Customer Reviews

By Nightfall: A Novel

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The play of emotions and themes with which Michael Cunningham is most adroit -- love, loss, desire, despair, mortality -- are again engaged in his new novel set in present-day Manhattan. But take note: the epigraph Cunningham has chosen for "By Nightfall" is a line from Rilke's "Duino Elegies": "Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror." That, Cunningham signals, will be the novel's all-encompassing theme: the pursuit, use, and misuse of beauty.

The principal characters in "By Nightfall" are Peter Harris, a 44-year-old contemporary art dealer, and his wife Rebecca, an editor of an arts and culture magazine. As a gallery owner, Peter's occupation is that of a "servant of beauty." He has begun to suffer existential dread: "[a] conviction, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that some terrible, blinding beauty is about to descend and, like the wrath of God, suck [the world] all away, orphan us, deliver us, leave us wondering how exactly we're going to start it all over again."

The plot, modestly scaled, is set in motion by the appearance of Rebecca's much younger brother Ethan (age 23), a beautiful but flawed and directionless young man who's interested in doing "something in the arts." Ethan's brief stay with the couple in their spacious SoHo loft will upend all three lives.

"By Nightfall" is written in a combination of voices: at times there is a third person omniscient narrator, sometimes a second person interlocutor, but principally we are caught within Peter's own ruminations. The lasting effect is a story told through Peter's eyes. While this brings a unity to the novel, it also can be a handicap. When events, ideas and emotions come to us filtered through his fears and sensibilities, the narrative sometimes falls into a rut, trapped by the insular sound of Peter conducting a hothouse conversation with himself. The reader yearns for more self-sufficiency on the part of other characters -- persons we are meant to, and want to, care about. Happily, Cunningham is terrific with dialog, and the frequent conversational segments -- animated, stylish, and verbally agile (these are New Yorkers, after all) -- oxygenate the narrative.

Cunningham's most popular novel, "The Hours," gained strength from the interconnectedness, across time and space, of three extraordinary women. The new novel, less ambitious and focused on one man, does not achieve similar standing. This is not surprising when you consider the following thought that comes into Peter's mind -- a view, I suspect, shared by the author:

"We--we men--are the frightened ones, the blundering and nervous ones; if we act the skeptic or the bully sometimes it's because we suspect we're wrong in some deep incalculable way that women are not. Our impersonations are failing us and our vices and habits are ludicrous and . . . we have no idea about anything that actually matters."

Some are likely to dismiss "By Nightfall" as privileged and claustrophobic, but I think enough others will have a different take. Yes, the setting and tone are highly literary, with frequent allusions to high culture sources ("Ulysses" and "The Dead"; "The Great Gatsby"; "Death in Venice"; the real-life doomed affair of Rimbaud and Verlaine). That's what you expect from Michael Cunningham. But at the same time, in what is one of his shortest novels, Cunningham manages to cover a broad range of topics of interest to many readers, not the least of which is relationships. When tracing Peter and Rebecca's histories, Cunningham uses his extraordinary skill at conveying the enduring connections within families. He is best with younger characters, especially sibling relationships. He traces the pangs of growth beyond adolescence as surely as he captures our fears of growing old and dying.

You cannot gainsay the beauty of Cunningham's writing, his knack for filling in the perfect detail, his intelligence and empathy. As for magic, Cunningham convincingly creates a bevy of working artists who are part of Peter's world, devising for each a unique aesthetic and then conjuring up rooms full of their artworks, all minutely described. Other reviewers will doubtless cite their own favorite passages, but for me the one that stands out is a terrific set piece in which we follow the footsteps of the insomniac Peter in the wee hours of the night as he meanders through the irregular streets of lower Manhattan. It is an unexpected, charmed sequence.

Cunningham once introduced the author Joan Didion at a public ceremony with this observation: "Our most significant writers record us for future generations." With that in mind, I think we would do right to add "By Nightfall" to the record.

I thought The Hours, A Home at the End of the World, and Specimen Days were all wonderful. By Nightfall has the same beautiful prose, but it lacks many elements that make the others great.

For one, the characters just aren't that likable. In every other one of his novels, I could find something to relate to or sympathize with in every man, woman, gay, straight, young, old, contemporary, historic person. In By Nightfall, I found Peter to be pathetic, his wife flat, and his brother-in-law a whiny child.

I also like Cunningham for the deep ideas he can effortlessly mix into his stories. In this case, it was more like he was trying to mix a story into his deep idea, and it was unsuccessful. There was too much thinking about life and beauty and not enough life and beauty actually happening. On top of that, the constant musing nature let to redundant vocabulary--evanescent, crepuscular, ineffably. I like a perfect word as much as (if not more than) the next person, but when I start noticing the same words being repeated, that tells me you're trying to stretch a 30-page idea into a 230-page novel. Kind of jarring.

