tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-321816672024-03-05T05:20:31.728-06:00RabbitReaderRandom musings from a "rabid" reader. The title comes from my admiration of John Updike and his Rabbit Angstrom series.When I read a review of a book I have not read, I only read enough to get a general idea of the content. If it sounds interesting, I make a note of the review, read the book, and only then do I go back and read the review completely. I intend these short musings to convey that spirit and idea to the readers of "RabbitReader."
--ChironChironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.comBlogger568125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-76378448193897093872016-02-22T20:33:00.001-06:002016-03-12T12:38:48.042-06:00The Architect's Apprentice by Elif Shafak<div style="font-style: normal;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsJuh1V_GC0iluL3s8HF3WPPBUSBt-o7SSoJ2LeMlsve30cFi6F76ar5p2nnJC-m4W3m2p8u3EQJ3v7133xZWfdPWwgnHCZ4RxwDL18TNoJeMstEzA4pws9jRNl_E4R2WvN68Vmw/s1600/Shafak2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsJuh1V_GC0iluL3s8HF3WPPBUSBt-o7SSoJ2LeMlsve30cFi6F76ar5p2nnJC-m4W3m2p8u3EQJ3v7133xZWfdPWwgnHCZ4RxwDL18TNoJeMstEzA4pws9jRNl_E4R2WvN68Vmw/s1600/Shafak2.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">One of the benefits
of a book club – my club members remind us of this benefit all the time – is
discovering novels, writers, non-fiction, and poetry, we might never have
considered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I tried to list all the
books I have read, only because a fellow member recommended them, I would drown
in the tsunami of books that followed some of these writers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Architect’s Apprentice</i> by Elif Shafak is the latest addition to this ever
growing flood.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Elif has won awards,
she is a bestseller, and – more importantly – the most widely-read author in
Turkey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is also a champion of
women’s rights and freedom of expression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>No small tasks in today’s Turkey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Apprentice </i>is her seventh
novel, and you know what that means to my voracious collecting habits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has been translated into more than 40
languages, and she currently divides her time between Istanbul and London.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You will hear about Shafak from me again.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When I first started
to read this novel, my mind instantly flashed back to Jose Saramago’s wonderful
tale, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Elephant’s Journey.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Saramago based his novel on an historical
event that occurred in the 16th century.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>King João III of Portugal has decided to present his cousin, Archduke
Maximilian of Vienna, an elephant, Solomon, as a wedding present.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mahout, Subhro, who cares for the beast
in a broken down corner of the king’s zoo, guides the elephant and a troop of
workers and soldiers, on a trek across Europe during the Reformation and amid
various conflicts.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUNg5sRad9XHHRPGNyxvIKAmE8eVe3gVMmG0MsZm9nTNvSkiA9bt8eiFEDsINDC3jiVuqdQEEOq5qohxGp8kuyftGXKlxMsvb4Xe_56gXJXpvFHtEaJBhpjNhxUfcBANriE51Fqg/s1600/Shafak4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUNg5sRad9XHHRPGNyxvIKAmE8eVe3gVMmG0MsZm9nTNvSkiA9bt8eiFEDsINDC3jiVuqdQEEOq5qohxGp8kuyftGXKlxMsvb4Xe_56gXJXpvFHtEaJBhpjNhxUfcBANriE51Fqg/s1600/Shafak4.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Shafak’s tale is of an magnificent white elephant, named Chota, sent from India to Istanbul and the sultan of the Ottoman Empire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A twelve-year-old boy, Jahan, befriends Chota and becomes his mahout.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His life changes when he meets the Sultan’s daughter, Princess Mihrimah, and together they are spellbound by the elephant and each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jahan begins his education in the palace, and comes to the notice of Mimar Sinan, the empire’s chief architect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mimar Sinan, an historical figure, built some of the most spectacular buildings in the empire,many of which still stand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jahan becomes one of Sinan’s four apprentices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even in this close group, danger lurks. </span></span>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The novel opens with
these lines, “”Of all the people God created and Sheitan led astray, only a few
have discovered the Centre of the Universe – where there is no good and no
evil, no past and no future, no ‘I’ and no ‘thou,’ no war and no reason for
war, just an endless sea of calm. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What
they found there was so beautiful that they lost the ability to speak. // There
were six of us: the master, the apprentices and the white elephant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We built everything together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mosques, bridges, madrasas, caravanserais,
alms houses, aqueducts” (1-2).</span></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaLZbM_KZJBYG3K5avoT4kaLFW7O163Zy9AVelgzMI_zUMPh6ie2cLxXPQE2sumUqpOnGU79oGagHexK8mIttmOcn2gSVuCdyRdoP0poWdwF08ojfeIm3D79uq1wOR3oinkahvBg/s1600/Shafak.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaLZbM_KZJBYG3K5avoT4kaLFW7O163Zy9AVelgzMI_zUMPh6ie2cLxXPQE2sumUqpOnGU79oGagHexK8mIttmOcn2gSVuCdyRdoP0poWdwF08ojfeIm3D79uq1wOR3oinkahvBg/s1600/Shafak.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyphi5Iw8v4jJXmfwGCYo_DYdyyUQYy4j6ry_8qqbDrR-UBbemyFo1hiUvx2w_VfPsx9jDEtzf05N_kAg5gTf7OutOVeALikBOBF3pjnx6nhTEePabzP7oDcy0ClpIjMdQgZsKIA/s1600/Shafak3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyphi5Iw8v4jJXmfwGCYo_DYdyyUQYy4j6ry_8qqbDrR-UBbemyFo1hiUvx2w_VfPsx9jDEtzf05N_kAg5gTf7OutOVeALikBOBF3pjnx6nhTEePabzP7oDcy0ClpIjMdQgZsKIA/s1600/Shafak3.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The novel is a story
of creativity and artistic freedom, science vs. ignorance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The novel overflows with interesting
characters from Gypsies, to heretics, prostitutes, Sufis, royalty, and common
laborers – including Muslims, Christians, and Jews – and not to forget the
treachery, revenge, jealousy, murder, and myriad palace intrigues.</span></span>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When I first opened
this 416-page work, I hoped I would be able to finish in time for our club
meeting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I sat down on a Thursday
afternoon and quickly read 75 pages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By
Sunday afternoon, I barely had 40 left – it really and truly was that
good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Architect’s Apprentice</i> by Elif Shafak is a tale as splendid as
the mosques, palaces, and other buildings Jahan and Mimar designed and built
together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A must read!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>5 stars.</span></span>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">--Chiron, 2/21/16</span></span></div>
Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-69101722940595829252016-02-13T11:54:00.003-06:002016-03-12T12:43:35.170-06:00Uganda Be Kidding Me by Chelsea Handler<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">One of my guilty pleasures was the Chelsea Handler Show. The humor was rough, and she held nothing back in expressing her views on politics, religion, sports, or a myriad of other targets of her caustic wit. Her books are largely autobiographical, and she doesn’t even spare her own family. Her recent book, Uganda Be Kidding Me hilariously describes her trip to East Africa. I laughed so hard, my face hurt. Here is Chelsea’s description of the beginning of their flight to Africa. She writes, “I was asleep before the plane even took off. I had told the pilot I was pregnant and suffering from severe motion sickness, and after he agreed to let me turn mu chair into a bed, I ordered one more Bloody Mary, popped a Xanax, and woke up in Dubai. // I like to sleep as much as possible. I like to sleep on planes primarily to avoid technology. My grasp of electronics is commensurate to my grasp of the moon; I’m unclear as to how either arrived at its current status. Nor do I have the attention span or wherewithal to make heads or tails of why I’m so far behind the general populace in accepting the theory of space and time, and its relevance to my own life. On a side note: I find most astronauts to be class A narcissists” (13). I have serious doubts about the levels of her alcohol and drug consumption. I cannot imagine she would be able to function as she does if it were all true.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Chelsea does have her serious side, but she can’t resist even a slight jab at the end. In this part, she writes about her arrival in Africa. “For someone who’s never been more than moderately interested in animals, the place was surreal and, to be honest, borderline amazing. We were transported from a tiny nugget airport by an open-aired jeep to an outdoor lodge, where we were served iced green teas on a tented deck that overlooked a view of the reserve and exposed granite that the river had carved through. Right before our eyes was this majestic landscape filled with brooks, boulders the size of planets, and hippos wading into watering holes while wild elephants called to each other. It was like being on the set of Jurassic Park but with room service” (17). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Chelsea Handler’s Uganda Be Kidding Me is not for everyone, but certainly for her legions of fans, among whom I count myself. 5 stars.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">--Chiron, 2/11/16 </span></div>
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<br /></div>Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-48102244127951582512016-02-13T11:47:00.001-06:002016-03-12T12:46:26.679-06:00Slouching toward Bethlehem by Joan Didion
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFv6kchfh1mTfbEaafJt4Ro89MmEetUxaryvl1JIahpr257qghEtwhv4m7R4siLtjSZW3XVenVRgPK2CcvdCGUbMHg8hN3ltnhhF1wF8ywYD1VmZXk4gypKmXDJE3O_jrVJt9eoQ/s1600/Didion2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFv6kchfh1mTfbEaafJt4Ro89MmEetUxaryvl1JIahpr257qghEtwhv4m7R4siLtjSZW3XVenVRgPK2CcvdCGUbMHg8hN3ltnhhF1wF8ywYD1VmZXk4gypKmXDJE3O_jrVJt9eoQ/s1600/Didion2.jpg" /></a></span>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Ages ago, a friend
recommended <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Miami, </i>an extended essay
by Joan Didion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Try as I might, I could
not keep my mind on the text.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something
about the style drove me away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A page from
my daily Book Lovers Calendar, a comment from my wife, and a book that had
fallen behind a shelf all conspired to my reading Didion’s acclaimed book of
essays, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Slouching toward Bethlehem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>I decided to give her one more
chance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The first essay,
“Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream,” tells the story of a woman accused of
murdering her husband, who, apparently, suffered from depression and other
ailments and wanted to die.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Joan began
the essay with a description of San Bernardino, California, site of most of the
story, when Lucille Miller visited a 24-hour minimart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She writes, “…on the night of October 7, 1964,
[…] the moon was dark and the wind was blowing and she was out of milk, and
Banyan Street was where, at about 12:30 a.m., her 1964 Volkswagen came to a
sudden stop, caught fire, and began to burn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For an hour and fifteen minutes Lucille Miller ran up and down Banyan Street
calling for help, but no cars passed and no help came.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At three o’clock that morning, when the fire
had been put out and the California Highway Patrol officers were completing
their report, Lucille Miller was still sobbing and incoherent, for her husband
had been asleep in the Volkswagen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘What
will I tell the children, when there’s nothing left, nothing left in the
casket,’ she cried to the friend called to comfort her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘How can I tell them there’s nothing left?’” (6).
