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What’s with the elephant?

May 12th, 2007 Lisa - Central

I like how Robert Hellenga writes.  Years ago I read The Fall of a Sparrow about a man dealing with the loss of his daughter in a bombing in a Bologna, Italy, train station.  He writes about fathers and daughters.  His fathers are complex and interesting men.  I picked up his new one, Philosophy Made Simple, not realizing that it was a sequel of sorts to his first novel, The Sixteen Pleasures, until I read some reviews after I finished it.  You don’t need to read the first to enjoy Philosophy, though it would have made it richer, I think. 

Philosophy is again about a father with daughters.  Rudy Harrington lives in a fabulous Victorian house in Chicago.  His wife died of cancer a few years ago, and his daughters are living far away.  Meg, a married lawyer, is in Milwaukee with her two sons.  Molly, a dancer, is filming a movie in India, and is engaged to be married to TJ, a scientist from India.  Margot, the main character in Pleasures, is restoring books and is having an affair in Florence.  Rudy, an avocado broker, dearly misses his wife and on a somewhat tempestuous whim, decides to sell his beloved house and buy an avocado farm in southern Texas.

When he gets there, he meets a curious assortment of people.  Medardo, his grove manager, takes the field workers into Mexico to “party” every week on Rudy’s dime. (This is the 60s when crossing the border must have been easier.)  A Russian, Vasily, owns Norma Jean, an elephant who paints up to 6 canvasses a day, which Vasily sells to pay for her upkeep. There are others.

Rudy spends his alone time trying to answer the big question of the meaning of life.  He’s reading Philosophy Made Simple, a text written by TJ’s uncle, that covers philosophy from Plato to Kant, and tries to apply their theories to his life.  Then he inherits Norma Jean, when Vasily moves to Mexico to be with his sister.  And as he plans his daughter’s wedding, to be held on the ranch, he meets TJ’s family, who instruct and inform him about philosophy, Indian marriage ceremony and the care of elephants.

While the philosophical sections slowed the pace of the novel (I’m not a philosopher.) the rest of the story is rich and enjoyable.  Hellenga made extreme south Texas come alive, and made Rudy a loveable guy.  But the elephant, while a sweetheart, I just didn’t get.

Entry Filed under: Literary Fiction