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73 5 The Bot­ tom Shelf On Nov­ els I Keep Try­ ing and Fail­ ing to Read I love ­ William ­ Styron’s novel ­ Sophie’s ­ Choice. I’ve just never been able to fin­ ish read­ ing it. Once, I got to page 312, a lit­ tle more than half­ way ­ through the Vin­ tage paper­ back edi­ tion. But usu­ ally I stop much ­ sooner, un­ able to face yet an­ other pro­ tracted scene of the par­ a­ noid schizo­ phrenic Na­ than ­ Landau’s ­ crazed be­ hav­ iors, vi­ cious di­ atribes, es­ ca­ lat­ ing ­ threats, dev­ as­ tat­ ing exits. I know these “mys­ ter­ i­ ous vi­ cis­ si­ tudes of his mind and mood” are meant to be har­ row­ ingly dra­ matic, ac­ cu­ mu­ lat­ ing in­ ten­ sity and alarm as they fore­ shadow doom. ­ They’re meant to make read­ ers feel what ­ Nathan’s tar­ gets feel, to make us iden­ tify with ­ Nathan’s ­ abused, ­ self-loathing ­ Polish lover, So­ phie Zaw­ is­ towska, and the ­ novel’s over­ whelmed nar­ ra­ tor,­ Stingo. But for me the ­ scenes just lose edge and inter­ est as they recur­ two-three-four-five times, add­ ing lit­ tle about the char­ ac­ ters, whose re­ sponses re­ main es­ sen­ tially un­ changed. I get the point al­ ready. On and Off the Page 74 Not only ­ Nathan’s erup­ tions but every­ thing vital in the novel is ­ pitched to ex­ tremes, a tonal and dra­ matic fe­ ver­ ish­ ness that soon be­ comes wea­ ri­ some. ­ Sophie’s past and ­ present deg­ ra­ da­ tions, for ex­ am­ ple, are re­ lent­ lessly ex­ trav­ a­ gant. Pre­ sented in frag­ men­ tary flash­ backs, the war­ time loss of her par­ ents, hus­ band, and way of life in Cra­ cow; her ar­ rest and dep­ or­ ta­ tion by the Nazis; her ter­ rible ex­ pe­ ri­ ences at Ausch­ witz are all re­ lived in pro­ longed, close de­ tail. I under­ stand the in­ tent, ­ Styron’s de­ ci­ sion to pro­ vide max­ i­ mum clar­ ity about such awful ­ events, and to per­ son­ al­ ize the Hol­ o­ caust from the un­ fa­ mil­ iar angle of a ­ non-Jewish vic­ tim. But the flash­ backs are ­ slowly woven among ­ scenes from the ­ novel’s ­ present set­ ting in which So­ phie en­ dures a hid­ e­ ous, pub­ lic, ­ faint-inducing hu­ mil­ i­ a­ tion in the Brook­ lyn Col­ lege li­ brary fol­ lowed by a gro­ tesque New York sub­ way mol­ es­ ta­ tion fol­ lowed by ut­ terly in­ ca­ pac­ i­ tat­ ing ill­ ness and chiro­ prac­ tic mis­ han­ dling along with ­ Nathan’s on­ go­ ing tor­ ments, ­ Stingo’s soar­ ing lust, and ad­ o­ ra­ tion from her En­ glish ­ teacher. The “beau­ ti­ ful body” she lugs­ around like a bur­ den, and which so many male char­ ac­ ters make de­ mands upon, pos­ sesses a “sick­ ish plas­ tic­ ity” and “sal­ low­ ness,” signs that it was “not ­ wholly res­ cued from a ter­ rible cri­ sis.” Early on, ­ Stingo in­ trudes upon her pri­ vacy and sees her tooth­ less face, fur­ ther shat­ ter­ ing ­ Sophie’s fa­ cade of bal­ ance. Mean­ while, as Sty­ ron doles out the mis­ ery, ­ Stingo is re­ peat­ edly ­ brought to shame in his most sen­ si­ tive areas—his writ­ ing, sex­ ual crav­ ings, south­ ern her­ i­ tage, con­ flict­ ing needs for fel­ low­ ship and sol­ i­ tude—and even ­ Stingo’s ­ father must get­ beaten up dur­ ing a visit to New York.­ Styron’s com­ pound­ ing of ful­ some ca­ lam­ ity ­ strains cred­ ibil­ ity, super­ sat­ u­ rates my tol­ er­ ance, numbs my re­ sponses, and, per­ haps most prob­ le­ matic, di­ min­ ishes what So­ phie had en­ dured under the Nazis by mak­ ing it just one more among all the awful ­ things, a mat­ ter of scale. While my re­ sis­ tance to these ­ scenes and dy­ nam­ ics es­ ca­ lates, so does the urge to skip yet an­ other di­ gres­ sive back­ grounder on the Nazis or on the his­ tory of the Old South. ­ Stingo’s fa­ mil­ iar ­ erotic [3.21...

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