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quite a story, but as Didion unwinds the
tale, numerous pieces of evidence do not add up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Miller ends up in the San Bernardino County
Jail charged with first degree murder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
could not stop reading this 28-page essay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></span>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Other essays
involved a portrait of John Wayne, whom Didion admired since she was a
child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually, she meets the Duke
and recounts dinner at an exclusive restaurant with her husband, when suddenly
three men appeared playing guitars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
writes, “…all the while the men with the guitars kept playing, until finally I
realized what they had been playing, what they had been playing all along: ‘The
Red River Valley’ and the theme from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
High and the Mighty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>They did not
quite get the beat right, but even now can hear them, in another country and a
long time later, even as I tell you this” (41).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I have met a few people I really admired, John Updike, John Cheever, and
Joyce carol Oates to name a few, and I can vividly recall the time, the place,
and the topics we discussed.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTAnmTcIBddNIHdY1EVEHwGuFaPs3i8LwYjPBWQKZdXjiWUKgOesf7OkDMupmRqjw7fUnfP_TLYMLLXW6A203qhVAVd_Sf5a-oRdSpdq_h0y0ekaO-PqHV8MPWaCabNhwjDZ5ePw/s1600/Didion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTAnmTcIBddNIHdY1EVEHwGuFaPs3i8LwYjPBWQKZdXjiWUKgOesf7OkDMupmRqjw7fUnfP_TLYMLLXW6A203qhVAVd_Sf5a-oRdSpdq_h0y0ekaO-PqHV8MPWaCabNhwjDZ5ePw/s1600/Didion.jpg" /></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Finally, I would
like to share the opening paragraph of the title essay for the collection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dion writes, “The center was not
holding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a country of bankruptcy
notices and public-auction announcements and commonplace reports of casual
killings and misplaced children and abandoned homes and vandals who misspelled
even the four-letter words they scrawled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was a country in which families routinely disappeared, trailing bad
checks and repossession papers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Adolescents drifted from city to torn city, sloughing off both the past
and the future as snakes shed their skins, children who were never taught and
would never now learn the games that had held the society together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People were missing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Parents were missing, Thos left behind filed
desultory missing-persons reports, then moved on themselves. // It was not a
country in open revolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was not a
country under enemy siege.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the
United States of America in the cold late spring of 1967” (84).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How could I not continue reading an essay
that began this way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I think I see
another visit to Joan Didion’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Miami</i>
in my near future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>5 stars</span></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">--Chiron, 2/2/16 </span></span></div>
Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-32586118689254803742016-02-13T11:41:00.000-06:002016-02-27T12:48:31.650-06:00Hide and Seek by Christopher Morley<div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRmc1PmlgMFyepoDvxuF1XnBq8wVbVKk4-lOs6iD9wuPLJT9laGaLOo4Hh5XdComqcfrzjDwpZ1xoiwCcG1INcAFJI1eU1V2rtYipFApV2bmOoRJFSGRfm2ANMmyq0wAtrnFA4OQ/s1600/Morley2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRmc1PmlgMFyepoDvxuF1XnBq8wVbVKk4-lOs6iD9wuPLJT9laGaLOo4Hh5XdComqcfrzjDwpZ1xoiwCcG1INcAFJI1eU1V2rtYipFApV2bmOoRJFSGRfm2ANMmyq0wAtrnFA4OQ/s1600/Morley2.jpg" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Whenever I travel, I
love searching out used bookstores to ferret out hidden treasures – in my mind
at least – for my library.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over
Christmas, I visited the Old Tampa Book Store in Florida.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I found several “treasures,” including the
novel I needed to complete my collection of Henry Green, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Concluding, </i>which I recently reviewed on Likely Stories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the best find was a slim volume of poetry
by Christopher Morley, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hide and Seek</i>.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Christopher Morley
wrote for the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Philadelphia Evening Public
Ledger</i> in 1918.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He turned to novels,
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Haunted Bookshop</i> is my
favorite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actually, I had no idea he
wrote poetry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book I found in Tampa
was not only inscribed, it included a note to David E. Smiley, editor of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Public Ledger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>In addition, Morley corrected a
typographical error in his own hand with the same ink as that in the
inscription.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As an inveterate
Philadelphian, I doubled the pleasure in finding this book.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The poetry is light,
but Morley had an ability turn a phrase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Here is one of my favorites, “A Wedded Valentine”:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Dear, may I be your Valentine? / Not just
to-day, in weather fine; / Not just to-day, in lover’s mood, /But through
life’s each vicissitude. // Not just when girlish eyes still shine, / Dear, may
I be your Valentine, / But through all mortal whims and fits / While Time our
human fibres (sic) knits. // And though, most sweet, my peevish earth / Is hardly
such promotion worth, / Dear, May I be your Valentine / And learn to make your
virtue mine? // Recalling by love’s old refrain / Our Double joy, divided pain,
I write this pleading, smiling line-- / <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dear,
may I be your Valentine?</i>” (27)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And another short
poem, “The Intruder”: “As I sat, to sift my dreaming / To the meet and needed
word, / Came a merry Interruption / With insistence to be heard. // Smiling
stood a maid beside me, / half alluring and half shy; / Soft the white hint of
her bosom-- / Escapade was in her eye. // ‘I must not be so invaded,’ / (In
anger then I cried) -- / ‘Can’t you see that I am busy? / Tempting creature,
stay outside! // “Pearly rascal, I am writing: / I am now composing verse-- /
Fie on antic invitation: / Wanton, vanish – fly – disperse! // ‘Baggage, in my
godlike moment / What have I to do with thee”’ / And she laughed as she
departed -- / ‘I am poetry,’ said she” (47).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I love these little poems that I can nibble at enjoy in a moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here is another, “Tit for Tat”: “I often pass
a gracious tree / Whose name I can’t identify, / But still I bow, in courtesy;
/ It waves a bough, in kind reply. // I do not know your name, O tree / (Are
you a hemlock or a pine?) / But why should that embarrass me? / Quite possibly
you don’t know mine” (50).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvMfe-PYoirF2YSpPVX1DA76Med7IyQEqH8OauNzSyJDfvyEr6NO_GuOrHA2UweuBHuOwZCyYrhXoY-rfanozTqF0cfs8aBpPk6z8rCzpqvEJyil06RRuF0kJ_gXEzWMbFbZxBvg/s1600/Morley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvMfe-PYoirF2YSpPVX1DA76Med7IyQEqH8OauNzSyJDfvyEr6NO_GuOrHA2UweuBHuOwZCyYrhXoY-rfanozTqF0cfs8aBpPk6z8rCzpqvEJyil06RRuF0kJ_gXEzWMbFbZxBvg/s1600/Morley.jpg" /></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I have always had
greater appreciation for trees after I read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Wild Trees</i> by Richard Preston a few years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But even this little acorn – or should I say
pinecone – of a poem, brings a smile from me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Among a series of sonnets, he writes this paen to my hometown, “In
Philadelphia”: “I have seen sunsets gild the pillared steam / Where Broad
Street Station hoops with arches dark / The western fire; and seen the looming,
stark / Crags of the Hall grow soft in morning gleam. / One drowsy eve I
wandered far to mark / The neck, a land of opal color-scheme; / And know no
fairer place to watch and dream / Than on a bench in old Penn Treaty Park. //
And there are corners, glimpses, houses, streets, / With curious satisfaction
in the view, / And unconfessed sweet moments when one meets / the destiny of
human life anew. / A city rarely beautiful I know … / It is not men alone who
make it so” (80).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I grew up a short
walk from Penn treaty Park, and the first time I went on a long walk alone, I
found myself at that very spot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did
sit on a bench to read a bit, not knowing who sat there before me, or that I
would ever stumble on his poems four decades or more later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost certainly out of print, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hide and Seek</i> is a gem I will treasure
to the end of my days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>5 stars</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">-- Chiron, 1/30/16</span></span></div></div>
Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-27017543856087639532016-02-13T11:15:00.003-06:002016-02-13T12:59:33.254-06:00Some Luck by Jane Smiley<i><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLc_rKs-2WsHCbk7A_XTGoH6gKvhI7nDM4rfqz3KhDjJfucwsYHOYomO3AyWy6Ou95Wceu_2z81bMrawuuWnpnLGGS6uxukVxKG9trLMJ7L8umXIS8DVKEVjYs5cRX5mPigneTnA/s1600/Smiley2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLc_rKs-2WsHCbk7A_XTGoH6gKvhI7nDM4rfqz3KhDjJfucwsYHOYomO3AyWy6Ou95Wceu_2z81bMrawuuWnpnLGGS6uxukVxKG9trLMJ7L8umXIS8DVKEVjYs5cRX5mPigneTnA/s1600/Smiley2.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"></i>I first read Jane
Smiley when I read her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, <i>A Thousand Acres. </i>This novel
was a retelling of Shakespeare’s great tragedy, <i>King Lear.</i> Smiley set her
tale in the mid west, when a patriarch of the family decides to retire and
divides his land among his three children.
Caroline, the youngest and a lawyer, argues against her father’s plan,
and suffers the wrath of her father and her sisters. <i>Lear</i>
is my favorite Shakespeare tragedy, and I thoroughly enjoyed Smiley’s
version. In her latest novel, <i>Some Luck, </i>Smiley weaves a sweeping tale
of four generations of Iowa farmers.
Each chapter covers one year from 1920 to 1953.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">According to the
dust jacket, Jane Smiley is the author of numerous novels as well as five works
of non-fiction and a series of YA books.
In 2001, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters,
and in 2006 she received the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award for
Literature. She now lives in Northern
California.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCVs7C6SMwzLcnVNZzdWa-lLmwUJ40xHU_an6z_E49mWzTHzAR1oXL__-vhUMzHQ-k_qm75_f7hj5v2stun-IrSpkmZ29Qjc_pjyR1cagduHJbXOD3VD35rFHLDRxCBKdvRBMC9A/s1600/Smiley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCVs7C6SMwzLcnVNZzdWa-lLmwUJ40xHU_an6z_E49mWzTHzAR1oXL__-vhUMzHQ-k_qm75_f7hj5v2stun-IrSpkmZ29Qjc_pjyR1cagduHJbXOD3VD35rFHLDRxCBKdvRBMC9A/s1600/Smiley.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Normally, I pick a
passage or two from the beginning of a novel for a sample of the writer’s
style. However, this time, I picked a
long paragraph close to the end, which sums up the story, revealing only minor
details of the plot. Rosanna and Walter,
the second generation farmers in the family, are hosting Thanksgiving in
1948. Smiley writes, Rosanna could not
have said that she enjoyed making Thanksgiving dinner for twenty-three people
(a turkey, a standing rib roast, and a duck that Granny Mary brought; ten
pounds of mashed potatoes, and that not enough; five pies; sweet potatoes; more
stuffing than could be stuffed; all the Brussels sprouts from the garden though
they were good after the frost). She
could not say Lillian had control of those children, who were underfoot every
time you took a step, though they were good natured to be sure. Henry scrutinized the dishes of food as
though he were being asked to partake of roadkill, at least until the pies were
served, and Claire burst into tears for no reason at all, but when they all had
their plates in front of them, and a few deep breaths were taken, and first
Andrea, and then Granny Elizabeth, and then Eloise said, ‘This looks
delicious,’ she began to have a strange feeling. She should have sat down – Joe, who was
sitting beside her, moved his chair in a bit – but she didn’t want to sit down,
or eat, at all (what with tasting everything she wasn’t hungry); she just
wanted to stand there and look at them as they passed the two gravy boats and
began to cut their food. It couldn’t
have happened she thought. They couldn’t
have survived so many strange events.
