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"A young couple on the brink of marriage--the charming Veblen and her fiancé Paul, a brilliant neurologist--find their engagement in danger of collapse. Along the way they weather everything from each other's dysfunctional families, to the attentions of a seductive pharmaceutical heiress, to an intimate tête-à-tête with a very charismatic squirrel. Veblen (named after the iconoclastic economist Thorstein Veblen, who coined the term "conspicuous consumption") is one of the most refreshing heroines in recent fiction. Not quite liberated from the burdens of her hypochondriac, narcissistic mother and her institutionalized father, Veblen is an amateur translator and "freelance self"; in other words, she's adrift. Meanwhile, Paul--the product of good hippies who were bad parents--finds his ambition soaring. His medical research has led to the development of a device to help minimize battlefield brain trauma--an invention that gets him swept up in a high-stakes deal with the Department of Defense, a Bizarro World that McKenzie satirizes with granular specificity"--… (more)
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She is the young heroine of Elizabeth McKenzie’s The Portable Veblen. She’s named for the nonconformist economist Thorstein Veblen, and lives in Palo Alto, where this creator of
Our Veblen is a temp typist, who loves the act of typing, and a freelance translator of Norwegian prose. She finds a little house that is close to falling apart and turns it into a home. That little place is a haven, and why Veblen would love to create and have and hold a haven becomes clear as the story rolls along.
She also has a beau. Paul is a brilliant neurologist who has found Veblen enchanting and restful. She is both. Even though he is already a doctor and a researcher, Paul feels he has something to prove. So when a giant pharma medical supply corporate daughter who runs the firm finds his instrument fascinating, he is gullible and entranced. He signs on.
As this pair realizes that they have committed themselves to a life together, their former lives come into play. Oh dear. It’s time to introduce the loved one to one’s parents.
Although McKenzie has already set a light tone in her style, with side musings that show depth, she kicks this style into high gear with the families involved. Veblen’s mother is neurotic and an uber hypochondriac. She fusses over Veblen something fierce.
In the midst of the light-hearted quirkiness, we see why. Veblen is rather nervous when Paul sets a trap in her attic’s house to keep the squirrels out. No wonder she’s nervous. She thinks one of them has been communicating with her for years. Growing up in a little place named Cobb, Veblen was akin to the Bronte sisters with her own created world:
The map represented a place called Wobb, with all the topography and various special places sketched in. No, it wasn’t quite like Cobb. It was a place where animals had been gathering to reinstate their rights, and where a runaway girl lived by herself in a tree house and was somehow an important part of their world. Humans simply could no longer see the intrinsic value of anything. Squirrels, for instance, had thought that after fifty million years on the North American continent, it was safe to let down their guard. They had made a bad contract with people in innocence and trust, and had paid the price.
Little noticings that make big points were a reading highlight, such as “Humans simply could no longer see the intrinsic value of anything” (as looking at the news today will tell us) and that any living creature might make “a bad contract with people in innocence and trust” because those qualities still do exist.
Or, as a character notes: “Do you think wishful thinking is a psychiatric condition?”
Veblen and her mother have had a strong relationship for years not only because they love each other, but because they have had to deal with Veblen’s father, who was institutionalized. Veblen’s stepfather is a librarian; she has grown up immersed in books, reading and living in other people’s words and creating her own:
The smell was the London of Dickens, the catacombs on the Appia Antica, the Gobi Desert in winter, a dark monastery in Tibet. It was Nevada City in the gold rush. It was a telegraph office near the Mexican border. It was a captain’s trunk coming around the Horn. It was a dressing room on the Great White Way in New York. Sometimes, it was a breezy little tree house in Wobb.
Paul’s family has had its struggles as well. He grew up under the shadow of his father’s brother dying a hero in Vietnam. Paul’s medical device that the big corporation has decided to develop could help battlefield medics. Paul’s brother is developmentally disabled and concern for him controls everything that has happened to the family for years. Paul’s a bit tired of that and he most definitely does not want this overwhelming concern to ruin his wedding.
This makes the novel sound more distraught and heavy lifting than it actually is. McKenzie has a light and assured narrative style that allows the characters to learn to be honest about themselves and their loved ones without an underlying sense of despair or nihilism. Yes, bad things happen. People can be greedy and selfish. But they also can hurt and try not to let it overcome them. They can acknowledge the burdens of others and they can be forgiving. They can continue to reach out. And they can love and be loved.
