Millet's Oh Pure and Radiant Heart
I have finished reading Lydia Millet's Oh Pure and Radiant Heart (Brooklyn, New York : Soft Skull Press, 2005; 489 pages). I'm pretty sure that I chose to read it because of a recommendation by Mel at The Indextrious Reader, but now I can't find a link.*
I read a lot of novels but, to be fair, they're mostly mystery novels and not what you might label modern novels. I don't mean avant garde or experimental, just exhibiting a modern, perhaps even post-modern, sensibility. Millet's novel I'm thinking is, indeed, a modern novel. Although the narrative is largely single-threaded and chronological, the texture is on the nubby side and I have to admit that it took me awhile to pick up the rhythm of her writing voice. Once I did I enjoyed the reading of the book immensely, but it took awhile to catch on and, even once I did, the reading was not speedy. That latter effect was caused by the lovely poetry of Millet's writing (usually blurbed as "lyrical") that, nevertheless, leaves one reading carefully and slowly.
It's a story about Ann and Ben; she's a librarian, he's a gardener, and they lead a perfectly normal life together in Santa Fe, New Mexico. They're thinking about having a baby. Ben wonders whether they have relationship problems, because Ann sometimes seems a bit distant, even before the guy with the automatic weapon came into the library where Ann works and accidentally shot himself to death, leading Ann to take some time off.
But it's not as though she doesn't have anything to keep her busy. See, not long before that incident in the library, and for no explicable reason, three physicists intimately associated with the creation of the atomic bomb — J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and Enrico Fermi — suddenly appear in modern time, in Santa Fe. The last thing they remember is the Trinity test — the first explosion of a fission device — despite which it seems that their 1940s selves continued on in their existence, but no matter. They don't arrive together but they soon find each other and end up in Ann's care. She becomes quite attached to them, and feels responsible; Ben does too, despite his better judgement and Szilard's abrasive personality.
The plot develops in madcap and picaresque fashion from there, but to say more might ruin the fun and surprises. Szilard is manipulative and on a mission. Oppenheimer is willing to be manipulated because he feels, at best, ambivalent about the bomb. Fermi is mostly confused and anxious. I liked the way all the characters developed.
Their story read to me like an allegory of how scientists who love science and who have strong ethical centers (except maybe Szilard!) could have nevertheless ended up creating the nuclear bomb. They overlooked so much for working on the sweet problem. As Millet wrote it:
In had been out of the question, Ann saw, for the physicists of the Manhattan Project to abandon their good idea before they had followed it as far as they could. They were men on a road with no choice but to walk it: they only wanted to keep going.
And they adored the idea, pursuing it with a devotion they never considered could be anything but virtuous. With their minds they had fastened onto a secret, which went on and on forever and had never before been known. [p. 54]
Peppered throughout the book are little signposts pointing towards bits of reality, ideas on the map near where the plot was passing. Things like this:
Five percent of people killed in wars at the end of the nineteenth century were civilians. In World War One this percentage rose to fifteen, and by World War Two it was sixty-five.
This was nothing compared to the wars of the 1990s. By that time the percentage would grow to ninety. [p. 231]
This paragraph from near the end expresses some new-found wisdom of Oppenheimer's. The remark about how "it was nothing to what his worst had been" is certainly a theme of the book, and the image of the gangs of boys kicking puppies seemed unusually apposite to me.
He [Oppenheimer] could shed everything now because in the end there was nothing more for him, he had done his best and finally it was nothing to what his worst had been. He could almost laugh now at the smallness of his good intentions, how paltry they had been against his mischief and the mischief of the neighborhood boys he had played with. He thought of Groves's fat, smug face and the beady homespun ignorance of Truman. Governments were gangs of boys, he thought, roaming the best neighborhoods and kicking puppies with their steel-toed boots; but their henchmen in the private sector were far, far worse. What a fool he had been: but all men were fools. His problem was to know it. [p. 474]
After I was finally making headway with the book and enjoying reading it, my biggest anxiety was that the author, who successfully created quite a plot pile-up for the climax very near the end of the book, might not find a satisfying way to end it all. I'm happy to report that she did, at least in my estimation.
In the end I'd say I liked the book, but I'm not sure I can guess who else might.
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* If my memory is almost accurate, Mel, can you locate the link where you discuss the book so I can include it?
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I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Thursday, 28 February 2008 at 22.07
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Jeff – sadly, it wasn't me! It sounds great, though. I read and reviewed another novel with characters based on Szilard & co., though, and LOVED it: it was "Changing Light" by Nora Gallagher. I'm now going to look up this one at my library!
on Thursday, 28 February 2008 at 22.24
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Melanie, you're right. I looked again through my file of "books recommended" and managed this time to find a reference that I could track down and thus locate the original recommendation: Michael Schaub "Lydia Millet's Radiant Heart", Huffington Post, 22 September 2005. Wow! To think it took me that long to get to it.
But it does demonstrate that I think of Melanie as my go-to Canadian librarian for all books recommended. Now I'm going to have to look for that Gallagher book….