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Waxwings: A novel

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I just finished Waxwings - the wrong time to write a review, but I'll do it anyway.

This was the first of Raban's novels I've read, and while I didn't enjoy it quite as much as Richard Russo's Empire Falls, it was a white-collar version of Russo's blue-collar ethos; sympathetic (if not quite as deep and subtlely drawn) characters (with a great portrayal of a child and his interaction with his parents), interesting interwoven stories which were consistent enough to not have offputting surprises two-thirds of the way through, and a great tone carrying through. I found myself thinking about both the book and the characters in the car, wanted to finish it every night, etc. Definitely a keeper.

I'm a Seattleite, so while I appreciated all of the shout-outs to my neighborhood and the environs, I don't know if it would seem either provincial or overly foreign to a non-local. I don't think of Seattle as sufficiently strange to merit the depth of description and the concept of a "Seattle novelist," but perhaps I'm too used to the rain.

The last page or so was wooden. It had a typical novelist's opening or closing lyrical tendency that felt dramatically out of place.

Waxwings by Jonathan Raban

Things happen.... life goes on for forty-somethings living in Seattle at the turn of this century. Jonathan Raban's well-written prose describes America from an insider's view...well sort of.

The main character, an English creative writing professor, Tom, lives in Seattle with his American multi-tasking computer-boom, upwardly catapulting wife, Beth. Their child, Finn, is four and three quarters years of age.

Things aren't going that well for the couple. Not only are they no longer seeing eye to eye, they are not really seeing each other any more.

Beth: "It was his unplaceablity-or as she saw it now, his existential vagueness- that had so attracted her when they first met. He was like no-one she had ever known. The trouble was that after eight years Beth still had days when she didn't quite know who Tom was."

Tom: "It was an encounter blessedly without consequence. The woman was married; and even if she hadn't been, her unsettling likeness to Beth would have put her safely out of bounds. But the uncomplicated airiness of their exchange gave him an inkling, a glimmer, of a life still hidden from his view."

The book's descriptive flourish drives the story, and the internal machinations of the characters help the reader along. The cast of diverse characters saves this timely but occasionally shallow recounting of the contemporary atmosphere. The characters become our familiars, our friends. Serendipitously, they meet (or almost meet) each other, at various points in the story. Their interactions with each other retained my interest with good, believable dialogue

The contrast of these folks, with their diverging thoughts, compulsions, emotions and actions breathes life into the story. Meet Chick, an Asian, illegally working in construction while learning the lay of the land. Shake hands with the hard-boiled cop/screenwriter, Paul Nagel. Get a load of the crew at the dot com office when it's spiraling upward. Thankfully, the characters keep the somewhat implausible subplot of Tom becoming a suspect in child abduction from miring this novel in the mud.

Jonathan Raban's previous readers are guaranteed delight. Readers new to this English author residing in America will see why he keeps writing, and why we keep reading him.

If you fell for the hype of Franzen's "The Corrections" and were disappointed, if you thought "Bonfire of the Vanities" covered interesting territory but read like a screenplay instead of a novel, if you appreciated Roth's "American Pastoral," and admired Hamilton's "Map of the World" but couldn't handle the heartbreak -- then by all means read Waxwings. It is a masterpiece.

This is the first book I've read by Mr. Raban, and on the basis of a few of the lukewarm reviews posted here, I can only assume that he previously wrote for a different type of audience.

Waxwings is great literature: a fascinating incarnation of "the great American novel" and a more appropriate recipient of all the buzz The Corrections received. The story is engaging and unpredictable; the writing flawless, elegant, acrobatic, funny, and well worth studying.

I bow at your feet, Mr. Raban: I'd like to send you a dozen roses. (Every page is a wonder, but I was particularly moved by the interaction of the very true-to-life boy and his goofy dog. It reminded me of the snippets of inspired dialogue in Mill on the Floss.)

Is the beginning slow? I'll come clean. I didn't warm to the heavy boat talk in the first eight pages, but after that I couldn't put the book down.

