The best fiction narrative for uncertain times

I recommend Charles Bukowski in general, and Ham on Rye is a classic. Media people these days love to bandy “existential” threats, meaning threats to existence. But existentialists pondered existence and got depressed without much concern for hazards. Berets, baggy pants, coffee, and cigarettes characterized those guys—Camus, Sartre, Kierkegaard, and the rest. Bukowski made existential contemplation more timeless, drinking and screwing in response to life and its challenge. Above all, it’s compelling and entertaining. 

I read Joseph Conrad from my earliest formative years. Sometimes thick, but always drawn on real time at sea, Conrad wrote from experience and touched a nerve for anyone drawn to adventure on the high seas. Lord Jim stands out for its layers of real life so sensitively drawn, from a young chandler’s boy competing in a small sloop to reach the ships just over the horizon, to a disgraced young officer who jumped ship prematurely, afraid. By the time Tuan Jim faces the high chief, he has achieved what all adventurers admire, arrival at the true self. I’ve loved several Conrad books, and I suppose Lord Jim stands out because of Peter O’Toole’s portrayal that put me alongside, in the moment. 

Patrick O’Brien writes tall ship adventures with a blythe spirit, expertly portraying life at sea. Captain Jack Aubrey runs a happy ship, as opposed, say, to Captain Bligh. But rigors remain, and the distance between captain and crew is maintained to preserve social structure. The whole twenty-volume series is compelling for any seafarer, and Master & Commander is best known. The movie was good, except for Russell Crowe, who mumbled his lines.

All of the Singer Brothers are excellent tales of village life and struggles. Isaac Bashevis Singer could spin a yarn with no seams showing, drawing readers in to personal and social straits. Scum, Meshugah, Shosha, and the rest capture the strife and insanity of the times. Isaac Singer often called his brother I.J. a better writer. Better shmetter; I.J. wrote beautiful tales of folksy subjects, easing as well to the verge. The Brothers Carnovsky will linger for years.

Palace of Desire came out in 1957 in original Arabic and got translated to English in the early ’90s, and that’s when I read it. I’m not sure why NY waited so long, except that Naguib Mahfouz couldn’t get the right connection for those years. Your request for reasons that I chose this book made me take another look, and I’ll reread it soon. Thumbing through it now, it still flows with classic narrative, a form still vibrant in 1957, before books in English lost that traditional flow and began to read with a sameness, like most authors went to writing seminars or demanded their rights as women with feelings. I.e. Mahfouz reaches for nothing but the moment, which happens to be in a Cairo neighborhood populated with everyday Egyptians carrying on with life. It’s a slice unavailable to readers like me, revealing a reality far away and compelling, sitting socially with mint tea and smoke, chatting over events and characters, leading to a dramatic point. The translation is also excellent, I presume, avoiding those pratfalls of usage and syntax so clearly outlined in Strunk & White, The Elements of Style, where we learn to avoid the “there is” construction or lazy phrases like “a lot” to describe something other than a real estate parcel or a job commodity. Check it out. In very few pages, you can feel the difference, and though Palace is now eligible for the Senior Discount, it reads with vibrant clarity.

Mahfouz was among the few authors, in my opinion, who deserve international acclaim. His stories kept me up late.