Lorrie Moore: A Gate at the Stairs

[Mirabell]

Nothing in Moore?s novel really coheres, which reads like a hastily edited manuscript created by pasting in small snippets of fictional ideas, but this last episode is mind-bogglingly nonsensical, unconnected to the larger whole of the novel and ridiculous in almost every single way. It caps a novel that is so complacent and self-absorbed as to be completely irrelevant. Its handling of characters is largely incompetent, so much so, indeed, that you need to stop following characters and plot and just take things as they come. Ideas and narrative possibilities are tossed into the air either to be forgotten or to be tied off untidily at the end. It gets so bad that at one point I thought maybe the book was a satire, satirizing Tassie Keltjin, and those who share her point of view, but even this, ultimately, didn?t pan out, because the book wraps up in one great conciliatory movement. It situates the book firmly among other coming of age tales, and confirms the book?s utter mediocrity. A Gate at the Stairs is one severe disappointment, a gaudy empty box that smells a bit funny. Do not read this book.

full review here Gaudy: Lorrie Moore?s ?A Gate At The Stairs? shigekuni.



Man, what a crap book.

[Bubba]

Man, what a crap book.

I could have told you that, Mirabell, and I haven't read the thing.

[Colette Jones]

I have read it and for the first two thirds I thought it was excellent. At about that point it became clear that the book was not what I thought it was. I didn't believe that the story was actually about Tessie, but rather the family she worked for as seen through her eyes. I thought the issues with the boyfriend would somehow infiltrate their lives, seeing as they were the main characters in my eyes. But alas, it was actually a story about Tessie and I wasn't very interested in Tessie! Too many story lines just dropped away and never returned.

I agree with your assessment up to a point, Mirabell, but despite my misgivings and disappointment, I don't actually think it's a crap book.

[Mirabell]

I have read it and for the first two thirds I thought it was excellent. At about that point it became clear that the book was not what I thought it was. I didn't believe that the story was actually about Tessie, but rather the family she worked for as seen through her eyes. I thought the issues with the boyfriend would somehow infiltrate their lives, seeing as they were the main characters in my eyes. But alas, it was actually a story about Tessie and I wasn't very interested in Tessie! Too many story lines just dropped away and never returned.

I agree with your assessment up to a point, Mirabell, but despite my misgivings and disappointment, I don't actually think it's a crap book.

Maybe I'm that hard on it because that woman can write, and with language and stuff, she often has her heart in the right place, but overall, the craftsmanship is not there, it's like a lot of good and not so good ideas, and while I liked it at first, my opinion soured quickly. That bit about grammar that I quoted, I think at this point my opinion curdled. That phrase, prim.faced cleverness, I think I used it in the review, I wrote it in the margins on that exact page. Ha.

[waxwing]

I very much liked the relationship between Tassie and the adopted girl, it was reminiscent of the magical mother/imaginary daughter scenes from the earlier, and much better, Anagrams. Once the little girl is dropped from the novel, with such abruptness and finality, the plot just meanders about. And Tassie barely gives the little girl another thought, despite the closeness they had developed.

The bit with the boyfriend/terrorist was indeed clumsy, but for me the nadir was when Tassie jumps in the casket at the funeral. I'm not sure what Moore could possibly be going for with that narrative head scratcher. Even in these final pages, though, there was some beautiful writing.

.

[Mirabell]

I very much liked the relationship between Tassie and the adopted girl, it was reminiscent of the magical mother/imaginary daughter scenes from the earlier, and much better, Anagrams. Once the little girl is dropped from the novel, with such abruptness and finality, the plot just meanders about. And Tassie barely gives the little girl another thought, despite the closeness they had developed.

The bit with the boyfriend/terrorist was indeed clumsy, but for me the nadir was when Tassie jumps in the casket at the funeral. I'm not sure what Moore could possibly be going for with that narrative head scratcher. Even in these final pages, though, there was some beautiful writing.

.

See, both of you point out how clumsily the book is made, even though you both liked it, to some extent. Maybe I'm less forgiving? You're not wrong about the writing, though.

[Colette Jones]

It is very clumsy, and I absolutely hated the casket thing. I didn't like that whole section when she went back home and I thought it completely unnecessary. The book was better when based in the house with the gate at the stairs.

[Mirabell]

It is very clumsy, and I absolutely hated the casket thing. I didn't like that whole section when she went back home and I thought it completely unnecessary. The book was better when based in the house with the gate at the stairs.

yes, it was. I agree.

[Mirabell]

My own review of the book can be found at the top of thsi thread, further reviews are below

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/bo.../Lethem-t.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/28/books/28book.html
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore | Book review | Books | The Observer
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/b...om/id/2227208/
A Gate at the Stairs, By Lorrie Moore - Reviews, Books - The Independent
Lorrie Moore's 'A Gate at the Stairs' opens to humor, grief - USATODAY.com
A Gate At The Stairs by Lorrie Moore | identity theory book review

[Liam]

She was my favorite living author for several years, and now I have none.