Perhaps I shouldn't fault Cunningham for trying to move on and do something new (based on this novel, perhaps HE is having an existential crisis over the nature of his own art), but at the same time, I really miss the triangular, interweaving stories that spoke more to me than this forceful presentation of a theme.

I did not find any of the characters, including the often naked young man with the nice ass (God help me) appealing; nor interesting. After endless paragraphs describing in detail the colors of every (or so it seems) neighborhood in New York City, including some of the outer boroughs, the story picks up; although before reaching the end, there is still interrupting, interfering stream of consciousness from not only the protagonist but from the narrator, sounding exactly alike. Without all of this--without the Tom Ford suits and the Prada skirt and the name of every taxi driver--it would have made a good short story. Instead, the endless parade of marching phrases, separated from one another by commas and semicolons--so that the punctuation becomes another character? or perhaps a Greek chorus?--and yet connected through the listing of everything that might make them the same; or different, if you fear death. (And isn't it human to be afraid? Especially of death.) The pseudo-philosophical ramblings on art are tepid and grow tedious (and I majored in art). The openings of parentheses are to lead us into Peter's mind, but when there are (sometimes) five to a sentence, all insipid, they do not close fast enough for me. No thought can be said once but must be doubled, perhaps tripled, with another way of saying exactly the same thing. Still. Each sentence, every word is carefully selected, almost religiously (maybe), as though it were measured by a metronome. The book is WRITTEN. And it is a chore to read.

Midway through Michael Cunnigham's slim new novel, By Nightfall, a character describes a rich woman's expensively decorated living room as "...so magnificent it transcends its own pretensions." That's also a good description for what Cunningham must've hoped his novel would be. But since it's not exactly magnificent, we're pretty much left with just pretentious. And the novel, though well-crafted, sure is that.

But the novel failed for another reason, too: Its protagonist is an utter dolt. Far be it from me to need likable characters to enjoy a novel, but Peter Harris is not just unlikeable -- he's totally unbelievable. Here's the story: Peter's a mid-40s New York City art dealer in the midst of a crisis. He's not sure he's happy with his life. (Real original, right?) When his wife Rebecca's much-younger, much-troubled brother Mizzy comes for a visit, idealistic Peter develops all these notions of Mizzy as quintessential Youth, Beauty, and the Happiness of his marriage when it was still new. And then, Peter thinks he might be in love with Mizzy. But is he actually in love with Mizzy or is he in love with what he's convinced himself that Mizzy represents?

But heterosexual, married Peter's possible homosexual crush on his brother-in-law (which to Cunningham's credit is certainly an original take on the mid-life crisis dilemma!) is not even the ridiculous part. The ridiculous part is how silly Peter, who Cunningham painstakingly renders as this uber-self-aware, contemplative, hip New Yorker, seems at various points in the novel. He's like a rocket scientist who can't balance his checkbook. As one example of this: Early in the novel, he comes home and sees Mizzy naked in the shower and actually mistakes him for his wife, wondering why she looks so much younger all of a sudden. Yes, this is a foreshadowing of what's to come, but its too gimmicky to be believable. And then later, Peter so blatantly misses some rather important signs that by that point are so obvious to the reader, it's impossible to take him seriously anymore.

So, then, Peter's naïvete contradicts with his (and the novel's) pretentiousness. As evidence of that pretentiousness, read this sentence (from Peter's thoughts): "She sighs voluptuously. She could so easily be a Klimt portrait, with her wide-set eyes and bony little apostrophe of a nose." A beautiful sentence, no doubt. But how does someone sigh voluptuously? And who is Klimt? Peter certainly knows, and maybe that's how an art dealer would think, but Cunningham is practically holding it over his readers' heads that they don't. And that, and dozens of similar examples throughout the novel, are what drags the novel into pretentiousness.

I do think By Nightfall is an original, smart piece of contemporary lit. But to me, the annoying peripherals cancel out the ingenuity of the story and Cunningham's often stylish prose.

I loved Michael Cunningham's first two novels, A Home at the End of the World and Flesh and Blood. I thought The Hours was beautifully written but I didn't really connect with any of the characters. (The movie is one of my favorite films of all time, though.) Specimen Days, while well-written, felt mostly impersonal to me and it felt like he was trying to recreate the success of The Hours (literary figure, three stories set in three different time periods) but not really succeeding. I'm glad to say that he's back in form with his newest novel, By Nightfall. I think By Nightfall combines the best of Cunningham: it's just as beautifully written as The Hours, but it also has characters that you can relate to like his first two novels. Here is what the 23-year-old Mizzy says on page 191:

"I don't want to do nothing. But I seem not to have some faculty other people have. Something that tells me to do this or that. To go to medical school or join the Peace Corps or teach English as a second language. Everything seems perfectly plausible to me. And I can't quite see myself doing any of it."