Take your pick – the birth of Henry in that room over there, with the
wind howling and the dirt blowing in and her barely able to find a rag to wipe
the baby’s mouth and nose. Take your
pick – all of them nearly dying of the heat that summer of ’36. Take your pick – Joey falling out of the
hayloft, Frankie driving the car to Usherton, Frankie disappearing into the
Italian Campaign, Frankie, for Heaven’s sake, living in a tent all through
college. Take your pick – Walter falling
into the well (yes, she had gotten that one out of him one day during the war,
when he said, ‘Remember when I fell into the well’ and she said, ‘What in the
world are you talking about’ and he blushed like a girl)” (331-2). </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Those “strange
events” are the meat, the muscle, and the blood of this wonderfully appealing
story. The various characters – each and
every one finely drawn, interesting -- and now scattered all around the
country. Jane Smiley’s latest novel, <i>Some Luck</i> is a first-rate read, perfect
for these last days of winter. 5 stars</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">--Chiron, 1/30/16</span></span></div>
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<br />Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-74234512108748673502016-01-21T16:56:00.002-06:002016-02-13T16:33:59.481-06:00Circling the Sun by Paula McLain<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I have always viewed
Africa as a place of romantic adventures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The plains of the Serengeti, the Rift Valley, with untold treasures of
early hominids, the teeming herds of wildebeests, zebras, antelope, all hunted by
lions, leopards, and cheetahs, fascinated me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The utter darkness and the splendor of the night sky were in places I
could only dream of seeing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No wonder I
devoured every story I could find – among them <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Out of Africa</i> by Isak Dinesen, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">West
with the Night </i>by Beryl Markham, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Story of an African Farm </i>by Olive Schreiner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now comes <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Circling
the Sun</i> by Paula McLain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I reviewed
her novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Paris Wife</i> in 2011, a
fictional account of Hemingway and his women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Her new novel weaves a wonderful tale of all the characters I came to
know and love in the African tales – Karen and Bror Blixen, Denis Finch-Hatton,
Lord and Lady Delamere, and of course Beryl Markham.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I discovered the
Beryl Markham memoir -- along with everyone else in 1984 -- when <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">West with the Night </i>appeared, thanks to
a small California Press.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This new novel
tells a much more detailed look at the first woman to acquire a class B horse
training license in Africa, and the first woman to fly solo from England to
Nova Scotia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her prose is riveting – not
suspenseful – but the kind of writing which will not let the reader go, always
begging one more page, one more chapter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If I remember correctly, I read in a single night, finally closing the
book as dawn approached.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqS5CUd1X1exGrtu5jWHIJZTDm32pA7gTw2joMOvpoPRstQm9_UX-0oVQVjCTwU7hbU8r5jzoND-EedJkV7CfoYYHWgqfqM7V8Kdmezn_bhtx52UTzovXOqzYTtmX5uxnl7ssUww/s1600/Markham.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqS5CUd1X1exGrtu5jWHIJZTDm32pA7gTw2joMOvpoPRstQm9_UX-0oVQVjCTwU7hbU8r5jzoND-EedJkV7CfoYYHWgqfqM7V8Kdmezn_bhtx52UTzovXOqzYTtmX5uxnl7ssUww/s1600/Markham.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWHCLz2eUP-ESr3mSybXYvHCCVTeFUhn4AkHIpz1sxnQ-dKRV-beXDcQQh-ksQgBd1hjjCCkDM0snLM08gamFPAMK9gnRCDO-7VbLBDfp8ULy_0qVQ7wcn_LVDRDDwLQhkaWzcdQ/s1600/McLain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWHCLz2eUP-ESr3mSybXYvHCCVTeFUhn4AkHIpz1sxnQ-dKRV-beXDcQQh-ksQgBd1hjjCCkDM0snLM08gamFPAMK9gnRCDO-7VbLBDfp8ULy_0qVQ7wcn_LVDRDDwLQhkaWzcdQ/s1600/McLain.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Here is a sample of
her writing as she describes Beryl’s distress as a child when her mother left
Africa for another man, taking her son with her to England.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>McLain writes, “What [my father] wanted to
know was if I could love this life as he did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If I could give my heart to this place, even if she never returned and I
had no mother going forward, perhaps not ever. // How could I begin to
answer?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All around us, half-empty
cupboards reminded me of the things that used to be there but weren’t any
longer – four china tea cups with gold plated rims, a card game, amber beads
clicking together on a necklace my mother had loved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her absence was still so loud and so heavy, I
ached with it, feeling hollow and lost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I didn’t know how to forget my mother any more than my father knew how
to comfort me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He pulled me – long limbed
and a little dirty, as I always seemed to be – onto his lap, and we sat like that
quietly for a while.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From the edge of
the forest, a group of hyraxes echoed shrieks of alarm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of our four greyhounds cocked a sleek ear
and then settled back into comfortable sleep by the fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finally my father sighed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He scooped me under my arms, grazed my drying
tears with a quick kiss, and set me on my own two feet” (14). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beryl Markham not only gave her heart to Africa,
but she gave a part of her soul, along with some blood. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Paula McLain’s novel,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Circling the Sun</i> is a fascinating look
at a strong, intelligent, and determined woman, who overcame tremendous obstacles.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Read it now. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>5 stars</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">--Chiron, 1/21/16</span>Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-5872682220484221882016-01-16T17:21:00.002-06:002016-01-16T17:31:26.716-06:00The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLK4QaLkoHg2VpbHfvALuIbGLzKh5ZGcdAhNYKRQ4mJGHUjfCKcqw22o8yVti6eu8zXiDFzIa5Ut6R_medjvyrYQ-tAAbHN0PcxIIxZBNxoKqdppkLPEX68aMgbEp2MZAS2C0EeQ/s1600/Allende2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLK4QaLkoHg2VpbHfvALuIbGLzKh5ZGcdAhNYKRQ4mJGHUjfCKcqw22o8yVti6eu8zXiDFzIa5Ut6R_medjvyrYQ-tAAbHN0PcxIIxZBNxoKqdppkLPEX68aMgbEp2MZAS2C0EeQ/s1600/Allende2.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I have admired
Isabel Allende ever since I saw the film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
House of Spirits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>I remember leaving
the theater and almost running to the nearest bookstore to buy a copy of the
novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I now have read nine of her 21
works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did not care for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Daughter of Fortune</i>, and I invoked the “Rule
of Fifty.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Aphrodite</i> – part memoir, part cookbook, and part love story – has always
been my favorite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Until now, that
is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her latest novel is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Japanese Lover, </i>which has all the
things I most admire in Allende’s work: love, passion, food, secrets, history, the full range of senses, and even a bit of magic realism, all of which carry the reader along nicely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">According to her website, she has written 21 books, translated
into 35 languages with more than 65 million copies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Isabelle has received 14 international
honorary doctorates, 50 awards from more than 15 countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two of her novels have been turned into internationally
acclaimed movies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her works have been adapted
for movies, plays, musicals, operas, ballets, and radio programs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beyond all this, she oversees The Isabel
Allende Foundation, which empowers women and girls worldwide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">She was born in Peru, raised in Chile, however,
she now lives in California.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In place of
my usual biographical information, I offer a splendid paragraph by Allende
about her “biography.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She wrote: “It is
very strange to write one’s biography, because it is just a list of dates,
events, and achievements. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In reality,
the most important things about my life happened in the secret chambers of my
heart and have no place in a biography. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My most significant achievements are not my
books, but the love I share with a few people, especially my family, and the
ways in which I have tried to help others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When I was young, I often felt desperate: so much pain in the world and
so little I could do to alleviate it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
now I look back at my life and feel satisfied because few days went by without
me at least trying to make a difference.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She has taken all her private dreams, hopes, desires, and placed them in
her novels.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
Japanese Lover</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> is a complex narrative of three families.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Belasco family, fabulously wealthy entrepreneurs,
who lost many members of their family in the Holocaust; the Fukuda family of
second generation Japanese, who, when swept up by the internment policy at the
beginning of World War Two, lost everything except the friendship and love of
the Belasco family; and, finally, Irina, a poor Romanian girl tricked into an
escape plan, which turns out to be a front for human traffickers of children
for the sex trade in Turkey.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">One of the
characters, Irina, seemed at first to be only a minor figure in the novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Allende writes, “Irina had grown up in a Moldovan
village that was inhabited only by old people and children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She thought of her own grandparents and, as so
often in recent years, regretted having abandoned them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lark House gave her the opportunity to give
to others what she hadn’t been able to give them, and she kept this in mind as
she began looking after those in her care.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She soon won the residents over, including several on the first level,
the independent ones. // From the start, Alma Belasco had caught her attention”
(9).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Irina becomes the thread which ties
the Belascos, the Fukadas, and herself together.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKlD_gsrTAV19De0azYcnu4bHVRldwQFq6z5cbbwN0q6wndWYFjyOLou88kqFenZyao_KkXegfWhj8JnE76MApsF_43B6IxGll1Eiv5I8CxBaTDDScllWPLTYSOOnKbLRc5gOnZw/s1600/Allende.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKlD_gsrTAV19De0azYcnu4bHVRldwQFq6z5cbbwN0q6wndWYFjyOLou88kqFenZyao_KkXegfWhj8JnE76MApsF_43B6IxGll1Eiv5I8CxBaTDDScllWPLTYSOOnKbLRc5gOnZw/s1600/Allende.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In a somewhat
peculiar manner, Isabel Allende devotes each chapter to one of the main
characters, but the omniscient narrator reveals all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The novel has little dialogue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I found this a bit off-putting, but, somehow,
it all made sense in the last pages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
think time will show Isabel Allende has done her best writing in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Japanese Lover.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>5 stars.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">--Chiron, 1/16/16 </span></span></div>
Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-86982523751672456072016-01-15T13:44:00.000-06:002016-01-17T13:47:07.359-06:00The Robot Scientist's Daughter by Jeannine Hall Gailey<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Jeannine Hall Gailey
was my mentor and model for poetry through my MFA.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She liked my poetry, and I admired hers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has recently published a collection of
poems that deal with her childhood near the Oak Ridge National Laboratory
(ORNL), birthplace of the nuclear age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She details the horrific side effects she, and the nearby residents,
suffered as deadly poisons such as cesium, strontium, plutonium, and uranium
turned plants, animals, crops, cow’s milk and even mud daubers into deadly
vectors of those poisons, leading to cancer, leukemia, and whole host of
physical ailments.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Jeannine served as
the poet laureate of Redmond, Washington, and her poetry has appeared NPR’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Writer’s Almanac, The American Poetry
Review, The Iowa Review, </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Prairie
Schooner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Robot Scientist’s Daughter</i>
is her fourth collection of poems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
grew up near ORNL, where her father worked on robots to deal with nuclear
waste.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her childhood home now lies under
a gigantic concrete slab.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As we struggle to
end reliance on fossil fuels for our energy, many advocated the construction of
nuclear power plants as a substitute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No
matter how safe, accidents can, do, and will occur.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even aside from those problems, the disposal
of nuclear waste has not been settled to everyone’s satisfaction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Poetry is the perfect place to explicate
these problems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sadness and the
emotion and the difficulties Jeannine experiences are a warning to us all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gailey never plays on our fears,
however.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She handles her situation with
grace and notes of caution.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I liked many of the
poems in this collection, but one stood out for me among all my favorites.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In graduate school, I briefly flirted with
chaos theory as applied to literature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In her poem, “Chaos Theory,” she writes, “Elbow deep in the guts of
tomatoes, / I hunted genes, pulling strand from strand. / DNA patterns bloomed
like frost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ordering / chaos was my
father’s talisman; he hated./.imprecision, how in language the word./.is never exactly
the thing itself. // He told us about the garden of the janitor / at the
Fernald Superfund site, where mutations burgeoned / in the soil like fractal branching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dahlias and tomatoes / he showed to my
father, doubling and tripling in size / and variety, magentas, pinks, and reds
so bright / they blinded, churning offspring gigantic and marvelous./.from that
ground sick with uranium.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The janitor
smiled / proudly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My father nodded,
unable to translate / for him the meaning of all this unnatural beauty. // In
his mind he watched the man’s DNA unraveling, / patching itself together again
with wobbling sentry / enzymes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When my
father brought this story home, / he never mentioned the janitor’s slow death
from radiation / poisoning only those roses, those tomatoes.” (33).</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsVkvX3vbVS7L3ccL19_XCv_h-SMNxM2HenogM2hf8u0CdE0D9XTcPzmpubQSM9Yk8f4zGK_7YLgFT2lIyglFHIyMIzdP515EIjZ9usZWHvDQeYNKAWjJugthqDNEE1X_UdZkOYA/s1600/Gailey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsVkvX3vbVS7L3ccL19_XCv_h-SMNxM2HenogM2hf8u0CdE0D9XTcPzmpubQSM9Yk8f4zGK_7YLgFT2lIyglFHIyMIzdP515EIjZ9usZWHvDQeYNKAWjJugthqDNEE1X_UdZkOYA/s320/Gailey.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I can only hope that
when we do free ourselves from fossil fuels, we do not insert deadly poisons
into our land, sky, water, crops, animals, and our lungs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his monumental work, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Poetics, </i>Aristotle wrote, “Poetry is something more philosophic and
of graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature of
universals, whereas those of history are singulars.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe this sums up Jeannine Hall Gailey’s
latest collection, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Robot Scientist’s
Daughter</i> perfectly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She uses the “singular”
event of poisoning our planet a cautionary tale of the widespread and deadly
effects of nuclear power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Take up some, or
better yet all, of Gailey’s work, and perhaps you will have a different view of
our world and the safety of our planet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>5 stars</span></span></div>
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</span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">--Chiron, 1/17/16</span></span>Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-61005122086011441052016-01-07T09:13:00.002-06:002016-03-12T13:18:32.753-06:00Concluding by Henry Green<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYRT2x8iF5btlwcNWGbpFBdjBkAe2AEu23d5UZXY0gC2od5ldiQo7AJ7NVnVa_Iju5oWBVUKXcu-sypQHgMDq606P_K2IPDuj_KLgdfgTVyHHYi9S6FemylHNZZIA8rolfN6_hng/s1600/Green2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYRT2x8iF5btlwcNWGbpFBdjBkAe2AEu23d5UZXY0gC2od5ldiQo7AJ7NVnVa_Iju5oWBVUKXcu-sypQHgMDq606P_K2IPDuj_KLgdfgTVyHHYi9S6FemylHNZZIA8rolfN6_hng/s1600/Green2.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">I</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> once asked John Updike -- my favorite author -- which writer influenced him the most. He quickly answered, Henry Green. I had never heard of this British writer, but I soon became an avid fan of his work. Green was born near Tewksbury, Gloucestershire, into an educated family with successful business interests. His father was a wealthy landowner and industrialist. Green attended Eton College, where he became friends with Anthony Powell and wrote his first novel, <i>Blindness.</i> He studied at Oxford University, where he began a rivalry with Evelyn Waugh. He left Oxford in 1926 without a degree and returned to his family business. He began by working with the ordinary workers in his family's factory. His second novel, <i>Living,</i> came out in 1928.</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />After several more novels, Green published an autobiography <i>Pack My Bag</i> in 1940, and his last novel,
<i>Doting</i> in 1952. That was the end of his writing career. He became reclusive and died in 1973. <i>Living,
Loving, </i>and <i>Party Going</i> were his
most admired novels and are most often published in a single volume.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have managed to collect all of his novels – except for one. During a visit to one of my favorite used
bookstores, The Old Tampa Book Store, I landed a copy of his 1948 novel, <i>Concluding</i>.
