The Marriage of Sticks

With the end of 2013 came the end of my career as an undergraduate student. Due to my being Slavic Cultures major, my last few semesters of school were entirely consumed with reading up on Russian Imperial history and the Soviet era. With this came reading through reams and reams of 19th and 20th century literature -- something I enjoyed immensely (to be honest, it was the sole reason I opted to declare a second major in the absurd and highly impractical field of Slavistics). Over the course of my studies, I discovered a bunch of authors whom I came to adore, such as Ivan Goncharov, Andrei Platonov, Venedikt Yerofeev, Andrei Bely, Aleksandr Blok, Vladimir Mayakovsky…

I could go on and list for ages.

As many bookworms know, Russian literature (well, Slavic literature in general) isn’t typically the most cheery genre in existence. It tends to be full of suicide, existential angst, and disillusionment with the world at large. I have fond recollections of the conversations I overheard in the hallways of the Smolny campus of St. Petersburg State University during my brief stint as a student in Russia. They all went a bit like this:

Student: So, how does the story end?

Professor: He dies.

Student: What? Him too?

Professor: Yes. Eet ees a very Russian ending.

Novel upon novel of doomed characters and unhappy endings naturally take a toll on one’s optimism and cheeriness. So as not to become the most glum person in existence, I made a pact with myself to refrain from reading Russian books for a while after I graduated.

Well, …

I made a conscious effort.

Russian literature is following me around, man. In an attempt to break out of the existential black hole of Slavic cynicism, I picked up Jonathan Carroll’s The Marriage of Sticks. I had encountered Jonathan Carroll before -- years ago, when I took a Gothic Literature class during my formative years in community college. I knew him from his The Land of Laughs, an adorable yet terrifying book about children’s stories coming alive. I sort of knew what to expect from him; he writes literary themed stories that are tinged with the occult and classic gothic-style nightmarish terror.

Exhibit A: Author Jonathan Carroll. Obviously a very cheery person. What was I thinking?!

All things considered, The Marriage of Sticks is an absolutely phenomenal book and a must-read for any former English/Comparative Literature major or used bookseller. It’s a story about a highly successful used bookdealer who never manages to have a successful romantic relationship, and it’s full of paragraphs like the following:

Just this morning, right before you arrived, I was thinking about a picnic I had with the Hemingways at Auteuil. Lewis Gallantiere, Hemingway and mad Harry Crosby [sic. I can’t emphasize my love for the Oxford comma enough.] Why those two men ever got along was beyond me, but it was a lovely day. We ate Westphalian ham and Harry lost three thousand francs on the horses.

At college I had read a poem by Whitman about an old man in a boat, fishing. He has lived a full life, but is tired and now peacefully waiting to die. Until then, he’s content to sit and fish and remember. Even as a kid, full of pepper and brass, I was enchanted with the idea of living so fully that at the end you had nothing left you wanted to do and were willing to die. Years later, Frances Hatch became a living example of that and her influence on me was profound.

It’s like intellectual porn, masturbating the readerly ego as one recognizes all of Jonathan Carroll’s artsy fartsy references. (He’s brilliant. More about him here.) Did you recognize the Whitman poem?

It’s also got a bunch of witty paragraphs geared towards self-reflection, ie:

In the end, each of us has only one story to tell. Yet despite having lived that story, most people have neither the courage nor any idea of how to tell it.

It’s too easy to turn your best profile to history’s mirror. but history doesn’t care. I have learned that. Mirrors and treasure maps. X marks the spot not where a life begins, but where it begins to matter. Forget who your parents were, what you learned, what you did, gained or lost. Where did the trip begin? When did you know you were walking through the departure gate?

The main character is middle-aged Miranda Romanac. She’s afraid to become emotionally vulnerable to people, so she has a slew of one night stands and generally unsatisfying intimate relationships. In order to try to get herself through the dreariness of everyday existence, she holds on tightly to the memory of her high school romances. The book is full of colorful characters, such as quirky modern art dealers, crazy artists, Hungarian psychic gypsies, and ghosts of lovers past. Here’s where the Russian literature comes in: there’s a crazy book editor that runs around the streets of New York breaking the hearts of men with a line of Mayakovsky tattooed on her wrist -- “Hope gleams in the idiot heart.”

If you’re looking for a cheerful read, I wouldn’t really recommend this title. It’s far too Russian in nature. I never give spoilers, but it doesn’t end well. If, however, you’re looking for something that will engage you and make you think, pick it up. It doesn't disappoint.