The News from Spain - February 2022 Book Club Reading

[Falselogic]

The News from Spain by Joan Wickersham is a collection of seven short stories all with the same title all grapping with the central theme of the novel. In this collection the reader meets a series of characters trace and retrace eternal yet ever-changing patterns of love and longing, connection and loss. The stories range over centuries and continents—from eighteenth-century Vienna, where Mozart and his librettist Da Ponte are collaborating on their operas, to America in the 1940s, where a love triangle unfolds among a doctor, a journalist, and the president’s wife. A race-car driver’s widow, a nursing-home resident and her daughter, a paralyzed dancer married to a famous choreographer—all feel the overwhelming force of passion and renunciation.

The book was published in 2012. It's author, Joan Wickersham, was born in New York City. She is the author of two previous books, most recently The Suicide Index, a National Book Award finalist. Her fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. Her op-ed column appears regularly in The Boston Globe.

Some slight editorializing, this book is way outside my normal wheelhouse. I'm excited to read it!

 

[Violentvixen]

I had to request this as a purchase from my library last week, but they fulfilled it and I have the eBook version downloading so should start this soon.

Amusingly they initially countered with those Best American compilations you noted to make sure I was requesting the right thing. I love those collections but stopped checking them out a few years ago, need to do that again.

 

[John]

I started this yesterday, and am now through 2.5 stories. Very interesting, and a very quick read. Looking forward to seeing how the rest of the stories relate!

 

[John]

I finished this, way early for my reading pace. It was extremely interesting, even if (or maybe because) I don’t agree with many of the actions the characters take. Looking forward to the back half of the month.

 

[Violentvixen]

Read the first story and am about halfway through the second I think. I like it very much! Based on your description I have a feeling I'll have more to say to tie everything together after finishing.

 

[Violentvixen]

It has all gone on for so long without Harriet drying that Rebecca lost track of the fact that Harriet was going to die

I worry about taking care of an aging parent. I am watching so many friends and a lot of extended family go through this and I don't think I'll be able to. But the one way I do think I'd be able to handle it is if I distance myself and make it as mechanical as possible. So this line hit hard because I can absolutely imagine this happening to me.

 

[John]

That story definitely stood out, focusing mostly on familial love versus the mainly romantic loves of the other stories. I see both Rebecca and her sister's sides, and think that in their places, I would probably do what her sister was doing, unfortunately.

I had an inkling that a few of the stories were based on real people/events, but didn't have the full context. Now I see that at least two of the sections are direct from real life, and another is, well, a certain interpretation of events. Finding out what that one was, it was like solving a themed crossword puzzle and then going back to marvel how it was crafted.

 

[Falselogic]

I finished the first story. Started a little late this month. Hoping to get through most of the book this weekend. The first story was well written, I'd say I'd have like a little more from it but I know that's not how this book works so no point in wishing for it.

 

[Violentvixen]

I had an inkling that a few of the stories were based on real people/events, but didn't have the full context. Now I see that at least two of the sections are direct from real life, and another is, well, a certain interpretation of events. Finding out what that one was, it was like solving a themed crossword puzzle and then going back to marvel how it was crafted.

Could you post this later this month, or under a spoiler tag for now? I'd love to know and revisit when I finish.

 

[John]

I finished the first story. Started a little late this month. Hoping to get through most of the book this weekend. The first story was well written, I'd say I'd have like a little more from it but I know that's not how this book works so no point in wishing for it.

I thought the first story was one of the weakest, but it still left me with a feeling of fleshed out characters who were going to keep on living after the story was over. Many short stories only tell the specific slices of the story that is being presented, and anything outside of those boundaries doesn't exist. In these stories, I felt there was life unsaid both before and after the works, and unsaid in the text itself, as they shift perspectives.

Could you post this later this month, or under a spoiler tag for now? I'd love to know and revisit when I finish.

I certainly can! Spoiler pops below, just be sure to finish the book before popping them.

Spoiler: Individual Story Spoilers

Story #4 details a paraplegic ballerina dancer, who's lover/boss has moved on to new dancers while still keeping her at home. She's modeled after Tanaquil Le Clercq, who as a 15 year old performed in a dance with her boss/future husband as a woman paralyzed by polio, who then herself contracted polio and was paralyzed at age 27.

Story #6 appears to be about a pair of friends/confidants named Rosina and Elvira, and how their friendship and potential romantic entanglements play out. The story's weird though, starting with some quotes from a couple operas, The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, both composed and written by Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte. After a few chapters, the story abruptly switches to first person, and jumps to Da Ponte himself as the protagonist, talking through some exploits that he and Mozart have gone through. It becomes clear that this is the main story, and the other parts around Rosina and Elvira are taking those characters from their respective operas that were referenced at the beginning, and interpreting their stories in modern contexts. I haven't read those operas or a summary, just echoing what other people have said about it, but I'm planning on doing that and reading this section again.