As I began reading the first page, I slid
easily back into the world Henry Green created.
The interaction between the wealthy and the tenants is an unending
source of entertainment. Green writes in
the opening paragraph, “Mr. Rock rose with a groan. Crossing the open
bedroom window he shone his
torch light on the thick spectacles he wore.
He shone it up and down. –It will
be a fine day, a fine day in the end, he decided. // He looked down. He
clicked his light out. He found there was just enough filtering
through the mist which hung eighteen foot up and which did not descent
to the
ground, to make out Ted, his goose, about already, a dirty pallor,
almost the
same colour as Alice, the Persian cat, that kept herself dry where every
blade
of grass bore its dark, mist laden string of water. –Old and deaf, half
blind, Mr. Rock said
about himself, the air raw in his throat.
Nevertheless, he saw plain how Ted was not ringed in by fog. For the
goose posed staring, head to one
side, with a single eye, straight past the house, up into the fog bank
which
had made all the daylight deaf beneath, and beyond which, at some clear
height,
Mr. Rock knew there must be a flight of birds fast winging, --Ted knows
where,
he thought. // The old and famous man groaned again, shut the window,
He began to dress. He put working clothes over the yellow woolen
nightshirt. The bedroom smelled stale,
packed with books not one of which he had read in years. He groaned a
third time. –Early morning comes hard on a man my age, he
told himself for comfort, comes hard.
–How hard? Oh, heavy.” (5).</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh14Jfp2Lqhgu6lZxmq_ye4V-Sh6vuOcp3tUpbly4ru8kaAXCOhENZFf3lVwIxUFy46ZNH3XXRA4b4vnAUqu-YvAq03zCFtvL-juzKW4R7A39RLmd_gKpkRpdBbiZjNvEUlt0KpXg/s1600/Green.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh14Jfp2Lqhgu6lZxmq_ye4V-Sh6vuOcp3tUpbly4ru8kaAXCOhENZFf3lVwIxUFy46ZNH3XXRA4b4vnAUqu-YvAq03zCFtvL-juzKW4R7A39RLmd_gKpkRpdBbiZjNvEUlt0KpXg/s200/Green.jpg" width="164" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I can see the scene and smell the fog, as if I were beginning something
by George Eliot – perhaps <i>The Mill on the
Floss.</i> As I finished these opening
words, I knew Henry Green would not disappoint.<br /><br />Oddly enough, none of Green’s novels sold more than 10,000 copies. He was far more popular among writers than
the reading public. According to
Wikipedia, Green has been referred to as a “Writer’s, writer’s, writer.” His impressive list of admirers included John
Updike, W.H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Eudora Welty, Anthony Burgess, and
Rebecca West. Start with the trio of <i>Living, Loving, </i>and <i>Party Going</i>, and work your way to <i>Concluding. </i> I bet you will become an admirer of Henry Green,
too. 5 stars<br /><br />--Chiron, 12/31/15</span></span><br />
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<br />Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-92133649642317992922015-12-30T06:53:00.001-06:002016-01-07T09:05:24.514-06:00So You Don't get Lost in the Neighborhood by Patrick Modiano<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgejuN_tO9Ix2n_11Isoall0d2LT_sEDq-b7fe42-wNfbkJuLdyQ7Hkm-dQNCQXGMBYnxdT2wQBw275wxrDjG06uHGzivCYgEKmFj5J93QJNzGFQvMeJS-6AczvhLseYclWKFkqKQ/s1600/Modiano.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgejuN_tO9Ix2n_11Isoall0d2LT_sEDq-b7fe42-wNfbkJuLdyQ7Hkm-dQNCQXGMBYnxdT2wQBw275wxrDjG06uHGzivCYgEKmFj5J93QJNzGFQvMeJS-6AczvhLseYclWKFkqKQ/s1600/Modiano.jpg" /></a></div>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In his first novel
since winning the Nobel Prize in 2014, Patrick Modiano has spun an absorbing
tale of mystery and suspense. He is a
French novelist who also won the Austrian State Prize for European Literature
in 2012 and the 2010 Prix Mondial Cino Del Duca from the Institute of France
for lifetime achievement. His other
prestigious awards include the Prix Goncourt
<i>The Street of Obscure Boutiques</i>
in 1978 and the 1972 Grand Prix du Roman de L’Académie for <i>Ring Road. </i>His work has
been translated into more than 30 languages.
Most of his novels had not been translated into English until he was
awarded the Nobel Prize.<br /></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Jean Daragane is a
novelist who is in a funk and living as a recluse in Paris. One day he discovers he has lost his address
book, and he receives a phone call from a stranger, who found the book in a
train station. His first thought is
blackmail, but he agrees to meet the caller, Gilles Ottolini, who brings a
woman friend, Chantel Grippay. Jean
retrieves the book and leaves. The next
day, Gilles calls again, and wants to talk about an entry in the address book –
Guy Torstell. Jean has no memory of who
this man is or even why he is in his address book. Gilles reveals Jean also used the name in his
first novel, 30 years ago. The mystery
thickens when Jean receives a call from Chantell and reveals several apparently
coincidental items, which connect Gilles and Jean. The next day, Chantel calls Jean, and ask him
to meet at her apartment. Modiano
writes, “She leant over to him, and her face was so close to his that he
noticed a tiny scar on her left cheek.
Le Tremblay. Chantel. Square de Graisvaudan. These words had traveled a long way. An insect bite, , very slight to begin with,
and it causes you an increasingly sharp pain, and very soon a feeling of being
torn apart. The present and the past merge
together, and that seems quite natural because they were only separated by a
cellophane partition. An insect bite was
all it took to pierce the cellophane. He
could not be sure of the year, but he was very young, in a room as small as
this one with a girl called Chantel – a fairly common name at the time. The husband of this Chantel, on Paul, and
other friends of theirs had set off as they always did on Saturdays to gamble
in the casinos on the outskirts of Paris: […] and they came back the following
day with a bit of money. He, Daragane,
and this Chantel, spent the entire night together in this room in square du
Graisvaudan until the others returned.
Paul, the husband, also used to go to race meetings. A gambler.
With him it was not merely a matter of doubling up on your losses”
(31-32). </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKVvyb_RDonRL9tTEjP_AvllxsYTPWmTxPFcrkSHkqpiVnqTLZy9r25bdEJdEtGICq-gljrqIa1cbHo7i6ti6CLHOYxCFXsDc6TLgSxaAXT5kD1ZXyMxFeSEEDzt_RBTSIi-EWlg/s1600/Modiano2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKVvyb_RDonRL9tTEjP_AvllxsYTPWmTxPFcrkSHkqpiVnqTLZy9r25bdEJdEtGICq-gljrqIa1cbHo7i6ti6CLHOYxCFXsDc6TLgSxaAXT5kD1ZXyMxFeSEEDzt_RBTSIi-EWlg/s1600/Modiano2.jpg" /></a>As Modiano expands
on this peculiar web of coincidences, the suspense rises. Chantel gives Jean copies of notes for an
article about Tostel. It is not apparent
that she had permission to do so. Later,
Jean examines the copies, and notices a passage from his first novel, <i>Summer Night.</i> Modiano reads from his novel, “In the Galeris
de Beaujolais, there was indeed a bookshop behind whose window some art books
were displayed. He went in. S dark-haired woman was sitting at her desk.
//. ‘I should like to talk to Monsieur
Morihien.’ // Monsieur Morihien is away,’ She told him. “But would you like to speak to Monsieur
Torstel?’” (41). The tenuous threads, which hold this story together, create a tale of mystery and suspense, which you can finish in a day.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The more clues Patrick
Modiano supplies, the more mysterious the story becomes. <i>So You
Don’t Get Lost in the Neighborhood </i>is a good introduction to a writer for
those interested in a good mystery mixed with fine literary fiction. 5 stars</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">--Chiron, 12/29/15</span></span></div>
Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-56480407132444961242015-12-29T09:33:00.002-06:002015-12-29T09:33:37.735-06:00The Mare by Mary Gaitskill<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXPcwUWad0pbE3Vwp-39rJ3V-tpkUsTDYCuC9U5490XzED1RN2kdcVcJXHw2wA2aWFD4L7_ck54tgXNh75yxFdsPyGAaBQe847-OXoED1aL5rqZU03GhxU6hfMdBjPpxE40OITIg/s1600/gaitskill2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXPcwUWad0pbE3Vwp-39rJ3V-tpkUsTDYCuC9U5490XzED1RN2kdcVcJXHw2wA2aWFD4L7_ck54tgXNh75yxFdsPyGAaBQe847-OXoED1aL5rqZU03GhxU6hfMdBjPpxE40OITIg/s1600/gaitskill2.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Mary Gaitskill has
numerous nominations for book awards, including the Pen/Faulkner and the
National Book award.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her short stories
have appeared in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New Yorker,
Harper’s, Esquire, </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The best
American Short Stories </i>in 1993, 2006, and 2012<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>She also won an O. Henry
Prize in 1998.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her novels involve
emotional relationships and family tragedies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>These poignant stories never fail to touch the heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her latest novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Mare</i>, is a lovely story of a woman who has suffered a loss, but
finds comfort in hosting a young, inner city girl who manages to bond with a
dangerous horse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ginger, the woman,
Velvet, the young girl, and Fugly Girl, the horse, all suffered abuse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The story is told in parts by all the main
characters, each of whom narrates their own chapters.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Ginger and her
husband agree to accept Velvet for a two-week sting in upstate New York through
the “Fresh Air Fund” sponsored by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New
York Times.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a chapter narrated by
Velvet, she describes their first meeting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“They said they were Ginger and Paul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They took me to their car.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
drove past lots of houses with flowers and bushes in front of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the city, when the sky is bright, it makes
everything harder on their edges; here everything was soft and shiny, too, like
a picture book of Easter eggs and rabbits I read in the third grade when I was
sick on the nurse’s station cot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I loved
that book so much I stole it from the nurse’s station, and the next time I was
sick, I took it out and looked at it, and it made me feel better even though by
then I was too old for it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t have
it anymore; probably my mom threw it out when we moved” (20).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This stark contrast between Crown Heights in
Brooklyn and rural New York is a thread which wends its way through the entire
novel.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Ginger is in
successful recovery from alcoholism when she met Paul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They soon married and decided to have a
child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gaitskill writes, “I didn’t get
pregnant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead my sister Melinda
died.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know the two things do not go
together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in my mind they do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My sister lived in Cleveland, Ohio.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had been sick a long time; she had so
many things wrong with her that nobody wanted to think about her, including
me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was drunk and mean and crazy and
would call saying [obscenities] in the middle of the night” (10).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This might appear to be depressing and
morbid, but the silver lining of the relationship between Ginger and Velvet
rose to a level of poignancy rarely encountered.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFVyoGT8VqIjuesIZXtWVE62b7_Tka7NUAkIlkFlpH6ygSh2m4t4VnzcIvJN1QvjHShubp4_6lpQ-IuC9PsGFcekmp-QXHRuO6N5R0hullJ91-PdM-x_EcCBGamcwmCqFH6j2bWw/s1600/gaitskill2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFVyoGT8VqIjuesIZXtWVE62b7_Tka7NUAkIlkFlpH6ygSh2m4t4VnzcIvJN1QvjHShubp4_6lpQ-IuC9PsGFcekmp-QXHRuO6N5R0hullJ91-PdM-x_EcCBGamcwmCqFH6j2bWw/s1600/gaitskill2.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Fugly Girl suffered
from the same type of verbal abuse as Velvet does from her mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The girl and the dangerous horse developed an
emotional attachment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On their third
encounter Gaitskill writes, “I came home early and went to talk to Fugly
Girl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pat [the stable owner] pretended
not to see me leaning right up against the door of her stall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The horse came to me and stretched her head
out like she wanted some apple, but when she saw I didn’t have anything, she
stayed still and licked her stall, like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">thoughtfully.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I asked her if I could touch her nose for
courage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She looked down, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oh, all right –</i> and flared it open;
quickly I kissed it” (48).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That scene,
that small victory of acceptance, was, probably the first shining moment in
that twelve-year-olds dark life.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Mary Gaitskill has
written a novel of emotions we all face: acceptance and rejection, love and
hate, tenderness and depravity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even Ginger
faces emotionally damaging incidents from her past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>IN the end, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Mare</i> is a novel of love and bonding and overcoming obstacles to
happiness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>5 stars</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">--Chiron, 12/26/15</span></span></div>
Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-7233106239920491032015-12-19T15:27:00.001-06:002015-12-19T15:27:36.062-06:00Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Days by Salman Rushdie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By all means do not
allow the reputation of Salman Rushdie prevent you from reading his latest
novel, <i>Two Years Eight Months and
Twenty-Eight Days. </i>Like all his
works – with the possible exception of <i>The
Satanic Verses – </i>his latest novel contains jokes, puns, humor, and
erudition of every sort. According to
his website, Rushdie has won numerous awards from around the world, including the
U.S., France, Germany, The European Union, Mexico, Italy, Hungary, and India,
to name only a few. <span style="background: white;">He holds honorary doctorates and
fellowships at six European and six American universities, is an Honorary
Professor in the Humanities at M.I.T, and University Distinguished Professor at
Emory University. His list of
humanitarian and cultural awards from around the world is equally
impressive. His Booker Prize winning
novel, <i>Midnight’s Children,</i> was
adapted for the stage in London and New York<i>,
</i>and by a public vote, the novel was overwhelmingly named the “Best of the
Booker.” It was also turned into a film
and translated into forty languages.
