This exquisite, resonant novel is a brilliant portrait of marriage by a contemporary American master. Even as he lingers over the lustrous surface of Viri and Nedra's marriage, James Salter makes us see the cracks that are spreading through it, flaws that will in time mar it beyond repair. "An unexpectedly moving ode to beautiful lives frayed by time."
Light Years
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This exquisite, resonant novel is a brilliant portrait of marriage by a contemporary American master. Even as he lingers over the lustrous surface of Viri and Nedra's marriage, James Salter makes us see the cracks that are spreading through it, flaws that will in time mar it beyond repair. "An unexpectedly moving ode to beautiful lives frayed by time."
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
One
WE DASH THE BLACK RIVER, ITS flats smooth as stone. Not a ship, not a dinghy, not one cry of white. The water lies broken, cracked from the wind. This great estuary is wide, endless. The river is brackish, blue with the cold. It passes beneath us blurring. The sea birds hang above it, they wheel, disappear. We flash the wide river, a dream of the past. The deeps fall behind, the bottom is paling the surface, we rush by the shallows, boats beached for winter, desolate piers. And on wings like the gulls, soar up, turn, look back.
The day is white as paper. The windows are chilled. The quarries lie empty, the silver mine drowned. The Hudson is vast here, vast and unmoving. A dark country, a country of sturgeon and carp. In the fall it was silver with shad. The geese flew overhead in their long, shifting V's. The tide flows in from the sea.
The Indians sought, they say, a river that "ran both ways." Here they found it. The salt wedge penetrates as far in as fifty miles; sometimes it reaches Poughkeepsie. There were huge beds of oysters here, seals in the harbor, in the woods inexhaustible game. This great glacial cut with its nuptial bays, the coves of wild celery and rice, this majestic river. The birds, like punctuation, are crossing in level flight. They seem to approach slowly, accelerate, pass overhead like arrows. The sky has no color. A feeling of rain.
All this was Dutch. Then, like so much else, it was English. The river is a reflection. It bears only silence, a glittering cold. The trees are naked. The eels sleep. The channel is deep enough for ocean liners; they could, if they wished, astonish the inner towns. There are turtles and crabs in the marshes, herons, Bonaparte gulls. The sewage pours from the cities further up. The river is filthy, but cleanses itself. The fish are numbed; they drift with the tide.
Along the banks there are houses of stone, no longer fashionable, and wooden houses, drafty and bare. There are still estates that exist, remnants of the great land parcels of the past. Near the water, a large Victorian, the brick painted white, trees high above it, a walled garden, a decaying greenhouse with ironwork along the roof. A house by the river, too low for the afternoon sun. It was flooded instead with the light of morning, with the eastern light. It was in glory at noon. There are spots where the paint has turned dark, bare spots. The gravel paths are dissolving; birds nest in the sheds.
We strolled in the garden, eating the small, bitter apples. The trees were dry and gnarled. The lights in the kitchen were on.
A car comes up the driveway, back from the city. The driver goes inside, only for a moment until he's heard the news: the pony has gotten loose.
He is furious. "Where is she? Who left the door unlatched?"
"Oh God, Viri. I don't know."
In a room with many plants, a kind of solarium, there is a lizard, a brown snake, a box turtle asleep. The entry step is deep, the turtle cannot leave. He sleeps on the gravel, his feet drawn up close. His nails are the color of ivory, they curl, they are long. The snake sleeps, the lizard sleeps.
Viri has his coat collar up and is trudging uphill. "Ursula!" he calls. He whistles.
The light has gone. The grass is dry; it creaks underfoot. There was no sun all day. Calling the pony's name, he advances toward the far corners, the road, the adjoining fields. A stillness everywhere. It begins to rain. He sees the one-eyed dog that belongs to a neighbor, a kind of husky, his muzzle gray. The eye is closed completely, sealed, covered with fur so long ago was it lost, as if it never existed.
"Ursula!" he cries.
"She's here," his wife says when he returns.
The pony is near the kitchen door, tranquil, dark, eating an apple. He touches her lips. She bites him absent-mindedly on the wrist. Her eyes are black, lustrous, with the long, crazy lashes of a drunken woman. Her coat is thick, her breath very sweet.