(This review posted originally on NadaMucho.com, dedicated to bringing you modern fiction from independent - and well- established - publishers.)

A common misperception of Seattle is that everyone who lives there is from somewhere else. While it's true that there are certain periods of mass migration, the facts prove otherwise: the majority of people who live in the Seattle area were born there.

That's all part of the Seattle mythos, though. As one of the youngest metropolitan areas in the United States, if not all the "first world" countries, Seattle is an isolated beacon for those who dream of reinventing themselves. Talking to recent immigrants, you often get the feeling that they moved to Seattle simply because it was the furthest distance they could drive from their old lives without leaving the country.

Jonathan Raban tackles this mythos in "Waxwings", a novel set in turn-of-the-millennium Seattle, the most recent - although not likely the last - "Gold Rush" era in the city's young history. The book focuses on polar-opposite immigrants: one a Chinese refugee who arrives inside of a freight container, the other a well-established British author who is clearly a thinly disguised version of Raban himself.

Jonathan Raban is noted mostly for his vast catalog of nonfiction ("Waxwings" is his first novel in 18 years), and his eye for detail weighs heavy on the novel. Anyone living in the city during the period will recognize not only the myriad of location references ("Dude, I've totally bought beer at the 7-Eleven on Nickerson before!") but also many of the events described (the capture of a suspected terrorist at the border crossing in Port Angeles, the WTO riots, etc.) - you can almost visualize the box of newspaper clippings Raban must have amassed before sitting down to write the novel.

His methodology results in a story where the characters are overshadowed by the very city they live in, or rather the Idea of Seattle. It's a risky proposition for sure, considering that the city is chock full of immigrant college grads who consider their social observations a matter of certain pride. This is where the book succeeds though, examining not what the inhabitants of the city do, but rather why they do it.

The plot, as it is, revolves around the predictable crossed paths of the two immigrants as they struggle in their own respective ways to realize the American Dream. A lack of tension saddles the story (we never doubt that "Chick", the Chinese immigrant, is going to make it; the divorce of British author Tom Janeway and his subsequent case of mistaken identity lack urgency), but whether or not this is a weakness on the author's part or simply a purposeful reflection of temperate Seattle is a matter of interpretation.

"Waxwings" then is as mild and reflective as a rainy Seattle afternoon. For outsiders, the book provides a glimpse into the psychology of the city (and will no doubt inspire more than a few dreamers to load up their cars and head out to our quirky burg). However, if you're a Seattleite who prefers your nostalgia fresh, the book will take you back to those heady, terror-free days of stock options and low unemployment. It's an accurate, if not exactly enlightening, portrayal of life on the rainy frontier.

