Readers,
I’ve moved. In fact, I’ve been moving - almost constantly - for the last 8 weeks. I’ve been darting between Melbourne and South East Asia, logging in reading time on airplanes, in airport lounges, in airport security queues, in cars to and from the airport, by hotel pools, alone in hotel restaurants, on the phone (Sister: “Are you paying attention to me?”) and, of course, in my bed, late at night, whenever Jet Lag is having its way with me. (I have also, for the record, moved apartments.) For my efforts I have taken down a treatise on why orcas are better creatures than humans (Of Orcas and Men by David Neiwert), the first two Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss (reconfirming that I lack the discipline to read fantasy with any modicum of moderation), The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (somewhat underwhelming), Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty (ditto), Past Tense by Lee Child (always excellent), and Less by Andrew Sean Greer - to name a few. It is this last novel, Less that I want to talk about today.
The premise is this: Arthur Less - our titular hero - finds himself underwhelmed with his lot in life as he nears his 50th birthday. His mediocre success as an author is paralleled by his mediocre success in relationships. At a loss for what to do, he plans a trip around the world - beginning in New York, then visiting Mexico, Italy, Germany, France, Morocco, India and Japan - in the hope that he’ll figure himself out along the way.
You may think this plot sounds a little trite. Readers, I don’t blame you. In a lot of ways, it is. There are many moments in this novel that feel obligatory - when Less has an affair with a younger man as a distraction from the loss of his lover, when Less, near-rock bottom, realizes he is something of a celebrity in Italy, when he becomes befuddled by the idiosyncrasies of daily life at a writers retreat in India. What is wonderful about this book is not the mere fact of these moments, but the way the book uses them to advance its central thesis. Less - with Andrew Sean Greer at its helm - is unfailingly self aware. Every move it makes - in sharp contrast to its main character - is made with clear eyed intention. Every step is pacing the reader toward a conclusion that unfolds so naturally we believe we have come up with it on our own.
Readers, there is a trap that almost every middle-aged bildungsroman falls into: self-indulgent melancholy. Time and again, our heroes and heroines find themselves on the downward slope of life, disappointed in their fortunes to-date. What Greer does with Less is to tee up just such a story, and just such a character (a wet-blanket of a fellow, with washed out hair and sloping shoulders), only to subvert it at every turn. What the reader comes to understand, through this carefully crafted subversion, is a small but vitally important point: The story of Arthur Less is not the story of a lost man struggling to come to terms with his failures, it is the story of a regular man realizing the joy of his rather wonderful, if unremarkable, life.
I’ve been thinking about this point a lot recently, because, like I’ve said, I’ve been on the move. In our culture, we place a lot of value on moving. We move upward, we go outside of our comfort zones, we expand our horizons, we re-invent ourselves in new cities and jobs, we move on. But in my experience, moving around a lot has mostly made me realize what I have when I’m standing still. If it took an around-the-world trip for Arthur Less to realize he had everything he needed back home, then it has taken me an 8-week stint of near constant travel to appreciate the same. I have: summer mornings walking in the botanical gardens, phone calls with father that make me laugh in the street, colleagues who will drop everything to give me advice, good coffee, great books, bourbon to drink late at night on balconies overlooking the city, larger-than-life friends, a beautiful home, even people with whom, in rare, invaluable moments of conversation, I can be truly honest. I am lucky.
Readers, I’m not a big fan of the the gratitude rhetoric that is increasingly thrown around in popular culture. I think it discourages people from being honest about how hard life can be, and, at worst, can shut down conversations on mental health. I’m not here to pretend everything is perfect. But, for me, reading Less was a much-needed reminder that despite the hard, messy parts, there’s a lot of good in my life. Or, as Greer’s narrator would put it: “What I am trying to tell you (and I only have a moment), what I have been trying to tell you this whole time, is that from where I sit, the story of Arthur Less is not so bad.”