"Ursula," he says. Her ears turn slightly, then forget. "Where have you been? Who unlocked your stall?"
She has no interest in him.
"Have you learned to do that?" He touches an ear; it is warm, strong as a shoe. He leads her to the shed, whose door is ajar. Outside the kitchen he stamps dirt from his shoes.
The lights are on everywhere: a vast, illuminated house. Dead flies the size of beans lie behind the velvet curtains, the wallpaper has corner bulges, the window glass distorts. It is an aviary they live in, a honeycomb. The roofs are thick slate, the rooms are like shops. It gives off no sound, this house; in the darkness it is like a ship. Within, if one listens, there is everything: water, faint voices, the slow, measured rending of grain.
In the principal bath, with its stains, sponges, soaps the color of tea, books, water-curled copies of Vogue, he steams in peace. The water is above his knees; it penetrates to the bone. There is carpeting on the floor, a basket of smooth stones, an empty glass of the deepest blue.
"Papa," they call through the door.
"Yes." He is reading the Times.
"Where was Ursula?"
"Ursula?"
"Where was she?"
"I don't know," he says. "She went out for a walk."
They wait for something further. He is a storyteller, a man of wonders. They listen for sounds, expecting the door to open.
"But where was she?"
"Her legs were wet," he announces.
"Her legs?"
"I think she was swimming."
"No, Daddy, really."
"She was trying to get the onions on the bottom."
"There are no onions there."
"Oh, yes."
"There are?"
"That's where they grow."
They explain it to each other outside the door. It's true, they decide. They wait for him, two little girls squatting like beggars.
"Papa, come out," they say. "We want to talk to you."
He puts aside the paper and sinks one last time into the embrace of the bath.
"Papa?"
"Yes."
"Are you coming out?"
The pony fascinates them. It frightens them. They are ready to run if it makes an unexpected sound. Patient, silent, it stands in its stall; a grazing animal, it eats for hours. Its muzzle has a nimbus of fine hair, its teeth are browned.
"Their teeth never stop growing," the man who sold her to them said. He was a drunkard, his clothes were torn. "They keep growing out and getting wore down."
"What would happen if she didn't eat?"
"If she didn't eat?"
"What would happen to her teeth?"
"Make sure she eats," he said.
They often watch her; they listen to her jaws. This mythical beast, fragrant in the darkness, is greater than they are, stronger, more clever. They long to approach her, to win her love.
2
IT WAS THE AUTUMN OF 1958. Their children were seven and five. On the river, the color of slate, the light poured down. A soft light, God's idleness. In the distance the new bridge gleamed like a statement, like a line in a letter which makes one stop.
Nedra was working in the kitchen, her rings set aside. She was tall, preoccupied; her neck was bare. When she paused to read a recipe, her head bent, she was stunning in her concentration, her air of obedience. She wore her wrist watch, her best shoes. Beneath the apron, she was dressed for the evening. People were coming for dinner.
She had trimmed the stems of flowers spread on the wood of the counter and begun to arrange them. Before her were scissors, paper-thin boxes of cheese, French knives. On her shoulders there was perfume. I am going to describe her life from the inside outward, from its core, the house as well, rooms in which life was gathered, rooms in the morning sunlight, the floors spread with Oriental rugs that had been her mother-in-law's, apricot, rouge and tan, rugs which though worn seemed to drink the sun, to collect its warmth; books, potpourris, cushions in colors of Matisse, objects glistening like evidence, many of which might, had they been possessed by ancient peoples, have been placed in tombs for another life: clear crystal dice, pieces of staghorn, amber beads, boxes, sculptures, wooden balls, magazines in which were photographs of women to whom she compared herself.
