Customer Reviews

Perfect Agreement

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I made the mistake of judging this book by its beige/green dull cover of a man working in his garden. So when I pulled it off the shelf, in a hurry to get to the train station, I almost put it back again. A book about a grammarian? And the Shakers? I wondered when and why I had bought this white elephant. Luckily, time was short, and I did not re-shelve it.

The story of Mark Sternum, dismissed from his job for flunking the wrong student at the wrong time for the right reason, soon had me hiccupping with laughter. Yes, there are some insider academic jokes here, but the dead-pan telling of the tale creates moments of comedy that are transcendent. My laughter became unmanageable as Mark, with his mysterious absent (or is it present?) Shaker-obsessed father, his dying mother, his sister with her picture-word messages, tries to cope with his life by not answering the phone. Soon my laughter became that of the awkward, snorting, squeaking variety. People on the train began to stare at me as I wheezed laughs into my bag of potato chips. But I could not stop. The hero's angst demanded that I purge it with my muffled whoops.

It's too true that the section in this book that spirals into Celia the Shaker's story slows the laughter and seems affected -- not quite believable. Celia's odd tale out of an era that Michael Downing, the author, doesn't quite capture, seems out of place here. But it's worth enduring Celia's too-solemn Shaker world to excavate the events in Mark's life that drive his painful and painfully funny tale. And yes, (one more objection), the grammar lessons at the end of each chapter do become a bit arch. But this book should be read, begs to be read. After all, when was the last time you read a grammar lesson and laughed until your nose ran?

Perfect Agreement seems like a compendium of literary devices favored by academics who write. We have the light, airy tone of the main story, a satire upon university academic standards and the new "political correctness" coupled with the rather typical self-absorbed man's search for connection. There's the requisite "story within a story", in this case a story about Shakers, stitched onto the main story with rather unsightly thread. We have intercalary passages of cutesy grammatical humor, popped onto the end of chapters as though it were insight. There's academic politics, rather, odd, misplaced patches of stray violence (in a very brief passage), and even a bit of why-Joanie-can't-read commentary. We even have the literary equivalent of a "who-dun-it", in a particularly obvious use of anonymous notes to our protagonist as a method of communicating commentary.

Mr. Downing has a gift for narrative, and an ability to instill credibility into fairly unrealistic characters. Perfect Agreement is therefore not a bad read. The protagonist, a grammarian teaching remedial classes who loses his job when a student complains that the standards are discriminatory, is someone with whom the reader can find much good ground. It's not that the plot is a bit silly--that's okay in a light comic novel. It's not that the story-within-a-story reads like research repacked in fictional form--that, too is often done. It's not the fact that the reader cannot believe for a moment in the tenuous Shaker/modern life connection--frequently, real life connections are similarly incredible. The problem with this book is that it tries to do too much--it seems as though the author is trying to 'run the paces' with too many traps and devices. The result is a decent read, but not a particularly good novel.

Do you have difficulty spelling words such as "misspell" or "manageable" or is "managable?" The author offers a brief refresher note after each chapter about spelling, punctuation and diction rules we forget as adults. Downing's protagonist, Mark Sternum, is a punctilious college teacher of spelling and grammer who dares to flunk an African-American unwed mother for her inability to spell. The background issue here is the concern of college educators about today's political correctness on campuses which the author thinks humiliates professors into being overly sensitive in dealing with minority students. Eventually the student proposes to sue all the teachers who passed her because they were derelict in their duties, except to Sternum. The author interweaves the personal life story of Sternum with the Shakers who Downing believes are simply looked upon today as the makers of furniture and not who they really were and what they had contributed to our society. This is an interes

PERFECT AGREEMENT is an interesting mixture of stories, parables, and wonderful observations by a professor of English in a small Eastern college. It involves a lengthy Quaker connection, college faculty infighting and a sweet love story between two intelligent men. The author includes great grammar lessons at the end of each chapter. Thanks Michael Downing, I needed (and enjoyed) that. Though the language is incredible, the humor subtle, and the grammar lessons interesting and useful, the format makes for difficult reading. There are no paragraph breaks. The long stretches of print made me wish the author would stop to take a breath. H

Perfect Agreement has something for everyone: humor, pathos, social commentary, stunning prose, grammar tips, and even a little history of sorts. In addition to all this, Downing is a captivating storyteller, and this novel intertwines the telling of two stories, one set in the past and one in the present. The present revolves around the career and relationships of Mark Sternum, a man who is remarkably likable, possibly because he is exceptionally devoid of self pity and self deception. Downing's images are so vivid that the reader not only visualizes the story but smells, tastes and feels the events as well. Usually, when I read "a really good piece of literature" I find an astute observation or an exceptionally tastey tidbit of prose which I copy out and save. In the case of Perfect Agreement, I couldn't begin to do this, as nearly every page contained at least one passage that I wanted to savour, copy or memorize. This reader hasn't been this excited about an author since she discovered Faulker twenty-seven years ago. The two authors' ability to sensitively see and juxtapose humor and pain is not dissimilar.

What, in fact, is a novel? This question kept beating my brain whilst reading the first part of this, in my eyes, pseudo-novel. Yes, pseudo, because there is hardly any (plot)development present within its covers. The author just rambles on almost mindlessly about the perils of academic life, with a quasi witty bon-mot here and there,which often impresses as being totally out of place. I was highly surprised the novel was even deemed fit for publication at all. It's as if Downing's been lying on a psychoanalyst's couch with a fair amount of bourbon fighting its way down to his already overworked liver. One of my professors of clinical psychology, bless his soul, used to call such blabbing as presented in Downing's "novel" free dissociation. Voila. Oh yes, and then we have that whole crazy bit concerning the absence of paragraphs, turning this piece of writing into a veritable hodge-podge of largely headless sentences chasing each other from now until doomsday. No, I should have saved my precious money for a much more interesting and mature type of novel. So, off to the bookseller's for a refund or a work of much and much more merit. Sorry.

There is serenity in order, but when that order is violated, one's life can fall apart. "Perfect Agreement" tells the story of Mark Sternum, a man with an idealistic life. Accused of racism, he loses his job as a college professor and soon finds the course of life he was planning to be impossible. What follows is something that will change his life, but not everything is bad. "Perfect Agreement" is a top notch read that is a fine addition to literary fiction collections.

I have to admit to reading few contemporary novels, but I've been reading more of them since happening upon Downing's, in hopes of finding others like it. Both story lines are compelling, and more important to me, the narration is sensitive, humorous, and sophisticated. I congratulate the author, and my only complaint is that his earlier novels are so hard to find.

Seldom does even a good book warrant reading more than once. This one is even better the second time around. I haven't enjoyed the search for symbolism so much since my college days.

This book was an excelent read. Mr Downing interwines the stories of his main character as well as the main characters father and the Shaker's that facinated him so.