If you've read some of the earlier reviews, I can attest that several of the criticisms have a point: he is at times overly preachy, the book does have a slow beginning, and he does occasionally drop too many brand or local names. That's the bad and it isn't much in comparison to what I found to be a wonderfully paced and peopled novel.
To begin with, while I can see how some might call the opening slow or drifting, I found its pace more pleasingly meditative rather than annoyingly slow. And as for its place in the novel, it may not seem to make much sense as you're reading it in terms of what the bookjacket or a review led you to think the novel is about, but once you've gotten into the heart of the novel, those opening pages read much differently. Their characters may have disappeared, but their tone and their content and their thematic underpinnings remain like a haunting echo. An echo which is nicely and playfully emphasized by a literary mini-seminar given by the main character with regards to a similar opening in a better known work.
As for the preachiness, yes, at times Raban could have hit us a little more lightly or a little less frequently with the absurdity of the dot-com bubble, but it makes for such a rich and tempting target that it's easy to see how he could fall into that trap. And since almost all his hits are smack on target and funny as well, I'll give him the over-indulgence. The same holds true for the brand-name dropping.
So much for the book's weaknesses. As for the strengths, they are plentiful. The major character, Tom, is a Hungarian-born, British expat who has found himself at the start of the book in a surprisingly happy life--he loves both his wife and small son, enjoys both the responsibilities and lack of responsibilities his job as a college professor bring, and is in love with both the larger setting of Seattle and the smaller one of his old home with his wide-girth timber shoring up the foundations (it gives nothing away to say the house isn't quite as solid as it seems on the surface).
One by one the facets of his life which he has so taken for granted are either taken from him and changed--his wife leaves him, his relationship with his son changes, his house betrays him, his employer dumps him "temporarily" until the small matter of a major crime he may or may not be a suspect in is resolved. Through it all, start to finish, Tom is painted in rich, believable detail--from his tightly-written humorous pieces for NPR to his Mister Wicked bedtime stories to his tendency to develop a heavy Hungarian accent when he speaks to his mother on the phone to his obliviousness to what is happening around him (and even to his oblivousness of what things to change when he decides he does need to start making a change).
The other character, Chick, is drawn more starkly but just as sharply. Where Tom lends himself to meandering eloquence, Chick, a Chinese illegal immigrant who survived over a week in a cargo container where two of the dozen-plus men died, is all business. Illegal underground economy business, but all business. His dialogue is short and sharp and his language is stripped of all of Tom's pretensions and floweriness. In contrast to Tom's slow, passive, dimly-felt fall, Chick is all lift and action and aspiration. He moves steadily and forcefully up the ranks of the underground economy so that by the time he and Tom meet, he is more master of the situation than Tom. What brings them together is Tom's house, which Tom agrees to have Chick "and his Mexicans" fix up (and as we've seen, sometimes a house is more than a house).
These two are the focus of the vast majority of the novel. Tom's wife suffers somewhat in comparison in terms of depth of character; at times she is painted too easily in broad dot-com strokes, but just when you think she might be falling into two-dimensions Raban rescues her with a beautiful scene or moment. The same is less true of her boss, but he is such a minor character that it doesn't matter much. Another secondary character, a fellow Brit-writer, is as richly drawn though in far less space and adds a good sense of comic relief at appropriate times.
Plot is another strength. As already mentioned, the book opens in a somewhat odd way and the book continues to take pleasingly strange twists and turns. It's a domestic novel. No, it's a coming-of-age (though very, very late) novel. No, it's a mystery. Tone is constantly shifting throughout and Raban handles it all effortlessly, shifting humorous gears, for instance, from gently reflectively funny to observationally funny to biting satire to "why did the chicken cross the playground?"
Thematically, the book's richness starts on page one and continues all the way to the waxwings image which closes the book. Imagery, symbol, metaphor, parallel characters or events, all of these are the tools employed by Raban in conveying his themes and though as earlier mentioned some may seem a bit obvious, other are not quite so and overall the effect is that of a multi-layered, carefully wrought piece of intelligent literature, one that settles about the reader slowly, like a flock of birds or motes of asbestos dust. As far as that ending, I personally don't find it to be quite the neat resolution that some have said, or quite the obvious message as others have mentioned. Like much of what came before, I found it a pleasant surprise.
After reading about five or six books in a row, all of which were disappointingly mediocre at best, simply bad at worst, Waxwings felt like a rejuventating bath in the luxury of literature. Highly recommended.

After having read positive reviews of this novel, I was disappointed in its rambling collection of random incidents and odd characters. Nothing really hangs together or jells into a cohesive story, and its inconsistencies and dropped threads make for a confusing and unfulfilling read. The ending is far too tidy, and appears to be an effort to wrap it all up, but is hopelessly unsuccessful. Overall, the writing is harsh and the plot weak.

Chick was the best character in this book; an insightful, telling, sad, and extremely humorous portrayal of an oft-ignored part of our society. I found myself trying to "sneak ahead" to the next Chick chapter!

This was the first book that I have read by this author, I was impressed by the message of hope that rose out of some sad and dire circumstances. The description of a man falsely suspected of a crime against a child was chilly, but the character's gradually coping rang very true. I was glad to see a reference to a series because I will want to see how the characters fare.
Finally, there are many very funny characters in this book.

