All That Is

All that is, it could mean something expansive--a universe, or it could be a complain-is that all? Or it can be the very ambiguity.

I read Salter because he was praised by the lead character in a Broadway play I'd seen, a terminally ill writing teacher. I was perplexed by it starting out in a WW2 naval battle. Me were dying or expecting to momentarily, their brief life being all that is for them. I didn't feel like reading a war story add almost ended my reading right there, but the war ended before I did.

After the war, the main character, Philip Bowman begins his entrance into the world of publishing. Not just publishing, but literary publishing. In other words the books they valued were art. I, the main character of this review, grew up in a world where art was the highest value. It was all that is.

I felt unworthy of such a world. I didn't understand it. How did one live the kind of life that could be written about? I had aspired to become such a person. Bowman was such a person. It clearly helps to have fought in a war--to have been near to death. We're talking about the art world of the 50s and 60s here.

His first father in law is the opposite--sees no value in the literary. His world is opaque to Bowman. In that world, money and reputation and horses are all that is. When his first wife returns to that world, he's at first surprised. Somehow, their love bridged these two worlds in a way that made it seem like the difference didn't exist. But then it did.

Bowman becomes an editor, not a writer. Here's how he describes the difference:
As an editor you have to do the opposite [of a writer]. You have to open yourself to the writing of others. . . .[To write] with real luster . . . you have to be able to shut out the writing of others.

Why does Bowman choose that? Why does Salter have him choose that, the opposite of what he chose? Whose side is Salter on?
I wondered because I started to turn on Bowman at one point. And I wondered if I was supposed to.

When his wife betrays him, I wondered how he couldn't see it coming if his relationship was so perfect. Unless "perfect" was independent of the other person. It meant she didn't challenge him. But then she did.

The alternative is her betrayal makes no sense for her character. It was just necessary for the plot. And when Bowman takes his revenge through her daughter? It's all so subtle as if he can't tell that's what he's doing. He's claiming he forgave his ex. Either he's lying to himself, or his character makes no sense.

And what do we make of the scene in which he reflects on the Jews? He thinks:
They were stylish, ambitious, at the center of things. Their allure. He had never gone with one. Their lives had warmth and no scorn of pleasure or material things. He might have married one and become part of that world, slowly being accepted into it like a convert. He might have lived among them in that particular family density that had been formed by the ages, been a familiar presence at seder tables, birthday gatherings, funerals, wearing a hat and throwing a handful of earth into the grave. He felt some regret at not having done it, of not having had the chance. On the other hand, he could not really imagine it. He would never have belonged.

In fact, Salter's real name was Horowitz. He was Jewish but changed his name. So what is he telling us in this scene?
Bowman differs from Salter in that he is not a writer, not Jewish, and either intentionally or unintentionally makes me turn against Bowman.

Then in the end, he thinks about his death, after which what happens is exactly what one thinks will happen. That is, the afterlife is a work of creative writing. When you die, you become a novelist. And so, before dying, he goes to Venice. It feels like a setup for a reference to Thomas Mann's novel of that name. (Earlier in the book he talks of literary references as a medium for obscene talk.) In Bowman's world, everything is about literature, or about sex, or about love, or about betrayal. That's all that is.

I enjoyed the writing but is style all that is? When I finished the book, I couldn't tell if Salter was laughing at me for following him on this journey, or if I was just making it all up and reading things into it. In either case, I'll give him his 3 stars for interesting writing and be done with it all.

Salter's prose and storytelling shine through on this tale of one man's life. His love of books and quest for a meaningful relationship.

Beautifully written, a tapestry of lives, in which even the most minor character (so long as he's a man) is finely drawn, with a rich history and hopes and dreams. The female characters, not so much. Not at all, to be exact. But my main problem with the book was its complete lack of plot or character development. Which probably throws it into the realm of a picaresque. Make that, a picturesque picaresque.

Four stars for sheer style and power of language and a true mastery of moment. Still, there is something insidiously narrow-sighted and misogynistic about this book. A main character who breezes through life, with few complications, his ocean of calm disrupted only by female sexual objects. Perhaps there's something about that world-view to be unpacked, but I doubt it.