First Impressions: The Wallcreeper by Nell Zink

 

The reading dry spell broke with this novel, 'The Wallcreeper'. It is unfair to review a book that I have read in fits and starts over the year. But then, this section is not really a review. It's a first, quick reaction to what I thought of the book. 

The word that comes to mind when I think of this novel is 'desultory' but in a strangely charming way. 

The book begins with a couple Stephen and Tiff out on a drive. A bird, a wallcreeper, crashes into the car, Stephen swerves, and Tiff suffers a miscarriage. But Stephen is a bird fiend so they take in the injured wallcreeper, name him Rudi, and go on about their lives. A major portion of their own lives seems to be living through a frayed marriage and rather hollowed out individual experiences. Just how dysfunctional this marriage is, s evidenced by the fact that Stephen chaperones Tiff on her date with some migrant in Berne. (The novel begins there.) At some point later, Stephen sleeps with Constance, Tiff's sister. One morning Tiff returns home after spending the night with a tortured soul she is so attracted to. Stephen knows this. And he is attracted to her even more. 

Their marriage then unravels and comes together briefly in quite a tedious manner against larger themes like environmental conservatism, rich and abundant ornithological references, and weird analogies with birding and feeding. At one point, these characters seem to be architected out of wispy paper to seem to cool for school. Bendy ethics, fragile scruples, quick repartees, the works.

Rudy, their pet wallcreeper, dies quite suddenly at one point. And then later, Stephen dies just as suddenly too. This happens towards the end of the story. It is only after that that Tiff, a pretty woman who has spent her lifetime avoiding labour by getting entangled with men so they could take care of her - in exchange for whatever she offered, sex or distraction or both - it is only after Stephen's death that she comes into her own.

As staccato and brittle as the plot felt, I never had a problem getting back to the book. Well, there wasn't much to get back to, in terms of plot. But the language and insights were beautiful. Nell has a way of distilling loads of information and emotions into moving and evocative sentences. My favorite portions are when she describes the various cities she lives in - Berne, Berlin, Breitenhagen.

'The river enfolded the city like a uterine wall.'

'Everything in Berne had a delicious texture advertising a rich interior. Nothing was facade. It was clean all the way down forever and forever, like the earth in Whitman's "This Compost."

Somewhere else she is appreciating the ecosystem of a meadow. She writes, "Continuity of an aesthetic that had become an aesthetic of continuity."

Or how she describes a lake as being silvery and smooth as mercury in a teaspoon. 

My absolute favorite is how she describes Breitenhagen. 

'The village sits on a knoll above a narrow bit of floodplain. Huge oaks shade the wetlands. The sun sets when it sets and not a minute sooner. That is, the same sun that slips behind mountains in Berne still white, and behind buildings in Berlin while fading to yellow, there rages orange and pink through the trees and melts to the horizon like a sun going down over the sea. The mist rises off the river, the already silvery willows and poplars go into silver overdrive, the wall of leaves shimmer, and the magenta sun proclaims, LSD Is A Crutch.'

For passages like this, the book is good. You live somewhere. You leave that place. Hopefully, some sweetness will linger.