Story #7 switches to a first person perspective first, and has another story within a story. The main story's a woman having a crisis by falling in love with her boss, but she deflects into a third person story of a journalist who falls in love with a prominent doctor, who is also in love with a "famous woman". It's not explicitly said in the story, but alluded that the famous woman had moved from Washington to New York. The journalist could be Martha Gellhorn, the famous woman may be Eleanor Roosevelt, who both allegedly had affairs with David Gurewitsch.

My kindle copy also has a reading guide at the end, I'll cut & paste the questions into another spoiler.

Spoiler: Reading Guide

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. The book opens with a succinct yet palpable description of the motel Susanne and John are staying in: “The rooms smelled of disinfectant and of bodies.… Outside, the wind was dazzling and salty” (this page). How does this establish an emotional backdrop to the narrative that follows? Which physical details in the descriptions of the wedding party (this page) and the meeting between Susanne and Barnaby (this page) offer insights into the psychological state of the characters?

2. Compare Barbara and Barnaby’s reasons for getting married (this page) to Susanne’s reflections on her marriage (this page). Do their points of view represent the real choices open to them or are they based on compromise and rationalization? Why are Barnaby and Susanne reluctant to share their thoughts with each other? Are there limits to the trust enjoyed between friends? If so, why?

3. Harriet and Rebecca know that between them “love has always had to be proved. It is there; and it gets proved, over and over” (this page). In what ways does Harriet’s illness become a testing ground for both of them? Is it surprising or unusual that “they were having, in the middle of all this dire stuff, a good time together” (this page)? Why does their intimacy deteriorate during the periods Harriet when enjoys relatively good health?

4. How do the complexities of the mother-daughter relationship affect Rebecca’s approach to the men in her life and influence the course of her affairs with Peter and with Ben?

5. The third story in the book, told in the second person, presents the point of view of an unnamed young girl; it is also the only story divided into distinct sections. What effect do these techniques have on the reader’s impressions of the protagonist, the events described, and the other characters?

6. The narrative of the third story captures the awkwardness and excitement of becoming a teenager—of finding a place within a school’s social structure, discovering the opposite sex, flourishing under a special teacher’s care, and observing often puzzling adult behavior. In what ways do each of the mini-chapters in this story set the stage for scandalous revelation and the girl’s reaction to it (this page)? Why is the summation (“The Rest of the Story” and “The End”) related from an adult point of view?

7. What part do memories and dreams play in the dancer’s attempts to reconcile herself to her physical helplessness? When her husband leaves for the tour, “They kiss—familiar, fond, nothing more, except she thinks there is a careful brightness between them, an implicit understanding that to regret, or even acknowledge any awareness of, their mutual unerotic kindness would be pointless and unwise” (this page). Is this the best (or only) way for these characters to deal with their situation, or would they benefit from more openness and honesty?

8. What do the details about Malcolm’s private life add to the central portrait of the dancer’s troubled marriage? Are there similarities between the two relationships? Between the dancer and Malcolm, the choreographer and Tim? What do the scene in the bathtub and the story
the dancer tells Malcolm illustrate about the power of illusion and fantasy in our lives?

9. Do the sketches of Charlie and Liza (this page) and Alice (this page) establish a sense of how their meeting will unfold? Does the interview belie or conform to your expectations? What particular moments or comments transform the dynamics of the encounter and why?

10. What inspires Liza to confess her secret to Alice? What qualities, experiences, or beliefs unite Liza and Alice despite the differences in their ages and situations? Why do people often tell a relative stranger something they have hidden from those closest to them?

11. Discuss the parallels between the lives and loves of Elvira and Rosina and their namesakes in the Mozart and Da Ponte operas. (If you are not familiar with Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni, brief summaries are readily available online). How do the playful yet pointed echoes of the classic operas (and the legendary adventures of Don Juan) set a tone and enrich the atmosphere of the contemporary stories? What do they convey about the universal complications, pain, and pleasures of love?

12. Da Ponte writes “But I have learned that memory is inconstant, which is perhaps its greatest danger and yet also its greatest virtue” (this page). What light does this cast on Elvira’s attachment to Johnny and its effect on her life and her work? To what extent is the friendship between Elvira and Rosina built on the sharing and preserving of their personal and perhaps faulty versions of the past?

