionship between the women, so he relegates himself to the sidelines, where he tries to supervise silently. The other elements of his life—his successful real estate business, his children (a son, Kevin, and a precocious daughter, May), his lukewarm marriage—fail to command half the attention his sister does. Late in the novel, after Maeve, a diabetic, dies in middle age, Danny tells the reader, “The story of my sister was the only one I was ever meant to tell.” This is a depiction of wholehearted, undiluted love, of praise that cannot be held back. It is tiring to Danny’s wife, Celeste, whose mutual dislike of her sister-in-law occasionally reads like a sitcom trope, adding conflict to work that often functions like a love song. When Maeve refuses Danny’s resentment of their mother, challenging him to “[g]row up,” their argument has all the tension, emotion, and knowingness that Danny and Celeste’s relationship seems to lack.

If elderly Andrea hits the Dutch house window “like a warrior,” surely the war is a war of finding and keeping a home. Danny is at home—if home is to be utterly comfortable and safe—only with Maeve, and mostly in her car. He meets Celeste on a train. He encounters his mother, decades after she leaves, in a hospital waiting room. These transitional spaces are where the greatest emotional work of Danny’s life happens, perhaps because he’s embroiled in Andrea’s war. Having had his house taken from him—a house described with details as lush as Jean Stafford or Edith Wharton might offer—he becomes obsessed with real estate, succeeding in the industry just as his late father did. He buys houses for the women in his life, presenting them as casually as bouquets of flowers. Years later, Celeste admits she never liked her house, suggesting a thoughtless and speedy acquisition on Danny’s part.

Andrea—thief of all to which the Conroy children are entitled—is rarely and briefly on the page. Other than being rude to the household staff and unkind to her stepchildren, she has a flimsy presence, and is easily read as a villain who gets her comeuppance simply by aging. The novel also includes a significant digression to cover Danny’s time as a medical student, though he never practices medicine. The schooling is Maeve’s idea, a way to take advantage of the educational trust their father left to them. Its role is perhaps overlarge for its impact. The novel, save for a few dramatic scenes, could nearly be distilled to those hours in the car, with Maeve’s cigarette smoke and Danny’s eager questions, as they cobble together a family history and serve as each other’s witness. “The ghosts are what I come for,” Sandy says, explaining her continued presence at the Dutch house even after it belongs to Andrea. Readers, too, should come for the ghosts: they give the novel its richness, its texture, and its heart.``

The Dutch House is one of my top five picks for this year. It is easy to read (or listen to), the story is interesting and the relationships are complex and not fully resolved. It certainly made me appreciate my family and give them all hugs. I am quite certain that this book will at some point become a movie or Netflix series so stay tuned. Here’s a good review from NPR - Ann Patchett's 'The Dutch House,' Reviewed : NPR

Spark & Fire: Fuel Your Creativity -Commit to your best work (always!): Novelist Ann Patchett on “The Dutch House” – Spark and Fire is one of my favourite PODCASTs by far. I love how it interviews creative people from all walks of life and describes each of their unique processes for creating great art. After listening to this episode featuring Ann Patchett (someone I had never heard of before) and how she created The Dutch House, I felt compelled to read (or in this case listen) to this book, which as noted above is fantastic. Here is an excerpt from the PODCAST itself, “When Ann Patchett sat down to read through her first draft of The Dutch House, she realized she had made a terrible mistake. A wrong turn, on page 36, sent the entire rest of the novel careening down the wrong path. So what’d she do? Deleted it and started over. Sometimes, committing to doing your very best work means destroying it and going again. In her own words, novelist Ann Patchett shares the story of writing her award-winning novel — from the prolonged period of preparation, and the active defense against distractions, to the advice from friends that she took without a second thought. Plus: hear how she recruited Tom Hanks to read the audiobook.”:https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/spark-fire-fuel-your-creativity/id1544310633?i=1000588108498

Thank you for your ongoing engagement and participation.

And remember to stay safe, stay healthy and to docket daily.

Jon