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The Snapper by Roddy Doyle

(#5 of 2010) Sometimes I think that my life would have been a lot better had I had kids a whole hell of a lot earlier, like, say, right off the bat after I met Natalie. What did I do in my 20s and early 30s? A whole hell of a lot of debauch. Maybe having kids would have matured me faster. Maybe I would have been more productive, earlier. I'm about to turn 37. If I had a kid when I was 24, I could have a 13 year old kid right now. That would be pretty amazing.

And then I start thinking about my own kids. What if they don't have kids until I had kids? That means I'll have to wait until I'm 66 to have grandchildren. Uh uh, no. Maybe I'll have a deal with my son and daughter, that they are fine to have kids at a young age. No teen pregnancies. I don't want my daughter dropping out of high school to have a baby. But, say, after they're done their undergraduate degree. They should have kids at the age of 24. That would make me 57. And by that point hopefully I could watch the grandkids for my kids. I'll be like a kindly old grandmother, except I'll be a grandfather.

So yeah, The Snapper. I really enjoyed it. It's kind of a mess so far as narrative tension goes. But hell, having a plot-driven pregnancy would feel fake and dishonest. The book is essentially a very straight retelling of a young woman's pregnancy. It's Juno set in '80s Ireland, in an enormous extended family. And it's great in the way that Roddy Doyle books tend to be great, when they're great: Tonnes of swearing, real-feeling conversations and comedy borne of honesty and bluntness.

Oh yeah, the book also makes me want to have more kids. The patriarch is Jimmy Rabbitte Sr. and he has about a half-dozen kids and they're poor and their place is overcrowded but what comes across is the way having more kids provides your kids with more of a support structure—somebody to lean on. And also, it seems to keep everyone honest. I wonder whether it's easier for single children to become pretentious fucks. I think it's really difficult to become a pretentious fuck when you have brothers and sisters, because you always have someone to remind you of when you're being an asshole. But if you're a single child, maybe no one feels close enough to tell you you're an asshole?

One more thing -- I wonder whether it's better to read novels about child-rearing rather than the non-fiction books. How does a Dad's perception of childhood differ if he educated himself exclusively with literary fiction rather than the non-fiction books. So instead of What To Expect When You're Expecting, you read The Snapper and Rabbit, Run and We Need To Talk About Kevin and whatever else. Hmmm, maybe that's something to put on the list of things to do—make a list of literary books for new parents.

Affliction By Russell Banks

(#4 of 2010) Isn't it funny how literary novels are diminished when a movie is made of them? In the interests of speed I usually rip JPEGs of the book covers I post on this blog from Amazon, but the only cover I could find of Affliction included a still from the Paul Schrader movie, including the words "Now A Major Motion Picture Starring Nick Nolte." The fact a certain type of novel has yielded a movie diminishes my desire to read the novel. It's a little ridiculous. It's like the novel's been recommended to me by someone whose taste I don't trust. And I certainly don't want the movie still on the cover of the books I'm reading. Hence, the poorly lit image above, which I took in my kitchen. I found this hardcover at the annual U of T used book sale and I like this version a lot better than the one I found on Amazon. It's more authentic.

I read this book thinking it might provide some useful context for the memoir I'm currently in the final stages of editing and rewriting. And it did. The story concerns a 41-year-old foreman and part-time police officer in a rural New Hampshire town. Guy's name is Wade Whitehouse and the conceit for the book is that it's his brother Rolfe going back and researching and chronicling Wade's breakdown, which, early hints indicate, ended in violence.

There were some aspects of the book I didn't like. It was overly heavy on the foreshadowing; too many mentions of the "terrible things that were about to happen." And I resist the extent the book portrayed Wade as a victim of his father's abuse, and the murders that conclude the book as offshoots of that abuse. "All those solitary dumb angry men," Banks writes, describing "boys with intelligent eyes and brightly innocent mouths, unafraid and loving creatures eager to please and be pleased. What had turned them so quickly into the embittered brutes they had become? Were they all beaten by their fathers; was it really that simple?"

No. Of course not. Banks seems to suggest that it is, however. Shouldn't he have  attributed more responsibility to Wade and his choices? I think Wade Whitehouse's frustration can evolve without the excuse of child abuse. Plenty of men become embittered brutes without the excuse of an abused childhood. At 41 years old, Wade had ample opportunity to realize the self-destructive pattern he was in; couldn't he have done something, at some point, to break it? Quit drinking? Seek therapy? Take up lawn bowling?

But perhaps I'm placing too much of my own life into this book. Affliction was published in 1989; in rural New England, therapy wasn't something guys would have done. Drinking was the only therapy available to men like Wade. I thought this book was a fascinating portrait of a certain kind of male frustration. There's a great line about the anger of unmarried men who are "cut off from what calmed them—home, children, a loving loyal woman who comforted and reassured them..."

The novel exists as a kind of cautionary tale for a family guy like me. I battled against my role in my family for a long time after the birth of my first child, and there were times in those months I wondered what life would be like as a bachelor. Wade Whitehouse forms one answer. What fascinating relationships guys have with their families. Family keeps men sane as it makes men a certain kind of insane. It nurtures and comforts man as it constrains him. That sounds pretty dark, doesn't it?