6-Classifieds
BOOK REVIEW
6 — Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
By Robert Fisher
©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
09/24/19
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
09/24/19
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Tuesday, September 24, 2019
ACROSS
1 Octopus octet
5 Read
electronically
9 Stand in for
14 Painful joint
inflammation
15 “What’ll ya __?”
16 Legendary
crooner Mel
17 Prefix meaning
“all”
18 From the start
19 Utter nonsense
20 Seeking an
Olympic victory
23 Beach toy for a
windy day
24 Information
technology giant
25 “Norwegian
Dances”
composer
28 Road curves
30 More than a few
31 Come into view
33 Hosp. diagnostic
procedure
36 Hardly ever
39 Jamaican music
40 “Big Little Lies”
actress Meryl
41 Frenzied way
to run
42 Smelting waste
43 Like good pie
crusts
44 Field & __
Magazine
47 Beach toy
49 Zwieback, e.g.
55 Celebrate
boisterously
56 Urge on
57 220-by-198-foot
plot of land, e.g.
58 Farsi speaker
59 To be, in Tours
60 Not that
61 Animal skins
62 Auctioneer’s cry
after the starts
of 20-, 36- and
49-Across
63 Enjoy some tub
time
DOWN
1 Visibly awed
2 CBS Sports NFL
analyst Tony
3 Tax-free govt.
bond
4 Disapproving
look
5 Elevator
passage
6 Kayak-like boat
7 State
unequivocally
8 Former House
leader Gingrich
9 Conference-goer
10 Welsh herding
dogs
11 Small music
ensembles
12 In a plentiful way
13 Plants-to-be
21 Booking on a
band’s tour
22 Stuck (on)
25 Scientifically
engineered
crops, e.g.,
briefly
26 __ and file
27 Ancient Cuzco
dweller
28 Spanish
newborns
29 Author __
Stanley Gardner
31 Bury
32 “Veronica __”:
teen drama
starring Kristen
Bell
33 NYC cultural
center
34 Chess piece
involved in
castling
35 Like many a
stained shirt
pocket
37 Tel Aviv residents
38 Ones habitually
hanging out in
retail complexes
42 A step above
“meh”
43 White lie
44 Remove paint
from
45 Shakespearean
contraction
46 Primary
competitor
47 Oyster gem
48 Tacked on
50 Brings to
maturity
51 Zither-like
Japanese
instrument
52 Canyon feedback
53 Opera song for
one
54 Newsroom
station
As soon as I had turned the last page of Deborah
Levy’s “The Man Who Saw Everything,” I set the
book down and opened up my laptop: I had a lot
of research ahead of me. It wasn’t to fill any gaps
in my knowledge of the book’s historical, behind-
the-iron-curtain context, or to learn more about
the Beatles’ photo shoot on Abbey Road, around
which the book awkwardly pivots; it was in hopes
of making any sense at all of the 200 pages I
had just read. I needed to find out if there was a
coherent storyline I somehow completely missed,
if there were any real characters aside from the
protagonist, what the themes were (if any) and so
on.
Before I got much further, though, I had to
pause and ask myself: Is this something I should
have to do? Is the book that requires wholesale
outsourcing of reading comprehension even worth
trying to understand? I realized that if I was still
in the dark after reading the thing cover to cover,
perhaps I was always meant to be.
“The Man Who Saw Everything” is a
chronically frustrating read. It is the experience
of walking up to a storyteller whose confidence
has drawn a crowd, but who is several paces into
their story by the time you get there and unwilling
to restart for you, so the best you can do is stick
along for the ride — were this uncomfortable
experience rendered in print and drawn out to
span hundreds of pages. Here is the information
you would encounter as you approach: The year is
1988, and Saul Adler is a historian who specializes
in the psychology of male tyrants. He has been
granted the privilege of travel to East Berlin for
his research, and for his host family’s daughter
Luna, he and his photographer girlfriend Jennifer
Moreau have planned an elaborate thank you:
A recreation of the album art from Abbey Road
for the Beatles fanatic Luna Müller is, lone Saul
taking place of John, Paul, Goerge and Ringo. But
Saul gets clipped by a car when he’s traversing the
famous crosswalk, and it all quite lite spins out of
control from that (early) point onward.
Granted, Levy did try to make the book that
ensues about something. That “something” ranges
from the art of photography to surveillance, to
history, to memory, to masculinity, to sexuality,
to family, to marriage, to parenthood — and while
it is as tiring to compose that list as it likely is to
read it, sadly, the book reads the same way. Worse
yet, by encountering these subjects through the
eyes of Levy’s unreliable, underdeveloped and
almost unstoried narrator Saul Adler, the gulfs
between these subjects are widened rather than
creatively bridged. All the energy of the novel,
which might have been directed toward Saul’s
compellingly fraught relationships with his father
and brother, or with the East German love of his
life Walter Müller, is absorbed by Levy’s quest to
figure out what the book’s about, sparing nothing
for narrative momentum or climax.
I think this energy drain helps explain why, so
often, Levy’s writing registers as lazy, as unmet
potential. One of the strategies with which she
tries to cohere her disparate themes is to repeat
buzz words and sequences of dialogue. Rather
than adding anything to the narrative, however,
these have the effect of infantilizing the reader,
like those not-so-subtle hints from your teacher
that a pop quiz is in store, and that the topic will be
the word they keep dramatically emphasizing. For
instance, early on, Jennifer makes an observation
about her photography that lingers on Saul’s mind:
That a “spectre is inside every photograph she
developed.” Rather than exploring that concept
in subsequent pages, Moreau undermines her own
attempt at exploring a thematic question, opting
instead to apply the word “spectre” exasperatingly
to everything else Saul contemplates, from his
father’s death to the distinct scent of Jennifer’s
perfume. It is as though Levy fears her readers’
inattention to the point where as long as we
remember one word, she’d be content.