Who cleans this large house, who scrubs the floors? She does everything, this woman, she does nothing. She is dressed in her oat-colored sweater, slim as a pike, her long hair fastened, the fire crackling. Her real concern is the heart of existence: meals, bed linen, clothing. The rest means nothing; it is managed somehow. She has a wide mouth, the mouth of an actress, thrilling, bright. Dark smudges in her armpits, mint on her breath. Her nature is extravagant. She buys on impulse, she visits Bendel's as she would a friend's, gathering up five or six dresses and entering a booth, not bothering to draw the curtain fully, a glimpse of her undressing, lean arms, lean trunk, bikini underpants. Yes, she scrubs floors, collects dirty clothes. She is twenty-eight. Her dreams still cling to her, adorn her; she is confident, composed, she is related to long-necked creatures, ruminants, abandoned saints. She is careful, hard to approach. Her life is concealed. It is through the smoke and conversation of many dinners that one sees her: country dinners, dinners at the Russian Tea Room, the Caf? Chauveron with Viri's clients, the St. Regis, the Minotaur.
Guests were driving from the city, Peter Daro and his wife. "What time are they coming?"
"About seven," Viri said.
"Have you opened the wine?"
"Not yet."
The water was running, her hands were wet.
"Here, take this tray," she said. "The...
WE DASH THE BLACK RIVER, ITS flats smooth as stone. Not a ship, not a dinghy, not one cry of white. The water lies broken, cracked from the wind. This great estuary is wide, endless. The river is brackish, blue with the cold. It passes beneath us blurring. The sea birds hang above it, they wheel, disappear. We flash the wide river, a dream of the past. The deeps fall behind, the bottom is paling the surface, we rush by the shallows, boats beached for winter, desolate piers. And on wings like the gulls, soar up, turn, look back.
The day is white as paper. The windows are chilled. The quarries lie empty, the silver mine drowned. The Hudson is vast here, vast and unmoving. A dark country, a country of sturgeon and carp. In the fall it was silver with shad. The geese flew overhead in their long, shifting V's. The tide flows in from the sea.
The Indians sought, they say, a river that "ran both ways." Here they found it. The salt wedge penetrates as far in as fifty miles; sometimes it reaches Poughkeepsie. There were huge beds of oysters here, seals in the harbor, in the woods inexhaustible game. This great glacial cut with its nuptial bays, the coves of wild celery and rice, this majestic river. The birds, like punctuation, are crossing in level flight. They seem to approach slowly, accelerate, pass overhead like arrows. The sky has no color. A feeling of rain.
All this was Dutch. Then, like so much else, it was English. The river is a reflection. It bears only silence, a glittering cold. The trees are naked. The eels sleep. The channel is deep enough for ocean liners; they could, if they wished, astonish the inner towns. There are turtles and crabs in the marshes, herons, Bonaparte gulls. The sewage pours from the cities further up. The river is filthy, but cleanses itself. The fish are numbed; they drift with the tide.
Along the banks there are houses of stone, no longer fashionable, and wooden houses, drafty and bare. There are still estates that exist, remnants of the great land parcels of the past. Near the water, a large Victorian, the brick painted white, trees high above it, a walled garden, a decaying greenhouse with ironwork along the roof. A house by the river, too low for the afternoon sun. It was flooded instead with the light of morning, with the eastern light. It was in glory at noon. There are spots where the paint has turned dark, bare spots. The gravel paths are dissolving; birds nest in the sheds.
We strolled in the garden, eating the small, bitter apples. The trees were dry and gnarled. The lights in the kitchen were on.
A car comes up the driveway, back from the city. The driver goes inside, only for a moment until he's heard the news: the pony has gotten loose.
He is furious. "Where is she? Who left the door unlatched?"
"Oh God, Viri. I don't know."
In a room with many plants, a kind of solarium, there is a lizard, a brown snake, a box turtle asleep. The entry step is deep, the turtle cannot leave. He sleeps on the gravel, his feet drawn up close. His nails are the color of ivory, they curl, they are long. The snake sleeps, the lizard sleeps.
Viri has his coat collar up and is trudging uphill. "Ursula!" he calls. He whistles.
The light has gone. The grass is dry; it creaks underfoot. There was no sun all day. Calling the pony's name, he advances toward the far corners, the road, the adjoining fields. A stillness everywhere. It begins to rain. He sees the one-eyed dog that belongs to a neighbor, a kind of husky, his muzzle gray. The eye is closed completely, sealed, covered with fur so long ago was it lost, as if it never existed.
"Ursula!" he cries.
"She's here," his wife says when he returns.
