After the Flood
Recently, I came across a 2010 New Yorker interview with the novelist Chris Adrian. At the time of the interview, Adrian had been named one of the magazine’s top 20 writers under the age of 40. (Though this honor is only one item on an already impressive C. V.— Adrian has also been a fellow of pediatric haemotology-oncology at the University of California, San Francisco and a student at both the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and the Harvard Divinity School). When asked to name some of his favorite writers over 40, Adrian listed Ursula Le Guin, Marilynne Robinson, John Crowley, and Padgett Powell.
I had already heard good things about Adrian, but this list really got me excited. Ursula Le Guin is a personal favorite—I’ve taught The Dispossessed before, and her 2008 Lavinia, a re-imagining of the Aeneid from the perspective of Aeneas’ wife, is one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read in awhile. I’ve written elsewhere about Robinson and Crowley (here and here), and suffice it to say that I think they are two of the best writers alive today. I hadn’t read anything by Powell, but three out of four ain’t bad, so I decided to give Adrian’s second novel, The Children’s Hospital (2006), a shot.
The Children’s Hospital is notable, first, for its wonderfully strange premise: God reneges on his promise to Noah and again covers the Earth with water. Miraculously, a children’s hospital is kept afloat, along with the doctors, patients, workers, and visitors who happened to be in the building when the rains came. (The characters refer to the destruction of the world as “the Thing.”) Much as in a fairy tale, the characters in The Children’s Hospital initially panic, but quickly accept their extraordinary situation as the new normal: the hospital’s slogan becomes, “Just do the work.” The staff reconfigures itself, divvying up medical responsibilities and electing a governmental body. There are petty squabbles and infighting. One early chapter begins, “A committee formed,” as if it sprung up spontaneously from the flooded planet. Despite the Apocalypse, bureaucracy lives on.
But the real heart of the novel is a third-year medical student named Jemma Claflin. Over the course of her life, Jemma has become accustomed to loss (if not loss on the global scale): her father suffered a brutal death as a result of lung cancer; both her mother and brother committed suicide in particularly horrifying fashion; and her first love, driving home drunk from a New Year’s party, crashed into a tree and died. As the novel opens, Jemma has cordoned herself off from any emotional investment—by her logic, “everyone she had loved was dead, and everyone she loved would die.” The novel traces Jemma’s emergence into a more open relationship to the rest of the world. About midway through the novel, there is another divine intervention. Jemma, three months pregnant with the child of a resident at the hospital, discovers that she has miraculous healing powers: in a single night, she heals all 700 of the hospital’s seriously ill children, and the story is on its way to its dramatic conclusion (and the world, it seems, is on its way to a dramatic rebirth).
And if that wasn’t fantastical enough for you, then there’s also this: the novel’s action is foreseen, narrated, and perhaps determined, by a host of angels. As Adrian writes, “It takes four angels to oversee an apocalypse: a recorder to make the book that would be scripture in the new world; a preserver to comfort and save those selected to be the first generation; an accuser to remind them why they suffer; and a destroyer to revoke the promise of survival and redemption, and to teach them the awful truth about furious sheltering grace.” The recording angel serves as narrator, and the novel alternates between four stories: the Book of Calvin, the Acts of Jemma, the Book of the King’s Daughter, and another, unnamed section. Together, these will serve as a new holy book, though the recording angel admits that “in the new world no will read scripture, and they will not labor under the sort of covenant that can be written down in words.”
If this all sounds incredibly complex, that’s because it is. Yet Adrian is able to pull it off, both through his compelling portrait of Jemma and through the obvious delight with which he tells each of these four stories. The Book of Calvin takes its name from Jemma’s dead brother, who speaks in the compressed, prophetic, God-haunted tones of a Flannery O’Connor character. Sometimes he can be witty: the devil is “the author, leader, and contriver of all malice and wickedness. But that’s me. I couldn’t write a better personal ad myself—depraved, malicious, and malignant seeks same for mysterious purpose.” (Calvin’s name is no accident: he constantly harps on mankind’s total depravity.) At other times, Calvin’s words are harrowing, evoking sympathy for a young man for whom belief means endless torture: “[God] is watching me. He has always been watching me, and every time I fail at going, or lose more understanding of my problem and the world’s problem, then the pressure only gets heavier, and some days I can barely get out of bed for the weight of it, and I have lain underneath a night sky awake all night, open to His awful gaze all night, asking all night, What am I, that you should always look at me? I think the great weight of it should drive me grave-deep into the ground.”
