Folks, I have discovered a perfect novel.

Others apparently agree that it’s really great, because it won the 2018 Man Booker Prize. This prize is awarded, according to the Booker Prizes website, to “the best novel of the year written in English and published in the UK or Ireland.” This novel is certainly that . . . or anyway, it is the best of those I have personally read (an admittedly small percentage!).

But I would also argue that it’s one of the best novels of all time: especially as regards flawlessness. Since I was a kid, I have had something of an obsession with perfection. I’m always on the lookout for the perfect can opener, the perfect hybrid bicycle, the perfect cutting board, the perfect pair of running shoes. And the perfect novel.

Those last are few and far between. There are many great, classic novels; but a lot of them are flawed. Huckleberry Finn is one of the best novels ever written in the English language; but its ending is a travesty (see the more in-depth discussion of this and other of the book’s flaws in this article I wrote about books to read before college). The Scarlet Letter is brilliant; but its long sentences and abstruse language can be difficult to ingest. Other great, classic works of literature have powerful components and sections that one can arrive at only by wading through a whole lot of monotonous drivel. Many novels, moreover, are saddled with a boring or gimmicky or inappropriate title, or a cover image that doesn’t quite fit.

The 2018 novel Milkman, by Anna Burns, has none of these defects. This is a novel that feeds the reader a steady diet of insights and delights, from beginning to end.

Let me count this novel’s virtues! The language is wildly original, and yet not too difficult to comfortably read. There are no monotonous segments to wade through: just one fascinating sequence after the next. At one incredible point, the cover image becomes fully and astoundingly clear to the reader; at another, the title becomes so. The ending manages to keep things simultaneously fascinating and real—a technically difficult feat that few authors can pull off.

How did she do it? I don’t know; but I’m excited to share this idea with you today: the idea of adding this one to your reading list. To pique your interest, here’s the gist of the opening setup. This passage is from page 3 of the novel:

“He appeared one day, driving up in one of his cars as I was walking along reading Ivanhoe. Often I would walk along reading books. I didn’t see anything wrong with this but it became something else to be added as further proof against me. ‘Reading-while-walking’ was definitely on the list.”

The novel is propelled ever forward from this seemingly innocuous scene. She is reading-while-walking. What could come of that? He is appearing, driving up in one of his cars. What could come of that?

Both nothing and everything.

In my careless youth, I regularly read while walking, but I do not anymore . . . largely because of what could come of it.

Did you read while walking when you were younger? Do you read while walking nowadays? Why or why not?

During the past few weeks, I attempted, with minimal success, to read two books in French. One was Olivier Bourdeaut’s playful novel Waiting for Bojangles, a recent international bestseller. The other was Samuel Beckett’s haunting play Endgame, which premiered in 1957 and is a literary classic.

And so I was surprised, and a little weirded out, to learn that my pairing of these two works is more apropos than I had realized. According to this World Literature Today article, the title Waiting for Bojangles (in French, En attendant Bojangles) is an allusion to another famous and classic play by Beckett. Here’s what the article says about Waiting for Bojangles:

“With its irreverent reference to Samuel Beckett’s En attendant Godot (1952), the novel’s title is a call to be mindful of the futility of endlessly waiting for fun, love, or fulfillment.”

Waiting for Godot is not a play I have read. However, rumor has it that Godot never arrives. If Waiting for Godot is anything like Endgame, it’s a bleak and beautiful masterpiece that is likely to shuttle one into an existential depression, if one isn’t careful.

In contrast, Mr. Bojangles does arrive in Waiting for Bojangles—in sound and spirit, if not in the actual flesh. And while the story has its sad moments, it never falls into melancholy. And it definitely never descends into grim philosophical musings about the meaningless of existence.*

In the novel, the boy’s parents love to dance to the song “Mr. Bojangles” as sung by Nina Simone. But when the song’s not on, it’s not like the characters are moping around waiting for it to play again. No, they’re finding other ways to live it up. They’re dancing to other music, making up stories, throwing parties, and doing various outlandish things, all in the name of whimsical pleasure.

