• About
  • Support AJW
  • Jewish Community Directory
  • Subscription Information
  • Contact Us
American Jewish World
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • All
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Australia & New Zealand
    • Europe
    • Israel/Mideast
    • Latin America
    • Minnesota
    • US & Canada
    Rabbi Harold Kravitz steps down

    Rabbi Harold Kravitz steps down

    Les Block, our music maven

    Les Block, our music maven

    ‘Rav’ and ‘chaver,’ rabbi and friend, Kassel Abelson dies at 99

    ‘Rav’ and ‘chaver,’ rabbi and friend, Kassel Abelson dies at 99

  • Arts
    • All
    • Blue Box
    • Books & Literature
    • Music
    • Televison & Film
    • Theater & Performing Arts
    • Visual Arts
    Les Block, our music maven

    Les Block, our music maven

    Journey to the old land of woe

    Journey to the old land of woe

    Jews bring the funny to the Fringe

    Jews bring the funny to the Fringe

  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Fashion
    • Food
    • Health & Wellness
    • Home & Garden
    • Travel & Culture
    Robyn Frank finds her niche in the cookie business

    Robyn Frank finds her niche in the cookie business

    Editorial: More from my European vacation

    Editorial: More from my European vacation

    Our Rosh Hashana special edition

    Our Rosh Hashana special edition

  • Editorial
  • Opinion
  • AJW Digital Archives
  • News
    • All
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Australia & New Zealand
    • Europe
    • Israel/Mideast
    • Latin America
    • Minnesota
    • US & Canada
    Rabbi Harold Kravitz steps down

    Rabbi Harold Kravitz steps down

    Les Block, our music maven

    Les Block, our music maven

    ‘Rav’ and ‘chaver,’ rabbi and friend, Kassel Abelson dies at 99

    ‘Rav’ and ‘chaver,’ rabbi and friend, Kassel Abelson dies at 99

  • Arts
    • All
    • Blue Box
    • Books & Literature
    • Music
    • Televison & Film
    • Theater & Performing Arts
    • Visual Arts
    Les Block, our music maven

    Les Block, our music maven

    Journey to the old land of woe

    Journey to the old land of woe

    Jews bring the funny to the Fringe

    Jews bring the funny to the Fringe

  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Fashion
    • Food
    • Health & Wellness
    • Home & Garden
    • Travel & Culture
    Robyn Frank finds her niche in the cookie business

    Robyn Frank finds her niche in the cookie business

    Editorial: More from my European vacation

    Editorial: More from my European vacation

    Our Rosh Hashana special edition

    Our Rosh Hashana special edition

  • Editorial
  • Opinion
  • AJW Digital Archives
No Result
View All Result
Morning News
No Result
View All Result
Home Arts

Ben Marcus: A book of imaginary woes

‘Notes from the Fog,’ by Ben Marcus, Knopf, 266 pages, $26.95

mordecai by mordecai
May 23, 2020
in Arts, Books & Literature
0
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Reviewed by NEAL GENDLER

If you like clever short stories about unhappy, frustrated or lonely people, you’ll love Notes from the Fog.

READ ALSO

Les Block, our music maven

Journey to the old land of woe

I don’t, and I didn’t.

That’s not to say it isn’t engaging, insightful and immaculately well written, with some amusing turns of phrase. It’s all of those. It’s the fifth book by acclaimed Ben Marcus, winner of several writing awards and Columbia University teacher.

But like most of us, I’ve had sufficient frustrations and disappointments; I don’t need to immerse myself in someone else’s imaginary ones.

“Cold Little Bird” tells of Jonah, 10, who suddenly tells his parents he doesn’t love them and no longer wants to be hugged, kissed or touched. This case of premature, severe adolescence affects neither his school performance nor his willingness to entertain his younger brother. But he otherwise withdraws from family life.

His father sees him reading a book claiming Jews caused the 9/11 attack.

“This is a book by an insane person,” his father says. “You know that we’re Jewish, right?”

“Not really,” replies Jonah. “You don’t go to synagogue … Last month was Yom Kippur and you didn’t fast. You didn’t go to services.”

The father can’t cope; his wife sleeps alone.

In “Blueprints for St. Louis,” an aging, passionless architect couple increasingly is commissioned to design memorials for cities hit in a spreading epidemic of bombings. Drug companies are “fighting their way onto the proposal” to inject a mood-altering chemical mist — invisible and scentless — that assures visitors experience an appropriate emotional response.

