Alan Lightman: Reunion

Reviewed by MICHAEL LARSEN

The reunion of the title refers to a college reunion, but the main reunion in this delicate and insightful novel is that of the main character with his youth.

Charles is a professor who is vaguely disillusioned with his life, particularly romantically, and, like so many divorced men in their early 50s, he starts to question where he may have gone wrong.

A visit to his old college stirs the ashes of memories, especially those of his relationship with the enigmatic dancer, Juliana.

Disillusioned middle-aged men are cropping up monotonously frequently in American fiction, mainly because they are being penned by writers in the same demographics and mental state. Richard Ford's Frank Bascombe owns the stage, but Lightman's Charles is right up there as a confused, intelligent and likeable character.

Like Bascombe, he's lived an okay life, but now starts to question if he may have made some wrong turns along the way, and wonders if he can salvage a sense of peace before the inevitable decline towards death.

What makes this book a hefty cut above most is the accurate - occasionally emotionally brutal - writing, and the honesty with which Lightman/Charles approaches his task. This could have been mawkish in other hands, but Lightman's touch is as his name would suggest.

Rather than self-pity and hand-wringing, we get someone prepared to investigate, at some emotional cost and with uncertain outcome, his past relationships - with Juliana, his family, his ideologue buddies and his college and academia at large.

Lightman continually jumps about from the unsettled 60s to the present day, from the third person to the first, and from the young Charles to the older one. However, rather than discombobulate the reader, he cements the whole wistful tale by ensuring that progress is made by both Charles, if you will, and so we, like the author, feel we have analysed, resolved and moved on.

It could be that my feelings about the book were coloured by the personal echoes I discovered in Lightman's tale, but I believe few writers have tackled so successfully - and so accurately - the pain and confusion of young love at the hands of someone more assured, and made you feel better about it. A remarkable book.

Bloomsbury, $49.95

* Michael Larsen is an Auckland freelance writer.