Readers who have read Jane Smiley’s article for Slate in which she made observations about the willful ignorance of many Americans or first discovered her through her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “A Thousand Acres,” might be surprised by Smiley’s new novel, “Ten Days in the Hills.”
Even though it is set during the days after the American invasion of Iraq, potential readers shouldn’t come knocking on the covers of “Ten Days in the Hills” expecting loads of wrath at what the Bush administration has wrought. Neither will they find complex, intergenerational family issues a la “A Thousand Acres” or “At Paradise Gate.”
This house was built on merriment, movies and mating, and, in tone, is more akin to the lively and humorous “Moo,” which, oddly enough, featured a character described as a “little Texan with jug ears.” But careful readers might notice, at times, a touch of sadness beneath the mirthful atmosphere.
As she did with “A Thousand Acres,” which was based on “King Lear,” Smiley uses another classic as her template: Boccacio’s “Decameron,” which was a series of stories centering on the erotic, told by a group of well-to-do lovers who were fortunate enough to escape the plague.
In Smiley’s update, the Iraq war stands in for the Black Plague, and those gathered together in the Hollywood Hills to get away from it all are the friends and family of aging, Oscar-winning director Max (a Vietnam veteran) and his lover, Elena, who writes self-help books.
Invasion of Iraq
The novel begins the morning after the 2003 Academy Awards ceremony, with an intimate scene of Max and Elena sharing a bed. For those wondering if the author can do justice to erotica, Smiley’s rich prose manages to turn a simple kiss into something wondrously poetic. The couple’s conversation runs the gamut from the invasion of Iraq to how Max would like to produce a movie about making love.
Smiley’s artistic facility with prose and creating scenes is even more evident in the one in which she moves from a surprisingly lovely description of Max’s body to a brief discussion of the complexities of the war in Iraq. Their pillow talk even ranges into philosophy, all while Elena continues a failed attempt to completely arouse Max.
The couple’s morning reverie is interrupted by the arrival of house guests and the novel’s narrative drive, which never revs up more than when an afternoon amble begins in earnest.
Since Max’s former mother-in-law still lives in his guest house, the director’s ex-wife – “sex goddess” and pop icon Zoe Cunningham – joins the incursion into his domicile. Along with Delphine and Zoe are Paul (Zoe’s lover), Cassie (a next-door neighbor and friend of Delphine’s), Isabel (Max and Zoe’s daughter), Simon (Elena’s son), Charlie (Max’s boyhood friend) and Stoney (Max’s agent).
This isn’t the usual group of uptight, Midwestern characters Smiley is known for writing about, so the stories and conversations are as colorful as their backgrounds. Delphine was born in Jamaica, Isabel is a vegan and wildlife conservationist, Simon is a porn star wannabe who has a role in an experimental film; Paul, a “guru,” seems to be a charlatan and Stoney, a sad excuse for an agent, has been having an affair with Isabel since she was 16.
Revealing conversations
Through flashbacks and dinner party stories and revelations, Smiley peels back the layers that have been buffering the relationships of all gathered during these 10 days. Conversations ranging from religion and war to movies (which Smiley smartly points out color everyone’s everyday lives), politics, death and spirituality fill the time between bouts of lovemaking.
Whether she is writing about it in a removed way – revealing thoughts about a classroom lecture on Pavlov’s dog as Isabel seduces Stoney – or completely immersing the reader in descriptions of sensuality, as she does when Elena and Max make love, Smiley infuses her words with enough senses that readers will be hard pressed to remain focused. But she also drops small bombshells, like the following excerpt, which reminds readers there are other things brewing just beneath the surface:
“Here she was, safe from bombing, safe from fire (right beside the pool, after all; if a fire raced up the mountain, she could roll right in), safe from biological warfare, at least for now. …”
Deeper meanings
There is not much plot to be found in “Ten Days In the Hills” – a scene of self-parody in which Max tries to sell his film idea but is turned down because it involves too many older people and too much conversation, reflects this – but there is still a lot happening beneath the somewhat placid surface.
By novel’s end, the effects of past encounters and even the far-off war in Iraq have taken their toll on each of the relationships.
Other writers have gone to the literary well of the “Decameron” for inspiration – most notably John Keats and Shakespeare. With “Ten Days In the Hills,” Smiley makes good use of the classic, offering a sharp-edged comedy of manners that manages to skewer more than just the inhabitants of her fictional universe, taking aim at the world around us. The author herself puts it best when she writes:
“Its very pleasure seemed to hint at the fact that elsewhere or everywhere else, the vast and the horrible loomed.”
Dorman T. Shindler is a freelancer from Missouri.
—————————————-
Ten Days in the Hills
By Jane Smiley
Knopf, 464 pages, $26.00