Only the Nobel Prize eludes him, which, in my opinion, stems from the unfortunate
uproar surrounding the publication of <i>Satanic
Verses. </i>He is truly an international
literary treasure.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Deep in to the novel, Rushdie provides an interesting theory
of “story.” He writes, “<i>We tell this story still as it has come down
to us through many retellings, mouth to ear, ear to mouth, both the story and
the poisoned box and the stories it contained, in which the poison was
concealed. This is what stories are,
experience retold by many tongues, to which, sometimes, we give a single name,
Homer, Valmiki, Vyasa, Schererzade. We,
for our own part, simply call ourselves ‘we.’
‘We’ are the creature that tells itself stories to understand what sort
of creature it is. As they pass down to
us the stories lift themselves away from time and place, losing the specificity
of their beginnings, but gaining the purity of essences, of being simply
themselves. And by extension, or </i>by
the same token,<i> as we like to say, though
we do not know what the token is or was, these stories become what we know,
what we understand, and what we are, or, perhaps we should say, what we have become,
or can perhaps be” </i>(182-183).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white;">Admittedly, reading Rushdie requires great concentration,
lest the reader miss out on all the fun.
My review will concentrate only on the second chapter, which has all his
powerful attributes at full strength.
The novel revolves around the tales in the style of the thousand and one
tales of Scheherazade; that is, the story of a jinniri, Dunia, who slipped
between worlds and interacted with ordinary mortals. Some of these jinni (male) or jinniri
(female), were good, some evil, but all were mischievous. Ibn Rushd fell under the spell of the princess
of the jinniri, and she produced thousands of children, all of whom had no
earlobes. Her group of jinniri were
known as Duniazát, and Rushd forbade her to take his name for any of the
children. Hundreds of years later, a
descendant of Dunia, Raphael Heironymus Manzes known as Mr. Geronimo Manzes, </span>had no earlobes. When the slit between the worlds opened again,
jinni and jinniri poured into our world, wreaking havoc known as “The Strangenesses.” Geronimo was affected when he suddenly found
himself unable to touch the ground with any part of his body. He had been away many years, and found the
new Bombay – Mumbai – dramatically different.
Rushdie writes, “It was the garden that spoke to Geronimo. It seemed to be clawing at the house, snaking
its way inside, trying to destroy the barriers that separated the exterior
space from the interior. In the upper
regions of the house, flowers and grass successfully surmounted its walls, and
the floor became a lawn. He left that
place knowing he no longer wanted to be an architect. […] Manzes made his way to Kyoto in Japan and
sat at the feet of the great horticulturist Ryonosuke Shimura, who taught him
that the garden was the outward expression of inner truth, the place where the
dreams of our childhoods collided with the archetypes of our cultures, and
created beauty” (35). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Salman Rushdie’s
intellectual allegory, <i>Two Years Eight
Months and Twenty-Eight Days</i>, brings to one time and place – the present –
and lays all the problems and difficulties we face from climate change to
financial collapse at the feet of the jinni and jinniri. The web of “Magic Realism” stories Rushdie
has spun will enchant and dismay at times, but those tales will always
intrigue. 5 stars<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--Chiron, 12/18/15</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-2975350526728988522015-12-19T15:19:00.000-06:002015-12-19T15:30:30.218-06:00The Blue Guitar by John Banville<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Banville
recently turned 70, but there is no sign of his slowing down the writing of the
marvelous novels which made him famous.
John claims influence from James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, and Franz Kafka
among others. He captured the Booker
Prize in 2005 for </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The Sea</i><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> – my
introduction to this erudite and clever writer.
I never fail to learn several new words from his novels, </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The Blue Guitar</i><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> included. A sixteenth novel has recently been
published. He is quickly becoming my
favorite writer for a whole host of reasons.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Typically, his
novels delve into the psyche of his characters, which results in a rich and
thoroughly enjoyable reading experience.
Here Banville describes Gloria, wife of Oliver Orme Orway, the narrator,
“Gloria was her usual glorious self, a big bright beauty shedding radiance all
around her. And, my God, but my wife was
magnificent that day, as indeed she always is.
At thirty-five she has attained the full splendor or maturity. I think of her in terms of various metals,
gold, of course, because of her hair, and silver for her skin, but there is
something in her too of the opulence of brass and bronze: she has a wonderful
shine to her, a stately glow. In fact,
she is a Tiepolo rather than a Manet type, one of the Venetian master’s
Cleopatra, say, or his Beatrice of Burgundy” (10). A quick search reveals the work of this
master painter from eighteenth century Venice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB-SNji-bz1ooNsuWIfki_jtSg-jYvTPWNC9RfwPNMxDEPhzgp6TGQ-UBFxZiHY0Mr6H4GU0u-Cfqta1SyrzQOF3lJ12Mw1bxs2STF-IjN8e_Gs-5_3_J4SvwUCO-wBS8SHIMlQg/s1600/Banville3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB-SNji-bz1ooNsuWIfki_jtSg-jYvTPWNC9RfwPNMxDEPhzgp6TGQ-UBFxZiHY0Mr6H4GU0u-Cfqta1SyrzQOF3lJ12Mw1bxs2STF-IjN8e_Gs-5_3_J4SvwUCO-wBS8SHIMlQg/s320/Banville3.jpg" width="309" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , , sans-serif; line-height: 37.2px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Giovanni Battista Tiepolo</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Oliver is a painter,
but he has lost his muse, and despite pestering from his agent, he cannot bring
himself to resume his chosen occupation.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He frequently refers to painters he admires and often speaks in
metaphors about painting and artists.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Clearly, he has a passion for visual arts.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Banville writes, “I was rummaging among
scores of old canvases stacked against the wall in a corner.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I hadn’t looked at them in a long time –
couldn’t bear to – and they were dusty and draped with cobwebs.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was after that still life I had been
working on when I was overtaken by what I liked to call my conceptual
catastrophe – how much nakedness they cover, the big words – and my resolve
failed and I couldn’t go on painting, trying to paint” (62).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Banville always
drives me to my dictionary to discover a whole slew of new – and sometimes
archaic – vocabulary. For example, in <i>Blue Guitar</i>, he uses “bibelot,” “coevals,”
“hieratic,” “epicene,” “jourums,” “louche,” “cullion,” “plosive,” “knout,”
“risibly,” “winceyette,” “moly,” “quaff,” “losel,” and several others I could not
find. Interesting words all -- and lots
of fun looking them up!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">John Banville also
has written a number of detective/suspense novels under the pen name, Benjamin
Black. According to an interview in <i>Publisher’s Weekly</i>, Banville's
stated ambition is to give his prose "the kind of denseness and thickness
that poetry has.” Do not miss reading
this marvelous writer, considered by
many as THE master of English prose, before he wins the Nobel Prize in
Literature, so you can say, “I read him when…”
<i>The Blue Guitar</i> would make a
great place to begin. 5 Stars.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">--Chiron, 12/17/15</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-78787802373449256242015-12-13T13:11:00.001-06:002015-12-13T13:11:30.386-06:00Levels of Life by Julian Barnes<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjQ3_K58QUvCoSWdV8bwAjIhlWUpAvOLdcG-u0Dyu4eixe6MdOmBsfbXfZSusg1LM0dCZeIU19976f70XsfR2panNs3nOoZ4e3MT5ReSy_dF4AWDgTqD3uA5bDik4nWztl4kSb-Q/s1600/Barnes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjQ3_K58QUvCoSWdV8bwAjIhlWUpAvOLdcG-u0Dyu4eixe6MdOmBsfbXfZSusg1LM0dCZeIU19976f70XsfR2panNs3nOoZ4e3MT5ReSy_dF4AWDgTqD3uA5bDik4nWztl4kSb-Q/s1600/Barnes.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Julian Barnes won
the 2011 Booker Prize for his splendid novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Sense of an Ending, </i>which explores the memories a group of
friends has upon the death of one of their number.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Barnes returns to that theme in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Levels of Life.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this essay, he explores the idea of two
people coming together for the first time, and then how they are torn
apart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the story is much more
complicated than that,</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The essay is divided
into three parts – “The Sin of Height,” “On the Level,” and “The Loss of
Depth.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These three parts revolve around
historical figures who came together in unique ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first involves a photographer and the
renowned 19<sup>th</sup> century actor, Sara Bernhardt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Barnes provides an outline of the history of
ballooning and early photography.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Colonel Fred Burnaby is an aeronautical enthusiast, and when he meets up
with Sara Bernhardt, the world is changed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Part Two continues with Burnaby and Bernhardt and the sudden collapse of
their affair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Part Three, Barnes
begins a lengthy meditation on life, love, and loss following the death of his
wife, Pat Kavanagh, in 2008.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Barnes’ prose is
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part two, “We live on a flat, on the level, and yet – and so -- we aspire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Groundlings, we can sometimes reach as far as
the gods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some soar with art, others
with religion; most with love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when
we soar, we can also crash.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are
few soft landings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We may find ourselves
bouncing across the ground with leg-fracturing force, dragged towards some
foreign railway line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every love story
is a potential grief story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If not at
first, then later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If not for one, then
for the other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes, for both”
(39).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His language is quite poetic. </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In part three, he
explores the meaning of loss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Following
condolences by a friend, Barnes writes, “The same friend, four years later,
said, ‘I resent the fact that she’s become part of the past.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If this isn’t yet true for me, the grammar,
like everything else, has begun the shift: she exists not really in the
present, not wholly in the past, but in some intermediate tense, the
past-present.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps this is why I
relish hearing even the slightest new thing about her: a previously unreported
memory, a piece of advice she gave years ago, a flashback in ordinary
animation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I take surrogate pleasure in
her appearances in other people’s dreams – how she behaves and is dressed, what
she eats, how close she is now to how she was then; also whether I am there
with her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such fugitive moments excite
me, because they briefly re-anchor her in the present, rescue her from the past-present,
and delay a little longer that inevitable slippage into the past historic”
(117).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJNZ09e4B1UL5eZAVjlVEaaPnb-8NQJp-jyBNeiv30BitLwe4K9158T4l4iXZcaXsYVEmwWmK-aKo6ETcvkW49-hAGFtkzSz1jwnIQm9uH8PnRLzMiEpdnuJG2reiIZOUxr0bEZQ/s1600/Barnes2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJNZ09e4B1UL5eZAVjlVEaaPnb-8NQJp-jyBNeiv30BitLwe4K9158T4l4iXZcaXsYVEmwWmK-aKo6ETcvkW49-hAGFtkzSz1jwnIQm9uH8PnRLzMiEpdnuJG2reiIZOUxr0bEZQ/s1600/Barnes2.jpg" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He provides an
interesting quote from Dr. Samuel Johnson who, “well understood the ‘tormenting
and harassing want’ of grief; and he warned against isolationism and
withdrawal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘An attempt to preserve life
in a state of neutrality and indifference is unreasonable and vain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If by excluding joy we could shut out grief,
the scheme would deserve very serious attention.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it doesn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nor do extreme measures, like the attempt to
‘drag [the heart] by force into scenes of merriment’; or its opposite, the
attempt ‘to soothe it into tranquility by making it acquainted with miseries
more dreadful and afflictive.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For
Johnson, only work and time mitigate grief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>‘Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes
in its passage to scour away’” (118).</span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I found Julian
Barnes essay, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Levels of Life </i>comforting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know I will face loss, and I will return to
this interesting essay as an excellent companion through dark times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>5 stars</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">--Chiron, 12/8/15 </span></span></div>
Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-2473325930137763202015-12-05T10:55:00.005-06:002015-12-05T10:55:51.946-06:00Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8erptE_LT6J_UpHCsJfdBFeCvX57DTHfKbP3q-HoG1ZGFz_MqaldgC622PSTHNJn97fk61KwDPsH2YHjcGc8COCMt3Q0Z2J61fG9U23bfPnf9LfFwuOlHf18aTFXhU_4b64l0eg/s1600/Amis2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8erptE_LT6J_UpHCsJfdBFeCvX57DTHfKbP3q-HoG1ZGFz_MqaldgC622PSTHNJn97fk61KwDPsH2YHjcGc8COCMt3Q0Z2J61fG9U23bfPnf9LfFwuOlHf18aTFXhU_4b64l0eg/s1600/Amis2.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">One fun source of
books for my staggering TBR pile is Workman Publishing’s “Page a Day Calendar
for readers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every morning I am greeted
with a novel, biography, history, or poetry for my reading pleasure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew about Kingsley Amis through the Booker
Prize, which he won in 1996.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lucky Jim</i> is considered by many critics
to be his best comic novel.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">According to the
biography in my copy, Kingsley Amis was a novelist, poet, and critic widely
regarded as one of the greatest satiric writers of the 20<sup>th</sup>
century.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was born in suburban South
London.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He attended St. John’s College,
Oxford on a scholarship where he began a lifelong friendship with poet Philip
Larkin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He served in the British Armey
during World War II, and upon his “demobbing” – as the English put it – he finished
his degree and joined the faculty of the University College of Swansea in Wales.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lucky
Jim, </i>his first novel, was published in 1954.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He also taught for a year at Princeton
University.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amis published 24 novels,
including his Booker Prize winner, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Old Devils. </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was knighted by Queen
Elizabeth in 1990.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He died in 1995.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Lucky Jim</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> is the story of Jim Dixon, a beleaguered lecturer of Medieval
