I really needed this novel. I highly recommend it to anyone who yearns for a break from the Age of Trumpism.
To be fair, I’m not really into magical realism. That it was set in Minnesota lessens the magic a little. The title character, a first person narrator, drives his aging Pontiac off the road and into a lake, where he is rescued by a salvager who just happened to be scouting the shore. Virgil is concussed, and confesses up front that he’s lost his adjectives and asks us to be patient as he recovers them.
The novel centers around an old story: Alec Sandstrom, a local boy with a big fastball, threw the only no-hitter in Duluth Dukes history, but his fastball was otherwise too unpredictable, so he retired to his wife and child, then stepped into a small airplane, took off, and was never heard from again, save random sightings in Canada etc.
It’s the central myth of Greenstone, a little former mining town on Lake Superior, a town that, in all fairness, is about done with. The mine is closed, and there’s nothing much else doing. Everyone pretty much works for everyone else; Virgil is the town clerk and lives above the Empress movie theatre, which he owns.
The plot contains multitudes: the old Norwegian, Rune, who comes to town ostensibly to teach the people about kite-flying; Jerry Vendeen’s struggles with life itself; Alec’s wife and son Bjorn’s struggles; the ominous return of the town’s founder’s son, helpfully named Leer; Ann Vendeen at the city and Lydia, the mayor; and Lily, Shad, and Galen Pea; Julie at the Agate, and so on. It’s not exactly peopled like Yoknapatawpha County, but there’s plenty of character and lots going on, and not many of them are clearly insane.
What I was so glad to find in this novel was a sense of community and civility. Everyone has real empathy for everyone else. People are always stopping by, checking up, and querying each other’s health, mental and physical. They accept each other; no one seems terribly upset by the raven that lives outside Virgil’s window and walks in to perch on Rune’s shoulder. There’s also a killer sturgeon and a mainly wild raccoon named Genghis, and, the sturgeon as a notable exception, they all manage to live peaceably together.
Enger is good on the weather. The clouds and snow and light interact and become a character itself.
By the end, things are looking up for Greenstone. But one must avoid spoilers and instead aver simply that this is one pleasant novel. Frankly it’s not the best novel you’ll read this year. Not much happens, and no one is exactly villainous. What’s learned isn’t earth-shattering: “Just because a thing was poetry didn’t mean it never happened in the actual world, or that it couldn’t happen still.” The novel will, however, leave you with peace in your heart, which, frankly, I need more than about anything in a time when our Secretary of the Treasury (and every other Republican, frankly) shows less heart and empathy than Ebeneezer Scrooge pre-ghosts. Virgil Wander is a hygge of a book.
A final note: I’d never heard of Leif Enger before, but he has published two previous novels, one, his debut, much well thought of. I keep reading wonderful novels by people I’ve never heard of, which tells you something of the nature of literary renown in the early part of this century.
Maybe it has always been thus. It’s one thing to have opened a book by Philip Roth or John Updike; despite the latter’s quirkiness, one always had the sense that something Good and Smart and Literary was going to happen. With Leif Enger, Jo Ann Beard, Dylan Landis, Lisa Loscascio, to open the book is to step into a dark cave with a faltering flashlight, only to find a bright light within. These books are real gifts.
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Having been fortunate enough to retire early, I read voraciously, and, when I come upon something I’ve enjoyed, I’ll pass it on. I used to review books for a literary magazine when I taught at Auburn, so the form isn’t unknown to me though mainly forgotten. Here’s my ultimate pretense to skill: I managed all the way through David Forster Wallace’s Infinite Jest and understood some of it. That’s the kind of sacrifice I am willing to make to experience good fiction.
Because I read too much, I began to tend to forget what I read. So I began keeping a bibliography. Then, when I went back and looked at it one day, I realized that, OK, here were the author’s name and title, but I had no idea what the book was about. So I went back and wrote short notes. In case anyone’s interested, I’ll be glad to email a copy—it goes to over 42 pages now, so you may find something there in which to be interested. Caveat: lots of nonfiction history etc., and the fiction is all literary—no sci fi, fantasy, crime etc. But there’s a lot of good stuff. Sadly I haven’t found a way simply to incorporate it into this simple blog, but maybe that’s overkill.
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