Even as Veblen and Paul figure out if they are grown-up and if they want to marry, let alone marry each other, the way they view their families and each other’s is a solid part of their journey. Seeing beyond the irritations or slights can do that:
Through the rough glass she saw gestures of familiarity as they huddled over the pictures. Marion placed a hand on Paul’s shoulder. Justin leaned on Bill. Bill talked to his boys, and for that moment, listening to their father, they sat as brothers absorbed in family lore. What did she know about families, and how they ran?
Another character sees this family later and knows how significant their moments of togetherness are, as we know how important family is to the observant character. It is one of those sweet moments in a novel that is the equivalent of a warm fire, comfy chair and blanket, and beverage of choice.
Occasionally we see through the eyes of other characters; these times throughout the book are not overdone, but including them adds depth. Returning to Veblen’s perspective, it’s easier to see why she has come to her conclusions.
And as for the squirrel -- an element that is not overdone and not as twee as some may think -- it’s worth the journey of reading the entire novel just to find out about its significance.
I kind of liked Veblen and Paul as a couple. Some parts of this book held my interest, especially when I could see the connections between past and present, and how childhood experiences affected their relationship. But most of the book, while attempting to be fresh, witty, and creative, came across as a self-conscious and over the top.
The story of Veblen and Paul is not so simple as one wanting status that the other finds abhorrent. Both have families that they are still having trouble dealing with. Veblen's mother is a controlling hypochondriac, who nonetheless dearly loves Veblen, and her father is in a mental institution. Paul was raised by hippies who grew pot and made furniture out of found objects. They're both intent on shaping their lives partially in reaction to their upbringing. What's lovely about this book is that McKenzie never goes for the easy answer. All of her characters are understandable, and even likable in their own ways, even when their actions are harmful to others. Also, there is a squirrel.
After a stretch of reading serious books doing inventive things to the story-telling process, it was wonderful to read a more traditionally (mostly) constructed novel. McKenzie has written an excellent book about families, and how they affect us, even in how we choose to be different from them and she's done so in a manner that charmed me.
McKenzie plays coy and waits until around page 100 to slam the reader with the fullness of family dysfunctionality in Veblen and Paul’s lives. That both of them come from parents who veer so far from normality that it can’t be seen is enough to take the novel into uncharted territory. His father is a socialist who raised him in a commune in Northern California where growing pot was one source of income and also led to frequent police raids. His older brother is developmentally disabled, but Paul believes his disabilities are faked, done solely to get attention. All of this fills Paul with a latent rage against non-conformity and a surprising lack of compassion. Veblen’s mother is a hypochondriacal narcissist who divorced her father long ago and married a man whose sole function in life is to ensure that she is never ‘stressed’ in any way. Veblen’s father is a vet whose PTSD presents as extreme paranoia and violence. All of these characters are meant to come together for their wedding which is a clue as to how things are going to culminate.
McKenzie has a swinging grace with words and phrases—creating combinations not seen before—a trait that always grabs me in an author, but like the squirrels, The Portable Veblen becomes chittering and unnerving as she decides to unearth a treasure trove of oddities that go far beyond plausibility. I was onboard with the satirical aspects of consumerism, war, and the pharmaceutical industry, but in the rush to score points against these targets her characters are left to become caricatures. What started as quirky and whimsical became eccentric became problematic. As the plot exploded into the farcical I was left unable to care. The squirrels may have been speaking to Veblen but not to me.
All of that is rather a shame, because I'm normally sympathetic to anything which is critical of the values of corporate America and the excesses of big pharma, the heroine Veblen is charming and Thorstein Veblen sounds fascinating. Overall though, I felt that there were not enough high points to compensate, so I can't recommend it, but I'll happily accept that others will disagree, as the current discussion in the 21st Century Literature group demonstrates.
McKenzie develops two characters to represent differences and
The principal character is Veblen Amundsen-Hovda, a young woman who was aptly named for Thorstein Veblen, the iconoclastic economist who coined the expression “conspicuous consumption.” She is recovering from a childhood characterized by extremes of dysfunction. Her mother, Melanie, is a narcissistic, hypochondriacal and manipulative bitch, who is divorced from her father (Rudgear), a man who is institutionalized with some unspecified mental illness. Veblen’s stepfather is so sympathetic and accommodating, one wonders if McKenzie chose to name him Linus in homage to Charlie Brown’s best friend. Veblen lives somewhat off the grid in a modest house in Palo Alto. She sews her own clothes, works temp jobs, never finished college, takes antidepressants and relies on a childhood friend, who is a psychiatrist, for advice. She has concerns about her own mental health but in the final analysis, may just have low self-esteem. She copes by biting herself, by volunteering as a translator for the Norwegian Diaspora Project in Oslo and by engaging in a strange tick consisting of stream-of-consciousness typing.