I'll be 23 in a matter of weeks, and that's pretty much exactly how I feel about my life. It's good to be able to connect to characters in a Cunningham novel again. This novel focuses mainly on Peter, a 44-year-old art dealer who spends a lot of time thinking about relationships, death, life, Mizzy and most importantly, Art. A lot of this novel is filled with thoughts about art and what it means in our lives and what kind of art is a work of genius. Peter is always on the look out for a work of genius, but he doesn't find it in an art form, he finds it in a person: Mizzy, his wife's much younger brother. There's not much of a plot here, but the characters and the ideas keep it interesting. I did get a little annoyed at some of the author's use of obscure words I've never heard of before, but those were few and far between thankfully.

By Nightfall is a short but satisfying read. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys character and idea-driven novels. If you haven't really connected with some of his most recent novels, you'll probably enjoy this one a lot more. I know I did.

Above all, a character study exploring the interior life of a somwhat pompous art purveyor with a thingy-thing for his much younger brother-in law. If you enjoy endless soul searching, the merchandising of fine art, and the home decorating skills of the upper classes, this book is for you.

For others, it will be struggle to "listen" as one man ruminates about himself, his sexualtity and his ongoing family issues. Despite my misgivings and waning interest, I did finish this novel, and I'm gving it 3-Stars for literary finesse. Yet, the overall reading experience did leave much to be desired over the long haul. In addition an abrupt transition/revelation on the final pages was more annoying than engaging.

Why, oh why, do I keep reading Michael Cunninghams novels. I truly have not enjoyed anything he has written since THE HOURS. Perhaps he set the bar so high with that book that everything else he writes pales in comparison. All I know for certain is that while I was ambivalent about SPECIMEN DAYS, I truly disliked BY NIGHTFALL. Perhaps I was not sufficiently enamored with the seeds of psychological insight being expressed by our protagonist Peter Harris. Peter is experiencing a mid-life crisis of sorts that is exacerbated by the arrival of his wife's younger brother.......a druggie with the body of a Greek god. The reader is swept into the New York art scene and given a front row seat as Peter muses on life in general and the misapplication and abuse of beauty in the world in particular. Mr. Cunningham has given us a ho-hum book with characters that are tediously self-absorbed, immensely unlikeable and in some cases and just plain despicable. Not one character in this book demonstrates that he/she possesses a single redeeming quality. Okay, so the characters in a story don't have to have appealing qualities and personalities to make a story palatable.....but honestly folks there DOES HAVE TO BE A STORY.

It appears that Mr. Cunningham attempted to compensate for the lack of a compelling narrative by resorting to that old stand-by S-E-X....subjecting the reader to voyeuristic descriptions of male sexual "equipment" and homo-sexual flights of fantasy in his failed effort to capture and hold the readers interest.

BY NIGHTFALL is proof positive that winning a Pulitzer for fiction is not a guarantee to readers that future offerings by the author will be anything more than one long cliché.

...and a sigh is just a sigh and unfortunately, By Nightfall is one big sigh. You labor through this short novel and at the end all you can say is who cares. Being a fool for love is only interesting when we care about the fools and in this novel all of the fools are just remote. The writing is so pretentious and silly that it almost makes you angry. The book is also filled with typos, incorrect words and and a couple of glaring mistakes, for instance when we are told Peter is wearing a charcoal polo shirt under a suit, but as he is stripping down in his kitchen he removes his jacket and trousers and unbuttons his shirt. I am sure this all sounds trivial, but so is this novel.

I am a huge fan of Michael Cunningham's work and really loved THE HOURS. As with that book, the prose in BY NIGHTFALL is lovely.
The sentences are so well-crafted and smooth it takes your breath away. Unfortunately, the characters in this book left me cold.
I didn't care much about any of them and was unmoved by their worries and concerns. The ending seemed abrupt and artificial and
was most unsatisfying. I am an art lover, but felt that some of the long passages about art detracted from the story and were
actually a bit dull. I will still await any new novel by Cunningham with excitement, but I am afraid that BY NIGHTFALL did
nothing for me.

I must say that I was surprised that this book got such good reviews by so many people. I found myself irritated and bored. Cunningham's writing is so descriptive that I actually could picture myself in every moment right along with the characters, but the problem is that nothing happens in these moments. The main character goes over the same thoughts in his mind over and over again, but never takes any action. He is basically a boring man. I hated that because I wanted to feel a connection with him. To care about what happened to him, but nothing ever did. After disk 2 I could have just said forget it, but I wanted to see it through. I thought that it had to get better, but it didn't. None of the characters had any life. I almost felt that he had to just put a book out and didn't feel like putting forth any effort. The Hours was so good that this almost doesn't seem like the same author. Maybe next time.