In the end, what is perhaps most striking about The Children’s Hospital is not the fantastical conceit that gives the novel its title, nor its angelic chorus, but Adrian’s linguistic inventiveness. Fitting for someone with training in literature, medicine, and theology, Adrian regularly shifts linguistic registers, delighting in the tension produced by writing in such completely different styles. He is above all else a versatile writer, giving in one scene a convincing (and disturbing) technical account of a premature birth, then offering a scene of straight fantasy, and then having his characters engage in a serious conversation about theodicy. (Adrian wears his theological learning proudly—we encounter characters named Martin Marty, Calvin, and Dickie and Ronnie Niebuhr.)
The book is not without its flaws. Its incredible ambition can be overwhelming, and some of the characters are less well drawn than others. (Rob, the father of Jemma’s child, is a bit flat, and most of the hospital’s doctors are eccentric rather than interesting.) Still, this fantasical-theological-medical beast of a novel is a powerful and challenging work. You emerge from The Children’s Hospital admiring the fertility of Adrian’s imagination and the fertility of the English language.
It got very mixed reviews at amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Childrens-Hospital-Chris-Adrian/dp/0802143334/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1311215605&sr=1-1
It’s a ten-dollar ebook, and you can read a bit of it online before deciding whether to buy.
Sounds far too literary for me. I’d say “pretentious”, but, of course, that’s just sour grapes. In another life :o)
There’s an interview with Adrian on NPR about his novel “The Great Night,” which sounds like what you’re talking about, so I’m confused about the title of the novel. Adrian’s interview is here:
http://www.npr.org/2011/06/03/136925557/novelist-doctor-chris-adrian-on-the-great-night
It’s based on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
In the interview, I found Adrian’s frequent use of the word “charming” to describe the thoughts and wishes of dying children somewhat unsettling. “Poignant,” maybe, but I don’t know how such a heartbreaking situation can be “charming.”
When I saw your title, I thought perhaps you had taken up Atwood’s novel, the companion piece to her earlier “Oryx and Crake.” I review for a lit mag occasionally and am usually given the dystopians that are so depressing no one else wants to read them. “After the Flood” is exceptionally funny in parts.
In any case, I’m intrigued by the sheer numbers of dystopian and futuristic fantasies that are coming out these days–many of them quite good (and many of them overhyped, such as “The Hunger Games” for young adults).
Any thoughts on those burgeoning dystopian fantasies?
And bless you for teaching LeGuin!
That was a strange interview–it was timed to coincide with the publication of “The Great Night,” but then the interviewer had Adrian read a passage from “The Children’s Hospital.” I agree with your uneasiness with his use of the word “charming,” and all I can say is that I thought his fictional rendering of childhood disease was sympathetic, respectful, and original.
You’re right about the boom in dystopian novels. In particular, there have been a number of dystopian novels written by more “literary” writers: Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is the most obvious example, but Colson Whitehead also has a zombie novel (!) coming out in the fall, and Junot Diaz is supposedly at work on an apocalyptic novel, too. As for a reason, I’d say it’s perhaps because so much of our current moment seems to be tinged with apocalyptic undertones (climate change, seemingly endless wars, failing economies). But I also think there’s an increasing interest in genre fiction more generally. Again, I hate to use the “literary” label, but there seems to be an awful lot of literary writers trying their hands at previously ghettoized genres: John Banville with detective fiction, Rick Moody with science fiction, Jonathan Lethem with both, etc. Maybe this has to do with postmodernism’s longed-for breakdown of the divide between high and low culture?
“But I also think there’s an increasing interest in genre fiction more generally. … Maybe this has to do with postmodernism’s longed-for breakdown of the divide between high and low culture?”
I have noticed the increase in genre fiction as well, with some unease. I’ve been talking with students about the “Twilight” phenomenon from its first appearance and what it means when rich, perfect, dead boys who wll never age are preferable to real men. Always an interesting and lively discussion …
Very interesting thought about the breaking down the divide between high and low culture, which might explain “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”
I read a piece by Anthony Burgess (about a hundred years ago), who wrote what he termed both “high” and “popular” fiction (in his own estimation, anyway). This was long ago, but he was calling for a separate critical approach to both types of fiction. I remember thinking that the piece was really an oblique self-accolade on Burgess’s part a la “I am such a talented and nimble writer that I can write ANYthing.”
In my modest critical efforts, I have to say that once I’ve dispatched a mention of a book’s genre, I tend to ignore whether it’s “high” or “low” culture. I don’t know whether that denotes a lack of discernment or whether, like Dr. Johnson, I strive to be easily pleased.
I agree with you–it’s a good idea to acknowledge genre, if for no other reason than a detective novel is trying to do something very different from a romance novel, but after that step, generic divisions don’t mean much. Within the last year or so, I read a review by James Wood of David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoot. Wood really liked the book, and he said that this was despite the fact that it was a historical novel, as if its status as such was a deficiency that only Mitchell’s great prose could overcome. And I remember thinking, what a terrible attitude to have, one that would effectively rule out all kinds of enjoyable, worthwhile fiction. (For the record, I think Wood is a terrific critic, I just didn’t appreciate his snobbishness in this particular review.)
