Yo, Reinaldo!

From the very beginning of Before Night Falls, by Reinaldo Arenas, a primary tension is between what Arenas does not have and what he does have, between absence, loss, or lack on the one hand and benefit, sensuality, and enjoyment on the other. For much of his life--and therefore for much of this memoir--the things that Arenas does not have increases, while what he did have or came to have decreases, until it seems he cannot survive the resulting privation. Although, fortunately, privation is succeeded by liberation, there is no happy-ever-after in which benefit outweighs loss. Arenas does not provide a narrative arc in which the tension, after reaching a climax, is resolved.

In the beginning was a father who left a mother who "did not have enough practical sense to be raising a child" (1, 3, Arenas), a house "filled with abandoned women" (4), and a God that did not answer prayers (5). Meanwhile, he was "a skinny kid with a distended belly full of worms from eating so much dirt." (1) In sum--a childhood characterized by abandonment and poverty. Then, at the start of the second chapter, Arenas transitions to those things that sustain and nourish him: "I think the splendor of my childhood was unique because it was absolute poverty but also absolute freedom, out in the open, surrounded by trees, animals, apparitions...." (5) Especially trees, about which Arenas writes this rhapsody:

I used to climb trees, and everything seemed much more beautiful from up there. I could embrace the world in its completeness and feel a harmony that I could not experience down below.... To climb a tree is to slowly discover a unique world, rhythmic, magical, and harmonious, with its worms, insects, birds, and other living things...telling us their secrets. (5-6)

Also at this time, Arenas develops a world of "almost mythical and supernatural characters and apparitions." (6) And--"I created and performed a series of endless songs and staged them all across the fields." (17) In a childhood characterized by poverty and abandonment, Arenas nevertheless discovered both the magic of the natural world and the world of his own imagination.

Arenas' early discovery of the natural world leads, at age six, to his discovery of his homosexuality. "This was the river," he writes, "that gave me a gift: an image that I will never forget" of "over thirty young men bathing in the nude...all those naked bodies, all those exposed genitals...I realized, without a doubt, that I liked men." (8) His sexuality is one of the things that Arenas does have, that benefits him and gives him enjoyment, during a short life marked by loss. Sex is a source of enjoyment, as in "I had switched from possessor to possessed and enjoyed it fully." (70) or "...I was able to enjoy those excited guys...." (165) Sex is an adventure, as in his recurring use of the phrase "erotic adventures" (80, 92, 159). Sex is a topic requiring focused attention, as in two chapters titled "Eroticism" (18-20, 93-116). Throughout the book, Cuban politics and homosexuality inevitably and frequently intersect.

The other thing that Arenas certainly has, that benefits him and gives him enjoyment, is his writing. His first story, a two-page story titled "The Empty Shoes," gets him out of "Fidel Castro's sphere" and gives him access to the "magical world of the National Library...." (71-73) His novel Singing from the Well brings him into contact with the Cuban writer Lezama Lima who, in turn, gives him inspiration for more writing--a felicitous cycle. Writing is central to "...a great feast. We would all bring our notebooks and write poems or chapters of our books, and would have sex with armies of young men." (101) In New York, a few years after getting out of Cuba, Arenas and friends created a magazine, Mariel, in which they could freely write what they really thought. Arenas assures the reader that, although "the magazine folded," it left behind "issues that are a real challenge to the literature of exile and to Cuban literature in general." (298-299)

Nevertheless, the collapse of Mariel magazine is a loss in a series of many losses for Arenas: the loss of a father, of previously loyal friends, of his manuscripts, and, ultimately, of his freedom. His imprisonment in Morro Castle in the Port of Havana, terrifying to read about (177-201, 207-217), must have been all the more terrifying to experience.

Arenas barely survives imprisonment in Cuba, only to find "really no solace anywhere" (308), including New York, which he experiences more as a place of painful exile than as happy haven. As opposed to, say, the fictional autobiography David Copperfield, depicting the triumphal march of David Copperfield, the memoir Before Night Falls does not present a rosy future for non-fictional hero Reinaldo Arenas.