The pony is near the kitchen door, tranquil, dark, eating an apple. He touches her lips. She bites him absent-mindedly on the wrist. Her eyes are black, lustrous, with the long, crazy lashes of a drunken woman. Her coat is thick, her breath very sweet.
"Ursula," he says. Her ears turn slightly, then forget. "Where have you been? Who unlocked your stall?"
She has no interest in him.
"Have you learned to do that?" He touches an ear; it is warm, strong as a shoe. He leads her to the shed, whose door is ajar. Outside the kitchen he stamps dirt from his shoes.
The lights are on everywhere: a vast, illuminated house. Dead flies the size of beans lie behind the velvet curtains, the wallpaper has corner bulges, the window glass distorts. It is an aviary they live in, a honeycomb. The roofs are thick slate, the rooms are like shops. It gives off no sound, this house; in the darkness it is like a ship. Within, if one listens, there is everything: water, faint voices, the slow, measured rending of grain.
In the principal bath, with its stains, sponges, soaps the color of tea, books, water-curled copies of Vogue, he steams in peace. The water is above his knees; it penetrates to the bone. There is carpeting on the floor, a basket of smooth stones, an empty glass of the deepest blue.
"Papa," they call through the door.
"Yes." He is reading the Times.
"Where was Ursula?"
"Ursula?"
"Where was she?"
"I don't know," he says. "She went out for a walk."
They wait for something further. He is a storyteller, a man of wonders. They listen for sounds, expecting the door to open.
"But where was she?"
"Her legs were wet," he announces.
"Her legs?"
"I think she was swimming."
"No, Daddy, really."
"She was trying to get the onions on the bottom."
"There are no onions there."
"Oh, yes."
"There are?"
"That's where they grow."
They explain it to each other outside the door. It's true, they decide. They wait for him, two little girls squatting like beggars.
"Papa, come out," they say. "We want to talk to you."
He puts aside the paper and sinks one last time into the embrace of the bath.
"Papa?"
"Yes."
"Are you coming out?"
The pony fascinates them. It frightens them. They are ready to run if it makes an unexpected sound. Patient, silent, it stands in its stall; a grazing animal, it eats for hours. Its muzzle has a nimbus of fine hair, its teeth are browned.
"Their teeth never stop growing," the man who sold her to them said. He was a drunkard, his clothes were torn. "They keep growing out and getting wore down."
"What would happen if she didn't eat?"
"If she didn't eat?"
"What would happen to her teeth?"
"Make sure she eats," he said.
They often watch her; they listen to her jaws. This mythical beast, fragrant in the darkness, is greater than they are, stronger, more clever. They long to approach her, to win her love.
2
IT WAS THE AUTUMN OF 1958. Their children were seven and five. On the river, the color of slate, the light poured down. A soft light, God's idleness. In the distance the new bridge gleamed like a statement, like a line in a letter which makes one stop.
Nedra was working in the kitchen, her rings set aside. She was tall, preoccupied; her neck was bare. When she paused to read a recipe, her head bent, she was stunning in her concentration, her air of obedience. She wore her wrist watch, her best shoes. Beneath the apron, she was dressed for the evening. People were coming for dinner.
She had trimmed the stems of flowers spread on the wood of the counter and begun to arrange them. Before her were scissors, paper-thin boxes of cheese, French knives. On her shoulders there was perfume. I am going to describe her life from the inside outward, from its core, the house as well, rooms in which life was gathered, rooms in the morning sunlight, the floors spread with Oriental rugs that had been her mother-in-law's, apricot, rouge and tan, rugs which though worn seemed to drink the sun, to collect its warmth; books, potpourris, cushions in colors of Matisse, objects glistening like evidence, many of which might, had they been possessed by ancient peoples, have been placed in tombs for another life: clear crystal dice, pieces of staghorn, amber beads, boxes, sculptures, wooden balls, magazines in which were photographs of women to whom she compared herself.
