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 For The Daily Join our staff! Visit the link for more info: https://www.michigandaily.com/join-us