Life and Work

April 11, 2016
Parks, a prolific literary critic and celebrated novelist (Painting Death), compiles 20 previously published essays and book reviews (mostly from the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books) into a smart, engaging collection. His announced intention is to explore the “tensions between competing values” in the works reviewed and the way they “shape the relationship between reader and writer that forms through the work.” To that end, he examines James Joyce’s sense of “belonging and not belonging” to Ireland and the “fear that heightens the desire to live” in Philip Roth’s late novels. Most of the entries center on white male authors (with the exceptions of Muriel Spark, Haruki Murakami, and E.L. James), but Parks’s subjects are varied in other respects, and include a canonical English Victorian (Charles Dickens), a French detective novelist (Georges Simenon), a South African literary darling (J.M. Coetzee), and a recent Swedish publishing powerhouse (Stieg Larsson). His analyses of them are invariably intelligent and complex without being intimidating. Despite the book’s subtitle, Parks never really delves into the conversation between authors and readers; the only conversations on display are between him and the works he surveys, but these exchanges are fascinating to witness.

June 1, 2016

Are fiction writers and readers influenced by their personal histories? Noted literary critic and author Parks (Europa) proposes that tensions among competing values provide a world in which book lovers discover and construct their own personalities. The first 17 essays focus on the biographical influences of generations of authors from Charles Dickens to Haruki Murakami. Novelists and playwrights presented include Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anton Chekhov, Muriel Spark, J.M. Coetzee, and Dave Eggers. The final pieces examine the atmosphere in three contemporary works: Peter Matthiessen's In Paradise (2014), Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2008), and E.L. James's Fifty Shades of Grey (2012), each offering a diverse platform to explore complicated topics such as the Holocaust, evil, and sex. Overall, the leap Parks takes from Dickens's Great Expectations in the opening essay to James's Fifty Shades of Grey in the final discussion is noteworthy. VERDICT This wide-ranging anthology of 20 previously published writings offers a springboard for both literary and popular fiction discussions. The rewards are great for serious readers.--Joyce Sparrow, Kenneth City, FL

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