The other principal character is Paul Vreeland, Veblen’s fiancé. Paul’s background is almost as bizarre and dysfunctional as Veblen’s. His parents are trapped in the sixties with all of the characteristics of that generation—drugs, rock and roll, and rejection of all middle class values. Paul’s brother is a mentally disabled adult with whom he has persistent sibling rivalry issues. Paul has worked hard to overcome his past. He has become a doctor with a specialty in neurology and a burgeoning research career. He buys into all of society’s materialistic trappings of success (including a ridiculously gaudy engagement ring that he gives to Veblen). He is a man on a mission to treat traumatic brain injuries using a clever device he invented. His Pneumatic Turbo Skull Punch is designed for EMT’s and military medics to safely and effectively perform emergency craniotomies in the field. In the persona of a sexy seductress, big pharma notices the profit potential for Paul’s device and seduces him to market it using both ethical and shady practices. Obviously, Paul is ripe for the taking.
Considering they are so obviously mismatched, Veblen and Paul’s attraction to each other seems strange. Paul is a young man on the make while Veblen believes that a person’s happiness is inversely proportional to “how much stuff you have.” McKenzie highlights the disparity in their values with the squirrel. Paul wants to trap and kill it, while Veblen takes it on a road trip and develops a keen relationship with it. One doubts that this couple would last very long in the real world. Does McKenzie think their similar challenging backgrounds can serve as a nexus?
The narrative is clever and often humorous, but seems overly ambitious and forced. McKenzie seems to be trying to stuff as many ideas and quirkiness into the novel as it will bear. Most of the characters have idiosyncrasies and few are likeable. They seem to have been created to illustrate the extreme challenges faced by the young couple. The idea that everyone would accept everyone else for who they are seems overly optimistic.
The periodic inclusion of pictures in the text is cute, but adds little of substance to the narrative. Although, the appendices seem to be an unusual way to end the novel, they do add humorous anecdotes about how each of the characters copes.
This was a sometimes silly, but ultimately quite funny story that is, at least in part, reminiscent of the style of "Where'd You Go, Bernadette?". The families in this book are off the charts odd and dysfunctional. They provide not only humor, but some great tension that keeps things from becoming monotonous and juvenile. The madcap plot is tempered with some serious undertones as Paul seems to succumb to the lure of money and fame, only to figure out what is truly important in life. And the squirrels play some very key supporting roles in the whole thing.
I think most people would enjoy this book. The story is original and contains plenty of humorous moments that make it a fun read. The characters are totally unique and captivating.
I thank the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this title.
I shall look at my squirrels differently from now on!
I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher Harper Collins via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.
This novel is funny and touching and entertaining, and more than adequately quirky. I didn't much care for Paul, but people who cut up live animals for a living aren't likely to be on my BFF list, even if their reasons are supposedly noble.
The book, even the e-book, contains some wonderful photos that add to the atmosphere of the story. There were words new to me, that I had to look up. This is a fun, light read, and if you think your family is a bubble off plane, will make you feel positively mainstream.
And I really like squirrels with attitude.
Okay so I like a certain amount of eccentricity in the characters I read about, but this was a LOT of eccentricity to deal with, and at first I wasn't sure how much I liked anybody. In fact, I spent most of the book wondering what on earth Veblen and Paul had in common or saw in each other. It probably doesn't help that I'm also unfamiliar with the economic and political values of the real Thorstein Veblen and found myself googling several elements of that and the medical terminology. Sometimes it was funny but most of the time it was ridiculous and I was as surprised as anyone to find in the end that I rather cared about what happened to the characters.
This is a wild and raucous story of debilitating families, misplaced ambition, guilt, greed, and capitalist critique. Not to put too fine a point on it, it is rather difficult to pin down. Perhaps “fun” would be the best word to describe it. Despite the zaniness of many of the characters, you’ll find that you come to care for them all, even Veblen’s mother. A very fun read. Recommended.
Last 150 pages flew by--story really picks up there.
Both Veblen and Paul have odd families and their relationship is strange. Sadly, I wasn't invested in any of the characters. A bit bizarre for me.
My copy was kindly provided via NetGalley.