History.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hanging onto his perch at an
unnamed provincial university and capturing the girl of his dreams are his
principle occupations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite the age
of this novel, it struck me as remarkably timely even today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I place it on a shelf with other of my
favorites set in academia, such as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Beet,
The English Major, Stoner,</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Straight
Man</i>. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A cautionary word,
the British humor is typically dry and requires some close attention to get the
jokes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here is a sample of Amis
describing a hangover: “He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a
broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The light did him harm, but not as much as
looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his
eyeballs again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A dusty thudding in his
head made the scene before him beat like a pulse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His mouth had been used as a latrine by some
small creature of the night, and then as a mausoleum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During the night, too, he’d somehow been on a
cross-country run, and then been expertly beaten up by secret police.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He felt bad” (60).</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhueP7_4hhzETYKngJ3ZRYMr7CKrGyGqHCMxmEumUSWwYHyqDVc5hU3Dla7vJV5Xj987eb-Qf_lSjYLtjNWRxLntV-XhRVYizITzHaj5xAImrjsbOs1b6Doejy8qBJNJXaFeCI01Q/s1600/Amis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhueP7_4hhzETYKngJ3ZRYMr7CKrGyGqHCMxmEumUSWwYHyqDVc5hU3Dla7vJV5Xj987eb-Qf_lSjYLtjNWRxLntV-XhRVYizITzHaj5xAImrjsbOs1b6Doejy8qBJNJXaFeCI01Q/s1600/Amis.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In an introduction
by the critic and writer, Keith Gessen, Jim Dixon is modeled on Philip
Larkin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Amis sent the manuscript to
his friend for comment, Larkin responded that he ought to make Dixon more like
Amis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A funny exchange ensued with a
catalogue of faces Amis could use.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Amis gave up
teaching, because it interfered with his writing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually, Amis surpassed his friend Larkin
in notoriety, and the two drifted apart, despite a dedication to Larkin. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kingsley Amis’ debut novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lucky Jim,</i> is a hilarious romp through
academia in the aftermath of World War II, and Amis deserves the acclaim he
garnered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>5 Stars</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">--Chiron, 12/3/15</span></span></div>
Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-58560291415257192792015-12-05T10:51:00.002-06:002015-12-05T10:51:54.383-06:00Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZiuWgAm4KiQIGGHKA6eXk0SDijJCoLmnlKL5u_pwTj1iVazuywZWaUGPU_mG0YMRn6JGcJ9oflyGsMAZ99x_G9mwbG-WwMENBE5qMe4LEloCsgJFPJJfNgkh7eP_2cmhozAYfwQ/s1600/Bryson2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZiuWgAm4KiQIGGHKA6eXk0SDijJCoLmnlKL5u_pwTj1iVazuywZWaUGPU_mG0YMRn6JGcJ9oflyGsMAZ99x_G9mwbG-WwMENBE5qMe4LEloCsgJFPJJfNgkh7eP_2cmhozAYfwQ/s1600/Bryson2.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The argument over
the author of Shakespeare’s plays – and even his existence – rely on a rather
silly and unsupported raft of ideas, which easily sink on close
examination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The documents mentioning
Shakespeare are legion, yet not a single document directly connecting another
author to the plays exists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of the
candidates died before Shakespeare, and plays those candidates supposedly
penned, contained events of ideas which occurred after their death. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bill Bryson has authored an entertaining and
carefully supported review of what we do know about the Bard of Avon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His 2007 national bestseller, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shakespeare: The World as Stage</i>, should
be of interest to anyone even remotely curious about the greatest writer in the
English language.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Bill Bryson has
written a number of non-fiction works, which have occupied the best seller
lists for some time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was born in Des Moines,
Iowa, but now lives in Norfolk, England. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His smooth and entertaining style is
accessible to anyone with even the slightest idea of Shakespeare from high
school English classes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bryson also
provides vivid pictures of Elizabethan England.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He writes of London, “City life had a density and coziness that we can scarcely
imagine now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Aware from the few main
thoroughfares, streets were much narrower than they are now, and houses, with
their projecting upper floors, often all but touched.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So neighbors were close indeed, and all the
stench and effluvia that they produced tended to accumulate and linger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Refuse was a perennial problem. […] Rich and
poor lived far more side by side than now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The playwright Robert Greene died in wretched squalor in a tenement in
Dowgate, near London Bridge, only a few doors from the home of Sir Francis
Drake, one of the wealthiest men in the land” (49).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bryson continues, “According to nearly all
histories, the gates to the city were locked at dusk, and no one was allowed in
or out till dawn. though as dusk falls at midafternoon in a London winter there
must have been some discretion in the law’s application or there would have
been, at the very least, crowds of stranded, and presumably aggrieved, play
goers on most days of the week” (49-50).</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The book also
contains a number of interesting tidbits about the times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of particular interest to me is the state of
publishing and book binding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bryson
writes, “Printed books had already existed, as luxuries, for a century, but
this was the age in which they first became accessible to anyone with a little
spare income.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At last average people
could acquire learning and sophistication on demand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More than 7,000 ttiles were published during
Elizabeth’s reign – a bounty of raw materials waiting to be absorbed, reworked,
or otherwise exploited by a generation of playwrights experimenting with new
ways of entertaining the public.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is
the world into which Shakespeare strode, primed and gifted” (52).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So much for the naysayers idea that a country
boy, who did not have a college degree, could have written so many memorable
and magnificent works.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-EeTvCmqfqHIf4MUG2AFwsAcLXDaf_pz3IDUnj4rhq5TAYFAfEFr1g6hVPk0o2UgkG8exttGdVman5hqMRuNPTg3-qFpoSttF09mat9FaICk67CYxk54nWn6AGZw4eALUzaPZSw/s1600/Bryson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-EeTvCmqfqHIf4MUG2AFwsAcLXDaf_pz3IDUnj4rhq5TAYFAfEFr1g6hVPk0o2UgkG8exttGdVman5hqMRuNPTg3-qFpoSttF09mat9FaICk67CYxk54nWn6AGZw4eALUzaPZSw/s1600/Bryson.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In 1668, John Dryden
wrote of Shakespeare, “Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the
greater commendation: he was naturally learn’d” (109)</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Bill Bryson’s entertaining
and enlightening book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shakespeare: The World
as Stage</i> also has an extensive bibliography for further reading. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would also recommend Stephen Greenblatt’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Will in the World </i>for a further and more
detailed exploration of Shakespeare’s life. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>5 stars</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">--Chiron, 11/29/15</span>Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-53145107702429981042015-12-05T10:47:00.000-06:002015-12-05T10:47:02.542-06:00Holiday Gift Suggestions<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As I am sure my readers are
aware, I like nothing better for the holidays than a nice stack of books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope your holiday is not so busy you won’t
have time for reading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here are some
suggestions for yourself, or the reader in your life.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDx-KNmgjN0M9wn8isc5G5bXDaIDaQK00Zix1CVerYTgmd87UKoD6_-5FqCEIKqg36Zklsa7lARJ7we_NrLLershFwixhftLKUKwncLfgKm6ZD_0NDR8_GmwP0hjN71BAcCxfXuA/s1600/Holiday+Gifts+2015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDx-KNmgjN0M9wn8isc5G5bXDaIDaQK00Zix1CVerYTgmd87UKoD6_-5FqCEIKqg36Zklsa7lARJ7we_NrLLershFwixhftLKUKwncLfgKm6ZD_0NDR8_GmwP0hjN71BAcCxfXuA/s320/Holiday+Gifts+2015.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">If you are looking
for a good biography, I have one for you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A couple of years ago, I reviewed Stacy Schiff’s magnificent biography
of Cleopatra.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has taken a new tack
in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Witches,</i> a history of the Salem
Witch trials.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her ability to tell a
story of the lives of these unfortunate individuals, murdered because of
superstition, is unsurpassed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Margaret Atwood’s
latest novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Heart Goes Last</i> is
another jewel in her crown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would also
recommend <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Handmaid’s Tale </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cat’s Eye</i> as must reads by this
talented, award winning Canadian writer.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Lauren Groff’s
latest work makes my list of suggestions. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fates
and Furies</i> is the story of a young couple married right out of college, who
struggle to hold their marriage together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>An absorbing and interesting insight into strong relationships.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">After reading <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Paris Wife</i> by Paula McLain, I could
not resist her 2015 novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Circling the
Sun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paris </i>is about the women in
Hemingway’s life, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Circling the Sun,</i>
is a fictional account of the life of Beryl Markham.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the real scoop on Beryl Markham, I cannot
recommend any book higher than her own autobiography, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">West with the Night.</i> She was an amazing woman who took on roles of
aviator and horse trainer, occupations almost exclusively that of men at the
time. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The Booker Prize
winning author, John Banvile also has a new novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Blue Guitar.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am really
looking forward to this one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is one
of my favorites, and I am nearly half through all of his novels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Banville is a literary master who is sure to
please. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">While not for
everyone, Jonathan Franzen is a writer’s writer, and working your way through
his novels will not be a wasted effort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His newest, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Purity</i>, has been
getting great reviews, and you will hear about <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it on Likely Stories soon.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The third and final
volume of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Autobiography of Mark Twain </i>has
finally been published.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Along with volumes
one and two, we have a whopping 2,100+ pages of detailed information on one of
the most fascinating and well-known figures in American literary history.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Finally, as we
approach the last season of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Downton Abbey</i>,
two books about this magnificent series have been published.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Downton
Abbey: A Celebration </i>by Jessica Fellows is a beautiful, detailed, and
marvelous companion to the series loved by hundreds of millions around the
world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her uncle, Lord Julian Fellowes,
the author of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Downton Abbey</i>, has
added a foreword.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Caution: the companion
contains spoiler alerts for season six.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jessica also wrote a slim volume, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Wit and Wisdom of Downton Abbey</i>, which has all the funny sayings of the
characters<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both are published by St. Martin’s Press.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">All these books are
easily available in time for wrapping and holiday cheer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All merit 5 stars</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">--Chiron, 12/3/15</span></div>
Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-54080986243199949912015-12-05T10:38:00.000-06:002015-12-05T10:38:29.183-06:00Deaf Sentence by David Lodge<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja0IokbF_eC13UpwR-sQD3Wd0JjVu4BxS8aTVnG8fXMA7w6MSkuCCgSQ9vJCntyIN5czd9jSPwQyMTGrnhzvIFTMm4EBKlWVOGKtAgRKJlaFyvYsXcNhPvuZos2WWBaflgnx9Ijg/s1600/Lodge2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja0IokbF_eC13UpwR-sQD3Wd0JjVu4BxS8aTVnG8fXMA7w6MSkuCCgSQ9vJCntyIN5czd9jSPwQyMTGrnhzvIFTMm4EBKlWVOGKtAgRKJlaFyvYsXcNhPvuZos2WWBaflgnx9Ijg/s1600/Lodge2.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Twice short-listed
for a Booker Prize, David Lodge, a British author has a novel in a sub-genre I
really enjoy – novels set in Academia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
2008 novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Deaf Sentence, </i>is a darkly
comic tale of Professor Desmond Bates and his wife Fred, who is a partner in a
home décor and design business.</span>
</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Professor Bates
headed the linguistics department at a university.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He began losing his hearing, and when he was
offered an early retirement he took it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Fortunately, his wife had partnered with a friend in the opening of her business,
and as he retired, the business picked up, and the couple had a healthy income.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He also cares for his elderly father, whom he
visits once a week to spend the day.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Desmond occasionally
regrets his retirement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lodge Writes, “At
first it was very enjoyable, like a long sabbatical, but after eighteen months
or so his freedom from routine tasks and duties began to pall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He missed the calendar of the academic year
which had given his life a shape for such a long time, its passage marked by
reassuringly predictable events: the arrival of the excited and expectant
[freshman] every autumn; the Department Christmas party with its traditional
sketches by students mimicking the mannerisms and favorite jargon of members of
staff; the reading week in the spring term when they took the second year to a