13. A happily married woman unsettled by a sudden rush of love for a colleague sums up her emotional turmoil with both wit and poignancy: “My feelings—let’s hold on to this idea of them as shuffling Victorians, let’s make them servants, an entire uniformed household staff—were fresh, raw, perpetually startled. They weren’t sensible” (this page). Why is this metaphor so effective? What does it say about the battle between emotions and reason, between heart and head?

14. The final story begins with a simple pronouncement: “Some of this is fiction, and some isn’t” (this page). To what extent does the appeal of the story about the doctor, the journalist, and the president’s wife stem from the combination of fact and fiction? Why does Wickersham leave the “famous woman” unnamed although her identity is quite clear? What draws the woman to the doctor and him to her? In what ways do her public and her private identities overlap, and how do they differ? What effect does this have on the way she conducts herself with the doctor? Why does the discovery of the journalist’s affair with the doctor affect her so deeply (this page)? Does the narrator present each character in an objective way or does her own situation color her opinions and speculations about them?

15. Linking her two stories, the narrator of the last story says, “I am writing about women, about love and humiliation. Men do it to us, but mostly we do it to ourselves. We love the wrong people; we love at the wrong time. We think we can make it right, reconcile the irreconcilable” (this page). Which other stories feature women who struggle to explain, justify, or simply make the best of difficult relationships? Are there male characters who find themselves in similar situations?

16. Infidelity and betrayal play a central role in The News from Spain. Many of the characters are involved in or are considering an affair; friendships and family relationships are also betrayed, either intentionally or as a consequence of carelessness or self-interest. Discuss the various forms of unfaithfulness and deception depicted in these stories and what they reveal about the unpredictable, often uncontrollable passions that underlie acts of transgression.

17. “A love story—your own or anyone else’s—is interior, hidden. It can never be accurately reported, only imagined. It is all dreams and invention. It’s guesswork” (this page). How does this insight shape and inform The News from Spain?

18. What is the significance of the subtitle “Seven Variations on a Love Story”? Do you see these stories as parts of a whole or as separate entities? In what ways do the stories amplify one another? Does the arrangement create a unifying thread and forward momentum?

 

[Violentvixen]

Finished it, and liked it very much! Absolutely not something I would have picked on my own, so thank you to whomever nominated this for making me aware of it.

I certainly can! Spoiler pops below, just be sure to finish the book before popping them.

Spoiler: Individual Story Spoilers

Story #4 details a paraplegic ballerina dancer, who's lover/boss has moved on to new dancers while still keeping her at home. She's modeled after Tanaquil Le Clercq, who as a 15 year old performed in a dance with her boss/future husband as a woman paralyzed by polio, who then herself contracted polio and was paralyzed at age 27.

Story #6 appears to be about a pair of friends/confidants named Rosina and Elvira, and how their friendship and potential romantic entanglements play out. The story's weird though, starting with some quotes from a couple operas, The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, both composed and written by Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte. After a few chapters, the story abruptly switches to first person, and jumps to Da Ponte himself as the protagonist, talking through some exploits that he and Mozart have gone through. It becomes clear that this is the main story, and the other parts around Rosina and Elvira are taking those characters from their respective operas that were referenced at the beginning, and interpreting their stories in modern contexts. I haven't read those operas or a summary, just echoing what other people have said about it, but I'm planning on doing that and reading this section again.

Story #7 switches to a first person perspective first, and has another story within a story. The main story's a woman having a crisis by falling in love with her boss, but she deflects into a third person story of a journalist who falls in love with a prominent doctor, who is also in love with a "famous woman". It's not explicitly said in the story, but alluded that the famous woman had moved from Washington to New York. The journalist could be Martha Gellhorn, the famous woman may be Eleanor Roosevelt, who both allegedly had affairs with David Gurewitsch.

Thank you!

And I felt like something was going over my head in the Mozart one. I know the basics of both of those but didn't match the character names. Like you I'll be reading up on them and revisiting the story.

 

[Falselogic]

I finished it over the weekend. I didn't know about the

Spoiler: SPOILY

true story ballet

but it was one of the stories I enjoyed more.

 

[Violentvixen]

Had to return this to the library but enjoyed it very much. This was a short read for a short month and something I never would have picked up for myself. This is exactly why I like book clubs!

Also since I recommended this purchase to my library I hope that means someone else finds it and enjoys it too!

 

[Falselogic]

I tried to go through the questions that @John posted. But it had been a over a week since I had finished the book and as I read the questions I realized that most of what each story left me was a feeling or a mood but the particulars of any one story were hard to remember at all. I think the best thing I can say about the author is that she writes evocatively and each story evoked different things.