The Wrights (last iteration)

Here's a good one (from the wikimedia commons) of the Wrights (take 3) -- Olgvanna is in the middle.

What's with the footnotes?

Ok. So, not to get all English-professorial on us...but what do y'all make of the footnotes? Boyle certainly isn't inventing the technique, but it's interesting here. And the whole interplay between Tadishi and the translator (who we don't "know" at all, so we can't read his stake in all of this..except as T explains it to us).

The footnotes complicate the whole historical-biographical fiction thing. So much of the novel is based on "real" stuff (newspaper clippings clearly played a big role in the research). But Boyle takes us much further...do the footnotes lure us into a suspension of disbelief (you see--I do remember bits of my romantic poetry class in college!!).
Thoughts?

From Wik.: Suspension of disbelief or "willing suspension of disbelief" is a formula devised by the poet and aesthetic philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge to justify the use of fantastic or non-realistic elements in literature. Coleridge suggested that if a writer could infuse a "human interest and a semblance of truth" into a fantastic tale, the reader would suspend judgment concerning the implausibility of the narrative.

Narrating "Genius" (Some rambling thoughts)

I am well into the "Miriam" section. I can't help thinking of Boyle's The Inner Circle as I read this. Both The Inner Circle (about Alfred Kinsey) and this novel look closely at groundbreaking "geniuses" who both have private falls (to varying extents). Both novels are narrated by much younger men who are attracted to their respective geniuses, although in the previous novel, the narration does not take place in retrospect. Both of the "central men"--the geniuses--espouse their own version of freedom and subvert convention. TC Boyle is a baby boom-era novelist whose Drop City is about a group of hippies trying to establish a communal living situation in unfriendly environs. In some sense, The Inner Circle is about this, too.

Where is everyone else in the book?

(Just got back from Chicago and read the Olgivanna section there, much of it set in Chicago. Fun!)

thoughts on Part I

is anybody still reading this book? I'll post my thoughts anyway!

I just finished Part I: Olgivanna. I must say I am a bit surprised at the tone of the narration. I'm so used to "great men" being written about as if they were demi-gods, their flaws only mentioned to remind us that they were human after all. I have had moments of wondering if I like the narrator or his tone, but I think that overall, T.C. Boyle has made a great choice for the sort of story he has written. Sadly, it is still a bit radical to write about a man like Frank Lloyd Wright through the lens of the women he went through in his life. I think the tone adds to that feeling that we're reading a different kind of story.

Tadashi's perspective wonderfully captures what it must have been like to work with the man. I love the comparison of him to Olga's guru. This rings very true to me, having worked for many a tyrant and delved into the guru - student relationship.

That said, I don't think "The Women" are fairing much better than Wrieto-San. Not so far anyway. I am looking forward to Part II: Miriam.

The Wright Stuff

So...not to get to wikipedia-y...but here's some basic data about the man and the women:

FLW born in 1867 in Richland Center, Wisconsin -- then lived in Madison from 12-18.
At 18 (high school left unfinished) he starts working with a civil engineer at U Wisconsin, then moves to Chicago in 1887 (age 20).
In the Windy City, he works for Joseph Lyman Silsbee, and then Louis Sullivan--and the latter is hugely important, because it's from Sullivan that Wright gets the "form and function are one" philosophy.

During this time he meets Wife One, Catherine Tobin--they raise 5 children in Oak Park, IL.

He doesn't exactly found the Prairie School of architecture ("Craftsman"--after a magazine of that name--or "Arts and Crafts." BTW: this is my favorite architectural style for homes and someday Andrew and I dream of returning to the mountain west and living in a lovely bungalow)...but he becomes permanently associated with it and its other practioners (such as George W. Maher, Hugh M. G. Garden, and Robert C. Spencer, Jr).

Ok. Then the first big scandal. In 1909 he moves to Germany with Mamah Borthwick Cheney (image on the right), after 18 years in Oak Park with Catherine and the kids. He and Mamah return in 1911 and move to Spring Green (inherited), where he builds Taliesin. In 1914 an employee murders Mamah and six others--and burns the house.

In 1915 he designs Japan's Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. He continues to develop design philosophy. In 1932 he opens the Taliesin Fellowship at the house--which becomes residence to a group of design apprentices. The Fellowship is responsible for some famous houses, including Fallingwater in Mill Run, PA.

Oh...and during this time he marries a second time--Miriam Noel (image to left). And then they separate.

And then he gets married a third time--this time to Olgivanna Milanoff (picture below), a Russian dancer. They live at Taliesin together, where they raise a child.

In 1937 Wright moves himself, Olgivanna, (the child), and the Fellowship to Phoenix. He lives out the remaining years of his life there at Taliesin West. He died in 1959.

Sorry...that's FLW-centered...because, of course, I found it at an FLW site. I have yet to seek out any details about the women.

I'm late for the party

still waiting for my copy to arrive. some slackers are refusing to return in to the library!

Unexpected Beginning

So...I think the NPR story I heard about the book may have mentioned the narrator is not one of "the women" (or F.L.W. himself)--but I'd forgotten that fact by the time I opened to the first chapter the other day (I'm behind, because I paused to quickly get my heroin-twilight fix by zipping through the third in that series--just a little slumming before I return to serious literature).

Anyhow...so the narrator. Japanese student with MIT architecture background and expensive tastes (and big bank account). Still deciding if I "like" him (whatever that means)...or like him as a narrator. But I'm just pages in, so it's premature to decide anything.

He drives to take part in FLW's Taliesin Fellowship (click photo to check out Taliesin Preservation site)...which is a nice way to bring the reader over the meadow and through the woods, to Frank Lloyd Wright's world we go...

Any thoughts about the opening pages?