Writing As a Reader: The Deserted Village of Jay Parini

Jay Parini's new novel, The Apprentice Lover, comes to us soon after a biography of Robert Frost, a book of poetry, another of essays, and a historical novel based on the life of Walter Benjamin—rather prolific for a guy who teaches and participates in panels and workshops throughout the year around the country. And that doesn't include the number of books he's edited during the same period. Parini's concern with how much writers produce surfaces in an essay exploring the pros and cons of being prolific. He tells us that while overproductivity might hurt, it also can heal. The greater danger he warns is, "The critics won't keep up with them. Their books will be reviewed in isolation from their previous works, and their careers will resist categorization" ("On Being Prolific" 56–57).

Categories work primarily for shelving and selling books, and while you can find Parini in many sections of your local library and bookstore, the only category that fits him as an author is that of the contemporary old-fashioned man of American letters. Like any number of his predecessors, Parini creates in his new novel a protagonist who finds American culture not sufficiently inspirational for a literary wannabe. Henry James's flight east to England and Italy might not have been the model for Alex Massolini, the protagonist of The Apprentice Lover, but it certainly is an important precedent for considering much of Parini's writing, especially this new novel. This comparison takes on greater significance when we realize that Parini served his own literary apprenticeship in Europe.

The success of old-fashioned master writers is deeply connected to their work as master readers. Writers like Parini and James are not afraid to read, and they know that in order to write, one must read, and in order to improve one's reading, one must write. Any author who tells you they don't read is either lying or not worth reading. It's as simple as that. Parini's reading creates his writing and his writing creates his reading. His expression finds its way through novels, biographies, critical studies, short fiction, poetry, fiction—nothing but commercial crap is out of bounds for him. Like Henry James, Parini is a public intellectual of the highest calling. He contributes regularly to literary and political discussions alike. He leads and participates in workshops designed to pass along his skills to new generations. And he's not afraid to spend time reviewing books. I say all this by way of introducing my discussion of his new novel because in many respects, this novel contains much of what Parini has been working on his entire career.

The protagonist of The Apprentice Lover, Alex Massolini, is an avid reader, but it seems most everything he's been reading lately "is about love or war, the two subjects that sat like deadweights on my chest" (3). He is a beginning writer—he's written a few poems but is not sure of how he can go from being a serious reader to a serious writer. When his brother dies, he loses his sense of career direction and drops out of his Ivy League school just before graduation. This lapse upsets his family and starts Alex to thinking about what he's going to do with his life. A student of the classics and a budding young writer, Alex sends some of his poetry to Rupert Grant, a famous Scottish writer who lives on Capri. Grant offers Alex a chance to work as his secretary, and thus begins Alex's soul-searching journey to the land of his ancestors.

Set in the United States and Italy during the Vietnam war, The Apprentice Lover tells the story of Alex's trip to "a fresh landscape" and his attempt to cash "the blank check of time unmeasured by parental or institutional expectations." He...