The Lay of the Land

Ha sido un placer reencontrarse de nuevo con Frank Bascombe, el personaje creado por Richard Ford en la que parece ser la última novela en la que aparezca, tras 'El periodista deportivo' y 'El Día de la Independencia', su obra maestra. Como si de un viejo amigo se tratara, al que hace años que no ves (concretamente diez años, desde la publicación de 'El Día de la Independencia'), Frank nos cuenta qué tal le está yendo la vida, cuando faltan dos días para el Acción de Gracias del año 2000.

Frank sigue en el negocio inmobiliario, vendiendo casas en Nueva Jersey, junto a su empleado tibetano Mike. Su segunda mujer, Sally, le abandonó hace unos meses, al reaparecer su primer marido, al que se había dado por muerto. Pero lo más show more grave es que tiene cáncer de próstata, que está tratando con unas semillas de titanio. Es por ello que su hija Clarissa ha venido a vivir con él. Clarissa, de veinticinco años, ha dejado a su novia porque ha decidido probar de nuevo con los hombres. Con el extraño Paul, de veintisiete años, el otro hijo de Frank, mantiene una relación distante, pero aun así se le espera para Acción de Gracias. En cuanto a Ann, la ex mujer de Frank y madre de sus hijos, la relación bascula entre el amor y el odio, manteniéndose más bien en lo amistoso.

Y así transcurre la vida del bueno de Frank, intentando entender y pecando de demasiado comprensivo con la huida de Sally, además de pensar lo menos posible en el cáncer que padece, cuyo estado ha de volver a revisar en unos días en la Clínica Mayo. Y mientras tanto, Frank sigue viendo a clientes para venderles casas, algo que le gusta y que le ayuda en su día a día. Frank también pertenece a la organización Sponsor que, sin ánimo de lucro, intenta ayudar y dar consejo a las personas que lo requieran, como si de un grupo de amigos de alquiler se tratase.

Y todo ésto, bajo las elecciones del 2000, donde parece que va a ganar Bush (odiado por Frank) en contra de Gore. Bajo este incierto futuro transcurre la novela, con nuestro protagonista acudiendo a citas con clientes, asistiendo al entierro de un viejo amigo, preocupado por su enfermedad, pero no menos por la incertidumbre de su matrimonio, queriendo resarcirse de su penoso papel como padre, pero preocupado también por el gran día, Acción de Gracias, a dos días vista.

Esta novela es un gran fresco de lo que fue el final del año 2000, el inicio de un nuevo milenio, el inicio de una nueva etapa, en la que, visto en retrospectiva, ya se intuía el desastre económico que avecinaba; y quién mejor que un agente inmobiliario para darse cuenta. En el libro hay capítulos y fragmentos memorables, como toda la parte en la que Frank nos explica cómo le abandonó su mujer; o cómo fueron los primeros días con su hija Clarissa; o el entierro de su amigo, y muchos otros, todo ello aderezado por las reflexiones de Frank.

Al libro hay que darle tiempo para arrancar, son muchas páginas, que transcurren en su debido tempo, hasta que llega un momento en que te conviertes en la sombra de Bascombe, y disfrutas por todo lo que va pasando, de todo su periplo, sus conversaciones, sus viajes en coche...

Como bien dice Rodrigo Fresán, hay que darle las gracias a Richard Ford por haber escrito este libro. show less

Anyone who followed Frank Bascombe through Richard Ford’s previous novels in this trilogy (The Sportswriter and Independence Day) will be forgiven for some trepidation on picking up the final instalment, which is situated during the Thanksgiving Day weekend of 2000. American holidays haven’t been good to Frank. They tend to induce introspection, disruption from the usual routine, and interactions with one’s family, all of which are somewhat risky activities. And for Frank, who is now settled in what he calls his ‘Permanent Period’, such moments of personal and national soul searching usual trigger transformation. A change is certain for the country, mired though it is in the aftermath of the disputed Bush-Gore presidential show more election. But what kind of change can come for someone in his Permanent Period? What’s next, other than the ‘Next Level’, and what can that be other than death itself?

Frank is estranged from his first wife. His second wife, Sally, has been gone for nearly a year, having followed her former husband (who had been presumed dead) to the Scottish island of Mull. He cannot survive even a brief conversation with his son, Paul, without nearly coming to blows. His daughter, Clarissa, is pursuing her own transformations. His Tibetan colleague in Realty-Wise is itching to climb another rung on the great ladder of being. And Frank is undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. Anxious might be too modest a word to describe Frank’s state of mind.

Once again, Richard Ford paints a masterly picture of the modern condition in this gripping conclusion to his Frank Bascombe trilogy. The prose is dense with hesitant metaphor and promiscuous symbolism as Frank asserts, contradicts, and reasserts himself, more acted upon than acting, and incapable, seemingly, of transacting the smallest bit of business without disaster—physical, emotional, spiritual—rearing up and biting him. It’s hard to imagine a character more in need of our sympathy, or less able or likely to accept it.