Who cleans this large house, who scrubs the floors? She does everything, this woman, she does nothing. She is dressed in her oat-colored sweater, slim as a pike, her long hair fastened, the fire crackling. Her real concern is the heart of existence: meals, bed linen, clothing. The rest means nothing; it is managed somehow. She has a wide mouth, the mouth of an actress, thrilling, bright. Dark smudges in her armpits, mint on her breath. Her nature is extravagant. She buys on impulse, she visits Bendel's as she would a friend's, gathering up five or six dresses and entering a booth, not bothering to draw the curtain fully, a glimpse of her undressing, lean arms, lean trunk, bikini underpants. Yes, she scrubs floors, collects dirty clothes. She is twenty-eight. Her dreams still cling to her, adorn her; she is confident, composed, she is related to long-necked creatures, ruminants, abandoned saints. She is careful, hard to approach. Her life is concealed. It is through the smoke and conversation of many dinners that one sees her: country dinners, dinners at the Russian Tea Room, the Caf? Chauveron with Viri's clients, the St. Regis, the Minotaur.
Guests were driving from the city, Peter Daro and his wife. "What time are they coming?"
"About seven," Viri said.
"Have you opened the wine?"
"Not yet."
The water was running, her hands were wet.
"Here, take this tray," she said. "The...
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
48 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Courage,
This review is from: Light Years (Paperback)
The courage to live life as it changes, as the faults that went unseen in the initial rush of novelty emerge, to adapt, continue and be happy, content, this I believe is the heart of this work. The small imperfections that erode to fatal flaws as the years pass, the union of marriage that grows old, and regret and a desire for something new becomes an obsession. And if the freedom is regained can it ever be as it was anticipated. How can anything desired for years, embellished and romanticized for decades ever deliver contentment?The marriage of Nedra and Viri act more like a parenthetical that contains the entire novel and its events, than they serve as the focal point. The dozens of friends on almost as many levels of intimacy all revolve around the married couple, the former couple, or the individuals they believe they become for a second time. Is contentment the equivalent of stagnation; is it predestined for most, or voluntary for the few? Mr. Salter continues in, "Light Years", what he has done in all 3 of the novels I have read thus far. The people he creates transcend whatever story he presents them in. The personalities he creates are wonderful not because they entertain with their uniqueness or their contrived eccentricities, but because of how normal they are, or perhaps familiar. This is not to suggest they are cliché, they are everything but that, they are people you know, people you may meet, or a character that you find a part of you is within. One of the beauties of what this man is capable of with his writing is reaching very deeply into the thoughts and fears that inhabit almost all of us. He does not presume, he does not judge or lecture, he just lets you look through your minds eye, and decide for yourself. There are the affairs, but even when the most intimate of acts takes place he handles it in a manner that is clear, pure, evocative, but never does he stoop to the profane. His treatment of the females he writes about is done with respect; he does not objectify the women he writes of even if they seem to offer themselves in a manner that would justify the word object. Males and females are flawed, they err, and they can seek answers and redemption, and again he lets you decide, he does not hand down Judgement. This is an amazing writer that I either missed, or many have, as his is some of the best work I have ever read. Comparisons are really unnecessary, take what you like about your favorite writers, and you will find something to love in this man's work.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you want to know what "luminous" means....,
By
This review is from: Light Years (Paperback)
The main characters are named Viri and Nedra, and Lord knows that signals "pretentious." Ignore all that. No one writes about what happens between men and women better than Salter; you can see your own relationships in the 308 pages it takes to track the glory and fall of this marriage between an architect and his thin, troubled wife. And the sense of place! Here he is on the lure the Hamptons held for Nedra: "She was a creature of blue, flawless days, the sun of their noons hot as the African coast, the chill of the nights immense and clear." I started the book in that place on a morning so grey the sky and ocean merged; I read through the rain; I finished at night. A day well spent.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A heartbreaking portrayl of a marriage,
By A Customer
This review is from: Light Years (Paperback)
James Salter takes you so deeply inside the marriage of Nedra and Viri that you know these people as well as your own family before the book is done. It is a heartbreaking portrayl of love that turns to mere companionship. The beautiful wife, Nedra, seeks soemthing she cannot attain from her husband, nor from her affairs, nor from fleeing to Europe. She stands as one of the most completely-drawn women in American ficiton, a modern Madame Bovary. As the husband and wife grow apart, their children become aloof, the house they create falls into disrepair. It is the most accurate portrayl of the joys and sadness of modern marriage that I have read
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