Some Luck - 1930-1939 (June 2015)

[Marc]

Discussion thread for chapters covering 1930 thru 1939.

[Marc]

This section of the book really starts to see life on the farm change. The Great Depression has tangible impacts on the family and many of the novel's themes start to develop or continue to do so (modernization/technology, country vs city life, the expansion of the family in size and geography, motherhood, communism, etc.).

Rosanna and Walter seem to have different visions for their children's futures. How does this influence their parenting?

[Lily]

Watched Part II of the TV series on Roosevelt this week. Have been asking myself if Smiley adequately captured the devastation of the Depression, the "Dirty Thirties," and the draft into WWII on the psyches of the families she is tracing here.

I find myself saying "sort of", but I wish for "more", although I can't really define what "more" might have looked like.

[Marc]

Kind of gets at the question of whether the book tries to do too much, not to mention that particular parts of a country and particular families experience historical events so specifically (e.g., the last housing bubble in the U.S. or the financial crisis requiring the government to bail out a number of big banks). But for a short period where prices drop, it feels like life on the farm on this book actually improves pretty quickly shortly after the Depression starts as they get paid not to plant corn and so forth).

I found this book somewhat like looking through someone's family photo album where you're shown 4 to 6 photos for every year and they tell you a little anecdote about one or two of them. But I'm not sure why I'm visiting this person or why they're telling me their family story...

[Lily]

Marc wrote: "I found this book somewhat like looking through someone's family photo album where you're shown 4 to 6 photos for every year and they tell you a little anecdote about one or two of them. But I'm not sure why I'm visiting this person or why they're telling me their family story..."

Smiled when I read this, Marc. Felt so apt. But, as I reread, I do see that Smiley has buried a lot in these pages. Too much? More demanding a read than one expects from the easy flow of the text? Haven't decided my attitude towards this yet.

Has anyone here read another sprawling multi-generation novel that they compare with this one? If so, by what parameters or criteria?

[LindaJ^]

Lily wrote: "Has anyone here read another sprawling multi-generation novel that they compare with this one. If so, by what parameters or criteria?"

I mentioned in another thread Phillip Meyer's family saga The Son, which provided a family saga starting in the late 1800's that covered 3 or 4 generations of a family. It was similar in that many of the children and grandchildren "left" the farm (a very different farm!) but different in that The Son was not strictly chronological but moved back and forth in time, if I remember correctly.

[Caroline]

Marc, that description is perfect. I was thinking the same thing while reading the last couple chapters. I like smiley 's writings, and am enjoying the characters, but am left wondering "so what?"

It's not a book but the recent movie Boyhood is similar in that way where the movie brings you into the life of a family but doesn't really explain why or give you something broader to take away other than, "this is life."

[LindaJ^]

Caroline wrote: "It's not a book but the recent movie Boyhood is similar in that way where the movie brings you into the life of a family but doesn't really explain why or give you something broader to take away other than, "this is life."

Caroline, You are so right! Some Luck is indeed like Boyhood. I enjoyed that movie. We just watch the boy growing up, with all that was going on around him and his family.

[Marc]

I haven't seen Boyhood yet, Caroline, but your description makes it sound like quite a good comparison. Smiley certainly seems to present a very realistic and believable version of life and there were many individual scenes that stood out.

This is the section of the book where Walter falls in the well and contemplates letting himself drown (the "1935" chapter). He's turning 40, has been farming for 15 years, and feels he has nothing to show for it.

As readers, do we feel for Walter during this scene or do we kind of gaze interestedly at him the way we would at a zoo exhibit?

[Lily]

Marc wrote: "As readers, do we feel for Walter during this scene or do we kind of gaze interestedly at him the way we would at a zoo exhibit? ..."

I am reminded of Levin in Anna Karenina in one of his down moments.

I'm finding myself making more and more comparisons between the two novels. I was disappointed in Smiley's review of AK in her 13 Ways ... -- I felt she didn't "get" AK the way Nabokov does, when he said these are characters that Russian families can talk about as they do members of their own families. I am still trying to decide whether Walter and Rosanna and Joe and ... can become such characters.

Another place where I saw the similarity was when the men gathered for lunch after harvesting (planting? -- but that seems unlikely) and Walter felt a camaraderie with the men around him -- it reminded me of Levin working in the fields with the men cutting grain. (I don't remember offhand which year held that tidbit -- It was one place I felt greater closeness to Smiley's depiction of the male characters than of the women, who "pot-lucked" the meal. I wanted a bit more of both the socialization and the one-up-man-ship between women that can be a part of those occasions -- like the jelly-making and mushroom gathering in Russia.)