I don’t universally condemn the novelist who
creates and leaves gaps for their audience to fill.
Often, those gaps enact a fruitful contract between
writer and reader, promising that meaning can be
co-created rather than in one party or the other’s
death grip. But the novelist who doesn’t trust their
readers enough to tell them anything beyond a
meandering list of themes they want to touch on
isn’t writing a novel at all; they’re publishing their
idea journal and tricking their audience into doing
all the work of finishing their thoughts. Deborah
Levy is one such novelist, but she got away with
it (and was rewarded for it: See this year’s Booker
longlist).
What is the bare minimum you expect from
your storytellers? Simply one coherent storyline?
Or are you more picky, demanding character
development or even thematic development of
some sort? Would you ask for trust? I don’t think
there’s anything wrong with claiming these
values, or with requiring more from writers who
don’t meet those standards. Ms. Levy, I expect
more.
Did Deborah Levy just
publish her idea journal
AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE
The novelist who doesn’t trust their readers enough
to tell them anything beyond a meandering list of
themes they want to touch on isn’t writing a novel at
all; they’re publishing their idea journal and tricking
their audience into doing all the work of finishing
their thoughts.
A few weeks ago I slid into a sticky leather
booth in Espresso Royale. It was almost 8 p.m.,
and my energy levels for the day were nearing
critical condition, but I’d rallied for this one last
meeting. Amidst a sea of subsequent smalltalk,
I met someone who said he liked to dance. Salsa
dance, specifically, but I went ahead and shared
that I was a ballet dancer in hopes of forming a
connection.
I wanted to keep going and tell him that I’ve
actually always wanted to learn salsa, but he cut
me off. He raised his nose and told me that ballet
was boring and stiff. That it was only for old
people, that his chosen form of movement was
far superior.
Stunned, I laughed. I explained that I didn’t
think I was old, but I definitely enjoyed ballet.
Plus, I stretch enough not to be stiff. He shook
his head. Salsa is romantic, he said. And then,
through the ebb and flow of conversation, our
group found a different subject.
I don’t recount this story out of existential
bitterness. The same way the Super Bowl will
always garner critics, ballet will never resonate
with everyone. However, my new acquaintance’s
final comment — that salsa is romantic with the
implication that ballet is not — stuck with me.
When I came home that night and opened my
computer, an unfinished video of the balcony pas
de deux (a ballet couple’s dance) from Kenneth
MacMillan’s “Romeo and Juliet” started to load
in an open YouTube tab. The intimate music of
Sergei Prokofiev’s score filled my living room,
and I thought again about that comment.
After all, what does it mean to make a
movement romantic?
Through a Google Search I found a different
video, this one of a couple dancing salsa on the
streets of Miami. Through the shaky hand of
an iPhone camera, a man and a woman shared
three minutes of casual happiness set to the
background of a city completely oblivious to the
dance’s occurrence. Cars passed and pedestrians
wandered as the dancers’s fleet footwork
dissolved into the street’s ongoing bustle. The
haphazardness of it all created an intimacy that
gave way to an idyllic romance. I could see what
my acquaintance was talking about.
I’d expect myself to struggle when comparing
this to “Romeo and Juliet.” After all, the pas de
deux clip I watched came from the Royal Ballet,
one of the most elite companies in the world.
Their theater, the Royal Opera House, literally
has a box reserved for the Queen herself. With
the exception of her, the live audience pays
hundreds of dollars for their tickets and iPhone
cameras are strictly prohibited. No aspect goes
unplanned or unperfected, and yet when I watch
the dance unfold my heart fills with the same
sense of intimate spontaneity as the salsa street
dancing from before.
Romeo and Juliet are only 14, both suffering
from an all-too-familiar sense of juvenile
confusion. Neither of them know what they want
and both of them live life with an underlying
nervousness for upcoming adulthood. When
they find each other, their young hearts shift to
focus solely on one another. Through their love,
they find a drive far more mature than their
years. The pas de deux on Juliet’s balcony is a
manifestation of that new focus.
Within the performance, I feel those moments
of desire alongside the young couple: Juliet’s
beaming chest, Romeo’s outstretched hands,
their luxurious makeout session and weightless,
slow motion lifts and turns.
It’s a spectacle of teenage melodrama and
through its display the planning melts away.
Suddenly, I see a casual meetup on the streets
of Italy. It’s two people — two kids — intensely
focused on enjoying each other while an entire
city continues to pass by.
I can’t help but wonder what my acquaintance
would think if he peeled back the technique to
see this side of ballet. Whether onstage at the
Royal Opera House or on an unnamed sidewalk
in Florida, I still find that intangible sense of
effortlessness dictated through non-vocalized
movement. They might both be romantic, but
above all they’re both human.
Exploring old-fashioned
love through ballet & salsa
COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK
JULIANNA MORANO
Daily Arts Writer
BOOK REVIEW
SHEILA BURNETT
The Man Who Saw
Everything
Deborah Levy
Bloomsbury Publishing
Oct. 15, 2019
DESIGN COURTESY OF EMMA CHANG
ZOE PHILLIPS
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