In this household, there’s no waiting around for joy to magically show up. No matter how horrible their circumstances get, the characters insist on enjoying life. And they insist on altering their circumstances to make life maximally enjoyable. They even insist on enjoying life to the very detriment of living. If they were in the play Waiting for Godot, I’m pretty sure they would be calling up Godot and harassing him with jokes and enticements and crazy stories until he gave up and made an appearance. He might arrive delighted, or he might arrive enraged—but you can bet that he would arrive.

Is the title Waiting for Bojangles, then, misleading? Since the characters aren’t exactly sitting around looking at their watches, waiting for something fun to happen, is the title more paradoxical than descriptive?

Not so fast. The French phrase en attendant can be translated as “waiting for”; but that is not the only translation. Other translations include “while waiting for,” “pending the arrival of,” and “in anticipation of.”

The alternate titles While Waiting for Bojangles, Pending the Arrival of Bojangles, and In Anticipation of Bojangles strike me as more precisely true to the story. The boy’s mom and dad are always looking forward to dancing to the song. This is their best bliss. But in the meantime (which is another translation of en attendant), they are living it up in grandly wonderful ways.

Of course, the title as given is the best choice. It’s the most concise and lovely. And it refers back to Beckett’s play. But I find it fascinating that it has connotations in French that do not translate into English.

Are you sitting around looking at your watch, as you wait for Godot or Mr. Bojangles or whomever or whatever to show up? Waiting is a reality of life. The important question is, what are you doing in the meantime?

*This is merely to state a fact. I have no bias against bleak works of literature that question the meaning of existence. Actually, I like them. A lot.

There was some kind of trouble with the horses.

I knew this because part one of the novel is called “Trouble with the Horses.” Indeed, by the time I had finished reading the first two pages, I had learned quite a lot—considering the limited number of words there—about certain troubles involving certain horses. And then, to underscore what I had learned, the narrator of The Sisters Brothers ends his initial, little, two-page section by informing me, “This was the trouble with the horses.”

I had to admit—the situation RE the horses did seem troublesome. And in more ways than one.

But so as not to spoil the read for you, let’s talk more generally about The Sisters Brothers. What a delightful title, for a delightful novel, with a delightful cover!

The title refers to the two main characters: brothers whose last name is Sisters. Ha!

The novel is a literary Western. It’s set in 1851, in Oregon Territory and California, during the gold rush; but this is no ordinary shoot-’em-up. It’s too quirky, too comical, too ironic, and too sweet. Ha!

The cover of my paperback copy shows a daguerreotype, circa 1852, titled Portrait of two young men. The two are wearing the old-fashioned suits and hats of the era and holding weapons and glasses of hard liquor. It’s a stunning image, but its most interesting feature is the blood-stained bullet hole in one of the young men’s vests. The Wild West, indeed. Ha!

Though it’s a stunning and historically authentic cover, the image doesn’t match the descriptions of the characters in the book. But that’s all right with me. What sits less well with me is the sticker.

Upon pulling the book from the bookstore shelf, I noticed a circular sticker on the cover that read “SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE.” This, from my irredeemably literary perspective, was something of a turn-off. However, I persevered in buying the book, since I had read good things about it and its author, Patrick deWitt.

Upon arriving home, I peeled off the sticker: and, lo and behold, guess what was underneath? A circular icon that read “SHORTLISTED for the MAN BOOKER PRIZE.” Whoa—now we’re talking! That’s my favorite literary award! The book would have been a shoo-in for my cart (that is, my arms), had it been visible. But such is our world, that the preferred advertisement for a book is not its recognition by a highly regarded literary award, but its transformation into a new work, in another art form, that may well turn out to be so different from the original as to hardly merit the same title.

That being said, the reading experience was cinematic. It is a book that is eminently worthy, in my opinion, of both prestigious awards and Hollywood.

Have you had any trouble with horses lately?

My phone rang, and “The Inquisitive One” appeared on the screen.

“Hey you!” I said, upon answering.

“Hey Liza!” said the inquisitive one. “I’m calling because I’m concerned about something, and I want to discuss it with you. Do you know?—people keep saying you and I are the same person!”