I was actually going to suggest Marilynne Robinson to you, who's only written 3 works of fiction in a career that spans three decades or so, before I saw you viciously attack your beloved George Eliot's domesticity in The Mill on the Floss. If that kind of writing bores you, Robinson is not for you.

Reading her novels was like experiencing the state of grace for me. I was touched, moved, uplifted, and the books gave me a sense of purpose, which not many (indeed, almost none!) contemporary works can do.

Check out Gilead, anyway, which is relatively short, and see if Robinson is for you.

[Colette Jones]

Thanks, Liam, I'll check it out. It already has a couple of strikes against it as it deals with faith and is set in Iowa, but if she is a good enough writer, it may still be worthwhile.

This made me laugh. What's wrong with Iowa?

I much prefer Home to Gilead. It is set in the same place, same time, but from the perspective of the other family. Gilead is written in diary form by a pastor, whereas Home is more traditionally told. I know of people who read and liked Home without having read Gilead, but I think there are some important issues in Home that you just wouldn't understand if you haven't read Gilead.

[Colette Jones]

The problem with Iowa is that it's part of the Midwest. The cultural history of the Midwest is generally uninteresting to me: religious peasants emigrate from Europe and work on farms; subsequent generations become better-educated and move away.

Guilty as charged! I left Iowa at 22, immediately after university. I'm still interested in Iowa though.

I found John Ames to be a doltish sort of person who is trapped in his head with thoughts that amount to recycled nonsense. The only interesting character in the novel is Jack Boughton, who is never adequately explained by Robinson or comprehended by Ames, and who comes off as a miscreant. My instincts are deeply anti-religious, and I find the reverential response of critics to Gilead foolish and offensive.

I'm with you here too (although I didn't find it foolish or offensive, just mostly boring until John Ames' discussion with Jack toward the end). Jack Boughton and his sister are the main characters of Home. Both are trying to live in the Midwest for a period of time and struggling with it. You might like it! Home is very different from Gilead.

Since this is supposed to be a Lorrie Moore thread, I will add that whatever talent she had may have been diminished by her settling in Wisconsin after a promising start in New York. It's probably more than geography, though: her career as Professor of Creative Writing can't have helped.

It is more than geography - taking the story back to Tessie's home town, dropping completely the very good story lines which were in place just didn't make sense to me.

[DWM]

The problem with Iowa is that it's part of the Midwest. The cultural history of the Midwest is generally uninteresting to me: religious peasants emigrate from Europe and work on farms; subsequent generations become better-educated and move away.

Yet Iowa has one of the world's most famous international writers' programs, and over the decades has hosted a huge number of authors and poets from all over the globe. Is this a contradiction inherent in the character of the place, or is something missing from the discussion?

[DWM]

The location of a writing school is somewhat irrelevant in the sense that universities are often oases of learning in deserts of alien culture.

I guess this is so. It would be interesting to hear the view of anyone in the forum who has spent time on the Iowa writers' program, though.

Certainly many years ago I had the impression from one or two colleagues who went to teach on the program or take a residency there that for them it was initially somewhat like being exiled to Siberia - though they were often pleasantly surprised by the experience they had in the end.

[Bubba]

I'm not acquainted with any, though some may inhabit this site. My impression from other writing sites is that MFAs in Creative Writing are closed off from the world of us mortals. This site would be of little networking facility to them. Maybe if posters identified themselves as "Alfred Knopf" or "Charles Scribner" a few MFAs would be attracted.

My, Paul! A bit sarcastic today, are we?

[Colette Jones]

Marilynne Robinson may be a case in point. She was born in Idaho, educated in Rhode Island and Washington, taught in Kent and Massachusetts, and now in Iowa. Her novels mentioned above are set in Iowa, but her knowledge of Iowa can only have been obtained derivatively by peering over the walls of academe.

Not so! I went to hear her speak at Oxford Brooks a few months ago. She asked around about Iowa's history when she first went there and the locals seemed unaware of anything Iowa may have done that was special. So she dug into archives of information and discovered a rich history of being ahead of the game on civil rights issues. It was a fascinating talk and she is fascinated with Iowa. I did not know of that rich history myself, and find it very sad that it is being turned around now, with supreme court judges being voted out of their posts because they ruled in favour of gay marriage.

I must say, if I ever go back to live in Iowa, I will choose Iowa City. But brrrrrrrrrrrr.
(I didn't come straight to the UK, Paul - I spent 8 years in sunny Colorado - compared to Iowa it is VERY warm.)