The Lacuna Wins Round 1 of the Tournament of Books!

Politics, history and Art, This Book was Written for Me

I meant to write this the day The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver won the first round of the Tournament of Books, but it’s been a crazy week.  I liked the book better than the judge or the commentators, and, I have to say that their reading and review of the book was too superficial for me.  I have a feeling that The Lacuna may make it one more round at the very most, so here’s my opportunity to say I enjoyed it.  In part because I was a Soviet Studies major in college, so I find Trotsky an interesting character (if you agree, try In the Casa Azul by Meaghan Delahut), also because I love history and last, but not least, I enjoy art.

Politics

Kingsolver has a lot to say out the press and public acceptance of whatever appears in black and white.  Repeatedly through the discussions of the press in Mexico and later in the United States with Harrison, the main character, Kingsolver portrays the press as the howler monkeys introduced on the first page:

In the beginning were the howlers.  They always commenced their bellowing in the first hour of dawn, just as the hem of the sky began to whiten.  It would start with just one:  his forced, rhythmic groaning, like a saw blade.  That aroused others near him, nudging them to bawl along with his monstrous tune.

Sadly, little has changed, where was the press during the run up to the Iraqi War?  Chasing Michael Jackson or the latest starlet sinking into a life of excess, picking up the latest howl of scandal, rather than asking the hard questions.  Personally, as much of a fan as I am of the New York Times (it’s the paper I read daily), it has a lot to be ashamed of during this first decade of the 21st century.  Kingsolver gives two options for coping with the howling press:  hide in plain sight as flamboyant Frida did, all those wonderful dresses and hairstyles covered her physical deformities and emotional pain, or hide altogether.

The Lacuna concludes with an incredible dialogue during a Committee on Un-American Activities hearing (I’ve always thought the title of those hearings really referred to the activity of the hearings more than the investigation purported to be the focus of the hearings).  A week ago, I would have said those hearings were an embarrassing part of our history, but Liz Cheney’s attacks on lawyers who respect our country and Constitution so much that they represent despicable people reminded me that political persecution is alive and well.

History

Kingsolver uses the book to present a view that history is made up of individuals.  Most obviously, she brings Tolstoy, Rivera and Kahlo to life as breathing, jealous, caring, contradictory people.  The affairs, the meetings, the food, the egos are all mixed together with creating great art and political thought.  We are left with political theory and art that influenced the course of history, but the reader sees the people who created the works.  A conversation between Kahlo and Harrison about his desire to write about the Aztecs reinforces Kingsolver’s intention:

It was a true conversation.  About whether our ancestors had more important lives than we do.  And how they’ve managed to trick us, if they did not.  Frida felt it helped them not to put anything in writing . . . “So we can’t read their diaries,” she pointed out, “or the angry letters they sent their unfaithful lovers.  They died without telling us their complaints.”

She is right about that.  No regreats or petty jealousies.  Only stone gods and magnificant buildings.  We only get to see their perfect architecture, not their imperfect lives.”

That we see the products that last from the past, rather than the reality of lives, gives a distorted view of history.  We examine what we find, which is all well and good, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that a better description of history is a striving for truth rather than a documentation of it.

Art

This was a terrific book to read for the Art History Reading Challenge.  In addition to telling the story of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, there are several discussions about the importance of their art.  They painted the common people of Mexico and, especially in Rivera’s case, made them heroic.  It was revolutionary just to paint an everyday Mexican farmer.  There are several discussions about the meaning of art.  Frida says that “to be a good artist you have to know something that’s true . . . [life] has to go in the painting.  Otherwise, why look at it?”  But my favorite passage in the entire book is when Harrison describes the meaning of art:

The purpose of art is to elevate the spirit, or pay a surgeon’s bill.  Or both, really.  It can help a person remember or forget.  If your house doesn’t have many windows in it, you can hang up a painting and have a view.  Or of a whole different country, if you want.  If your spouse is homely, you can gaze at a lovely face and not get in trouble . . . It can be painted on a public wall or locked in a mansion . . . Art by itself is nothing, until it comes into that house.

Writing

Kingsolver uses a variety of devices that create an interesting mosaic of writing.  As mentioned by the judge in the Tournament of Books, the metaphor of the lacuna is used to death.

The point of view is one I dubbed “third person intimate.”  The book is largely journal entries.  I felt like I was looking at the world through Harrison’s eyes, more so than I usually do with third person narratives.  The reader also receives some perspective from Violet, the moral center of the book, and newspaper articles.

My biggest criticism of the book is that Frida’s voice was so vibrant, even through Harrison’s retelling, that once she exits from the book, it gets a bit bland.  I described it on twitter as a reverse Wizard of Oz, going from color to black and white.  Is there an underlying cultural message there because it coincides with Harrison traveling from Mexico to the US?  Maybe.