The easiest way would be if Alan Querry could plant a pink filter into his daughter's brain. Then the late sixties would be free from the agony of constantly worrying about the depression-plagued Vanessa. Whenever Alan sees a white bird, she finds a black one. The daughter reminds the established construction developer, who is currently in need of money, constantly to his paternal responsibility - and at the same time to his powerlessness. Letting go, fine and good, but ultimately lead such counselor rush to nothing.
English-born author and noted literary critic James Wood has written "Upstate", a finely woven psychological novel about the power of the family. With keen eyes he observes the centrifugal forces that can drive a family apart. At the same time, a family is also something of a primordial soup, in which everyone paddles together and helps themselves not to perish - at least if it works reasonably well.
Vanessa, who has always withdrawn from childhood into the world of her books, works as a philosophy teacher in Saratoga Springs, New York. One day, Helen, her younger sister, who lives like Alan in England, gets a disturbing e-mail: Josh, Vanessa's partner, writes that his girlfriend fell down a staircase just before Christmas and injured his arm. However, Josh is not sure if Vanessa did not deliberately cause the fall. Without further ado, Helen and her father decide to visit her in the USA.
Miriam Berkley / Rowohlt
Author James Wood
The family reunion in the American province is like a dance on the volcano. Everywhere lurk craters, and all are in constant fear of a final eruption. Vanessa plays at the beginning of the sovereign hostess, demonstratively celebrates her great love for the handsome and seemingly carefree Josh. But in the end, it becomes clear that she navigates on the verge of despair and, above all, fears one thing: Josh, her guy, can break. He already disappears again and again for a few days - separation as an escape from too much responsibility.
Why is Helen, successful in the music business, largely contentedly marching around the world while Vanessa loses the talent fortunately? Why is it a great effort for some to swim up in life while others just move their arms and legs? Vanessa has obviously suffered more than her sister since her mother, who had separated from Alan, died early. But is that good as an explanation? It is James Woods great merit not to touch kitchen psychology in his novel, but to leave it with hints.
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DISPLAY
James Wood
Upstate
Publishing company:
Rowohlt book publisher
Pages:
304
Price:
EUR 22,00
Translated by:
Tanja trade
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James Wood, who teaches at Harvard, is one of the country's most famous literary critics. He was also referred to as a "noble annihilator", he is not one who rides so impetuously as once Marcel Reich-Ranicki. In his book "The Art of Storytelling" he has omitted what constitutes a good and a bad novel.
His new book, which is set to close to the Obama era, is undoubtedly a good book - with a few caveats. The tendentially elongated statements on fundamental questions of philosophy annoy sometimes. Some American clichés (Americans consoling one with the blessing "Take it easy!") Seem a little bit off. And yet: Wood provides subtle character studies, well-proportioned humor and a lot of life-wisdom. When describing his characters, he uses the kaleidoscope principle: when one shakes, new facets of the personality arise.
In an essay James Wood wrote several years ago, many contemporary novels would follow a "hysterical realism": With their high-speed plots they produced permanent movement, vitality was the supreme maxim, moments of calm and silence would not exist. He calls here about Zadie Smith, David Foster Wallace or Salman Rushdie.
"Upstate" is completely hysterical in this sense. Wood works with slow camera shots, little scene changes and a quiet keynote. Old-fashioned? That would be the wrong category. Because the author creates a great depth of focus, mockingly and indulgently encircles the all-too-human, so that you are guaranteed to find yourself as a reader in some nerdigen habit. There is, for example, Alan's tendency to tell the same joke several times. If it bothers others, it's their problem.
