Twelve down, forty to go.

Twelve down, forty to go.

Bowl of Cherries
by Millard Kaufman

Well, with only fifteen days left to 2007, it seems doubtful I'm going to reach my goal of 52 books. Maybe next year I should halve the goal, and avoid Joan Didion, then I might have a fighting chance. Hopefully I'll still get another book or two under my belt before the end of the year, but if Millard Kaufman's Bowl Of Cherries happens to be my final book of the year, it's a fine way to end this cycle.

Kaufman is best known for his Oscar-nominated screenplay for Bad Day at Black Rock, and as one of the creators of Mr. Magoo. He's actually gotten quite a bit of press for Bowl of Cherries, his first novel, published at his tender age of 90 years old. The book itself is a farce based on an incredibly intelligent and unmotivated protagonist, whose only true direction in life is provided by a breathtakingly beautiful girl who, against all odds, returns his affections. His adventures take him through Ivy League schools, the New York porn underground, the darker side of poetry publishing, and deep into a little known territory in war-torn Iraq that builds its architectural structures with a most unique compound. And the whole thing, while it does get a little heavy right near the end, is a hilarious, and unexpectedly touching, comedy of errors.

The book has a timeless quality to it, since Kaufman shows great delight in the almost lost art of truly clever wordplay mixed with an adolescent delight in tweaking the reader's ear while challenging their sensibility. Kaufman displays a deft hand with his characters, managing to draw out redeeming qualities in folks the reader might find nothing in common with, or likable about, upon first meeting.

Ultimately, I think one of the reasons I really enjoyed Bowl of Cherries is because, well, no one is really writing like this anymore. It's the sort of smart literary comedy that proved more popular 50 years ago, and its art has largely been displaced by a more nihilistic and hopeless brand of black humor. Not that I'm opposed to black humor (or nihilistic black humor) and Bowl of Cherries certainly has it's share of black humor, but that tendency is balanced off by a certain optimism and bolstered by Kaufman's addictive caressing of language.