And now for something completely different

Why a mouthful of a name for a book club? Why a novel made up entirely of letters? There are reasons, good reasons. Let me count them.

1) This book club was born (of scary, hasty necessity) as the Guernsey Literary Society. Then, insisting on refreshments at book club meetings, a book club member "concocted a potato peel pie: mashed potatoes for filling, strained beets for sweetness, and potato peelings for crust." (Shaffer and Barrows 51) Thus--the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Fair enough (as my trainer might say) but why a potato peel pie in the first place? This brings me to--
2) Very importantly, this novel is set on the English island of Guernsey during German occupation in World War II. No doubt because of the occupation, butter, flour and sugar--the usual ingredients for a pie--were scarce, and so this book club member, Will Thisbee, made do with beets, potatoes, and potato peelings. Thus was necessity the mother of invention, of a potato peel pie.
Actually, a similar necessity gives birth to the invention of the book club at all. German patrol officers are about to arrest Amelia Maugery and friends for breaking curfew, when one of Mrs. Maugery's friends, Elizabeth McKenna, claims that "we had been attending a meeting of the Guernsey Literary Society, and the evening's discussion of Elizabeth and her German Garden had been so delightful that we had all lost track of time." (29) Necessarily fast thinking brings about the invention of a literary society.
3) This entirely epistolary novel--a form of novel I associate with the 18th century--makes possible a focus on significant anecdotes, like the anecdote about the creation of the Guernsey Literary Society, an anecdote demonstrating the bravery of Elizabeth McKenna, an aspect of her character that is demonstrated in other anecdotes in other letters throughout the novel. Interestingly, at one point, the book publisher for the protagonist, Juliet Ashton, tells her, "Strings of anecdotes don't make a book" (200), and yet anecdotes do make this book.
There are many anecdotes about the German occupation of Guernsey in World War II, in which it is shown that necessity is the mother of invention, in grave--and less grave--circumstances. A couple such anecdotes inform us about making soap from pig's fat (80) and a way to stalk German soldiers with intermittent whistling (172). There are anecdotes about the members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, an especially memorable anecdote having to do with Isola Pribby's determination to read head bumps (224). Then there are letters in which the letter-writer's choice of anecdote tellingly reveals the character of the letter-writer: letters of recommendation (or not) for Juliet Ashton, from Lady Bella Taunton and Reverend Simon Simpless, and letters from Guernsey resident Adelaide Addison, warning Juliet away from the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. (Adelaide Addison--who signs off with the absurd "Yours in Christian Consternation and Concern" (67)--reminds me of the persistently proselytizing Miss Clack in The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins. Miss Clack, however, is a more fully realized, and therefore more sympathetic, character than Adelaide Addison, who is only, briefly, a thorn in the side.)

In the same letter in which he declares that strings of anecdotes don't make a book, book publisher Sidney Stark tells Juliet Ashton that the core of her book is Elizabeth McKenna. He writes--

I'm sending back the ms and your letters to me--read them again and see how often Elizabeth is spoken of. Ask yourself why. Talk to Dawsey and Eben. Talk to Isola and Amelia. Talk to Mr. Dilwyn.... (201)

I see Sidney's point (Mary Ann Shaffer's point?), and yet, once again, I do not agree with him (Mary Ann Shaffer?). I came to dread yet another story about the spirited Elizabeth. She is as un-believably heroic as Little Dorrit (in Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens) is un-believably saintly.
It seems to me, the core of this book is the importance of reading. Early on, Juliet makes clear to Sidney "my interest in their interest in reading" (93), an interest that has a significant impact on the lives of the members of the literary society. For instance, an interest in Thomas Carlyle brings about a new friendship, while an interest in Marcus Aurelius nearly ends an old friendship. Reading is not an incidental thing to do for these Guernsey residents.
In sum--although the voice of the protagonist, Juliet Ashton, can veer towards perkiness-overload, Juliet's focus on the act of reading (and writing, and story-telling), explicit and implicit throughout, is wonderfully obdurate in the era of the iPhone and Windows 7.