Landscape: Memory

Over the years, Matthew Stadler's work has devolved into an ambitious and - at times - aloof blend of Walt Whitman and Thomas Pynchon, and for all of the admirable audacity and technical adventurism of later novels, this shimmering debut, initially published in 1991, remains the finest. In LANDSCAPE: MEMORY, Matthew Stadler rather painstakingly crafts a delicate and meticulous period piece - WWI-era San Francisco, an obvious if symbolic choice of setting for a number of reasons: the heroics of rebuilding in the wake of a devastating earthquake, the equivalent heroics of building a healthy gay life (especially at a time when concepts of sexual orientation were only loosely defined), and as refractory symbols, with both the quake and the war foreshadowing events in our protagonist Maxwell Kosegarten's life, perhaps also foreshadowing how he would eventually overcome those events. Technically, the novel is a coming-of-age tale of subtle complexity - at the surface a tale of two adolescents (Max and the half-Persian Duncan) - lifelong friends and the children of freethinking bohemians and suffragettes. Time is spent exploring San Francisco, the 1914 World's Fair, and the wilds of Bolinas, on the then isolated Marin Pacific coast. Max and Duncan's friendship gradually, eventually morphs into a close and idyllically illustrated romance. Stadler creates something magnificent early on, with the fragile detail of the evolving relationship set against stylish, substantive descriptions of the San Francisco of the day - the results are as effective as a great, sepia-hued silent film. Approximately half-way in, the story shifts to Bolinas, and - as good as the earlier sections of the novel are, it is at this point that LANDSCAPE: MEMORY begins to soar. The same great qualities evident earlier achieve great richness, with the scent of the ocean or views of sunsets over tidal pools all but leaping from the book, as max and Duncan's relationship matures, and shifts from foreground to background and back again with a very well-controlled sense of storytelling rhythm. Much was made - at the time - of this idyllic tale's rather bleak end. I would argue that it is approriate, if not necessarily perfect: I would have hoped for something sunnier, but I would also refer back to the aforementioned symbolic elements - the recovery (or potential recovery) from the war and from the random brutality of the forces of a nature described elsewhere in the novel with great eloquence. This infuses the bleakness of the conclusion with a sense of hope, which makes LANDSCAPE: MEMORY perhaps more 'art' than 'pop,' even within the niche of books primarily marked to a gay audience, but also a rich book of remarkable skill and imagination. Very much a book that deserved a wider audience at the time of its' publication, and deserving of rediscovery now. -David Alston

Matthew Stadler's "Landscape: Memory" is formatted as a memory book, a variety of diary, with entries for about 114 days within the period stretching from August 7, 1914, through February 12, 1916. Creating the memory book is Max Kosegarten - "Dogey" to his friends - a San Franciscan finishing up at Lowell High School. His best friend is Duncan Taqdir, whom he met in the aftermath of the earthquake and fire of 1906. Another friend and classmate is Flora Profuso, who often accompanies Max and Duncan. Family circumstances cause Max and Duncan to become closer and enable them to develop their relationship further. Stadler does a good job of recreating the San Francisco of the period, from the perspective of a native who takes much of the city environment for granted. Max's family lives near Presidio and Lyon (in modern Presidio Heights). Unlike today, Max would gather firewood off of Lone Mountain, walk past dunes to the Cliff House (on the Ocean) or take Model T rides to Lake Merced as a drive in the country. Max observes the beginning of the present Marina District in the form of the mostly temporary buildings of the Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915. (The full development of the western third of the City awaited the completion of the Twin Peaks Tunnel in 1917.) Stadler shows the western City, rather than the more familiar downtown and Barbary Coast. [Maps and a good photo of the Exposition would make a nice addition.] Some scenes are set on the, less developed, west coast of Marin County. Stadler is especially attentive to bringing out a sense of the natural world. Many of the final scenes are set in the East Bay, by which time relationship issues are paramount. The chronological format tracks Max's relationships well, focusing on the one with Max, and contain a parallel set of essays and concerns relating to memory and how to keep one's memories accurate and true. This latter line of thought begins with Max sketching landscapes with his mother using the laws of perspective. How does one know the image captures a true memory? Stadler likes to include different art works in his narrative. Scattered in the text are a sequence of related landscape sketches tracking Max's skills and thoughts of the moment. There are poems and a piece of sheet music too. Stadler also shows the rough-and-tumble of adolescence and gives glimpses of some of the prejudices of the times. One can detect a light Walt Whitman spirit. Many arts are recruited to support the themes of the book. It is an enjoyable read; Stadler has a smooth, natural style. The various compromises one has to make - how much local and period knowledge to assume; how confessional or guarded a tone to take - are handled reasonably for a current reader. While my favorite parts were the evocation of old, west San Francisco and the Bolinas area of Marin, Max is engaging too.

A shimmering, achingly beautiful novel about two San Francisco boys, spawns of free-thinking parents, as they are finishing high school, spending a summer in Bolinas, and starting college at Berkeley, ca. 1914-15, i.e., against the backdrop of the Panama-Pacific Exhibition and news from the trench war in Europe. The narrator is grappling with question of memory and perspective. Neither boy gives much thought or pays much attention to social conventions