By the way, Laura Miller wrote a piece about dystopian young adult fiction recently. Here it is: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/06/14/100614crat_atlarge_miller
Jean –
Graham Greene called some of his fiction “entertainments” and some of it “novels”. “Brighton Rock” was among the former. I read recently that a new edition of all his works has dropped that distinction. Maybe it’s because, as I read recently, “Brighton Rock” is now considered one of his masterpieces.
Speaking of snooty, this brings us, of course, to – - ta da!!! == J. K. Rowling. I’ve always defended her as a fine writer, not because she puts a sentence together with the skill of a Henry James but because she is undoubtedly one of the all time greatest story tellers. And if novels aren’t first and foremost about some sort of story — even if about the subjective goings on of a person– then what are novels about???? If I”m not mistaken Kipling, who wrote timeless kids stuff. now gets great critical approval. He didn’t when I was a child.
What’s the attraction of writing in genres, rather than just writing? I can’t imagine Faulkner, Hemingway, Updike, Fitzgerald writing that way. Seems superficial, imitative, just playing around with words, showing off, maybe. I know, of course, that there have been movements, but movements and styles are different animals, no?
David,
There are lots of reasons for writing in genre. First of all, writing within/around the conventions of a predetermined form is just what writers, poets, and story tellers have always done. You wouldn’t think a poet writing a sonnet is being “superficial, imitative, just playing around with words,” would you? The restraint of formal rules can be useful, even liberating. Second of all, there’s a reason that genres like romance and detective fiction have lasted so long–the kinds of questions they ask and the kinds of characters/situations they imagine seem to articulate something important about human existence and its meaning. Why wouldn’t a writer want to position himself/herself within this tradition? Finally, writers write in genre, I imagine, in part to head off exactly the kinds of criticisms that you and James Wood are making. They try to prove that any topic, whether it be an unsolved murder (Agatha Christie) or a random day in June of 1904 (James Joyce, Ulysses), can be of real interest when written about well. This isn’t just showing off, it’s making a serious claim about language and its ability to impart beauty, entertain, and educate. And for the record, Faulkner was immersed in, and sometimes himself wrote, genre fiction (he penned the screenplay for the classic noir film The Big Sleep, for instance). Besides, Updike and Faulkner are two of the most show-offy writers of the past hundred years. And this is coming from someone who loves both of them.
Ann,
You’re absolutely right about Rowling as a story teller. A friend and I were talking the other way about the different ways in which we read. When I read something that I love and want to share it with someone else, that almost inevitably manifests itself in me reading a sentence or two aloud, and hoping the listener will marvel at the skill and subtlety of the prose. When my friend, on the other hand, reads something that she loves, she will launch into a 10-minute recap of the plot, hoping that the listener will appreciate what a great story this is. They’re two different modes of reading, but neither is better, and hers is arguably the purer way, more attuned to the reasons we tell and listen to stories in the first place. Thanks for reminding me once again not to fetishize prose over plot!
Ann, I remember Greene’s distinction. But, then, my criteria for fiction that works is whether it reveals any insights about what it means to be human.
Jack London made a similar distinction between his serious novels and his “goddam dog stories.” I know more people who have read “To Build a Fire” than “Martin Eden,” and I think the former is a better piece of work.
“Martin Eden” seems far too invested in the story of a self-educated man whose taste and talents eventually surpass those born to education and culture,which I read primarily as the aggrandizement of London’s own background. The simple story of the man and dog in “Fire” says all kinds of things about types of intelligence, hubris, and how critters, human and canine, operate in extremis.
One test for judging the worth of prose is how likely it is to appeal to a broad cross-section of humanity. I imagine most highly hyped modern novels would fail this test hands down.
“One test for judging the worth of prose is how likely it is to appeal to a broad cross-section of humanity. I imagine most highly hyped modern novels would fail this test hands down.”
That’s actually not far from what a lot of critics in the Johnsonian vein have said, though Johnson, in his famous defense of Shakespeare, would have added that a work also has to stand the test of time.
What puzzles me is that if we live in “an aggressively anti-religious society,” (as this poster has claimed on another thread) how worthwhile can a book with wide popular appeal be?
No offense intended. I’ve always been interested in how people choose their reading material and judge the literary landscape. Maybe some examples or further evidence to show how these views aren’t contradictory?
My mass communication class is supposed to come up with their own critical criteria for judging entertainment media next week, so I guess I’m practicing here.
Jean writes (3:04 pm):
Jean, it’s all I can do to be minimally coherent. I wouldn’t dream of trying for consistency.