Of course, endings are very much the theme of The Lay of the Land. One way or another, it’s the end for Frank. Eschatology breeds an intemperate clamouring for teleology. But whether Frank can piece together his life as a whole is an open question. And the end, when it comes, is always a surprise, however much we prepare ourselves.

Recommended without reservation. show less

Book three of Richard Ford’s trilogy about the life of Frank Bascombe starts out quite slow. Eleven years have passed since the conclusion of "Independence Day" with Frank turning 55 years old. He is still mourning his lost son, still selling real estate, still pondering the mystery of his unsuccessful relationships with the women in his life, and still trying to develop an acceptable relationship with his now adult children.

Though he has moved and remarried, not much else has changed in Frank’s life. The repetition can be boring. But if the story doesn’t put you to sleep within the first quarter, or drive you crazy from Frank’s indecisive, lackadaisical, passive personality, you may end up enjoying "The Lay of the Land". show more

Although Frank assures the reader that he has now passed from the “Permanent Stage” to the “Development Stage”, it is obvious that he is still continually examining his life and searching for ways to improve… but never seems to get anywhere.

The entire novel takes place in one week, culminating on Thanksgiving Day. Frank endures a calamity of events: a bar fight, car vandalism, funeral, dealing with is ex-wife and children, trying to close a deal on a property sale, and reconciling himself to the fact that he has prostate cancer… all while planning a family Thanksgiving weekend for his out-of-town children. Sounds like a lot, but as Frank plods from one scene to the next, the story gets weighted down with far too lengthy descriptions of the local environment, and Frank’s own personal thoughts. He has the annoying tendency to label and stereotype people based on their personality traits and his own personal experience with them (sometimes inappropriately, many times in-correctly) leaving the reader to think, “What a jerk!”.

Thankfully, in the last third of the book, the action picks up, and Frank seems to finally achieve some real “development”. I actually liked the ending. And despite the fact that "Independence Day" won the Pulitzer Prize, my favorite reading in the trilogy was "The Lay of the Land". show less

(8.5)This is the third in the Frank Bascombe series and despite not really liking the man I wanted to see what occurred next in his life.
Another decade has passed and once again Frank is on his own. His second wife Sally has left him after finding that her first husband is very much alive (he had been presumed dead) and she feels she has unfinished business with him.
Frank is living comfortably in their seaside modern home and still enjoying his realty business. However, it is a couple of days before Thanksgiving and his daughter and son and partners are descending upon him. He has survived the treatment and diagnois of prostate cancer which has left him feeling vulnerable when his first wife, Ann, now widowed declares that she still show more loves him. Frank is taken aback as he has finally accepted that their marriage was not right for them both. In the three days this 700 page book covers, Frank is confronted with a bomb scare, a death, an assault, a storm and murder. All this is recounted in his dry internal monologue on philisophical and societal topics. It is a social commentary on small town America at the millennium. I have a feeling that a fourth book in the series has been published and I guess I will be back for more ... show less

Read this in preparation for reading the recently-released last novel in the Frank Bascombe series (at least, for now), [b:Be Mine|62668811|Be Mine|Richard Ford|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1675643272l/62668811._SY75_.jpg|98409720]. As with the other books in the series, there are moments when I become so disconnected from/frustrated with Frank's rigorous rambling that I want to throw the book across the room, and other moments when I am completely captivated by the thoroughly-inhabited voice of the character. Like Cheever, Updike, Yates, the characters are less than likable, and yet these authors sometimes rise to capture pieces of life with heartbreaking precision.

I was motivated by the opening event - as I believe I was intended to be - to want to know how, by the end of the book, Frank Bascombe would answer the question, "Are you ready to meet your Maker?" That was the whole premise upon which the novel was stated. (I sensed that that opening was so important to the rest of the book, that I re-read it before going on.) But we were never really given a conclusion, not Frank's nor anyone else's.

That premise - that promise - was what was going to, I thought, make this a memorable and enlarging experience. What we learned was that you might get cancer, or even get shot, that a certain frictionless quality of personality can ease you through a lot of situations, and that your relationships with show more your exes and your offspring might be fraught with all kinds of unresolved consequences flowing from what has gone before in some distant past when, to be generous, you might not have known any better and you were doing the best you could.

Frank has become a guy who works so hard, with such design, to avoid (or to escape from) unguarded, unchoreographed encounters with any person or situation, that he is essentially an "accidental tourist" in his own life. That's not to say he's not paying attention - he is in fact hypervigilant, as a million recounted details attest. Perhaps that's the book that was intended, but it wasn't the one I expected. show less

Not as good as the first two, I still really enjoyed this third Frank Bascombe book. It starts slowly, but soon takes off. The narrator has a ton of personality and humor, and is always interjecting Deep Thoughts on life, aging, community, and New Jersey real estate.