Maya LangRecensioni

Timing is everything. This book was the perfect read for me at this time. It mirrored so much of what I am doing and experiencing, and was in many ways a hopeful encouragement and validation of my feelings. Recommended for those dealing with aging parents and the switch from care receiver to care giver.

Having never read any of James Joyce's works, I was a little daunted when I realized that his Ulysses] plays such a big role in Lang's story. The good news is, one does not need to read Ulysses to fully appreciate The Sixteenth of June, although I did feel as though Joyce was hovering in the wings the entire time. The story is centered around two themes: the funeral of the Portman's family's paternal grandmother, and the family's annual Bloomsday party to celebrate Thursday, June 16, 1904, the day depicted in Joyce's novel. Focusing on Nora, Leo and Stephen, this story carries a strong influence of Virginia Woolf, in particular her novel Mrs. Dalloway, which I happen to love. As with Mrs, Dalloway, this story is very much an examination of relationships; of ambitions, worries and regrets, and of secrets. No character is 'lovable'. Each character is portrayed as a flawed, constrained individual, more concerned with projecting their outward masks of normalcy while inside they are in varying stages of fall apart or excel at outward projection of superiority to mask insecurities. What was hard for me to do while reading this one was to sit back and observe certain characters exhibiting signs of needing release and failing to find a supportive outlet for that release. Talk about a great portrayal of dysfunctional family dynamics, divisions of social class structure and the tensions and allegiances of both friendships and family! The use of multiple narrators really helps provide that "inside voice" point of view, to depicting it in such sharp contrast to the outside mask being projected. The Philadelphia setting is wonderful, and familiar, which is always a bonus when reading a story.

Overall, if you have actually tackled Ulysses - and if so, kudos to you! - or loved Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, this story has the same constraining vibe and feel that may appeal to you, as it did for me. A wonderfully written debut novel and I can highly recommend the audiobook version narrated by Julia Whelan, Will Damron and MacLeod Andrews.

.... and yes, I am now motivated to read Joyce's Ulysses, or at least attempt to listen to the audiobook, thanks to the wonderful section in the story when Stephen and his Ph.D. advisor, a Joyce expert, engage in discussion about Ulysses.

Dull. Story about pretentious New Yorkers who have moved to Philadelphia. Parents pretend to love James Joyce and celebrate each Bloomsday. Two sons and one fiance are all messed up with first world problems. Little of interest, but the audiobook narrators did a fine job with the material.

Ever since I read James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in high school, the Irish author has fascinated me to no end. Much of my graduate work focused on Joyce. When I heard of a novel loosely based on Joyce’s great work, Ulysses, I could not move faster to order and read the novel, The Sixteenth of June by Maya Lang. As a bonus, she set the story in Philadelphia. All kinds of landmarks figure into the story, as they do in the Dublin of Ulysses. Those who enjoy puzzles and word games will find this a pleasant and worthwhile read.

The only drawback to the novel lies in the complicated family relationships, which I found hard to keep straight. I tried making a family tree, but gave up. Maya Lang’s website contains a list of sentences and paraphrased sentences, drawn from Ulysses. Great fun ferreting those out.

Lang’s prose ranks close to Joyce’s style. In Ulysses, every page is a puzzle, every character described in great detail. Lang’s characters also share names with the characters in Ulysses: Leopold and Stephen, and Nora – Joyce’s wife.

Lang’s Stephen is an English Professor, as is Joyce’s. Lang writes, “They continued talking, their discussion lightening as the sky grew dark. He told her about teaching, that sea of alien faces smirking at him. How they fidgeted, turning in papers that were a collective atrocity. And this is an Ivy League school! Next he was going on about his committee, the fatiguing levels of [butt]-kissing its members required. He felt as if he were getting a degree in babysitting, in appeasement, in coddling. ‘Stephen, don’t you have office hours?’ she interrupted, glancing at the clock. ‘No one ever comes anyway,’ he replied hastily, reaching for a cookie. He thought he saw a momentary gleam in her eye, but she said nothing, her head bobbing away” (29).

Numerous references to places I know and love abound in the novel: Rittenhouse Square, Spruce Street, Delancey Place, Chestnut Hill, Wawa – a deli/convenience store with great sandwiches, and my neighborhood, Fishtown. She even takes a jab at a Philly accent, when Nora asks if Stephen wants a drink. “She pronounced coffee as if it had a w. Cawfee” (109).

The characters spent a lot of time in their heads, for example, Lang writes, “Nora wonders if they aren’t so different from Ulysses. She had attempted to read it before her first Bloomsday party. ‘How do you people get through this thing?’ she asked Stephen. ‘They don’t,’ he replied. ‘That’s its claim to fame’” (88).