residential conference centre in the Lake district; the examiners meetings in
the summer term when, sitting round a long table heaped with marked scripts and
extended essays, they calculated and classified the Finals results like gods
dispensing rewards and punishments to mortals; and finally the [commencement]
itself, processing to organ music in the Assembly hall, listening to the University
Orator fulsomely summarize the achievements of honorary [graduates], shaking
hands afterward with proud parents and their begowned children sipping fruit
punch fruit punch under the marquee erected on the Round Lawn, after which all
dispersed to a well-earned long vacation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He missed the rhythm of the academic year as a peasant might miss
differences between seasons if they were suddenly withdrawn; and he found he
missed too the structure of the academic week, the full diary of teaching
assignments, postgraduate supervisions, essay marking, committee meetings,
interviews, and deadlines for this and that required report, tasks he used to
grumble about but the completion of which, however trivial and ephemeral they
were, gave a kind of low-level satisfaction, and ensured that one never, ever,
had to confront the question: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">what shall
I do with myself today?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>In
retirement, he confronted it every morning as soon as he woke” (28).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This passage seems
eerily prescient as inch toward retirement myself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmtYrjHDxPZ0slxR15SotfTAjWMF84d-WH1lqFU4XMo31aY6iYKN_Cwm7MEkzrtzG4L_r8r0s5paAfv8mk1AcZwH8ElHH2_QPPnN3xM0Tr4dTC2oZlR-YE0zqNGeiZSk7MJ4JSBQ/s1600/Lodge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmtYrjHDxPZ0slxR15SotfTAjWMF84d-WH1lqFU4XMo31aY6iYKN_Cwm7MEkzrtzG4L_r8r0s5paAfv8mk1AcZwH8ElHH2_QPPnN3xM0Tr4dTC2oZlR-YE0zqNGeiZSk7MJ4JSBQ/s1600/Lodge.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">David Lodge has a
couple of items, which gave me pause; however, I quickly adapted to his
style.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, the long sentences and
extensive use of the English Major’s carefully protected and hoarded
punctuation mark – the semi-colon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
all in all, a pleasant read for anyone who has spent more than a few years in
academia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>David Lodge’s novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Deaf Sentence, </i>holds a well-earned spot
on my shelf of fiction set in academia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>5 stars.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">--Chiron, 11/28/15</span></div>
Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-71361418436484104102015-11-20T18:03:00.000-06:002015-11-20T18:03:54.182-06:00Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">At one time, I
devoured biographies and memoirs of my favorite actors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Katherine Hepburn, and Elizabeth Taylor – to
name two – seemed to me Hollywood royalty, and I loved them all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I stumbled on a few others, and began to
notice a pattern I did not appreciate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
abandoned those books for years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
hesitated a little bit, when I saw the release of a memoir by Carrie Brownstein.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the event you might not be familiar with
Carrie, she is the co-star of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Portlandia</i>,
a clever, avant-garde comedy on the Independent film channel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hunger
Makes Me a Modern Girl</i> reveals her as so much more than the strange
characters she plays on the TV show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Carrie also wrote several books about food and visiting Portland, Oregon</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Carrie is also an
avid musician, who struggled for many years to form a rock band, and finally
succeeded with Sleater-Kinney, her band from 1994 to 2006.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The memoir is a wonderfully written, honest,
and thorough review of her struggles to fulfill a dream she had from early
childhood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She never missed an
opportunity to entertain family and friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Her mother was hospitalized as a result of an eating disorder, and the
book opens with Carrie and her sister dealing with her absence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Carrie was about 20 years old, her
father helped finance a trip to Australia to make a record with a musician the
band had discovered on the internet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
you have never seen <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Portlandia, </i>you
have missed a treat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The humor involves
bizarre, eclectic, and a very funny group of characters, who live and work in
Portland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her co-star is Fred Armisen,
and the two play most of the characters with changes of costume, makeup, and
wigs.</span></span></div>
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</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAU_gk_LxzyE-Hzj9xvylcNVNZnMWW6YeMNdGgoS5ZZemmrMvfQfQhh0j0Fh3_tqBt1F7-jnw8DvGAnlWqffAuAa0itqXu200PyNlX-_GWGiAQhxV16jdAC79TYqN2jS2IcFcXlQ/s1600/Brownstein.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAU_gk_LxzyE-Hzj9xvylcNVNZnMWW6YeMNdGgoS5ZZemmrMvfQfQhh0j0Fh3_tqBt1F7-jnw8DvGAnlWqffAuAa0itqXu200PyNlX-_GWGiAQhxV16jdAC79TYqN2jS2IcFcXlQ/s1600/Brownstein.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The memoir itself is
unlike many of the other show-biz bios I have read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Carrie seems forthright and thorough in her
examination of her life, family, and career.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She writes, “There is something freeing in seeing yourself in a new
context.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People have no preconceived
notion of who you are, and there is a relief in knowing that you can recreate
yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you’re entrenched in a
community of people who know you, it’s scary to proclaim wanting to be
different and wanting to experiment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
went to the other side of the world to make our own sound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Usually this is a methodology you employ as a
restart later in your career.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We did it
right up front.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We traveled to a foreign
country for our first record.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had to
uproot ourselves, not because we were deep into career ruts, or didn’t want to
give credit to the places we had come from, but because we had no desire to
sound like or emulate anything that had come before” (96).</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Carrie continues,
“It was an extreme way to start, but I learned later on how hard it can become
to unsettle yourself, to trip yourself up, and I think that’s a good place to
write from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s important to undermine
yourself and create a level of difficulty so the work doesn’t come too easily.
[…] The stakes should always feel high” (96).</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Although she is
talking about a rock band, I believe this idea can apply to nearly any creative
endeavor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I must admit I am not a fan of
punk nor of indie music, but I do love <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Portlandia
</i>and Carrie Brownstein’s Memoir, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hunger
Makes Me a Modern Girl</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>5 Stars</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">--Chiron, 11/17/15</span></span>Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-49304817181019674302015-11-19T18:04:00.000-06:002015-11-20T18:08:57.462-06:00Euphoria by Lily King<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Back in middle
school days, I loved reading about archaeology, paleontology, and
anthropology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My favorite book then was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gods, Graves, and Scholars</i>, an
interesting look at some notable archaeological digs, including the Tomb of
Tutankhamun and ancient Troy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I was
in college, I took an anthropology course as an elective, and devoured numerous
monographs on disparate cultures around the globe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recently a friend recommended <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Euphoria</i> by Lily King, which is a
fictionalized account of Margaret Mead’s adventures in New Guinea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ah, the embers of my old passion flamed in my
find.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">King has written
three novels before <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Euphoria</i>,
including <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The English Teacher</i>, which
I already own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has won several
awards, including named as an alternate for the PEN/Hemingway Award.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has also gathered several awards from her
home state of Maine, where she currently resides.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Euphoria</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> is the story of three anthropologists studying tribes in New
Guinea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fen is the husband of Nell (an
allegorical Margaret Mead), and Andrew Bankson is a young anthropologist trying
to discover an unknown tribe to make his name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>King plays with some of the facts of Mead’s life, in order to spin a
love story of an unusual nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I found the early
chapters a bit confusing until I worked out who was whom, and the exact
relationships between Fen and Nell, Fen and Bateson, and Nell and Bateson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In real life, Margaret marries Gregory
Bateson (Bankson in the novel), and she dies in New York City in 1978.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mead won the Kalinga Prize, given by UNESCO
for the popularization of science among lay people.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTmkHQEwXWvxvVHNtJvXN92OAT0Cnx3LnNWInnLT8mskC2qiFyDiX2vmk80AsI3cKj_i8ECyY4mP46CHgD3WPB7EGEetmGx8vex_L7J9k80F8-3rAhXQgu-64fRVJK78Uj0CQZNg/s1600/King2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTmkHQEwXWvxvVHNtJvXN92OAT0Cnx3LnNWInnLT8mskC2qiFyDiX2vmk80AsI3cKj_i8ECyY4mP46CHgD3WPB7EGEetmGx8vex_L7J9k80F8-3rAhXQgu-64fRVJK78Uj0CQZNg/s1600/King2.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">King really did an
exceptional job of capturing the thoughts of Nell as she explores the peoples
of the New Guinea jungles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this
passage, King writes the diary of Nell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“I found a language teacher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Karu.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He knows some pidgin from a
childhood spent near the patrol station in Ambunti.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanks to him my lexicon has over 1,000 words
in it now & I quiz myself morning & night though part of me wishes I
could have more time without the language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There is such careful mutual observing that goes on without it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My new friend Malun took me today to a woman’s
house where they were weaving & repairing fishing nets and we sat with her
pregnant daughter Sali & Sali’s paternal aunt & the aunt’s four grown
daughters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am learning the chopped
rhythm of their talk, the sound of their laughter, the cant of their
heads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can feel the relationships, the
likes & dislikes in the room in a way I never could if I could speak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You don’t realize how language actually
interferes with communication until you don’t have it, how it gets in the way
like an over-dominant sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have to
pay much more attention to everything else when you can’t understand the
words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once comprehension comes, so much
else falls away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You then rely on their
words, and words aren’t always the most reliable thing” (79).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The one thing which
disturbed me about the book – especially in light of the plunder of precious
artifacts in the Middle East – was the way some of these people manipulated and
even stole artifacts from the tribes to sell to museums.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am glad I ignore the Rule of 50 in this
novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>5 stars.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">--Chiron, 11/17/15</span></span></div>
Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-50134822515705624892015-11-08T14:44:00.000-06:002015-11-08T14:44:50.180-06:00Letting Me In by Anne McCrady<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">According
to the profile in the <i>East Texas Writer’s
Guild</i>, Anne McCrady’s poetry and creative non-fiction have appeared
internationally in literary journals, anthologies and magazines. <span> </span>Her two poetry collections have both been
prize winners, as have dozens of her single poems. Besides her writing,
editorial and review publication credits, Anne offers keynotes, workshops,
retreat programs, inspirational presentations and events in support of poetry,
storytelling, community organizations and peace.<span> </span>Anne lives in Henderson, Texas with her
husband, Mike, and she is the founder of InSpiritry, where she is <i>“</i><em><span style="font-style: normal;">Putting Words to Work for a
Better World.”</span></em></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span>I met Anne McCrady
at a poetry workshop a few years ago, and immediately felt a connection to her
poetry.<span> </span>In her latest collection, <i>Letting Myself In</i>, she deals cleverly
with tremendously visual descriptions of worlds and lives in transition.<span> </span>She captures the feel and the emotions of
East Texas and the people who live and struggle to reach their dreams.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span>Many of her poems
have become favorites of mine, so choosing which to quote for this review was
not easy.<span> </span>The second poem in the
collection personally struck me close to my own view of my life.<span> </span>The poem is “Aubade,” which is a poem
reflecting on the dawn.<span> </span>She writes, “Of
all the time to travel / a new road, why choose now? / How hard it will be / to
move from the hearth / just as logs are being hauled inside, / how odd to life
from the hook / beside the door, my jacket -- / its weight an informal burden /
on my September shoulders. // Turning to go, / I cannot think / what to take
along: / a map, a dog, my books. / Maybe it is better / to travel light, / off
on my own this time, / each step a reluctant soldier’s song / of how hard – oh,
how hard – it is to leave home” (5).<span> </span>I
do a lot of traveling to visit far flung family members these days, and this
poem felt like a warm breeze leading me down the road.<span> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyqaapCPfLuvKXKKazvQom0pu7yWUBlE8n2ZqAHSYmzJzkrG3JdFZfHhSSw-q4YA9-C9FrW2LpckqEQSctJz2lsck8bpwrGVvfh8KWZpb9DRmDDE8CYLusak1acTkpsr3rPKRDxQ/s1600/McCrady.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyqaapCPfLuvKXKKazvQom0pu7yWUBlE8n2ZqAHSYmzJzkrG3JdFZfHhSSw-q4YA9-C9FrW2LpckqEQSctJz2lsck8bpwrGVvfh8KWZpb9DRmDDE8CYLusak1acTkpsr3rPKRDxQ/s1600/McCrady.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span>Another favorite is
"October Rain.”<span> </span>McCrady writes, ‘In the
garden, / leftover moisture clings / to bits of fading growth, / pools on cool,
curled vines, / drips in strands of pearls / to the soggy earth beneath. //
Time is muffled. / Day cannot climb out / of dawn’s damp blanket. / With no
breeze, settled, / wood smoke sleeps in. / Live oak flags hang slack, / and
pine boughs wait for word. // For now things can wait. / Like circling geese, /
life and clouds float patiently / watching for signs / of a good, hard blow .