“Oh, well, it happens,” I said. “Honestly, I’m flattered when they think that.”

“Well, I’m not. Plus, it bothers me. It’s as if they think I don’t exist!”

“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve explained to several people that you and I are different. Hopefully word will get around!”

“Thanks, Liza! But why do people sometimes think we’re the same person?”

“Hmm. I guess I learned that in college. None of the characters in a work of fiction should be confused with the author. Not even when there’s a narrator using the word I to describe him- or herself. And not even when it’s an autobiographical story with a protagonist with many similarities to the author.”

“Oh yeah—I learned that in college, too! So, when the author Tim O’Brien uses the word I in the short story collection The Things They Carried, these narrators should not be confused with O’Brien himself, even though the narrators experience many of the same things O’Brien did during and after the Vietnam War!”

“And the character Ivan Denisovich experiences many of the same things the author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn did when he was imprisoned in a Soviet gulag, but not everything mentioned in the novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich matches Solzhenitsyn’s actual history and memories!”

“And when the foreword to the novel The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux details evidence that the opera ghost really existed, this claim is not being made by Leroux, but by the fictional narrator!”

“Actually,” I observed, “that one’s a bit more complicated.”

“In any case,” said the inquisitive one, “please continue spreading the word. I really—”

“Hold on a sec,” I said, staring out the window at a flying saucer coming to a gentle landing on my front lawn. As I kept watching, the door slid open.

“Oh my gosh!” I cried out. “Three little green aliens are walking on my lawn!”

“What?” said the inquisitive one. “Wait, that’s super interesting to me, because—”

“I’ll call you back,” I said, hung up my phone, and ran outside.

“Take us to your leader!” said the little green aliens.

“Okay,” I said, “but I don’t know where Lady Gaga lives!”

“Take us to your leader!” said the little green aliens.

“Okay, follow me,” I cried, hopping into my car and thinking like crazy and realizing—

But that’s another story.

The author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston could not find a publisher for her book Barracoon that did not want her to make extensive changes to the manuscript (as I mentioned in my last blog post), and so her book was not released until 50+ years after her death, 80+ years after it was written.

The cause of the disagreement between Hurston and the publisher was that Hurston had written the story of Cudjo/Kossula in dialect. That is, she had transcribed his words as he spoke them (as an anthropologist concerned with preserving the speaker’s voice), instead of “translating” his words to “proper” English (as an author concerned with reaching a wide audience). The former style is more accurate; the latter style is easier to read.

I remember reading Huckleberry Finn for the first time—as a former high school English teacher, I have read it many times—and experiencing confusion and frustration when encountering Mark Twain’s rendering of the character Jim’s speech. I must have been halfway through the book before it finally dawned on me that chile meant “child” pronounced without the “d” sound. I kept reading it as “chili” (meat and beans in a bowl) or “chili” (a hot pepper) or “Chile” (the country) . . . none of which, needless to say, made any sense.

When I read Barracoon, I had no trouble with Hurston’s rendering of Cudjo/Kossula’s speech. I very much enjoyed reading the story in dialect, and I concur with her instincts to tell his story that way.* Then again, I am an experienced reader with two degrees in English. I wonder how well I would have been able to follow the story had I read it in my teens, or not pursued English degrees.

I am curious what you think about the following passage. Here Cudjo/Kossula describes his life as a 19-year-old, just before his town was raided and he was captured:

“I stand round de place where de chief talk wid de wise men. I hope dey see Cudjo and think he a grown man. Maybe dey call me to de council. De fathers doan never call me but I likee very much to be dere and lissen when dey talk. . . . I likee go in de market place too and see de pretty gals wid de gold bracelets on de arm from de hand to de elbow. Oh, dey look very fine to Cudjo when dey walkee dey sling de arm so and de bracelet ring. I lak hear dat—it sound so pretty.”

How easy or difficult did you think that passage was to read? What do you think about books that make extensive use of dialect?

*In full disclosure, I made a similar decision when writing my unpublished novel The Water-Creatures . . . and may well face the same consequences as Hurston . . . if not worse.