In one scene, Lang writes, “…Stephen clacking away on his beloved typewriter. 16 June 2014” (121). Of course June 16th is Bloomsday, the date Ulysses is set. So those were fun, and kept me reading, but I think I will read this again in a little while and see if deserves more than 4 stars.

--Jim, 8/21/14

The Portman family is a well to do family, a family that in the words of their son Stephen likes to sweep things under the rug, not having to deal with things that do not fit into the view of their lifestyle. June 16th, 2004 is big day for this family, it is the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday, and it is the funeral of the Portman grandmother. Every year Michael has a Bloomsday party and has no intention of cancelling this years.

It is a story of a love triangle between Stephen and Leopold the Portman sons, and Nora, Stephens best friend and Leopold fiancé. She is dealing with a grief she cannot overcome, the death of her mother from cancer. They are all floundering in their own separate ways. Leopold wants nothing more than to marry Nora and have a house and normal family. He is also obsessed with food. Stephen is trying to complete his education, to complete his thesis which has been six years in the making. All seem stuck in place, just treading water, not making waves. All that will change on this day.

Modeled on the story Ulysses, this book too has 18 chapters, familiar names, internal monologues but is stilt very much its own story. I have never read Ulysses but as fate would have it I will be doing a buddy read in a group on this site. I still very much enjoyed this story on its on merits, wanted to see how each of these characters ended their stalemate, where they would end up and who with. The prose is wonderfully smooth, the story flows well.

A very good story abut the internal feelings of a family taught to hide much.

Spoiler-free summary:
Taking place in a single day, Maya Lang's debut novel, The Sixteenth of June explores the relationship between the members of a wealthy family in Philadelphia. Leo is the simplistic, humble son who yearns for "normalcy," which, to him is a life away from the gilt and glamour of his mother's world. Stephen, an academic lost inside literary theory and his own theories about himself, loves Leo's fiance Nora, a talented opera singer, with a fierce platonic urgency and met her long before Leo came into the picture. These characters and their strange undulating bonds are first introduced to us on the morning of June 16th due to the death of Leo and Stephen's grandmother, and leave us again that evening at a showy, pretentious family party dedicated to James Joyce's Ulysses. Billed as a social satire, The Sixteenth of June is an amusing, thoughtful look inside the dynamics of family and the dynamics of the mind of the individual.

.....

I'm going to begin this review by stating that, like many characters in the novel, I haven't actually read Ulysses. Sure, I mean to. I will even go as far as to say, in my best girl scout voice, "I fully intend to read Ulysses." But so does everyone else. Despite not ever having read Ulysses (or any Joyce other than Dubliners) I did not have a hard time understand this novel and picking up the references to Ulysses. In fact, I think not reading Joyce's most challenging work made reading a novel directly inspired by and descended from it an interesting experience. You will find solidarity with the characters in the novel who haven't read the book, but are celebrating it anyway. You will have to confront yourself with the question, "Why do I want to read that giant thing?"

What I am trying to say is: The plot of Maya Lang's novel stands on its own, but is enriched by references and allusions to Ulysses (and these references can be picked up and understood with a quick skim of the Wikipedia page on Ulysses before reading).

I read The Sixteenth of June while I was reading [b:The Marriage Plot|10964693|The Marriage Plot|Jeffrey Eugenides|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1328736940s/10964693.jpg|15668403] by Jeffrey Eugenides. They were disturbingly similar. Both involve a love triangle, a best friend figure who is struggling with their religious and sexual identities, pretension in the literary world, mental illness and the way it affects our relationships, wealthy and self-righteous parental figures. They were so similar that I'd continually get confused between the two of them. They even end with pretty much the same conclusion and dynamic between the characters. I decided that the universe was trying to tell me something by bringing both of these books to me at exactly the same time (though I'm not sure what the universe was trying to tell me; Don't go to grad school, maybe? Stay away from the East Coast?) While I am a fan of Eugenides (Middlesex, The Virgin Suicides), I think Maya Lang did it better. Her characters felt more authentic and were genuinely likable where Eugenides's characters were cold and felt like personifications of themes and theories instead of real people. This is impressive considering Lang's story takes place all in one day whereas Eugenides had unlimited time to convince us that his characters were worth reading about.

I thought Maya Lang's description of trichotillomania (compulsive hair pulling) was accurate and added a nice layer to Nora, who would have been boring and flat otherwise. I also really enjoyed the dichotomy set up between Nora's parents and Leo and Stephen's.

The Sixteenth of June is a sweet, inventive read. I look forward to seeing what else Maya Lang will offer us.

Buy The Sixteenth of June, available June 3rd, 2014 in hardcover and e-book format from Amazon.

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