THE SEA OF TEARS
By Nani Power
Counterpoint. 238 pp. $25
Though we knew it long before he wrote the song, it still felt profound when John Lennon summed up the key to life in that disarming, brilliant eloquence that came so naturally for him: "All You Need Is Love." That's a mantra that might apply to everyone -- except novelists. The case in point is Nani Power's "The Sea of Tears."
The timing of this episodic novel, in which two of the main characters are an Iranian and an Iraqi trying to woo two American women, would seem ideal, given the state of the world. But the introduction's opening line, "This is all about Love," is as encouraging as a first date at Chuck E. Cheese's. "In the end the heart is the ruler," the prologue continues. "Let it lead the way from me to you and back again and may we never part again." For readers who buy anniversary cards that begin "Dearest Beloved" or "Love of My Life," this kind of beginning won't cause any discomfort, but fiction readers who like their themes announced with something less than a full trumpet fanfare can rightly wonder if they're in for a rather tedious affair.
The book's three chief tales of love unfold in the fictional Royale Hotel in Washington, where five of the six main characters either work or live -- and spend much of the time bawling. The men lead the pack here: Jedra, who is from Iraq and still haunted by the memory of his younger brother being gunned down in front of him, has the hots for Phyllis, who works at the front desk and happens to have these nagging memories of Heaven. (Hey, it beats Hell.) Khouri, an Iranian engineer, has his heart set on the beautiful chambermaid Patricia. Daniel is the schizophrenic of the lot and has not left his room in three years; he believes that he is still in Brazil, where he endured a particularly unhappy childhood. And finally there is Leslie Downing, the Royale's head chef, who, after being summoned to Daniel's room to make a distinctly Brazilian dinner for him, promptly moves in. (His conviction that he is in Brazil seems no more than a cute little tic for Leslie, who, after her first visit to his room, decides "there was no reason to believe that this wasn't Brazil after all." But back to the crying game. There is more water flowing here than in a Patrick O'Brian novel. So why all the gloom? Because these characters have that lovin' feeling, and no one to share it with. We know this because the narrator of these tales -- who, as far as I could tell, is a kind of mid-ranking god or goddess of love -- announces the characters' afflictions with all the coyness of a train conductor calling out stops. The narrator, who sometimes speaks in first person or second person or sometimes the first-person plural (boy, that love is fickle!), likes to throw out the occasional deep question or insight to keep the heat from dropping a degree or two. "Intimacy is always the problem of the world," we read in one of the numbing italicized passages -- italicized, I guess, as if to suggest a whisper. "First of all, it's an annoying word. It just seems to whisper sex in a vaginal deodorant kind of way." Or: "Does good cooking insist on love? . . . How much better does food taste when stirred with love than with stress, or fear or contempt." And then: "So, in the beginning, to love someone is to really like them a lot." As a child, the chambermaid Phyllis seems to have been drinking from the same wacky well, since she tended to mutter such crowd-pleasing sentiments as "I am magic and soon I will fly to the portal of all Dreams, and I will be the victor of the soothsayers." For the reader who finds this a bit too gooey, take heart: Power has thrown in recipes for acaraje and vatapa, two of Daniel's favorites.
The novel is cooked up with a good helping of magical realism. Besides brief appearances by angels and Cupid himself, the ghosts of Jedra's and Khouri's families show up from time to time, but, except for the climactic scene at the end, they tend to be grateful just for the chance to chitchat. As the mostly disconnected narratives unfold -- or unravel -- even the hotel, with its bad pipes, gives in to the pressure -- literally -- and lets loose a good blast of sorrow all its own. This was the one idea in the book that I bought completely. Having to house cardboard sad sacks like these and endure their metaphysical moping every day, the hotel had my sympathies all the way.
