BOOK REVIEW: Mr. Ives' Christmas by Oscar Hijuelos
By Jorge Reyes
Not sure if this ever happens to you
but sometimes I buy books I do not read until years later, much
later. This doesn't often happens, for eventually I read all the
books I buy. But a strange thing happened with this book I am about
to talk about, Mr. Ives' Christmas by Oscar Hijuelos, a book I bought
more than 15 years ago and for one reason or another I simply just
forgot I had it. About a week ago, looking for some post-Christmas
reading, I found that book-- a precious nugget of a book. To my
surprise, it was even autographed by the author himself, Oscar
Hijuelos, who died a few months ago of a stroke in 2013.
Mr. Ives' Christmas is a modern-day
Dickensian little tome of a book. Of about 250 pages only, it
distills the life of a man named Ives, a foundling adopted by an
Irish man. Of dubious ethnicity, Mr. Ives marries and has two
children, a girl and a boy. His life is always interpreted through
the prism of religiosity. Mr. Ives, you see, is a deeply religious
catholic man who, at times, doubts his own passionate beliefs. In
fact, he's smart enough to notice the accidental tragedies that
befall people and is intellectually sophisticated to ask the “why's.”
He is privy to senseless, tragic accidents that seem to follow him
for most of his life.
While still dating the woman he will
marry, Annie, early in the book, he witnesses the death of a lady who
accidentally falls through her apartment window and onto the
pavement, the impact killing her immediately. He himself almost
drowns as a youth. The only thing he can extract from both
experiences is a sense of sheer horror and desperation. There are no
parting clouds, music or angels coming out to greet you at heaven's
door. Mr. Ives meets many people who seem to have experienced
tragedy first-hand, such as a co-worker who was also a concentration
camp survivor and who has never been able to forget the children she
saw go to the gas chambers every day, often with flowers in their
hands.
But nothing is about to prepare Mr.
Ives for what life has in store for him.
From as long as he could remember, Mr.
Ives' only boy, Robert, has had a proclivity for the religious way of
life. Eventually, Robert tells his dad he wants to join the
Dominican order, a decision that at first takes Mr. Ives by surprise
but a decision by his son he learns to accept. One day in 1967,
Robert is senselessly murdered by a Daniel Gomez, a troubled Puerto
Rican teenager, right on the streets near a church. Of course, like
the random violence in our streets, there is no logic or reason for
the murder. Having lost his only son, on the verge of losing his own
faith, and unable to come to grips with the reality of a personal
tragedy, Mr. Ives tries to live his life the best way he can. He is
not the type of man to harbor bitterness or hatred in his heart,
something that sets him apart from the characters, including his wife
and his long-time best Cuban friend, Luis Ramirez.
Mr. Ives is given the chance to avenge
his son's senseless murder by an Irish friend from the neighborhood,
but Mr. Ives declines to take justice into his own hands. For the
murder, the youth spends three years in a juvenile detention center,
and, upon his release, now an adult, he goes on to commit another
murder, for which he is charged with second degree manslaughter and
for which he is given a twenty-two years sentence. Almost a
tormented soul, Mr. Ives realizes that he could have prevented this
second murder at the hands of this troubled youth if, three years
before, he had taken his neighbor's deal and pay a hit-man to take
the law into his own hand.
Mr. Ives, wavering between faith and
doubt, one day has a religious epiphany after being prone to an
accident inside an elevator. He will never ever rationally be able
to explain the religious experience, enough to say that it seemed as
if transcendence went beyond the simple rituals of his catholic
faith, a faith he never truly gives up on.
“Then, not knowing whether to shout
from ecstasy or fear, he looked up and saw the sun, glowing red and
many times its normal size, looming over the avenue, a pink and then
flaring yellow corona bursting from it. And then, in all directions
the very sky filled with four rushing, swirling winds, each defined
by a different-colored powder like strange Asian spices: one was
cardinal red, one the color of saffron, another gray like mothwing,
the last a brilliant violet, and these came from four directions,
spinning like a great pinwheel over Madison Avenu and Forty-first
Street.”
It's a religious mysticism he's never
able to explain, but that each character also experience in their own
particular ways.
Way into the 1990's and decades after
his son's murder, Mr. Ives finds visits the man who murdered his son
in 1967. The youth, now an adult, married, prone to depression,
guilty-ridden and weighing over 300 lbs, apologizes and Mr. Ives
forgives him. In fact, it is Mr. Ives' sudden benevolence towards
him that makes all the difference to his felon.
This is a book that jumps around
throughout the decades. It encapsules a New York City long gone as
well as a microcosm of a world we're all too familiar with: violence,
post-modernity, chaos, you name it. Storylines and character
development move in and out with the ease that only a master
story-teller can accomplish.
Like most of Hijuelos's other novel,
this books is a rich tapestry of music, life and changing times. It
is a melting pot of ideas, events, and about living life by faith
even under tremendous doubts. I suppose it is the Job story rehashed
to modern times. At base is the question: why do bad things happen
to good people? More importantly: how can people keep a sense of
faith in a world seemingly at odds with human aspiration. At a much
deeper level, this is also the story of a man coming to grips with a
faith wanting in explanations as to why bad things happen to good
people. It is like the atheist who still goes to church in order to
enjoy either the ritual, the camaderie, or the music.
The book ends with Mr. Ives having a
discussion about why one's religious feelings are truer than what we
find in life. It is just because they are so personal, so subjective
and, ultimately, indescribable, that they take on a wider meaning.
Mr. Ives feels that despite personal evidende to the contrary, there
is a form of life after death. He knows that there is a god
somewhere, out there, or within. It is something that he just knows,
though he, like the other characters in this book, cannot put this
into words. It's a matter of faith: you either have it or you don't.
I have given a very quick review of
this book. There is more, much more in here to read and enjoy. I
found myself agreeing more than disagreeing with the trials and
tribulations of Mr. Ives and his family.