Three stories are about people who work for companies that use employees as medical lab rats. In one, a worker supposedly gets his nutrition delivered through a light. He stares for hours, becoming disfigured and starving.

In another, a scientist blows a yellowish powder into a woman’s face. She’s not told what it’s supposed to do, and briefly, she feels no change. Then she falls into a Rip Van Winkle sleep.

The deeper you get into the book, the weirder the stories become. Perhaps it’s all metaphors or symbolism that I’m just too dense to get, or some sort of code known to the literati that I’m too small-town to crack.

“A Suicide of Trees” is the second-strangest story in the book. After several puzzling pages, I caught on that the boy’s father has disappeared, and so has a long-term lodger — a mathematician who occasionally invited over colleagues competing to solve math problems on a blackboard.

A detective investigates, but for lack of evidence — comprehensible evidence, anyway — to no conclusion. The surprising ending may explain the disappearances. Or maybe not.

One of the most-realistic stories, almost not depressing, is “Stay Down and Take It.” An older couple must evacuate a coastal home because of a coming storm and flood surge.

As they creep along the sole road out, clogged with silver-haired drivers, they bicker, noodge, joke and bite their tongues in the manner of many long-married couples. Spurning a gym-floor shelter, they drive on, he finally pulling onto an exit so they can eat at a restaurant. Afterward, they drive on into pouring blackness.

Marcus perfectly captures two people who’ve learned to accommodate each other, bereft of excitement.

Most of the 13 stories are short — mercifully, for several at one sitting is a heavy dose. And be warned: They are not for prudes. In varying ways, Marcus examines life and death — especially death — and whether what we sense as reality is, in fact, real.

Last in the book is the title story, in some ways the most realistic and poignant. The husband loses his teaching job, then loses his beloved wife to cancer. His children live with an aunt while he seeks work. The ending approaches happiness.

Notes From the Fog arrived with a news release containing effusive praise for Marcus’ books. Likely this book will get the same, despite its dismal depiction of life as ephemeral, isolated, joyless, laden with trouble.

If this is how Marcus sees the world, I suggest psychotherapy.

***

Neal Gendler is a Minneapolis writer and editor.

Related Posts

Les Block, our music maven
Minnesota

Les Block, our music maven

August 8, 2023
Journey to the old land of woe
Books & Literature

Journey to the old land of woe

August 7, 2023
Jews bring the funny to the Fringe
Theater & Performing Arts

Jews bring the funny to the Fringe

August 7, 2023
Repressing memories of a week in 1970
Books & Literature

Repressing memories of a week in 1970

July 23, 2023
A guide to Jewish artists at Twin Cities art fairs
Visual Arts

A guide to Jewish artists at Twin Cities art fairs

July 17, 2023
Book explores the bard of Hibbing’s local roots
Books & Literature

Book explores the bard of Hibbing’s local roots

July 12, 2023
Next Post

Frankenstein: A play for a perilous time

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

RECENT ARTICLES

Rabbi Harold Kravitz steps down

Rabbi Harold Kravitz steps down

August 9, 2023
News from the Jewish World — and the Jewish world

News from the Jewish World — and the Jewish world

August 9, 2023
Les Block, our music maven

Les Block, our music maven

August 8, 2023
‘Rav’ and ‘chaver,’ rabbi and friend, Kassel Abelson dies at 99

‘Rav’ and ‘chaver,’ rabbi and friend, Kassel Abelson dies at 99

August 10, 2023
Journey to the old land of woe

Journey to the old land of woe

August 7, 2023

About

Since 1912 the AJW has served as an important news resource for the Jewish community. The Jewish World unites the main Jewish communities in St. Paul and Minneapolis, as well as those in Duluth, Rochester and smaller cities, and bridges the divides between the various Jewish religious streams.

Quick Links

  • About the AJW
  • Advertising Information
  • Submission Guidelines
  • Subscription Information
  • Jewish Community Directory

Contact Us

The American Jewish World
3249 Hennepin Ave., Suite 245
Minneapolis, MN 55408

Tel: 612.824.0030 / Fax: 612.823.0753
editor@ajwnews.com

  • Buy JNews
  • Landing Page
  • Documentation
  • Support Forum

© 2023 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
  • News
  • Food
  • Health & Wellness
  • Lifestyle
  • Opinion

© 2023 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.