This is the first of four planned books, and it should be judged as such. Raban has managed to make this entertaining even as he does the necessary work of laying the groundwork for future books.

His portrayal of the place and time couldn't be more accurate. It was bizarre in Seattle then, with the dot-com insanity. Much of his portrayal may come off as exaggerated for effect to anyone who wasn't here at that time, but it is dead-on.

Raban's apparent intent to comment on our relationship to the environment at times seems preachy and simplistic (we throw away useful things - yeah no kidding!). He also seems to be trying to convey that we don't know how to make houses, homes or families and are otherwise fumbling around. The waxwing passage is a good analogy, not of the real world he was trying to portray, but of the world he actually portrayed. It is far too simplistic to say we're just flying around in nomadic bands stripping away all the berries and flying away. It seems like a lesson that would be conveyed in a child's book. I hope that the next three books reflect more of the complexities of our relationship with nature, because there is nothing original in what he is saying.

That said, I found the story on its face fascinating, especially the portrayal of Chick. Living here, I see people like him, I have hired people like him, but I have often wondered how they got here, how the survive, where they go at night, and what their motivation for coming here was, and how they see us. It is impossible to answer these questions for illegal immigrants as a whole, of course, but I was riveted by Chick.

I don't feel that I yet know Chick or Tom. When I finished the book, not knowing that more are planned, I was dissapointed. All those pages, just to get clobbered over the head with that waxwing passage? But I am now eagerly awaiting the next books.

I'd recommend this as entertainment. I'm hoping that the themes will be further developed as the story progresses and that the work as a whole will be more than just entertaining.

Having read most of Raban's non-fiction I was curious about his skill as a novelist. Waxwings for the most part succeeds. It has some terrific (sometimes piercingly funny) writing and all the elements of a classic English novel (a little bit of Thomas Hardy, a little bit of Dickens...). The characters are interesting and believable when they need to be, and just enough over the top to create some truly funny moments (the GetAShack.com subplot is riotously funny... been there, seen that) in the midst of what is really a rather sobering tale.

And it is a serious story: by the latter half of the story we are fully engaged and understand the kind of humiliation and anger that Tom, the protagonist, must be going through.

But I will say that I found the first half to be drifting somewhat; the book doesn't really find its compass until page 129, when Tom first encounters the scrappy immigrant Chick on his front porch. Prior to that, I found a lot to be distracted by in the frequent invoking of Seattle Insider references. I'm a lifelong resident of the place but even for me there is little (if any) mental image I get from names like The Painted Table or Terrafazione. What do these place or product names tell the reader, if anything, about this particular story? For someone not fluent in the local vocabulary they say nothing, and for those of us who live here these place names invoke their own stories, which may be quite unrelated to the story in which they now appear. (For example I have my own quite vivid impressions of Waldo's Tavern... which simply add to my sense of distraction and confusion when Tom somehow arrives there, quite far off course, at the end of his self-absorbed hike on the Sammamish Trail.)

As a result, rather than enjoy the book as the good story it is I found myself asking, at least at the start, whether the goal had been to write a satirical book about the competitive, brand-aware era of Seattle's fleeting dot-com fortune and whether perhaps the slowly unfolding story was an afterthought. This turned out to be a wrong initial impression - this is a serious novel with serious themes - but it took rather long to get to get past the distractions of the first few chapters. During these early sections it seems as though Tom, and to a lesser extent his estranged wife, are being defined not so much through their actions or thoughts but instead through the places and things that they encounter every day: Tom is an NPR commentator; he reads the P-I; he teaches in the MFA program at the UW and he drives a Volkswagen (but of course) in contrast to his wife's new Audi. Their irresponsible babysitter is named Courtney (but of course). This is a small criticism, but when I'm given that many labels (or product placements, if you'll accept the term) I start to feel edgy.

But those are small nits, really. Perhaps Raban really is striving for satire, in a Babbit sort of way. Anyway, after Page 129 the book really comes alive as a novel; it's a good read and I had trouble putting it down.