The Artful Arrangement
(Today’s post is another guest spot from Tasha Cotter, whose first full-length collection of poetry, Some Churches, was published in 2013 by Gold Wake Press. You can find her online at www.tashacotter.com)
First published in 1976, Renata Adler’s Speedboat most closely resembles a novel-in-fragments. Narrated by journalist Jen Fain, Speedboat is rich in flashes of wit and wisdom while reporting on a life lived primarily in New York City. I found myself highlighting lines and noting her more aphoristic moments—there were many worth lingering over. The book, always episodic, frequently presents the reader with memorable lines such as, “I think when you are truly stuck, when you have stood still in the same spot for too long, you throw a grenade in exactly the same spot you were standing in, and jump, and pray.” I found myself pausing over such passages time and again. The book is not only captivating in its reporting of everything from the seemingly mundane to national politics and her experience negotiating the politics of higher education (our narrator Jen Fain can’t ever ask a straight question); it manages to illuminate the questions and oddities of contemporary life.
There’s a sense of inventiveness about Speedboat. Over the years it’s been categorized as experimental fiction, which I think detracts from the book’s accomplishments. Adler isn’t interested in following any supposed rules of how a novel should look.
There’s a poetic quality about Adler’s clear gift for compression and attention to detail. You sense she misses nothing. While reading Speedboat I was alternately reminded of the fast-paced, vignette-like quality found in some of the work by Sandra Cisneros and the narrative-qualities of the poetry by Sarah Manguso. To read Speedboat is to learn about a cast of characters (mostly in New York City) from another era. The book is rich in anecdotes and images that force us to slow down and pay attention. For example, this passage on page 62:
The weather last Friday was terrible. The flight to Martha’s Vineyard was “decisional.”
“What does ‘decisional’ mean?” a small boy asked. “It means we might have to land in Hyannis,” his mother said. It is hard to understand how anyone learns anything.
Speedboat is a fast-paced tour through the mid-twentieth century. It’s easy to fall in love with this book, as it offers so much to its reader—honesty, self-awareness, and observations that feel true and applicable to your own life. Though not afraid to make large statements, Adler is also adept at weaving in the tiny, easy-to-miss moments of life. Take this example from page 89, “When our car broke down near the highway exit to the farm, a boy with a sign reading BOSTON trotted over. He thought we were slowing to give him a lift.”
The simplest moments in life are magnified in Speedboat and in context of the entire narrative, they work to superb effect. The personal becomes familiar and relatable allowing us to see our own lives and the lives of others as something like an artful arrangement.
Adler doesn’t just report on what she’s seen and heard, she deciphers it and then places it in the context of a larger narrative. Adler incorporates a variety literary tools to create a unified book. Whether it’s the queen arriving on an island the narrator happens to be on, or a memorable scene at one of Edith Piaf’s last concerts in Paris, or anecdotal information about a President, the book is electrically charged by her candor, insight, and movement through the world. In his Afterword for Speedboat, Guy Trebay observes, “Adler conjured a novel whose angular brilliance is how deftly it sampled the sounds and rhythms of contemporary life.” Comparing Adler’s work to a musical compilation works well. The book operates a lot like a soundtrack—full of different moods, images, and themes. The book is unconventional in how satisfying and yet seemingly original it is. Undoubtedly, it’s a book that’s every bit as relevant as it was when it was originally published.
