The Lay of the Land: Bascombe Trilogy (3)

This is, to my way of thinking, the best of the 3 Frank Bascombe novels. Frank is now all "growed up" and facing the inevitabilities of late middle age (he's 55): prostrate cancer, ungrateful or at least emotionally angular children, possible failure of a second marriage and re-connection of a first, perhaps early retirement. Frank remains one of the great creations of modern fiction, precisely for what he is not -- heroic, existentially confused, depressed, or captured by a mid-life hormone surge. He's a real human, better than most, but not without flaws; the kind of person I'd like for a friend. He's nothing to excess: intelligent but casually so, kind but capable of the occasional cruelty, wealthy but not showy, and despite all of the above not the least bit boring. After all, you gotta love a guy who can feel entirely comfortable and happy getting drunk in a lesbian bar and be able to express guiltless anger at a sorry-for-himself, vaguely dysfunctional son who blames his father for his unhappiness. I stress the character because the plot isn't much -- to be sure things happen, ordinary things really (Frank's days are filled with more bits and pieces of pastel drama than mine, but still not earth-shaking). His philosophical musings on his life's conditions are interesting, sophisticated, and often wryly funny, and it is his interior life that is the subject of the novel. Wordy? Yes and perhaps 50 pages too long. I tend to be a fast reader and sometimes (to my regret) skip over material that doesn't move a plot along. This book requires considerable attention for maximum benefit, and I found myself rereading some passages, in part to be sure I hadn't missed anything important and in part because the writing really is quite lovely, even poetic (if a low-key way). For those of us who enjoyed the first two novels, this is a must-read. It is certainly possible to read this without having done the first two, but some of the richness of Frank's life would be lost. One of the best books I have read in the past 5 years or so, and I'm hoping we'll be a 4th Bascombe novel. Highly recommended but not for those who are impatient or favor plot over character.

This is by far the best of Ford's novels. At least I found it so, and I've read them all. Don't believe any negative criticism you might hear. If one other person besides myself feels - believes - that this is an incredibly brilliant painstakingly careful work of art, then it is. It is no less than a book about why people have individual lives. Exhaustive, detailed, insightful descriptions of behaviors, people, small events, thought processes abound. Full of effortless aphorisms and wisdom, sad but not regretful, compassionate, forgiving, cynical, despairing, loving, life-affirming, death-affirming, seamless, intelligent, this is a book that no thinking person who has suffered a full life could ever deny or find fault with. Ford seems to have remembered and accepted every quirk in human nature that anyone has ever recorded, and to have done the impossible: written in clear, solid, grown-up prose all of those fleeting, formless, ugly, teasing, dreamlike, nameless experiences we all have 25 times a day (not to mention night!) and thought no one human being could ever possibly describe. He has revealed the lifetimes that compose, and decompose, 3 days of deceptively common, uneventful family life, and will make you ashamed of ever having considered any life boring, or any awareness less than a revelation.

Lay of the Land - according to the book, is a realtor's term for an overview of the market - what's available, the prices, the amenities, the market conditions. This new Richard Ford novel takes a lay of the land of the land survey of Frank Bascombe - the 2000 edition. As many of the reviews here say, it's detailed, it's meticulous, it's long, it's not very eventful. But, to me, that's his life now, at 55. (He seems older than that to me.) Ford's rendition of the former fiction-and-sports writer Bascombe is so rich in the study of his world in New Jersey. I loved the sound and feel of it. For me, the big surprise is that he's a happy person. In spite of all the failings of body and spirit that are happening to him, he retains his curiosity, his interest, his sense of humor. And, what a surprise in modern literature: he may be the only happy person in modern western literature in the last 50 years. I did read with a personal interest. I know that Ford visited Hallmark to do research for the book. And returned again to give a talk and spend more time with the writing staff. I worked there for 18 years, and was interested to see how Hallmark might fare in this work. Well, for all his time spent walking the walk with the writers, Hallmark is barely there. Bascombe's son Paul, the greeting card writer makes a very brief appearance. And, apparently Frank's dismissal of his lame profession is one of the many points of friction between father and son. But, I must say that Paul does cast a long shadow over the book. The relationship between father and son is one of the areas of unhappiness that casts a dark pall over Frank's otherwise fairly contented life. All in all, I think this is a masterwork by one of America's greatest writers.

Frank Bascombe returns, and, in his early fifties, is more pensive than he was in "The Sportswriter" or "Independence Day." "The Lay of the Land" takes place just before, during and after Thanksgiving at the turn of the century. And, against the backdrop of the Presidential election, Bascombe leads us through a series of misadventures. Some reviewers criticize the book for being too cerebral. I'm blown away by those comments - not because I found it an easy read (it isn't) but because the comments suggest that the book takes place entirely within Frank's head (absurd). As Frank journeys through his days, we encounter survivors from the Divorced Men's club, an ex-wife, an ex-girlfriend, his children, his neighbors, his business partner, and other amazing characters (the lesbian bartender, the realty customer, the cancer doctor, the dentist, the young man who repairs his car, the awards shop owner) who present the successes and failings of this compassionate man with the candor we usually associate with jerks, while they acknowledge our mosaic America. Events take on a symbolic importance, and "the Permanent Period" is established as a wonderful summary for that station in life when we come to understand that we are as we are, for that time when our mortality is not only obvious, but a driving force in our decisions and our lives - a point made wonderfully clear during the stunning denouement. If you don't admire the philosophy behind his decision to leave Haddam, then this literary work is not for you. The structure of the novel, the presentation of the characters (none more than Bascombe himself a man we now know as well as Harry Angstrom), the plot, the dialogue, the allusions, the symbolism and the hyperbole - it all comes together brilliantly in the hands of masterful Richard Ford. A must read.

Ford's previous novel, "Independence Day" is one of my favorite books. I was very much looking forward to "The Lay of the Land" and, if anything, my expectations were exceeded. As usual with Ford's books, the writing is superb - the sentences carefully crafted, the plot densely layered, with Ford's subtle wit evident throughout. But the issues that Ford's protagonist, Frank Bascombe, tries to come to terms with in this book - loss, illness, mortality - take him even deeper into his essential humanity. Readers who want to get the most out of what will be an intense and powerful reading experience in any case, will want to read the two previous novels about Bascombe, "The Sportswriter" and "Independence Day" if they have not already done so.