So I suspect that Lorrie Moore’s aimless Tassie’s story is one that, at some level at least, manycan relate to. It gives a portrait, uncomfortably accurate perhaps, of how college is experienced not only, I fear, by Tassie, but by quite a few and perhaps even most students.

Tassie is a young woman from a small town who is a freshman at a Midwestern university. She goes to all those stupid, goofy classes, is a bit bored, and has all those unfocused yearnings and rejections of all that is “old”. In the opening pages Tassie revels in the obvious uselessness of undergraduate study:

“My brain was on fire with Chaucer, Sylvia Plath, Simone de Beauvoir. Twice a week a young professor named Thad… stood before a lecture hall of stunned farm kids like me and spoke thrillingly of Henry James’ masturbation of the comma. I was riveted. I had never before seen a man wear jeans with a tie.”

Apart from life in class – which actually but not surprisingly is a minor part of Tassie’s life – she chats with girl friends and flirts with boys. The story is often funny; as when Tessie, sexually innocent as she is, uses her roommate’s vibrator to stir her chocolate milk. But later she falls in love and takes on a lover, and will never make that mistake again. She works as a nanny for a couple who have adopted a toddler.

So what? Been there, done that, even if it is elegantly described by Moore.

Well, that’s in my opinion the thing about this novel – it is wonderfully written by an incredibly talented novelist, but there is hardly even the outline of a plot. The core story is the exploration of a new social setting by a young girl. But the story doesn’t move forward much at all, and it sort of degenerates into social commentary. Until, that is, bad consequences start hitting Tassie, and misfortunes pile up. In A Gate at the Stairs misfortune start as a trickle, but ends as an avalanche. Now the story shifts completely and becomes a very sad tale indeed. Moore manages to make comprehensible an irrational and disoriented logic of grief that is horrifying.

Lorrie Moore is delicious to read. She has great humor and an extraordinary gift for metaphor. The weaknesses of this story are the many unnecessary words and almost too clever writing, and that the plot for a long time doesn’t move at all. The strengths lie in the beauty of the writing, in addition to the humor, wit, and depth of observation displayed by Moore. A Gate at the Stairs is an extraordinary novel and a very worthwhile read by an excellent writer!

PS: A Gate at the Stairs was listed as one of the top 10 books of 2009 by New York Times.

Links to Thomas Mann’s books at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

©2010 Euro bookblog. All Rights Reserved.

Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less is fun, it is full of plots, has humor, irony, good characterizations and interesting characters, and is a great read as well. However, the writing style is a little mechanical and simple, and not quite as good as in Jeffrey Archer’s later books. However, even today it provides great entertainment and is a book you should not miss out on.

Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less was televised in 1990 by the BBC.

(Order Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less by Jeffrey Archer from amazon UK (clicking the picture takes you to amazon US).

See more reviews of Jeffrey Archer’s books!

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However, Knut Hamsun has many other qualities as a writer as well. He had a great sense of humor and irony, and he was socially engaged as well as a great observer of social change. A number of his writings display these characteristics, thus pointing to a “lighter”, and perhaps more easily accessible side of Knut Hamsun.

Segelfoss Town is one of these books. It is a wonderful, light novel, and my personal favorite among Hamsun’s books.

Segelfoss Town is the continuation of Children of the Age, but can be read independent of it. Now Tobias Holmengrå, the entrepreneurial capitalist, is the big guy in Segelfoss. The lieutenant is nothing but a distant memory now; money and the struggle of the classes rule the day. Changing times, business cycles, and events large and small create problems for the city and even its richest citizen. How they are dealt with, is described with warmth, humor and irony by Knut Hamsun.

This is, in my humble opinion, an even more interesting book than Children of the Age, and full of black humor, fascinating interactions among the wide gallery of characters in the book, and with great observations about the dynamics of the changing circumstances.

While easier to read than most of Hamsun’s other books, this book still reveals the depth of Hamsun’s ability to observe, and is written in a beautiful, extremely well crafted language. Great fun, and a great experience, as well as food for thought.

See also Knut Hamsun at Amazon US, or at Amazon UK: books by Knut Hamsun.

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