to dry out the coming day / and open up a clear, cold sky” (13).</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span>“Putting words to
work,” is an excellent motto for the poetry of Anne McCrady.<span> </span>Her collection is a warm, calming, and
seductive exploration of the world we live in.<span>
</span><i>Letting Myself In </i>will have
that effect on you.<span> </span>5 stars.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span>--Chiron, 11/8/15</span></span></span></div>
Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-90180628663646196042015-10-30T14:25:00.000-05:002015-10-30T14:25:09.874-05:00The Known World by Edward P. Jones<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">According to the
brief bio in my copy of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Known World</i>
by Edward P. Jones, he won the prestigious PEN/Hemingway Award and was a
finalist for the National Book Award for his debut collection of short stories,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lost in the City.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>Jones won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize and the
National Book Critics Circle Award, and was a finalist for the National Book
Award for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Known World. </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He resides in Washington, D.C., and this is
his first novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am profoundly sorry
this beautifully written work escaped my notice for so long.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This poignant tale
of slave holders and slaves in Virginia takes place in the decades before the
Civil War.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The head of the family was
Augustus, who was a skilled carpenter; he and his wife Mildred had a son Henry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Augustus’ owner allowed him to keep a portion
of his wages, and he saved enough to buy his freedom, that of his wife, and
later, Henry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Caldonia Townsend was
Henry’s wife.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of these people were
African-Americans.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Jones describes the
day Henry died, “A few women had cried, remembering the way Henry smiled or how
he would join them in singing or thinking that the death of anyone, good or
bad, master or not, cut down one more tree in the life of the forest that
shielded them from their own death; but most said or did nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their world had changed but they could not
yet understand how.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A black man had
owned them, a strange thing for many in that world, and now he was dead, maybe
a white man would buy them, which was not as strange.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No matter what, though, the sun would come up
on them tomorrow, followed by the moon, than dogs would chase their own tails
and the sky would remain just out of reach” (60-61).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I read, re-read, and read again this and
numerous other passages which brought tears to my eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A must read.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I had heard of the
complicity of rival African tribes capturing enemies and selling them to the
slave traders, and I dismissed stories of African-Americans owning slaves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, Jones’ meticulously researched novel
reveals much of the details of slavery at that time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Henry was not able to buy slaves on the
market, but he used his former owner as a straw purchaser of slaves.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Other characters
included William and Ethel Robbins, white slave holders of 113 people, who
owned Augustus and his family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then we
have suspicious cousins from North Carolina, who railed against the freedoms
some of the slaves enjoyed in the fictional Manchester County, Virginia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then we read of speculators, who would buy
blacks, with assurances no harm would come to them, then immediately resell at
a profit without any assurances at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then
the white sheriff, along with patrollers, who kept an eye on the movement of
slaves around the plantation where they lived and worked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, not all these characters are what
they seem to be, and several undergo rather startling changes.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrpIbIZzSEuIinxAi-SHPN3ahrRkjUFModnj5s2OlHD7Wcg62wp1EdifICVmLkZJ2_nd7zCjMxvzv8g68lfzd2rPD-1fJul9YxKejfkBtSQTpsyW9GQaAx4MLJwso-ZLKkMm9gOA/s1600/Jones2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrpIbIZzSEuIinxAi-SHPN3ahrRkjUFModnj5s2OlHD7Wcg62wp1EdifICVmLkZJ2_nd7zCjMxvzv8g68lfzd2rPD-1fJul9YxKejfkBtSQTpsyW9GQaAx4MLJwso-ZLKkMm9gOA/s1600/Jones2.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The horrors of the
Holocaust, numerous instances of genocide of millions around the world, and the
slave trade all speak of the incomprehensible cruelty among humans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The insidious slave trade was maintained by
wealthy white people who ruled their “property” with a whip in one hand, a
Bible in the other, and a black woman in their beds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The more I learn of this shameful period in
American and world history the more dispirited I become that we can survive as
an intelligent, kind, and loving species.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What were these people doing owning their own people?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mind boggles to think of what life must
have been like for these poor wretched people.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Readers might know a
lot about the history of the antebellum South, but read <i>The Known World</i>
by Edward P. Jones, and I defy anyone to have a heart so stony not even a
single tear is shed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>5 stars</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">--Chiron, 10/22/15</span></span></div>
Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-67364045722141933292015-10-30T14:18:00.002-05:002015-10-30T14:18:34.138-05:00Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Vw6ve2hFtZK31ZHnWNEkw7kTYWcExzojEHICwlno3eZmJkQ3-_g_Ws9Rt3OzQ4DHFh3fwlnK5xAxDZe-E3QpHAFG2n58oz7l6I7zPg3WrBK_Z3Z9qFOtutHRNzIyp6er1YDOCg/s1600/Fink+and+Cranor+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Vw6ve2hFtZK31ZHnWNEkw7kTYWcExzojEHICwlno3eZmJkQ3-_g_Ws9Rt3OzQ4DHFh3fwlnK5xAxDZe-E3QpHAFG2n58oz7l6I7zPg3WrBK_Z3Z9qFOtutHRNzIyp6er1YDOCg/s1600/Fink+and+Cranor+2.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><span>In my rich,
interesting, and varied reading life, I have made friends with numerous strange
and weird novels.<span> </span>From Joyce’s <i>Ulysses</i> and <i>Finnegan’s Wake</i> to Mark Z. Danielewski’s <i>House of Leaves</i> – the story of a house larger on the inside than on
the outside – my mind has been bent, my logic challenged, and my thought
processes twisted beyond understanding.<span>
</span>However, a new novel by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor has topped them
all for sheer bewilderment.<span> </span><i>Welcome to Night Vale </i>stemmed from a
podcast posted by the authors </span>and presented as a radio show for the
fictional town of Night Vale, which reported on the strange events that occur there.
The series was created in 2012.<span> </span>Cecil
Gershwin Palmer is the host, main character, and narrator of the novel.
</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The podcast typically airs on the first and fifteenth of
every month, and consists of "news, announcements and advertisements"
from the desert town, located "somewhere in the Southwestern U.S.”<span> </span>In an interview with NPR, Joseph Fink said
that he "came up with this idea of a town in that desert where all
conspiracy theories were real, and we would just go from there with that
understood.”<span> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The novel is part suspense, part mystery, mostly comedic,
and all mind-bending.<span> </span>To give a taste of
the novel, I will offer a few short passages, none of which will give away any
the plot, but all will reveal details of the story.<span> </span>That’s my version of a typical line by the
authors.<span> </span>Buckle up, here we go:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span>“Clocks and
calendars don’t work in Night Vale.<span> </span>Time
itself doesn’t work” (4).<span> </span>“There was
always some world-ending cataclysm threatening Night Vale.<span> </span>Feral dogs.<span>
</span>A sentient glowing cloud with the ability to control minds (although the
Glow Cloud had become less threatening since its election to the local school
board)’ (5).<span> </span>Most mind-bending of all is
this description of Jackie Ferro, a perpetual 19-year old woman who ran a pawn
shop.<span> </span>The authors wrote, “She understood
the world and her place in it.<span> </span>She
understood nothing.<span> </span>The world and her
place in it were nothing and she understood that” (5).<span> </span>Jackie meets a mysterious man she does not
recognize, and decides “to make a list of everyone who might know about” him.
[…] She pulled out “a promotional pen from a festival put on by the city a few
years ago.<span> </span>THE NIGHT VALE SHAKESPEARE IN
A PIT FESTIVAL.<span> </span>FALL INTO THE BARD’S
WORDS, it said.<span> </span>The broken leg had been
painful, but she did love the pen” (43).<span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span>Jackie visits “Old
Woman Josie” to find out if she knows anything about her missing son,
Josh.<span> </span>“She turned.<span> </span>There was a being that was difficult to
describe, although the best and most illegal description was ‘angel.’<span> </span>Angels are tall, genderless beings who are
all named Erika” (58).<span> </span>Of course they do
not exist. // “‘I was just doing some trimming,’ the being said.<span> </span>They were holding hedge trimmers and standing
by an empty patch of dirt.<span> </span>There were no
plants of any kind anywhere near them” (58).</span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnALU3yAz2SJ3FCA5LiZ4rS0yb6cgdWFty0ztJRzZzEa_uS9GT195R-xwKUdVKHu6aTiPC6uv26C8Wg0nJUqeyPN33FEdFZQl05S4FBM7IfJr5Bh0-WW9L27zRcRu86IaQ_BmPJg/s1600/Fink+and+Cranor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnALU3yAz2SJ3FCA5LiZ4rS0yb6cgdWFty0ztJRzZzEa_uS9GT195R-xwKUdVKHu6aTiPC6uv26C8Wg0nJUqeyPN33FEdFZQl05S4FBM7IfJr5Bh0-WW9L27zRcRu86IaQ_BmPJg/s1600/Fink+and+Cranor.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span>I could go on like
this for way more time than I have, or don’t have, or wish I didn’t have, or
have, but this fun and breezy read will offer many hours of humor, suspense,
tears, joy, and mystery.<span> </span>Classified as a
YA novel, adults are forbidden to read it.<span>
</span>In fact, everyone should read it.<span>
</span>Let me be the first to give you a hearty “<i>Welcome to Night Vale” </i>by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor.<span> </span>5 stars. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span>--Chiron, 10/20/15.</span></span></span></div>
Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-23957614938008962112015-10-04T19:45:00.000-05:002015-10-04T19:45:18.238-05:00The State We’re In by Anne Beattie<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGgj9HS7BSYypLwCBD8Ds343agF09ZW4k2WtQGh2R0wsn4nNCmUjCnYN0e9Z2pxCGL94L9-0j1VwxGMRoafIW13kSKjNdsZisYo44jDU0IDctxruOAxX3lDysZqsuda5Pzqkbsow/s1600/Tyler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGgj9HS7BSYypLwCBD8Ds343agF09ZW4k2WtQGh2R0wsn4nNCmUjCnYN0e9Z2pxCGL94L9-0j1VwxGMRoafIW13kSKjNdsZisYo44jDU0IDctxruOAxX3lDysZqsuda5Pzqkbsow/s1600/Tyler.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In my early days of
book collecting, I avidly searched out authors whose books I admired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My goal was signed copies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was not so careful in those days, because I
have a lot of inscribed copies that are book club editions, or sometimes many
editions removed from the first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I only
cared about the signature for my own personal collection – never about
collection values.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most authors gladly
signed my books, but sometimes I had to use some minor subterfuge to gain
access to those authors shy about meeting strangers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I heard Anne Beattie had been asked to
speak at Rutgers University, I headed there with a few of her novels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I learned there would be no signing after the
lecture, but I told the guard I was a free-lance writer and reviewer, and
wanted to talk to her about an article I was writing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She agreed to see me, and she graciously
signed my copies and answered a few questions, which I dutifully wrote into my
notebook.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All true, although the article
never found its way into print.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I
admire an author, I will go to many lengths to establish a connection – no
matter how brief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, Beattie has come out
with a collection of short stories, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
State We’re In.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While I really love
her novels, I am thoroughly seduced by her short stories.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">These 15 stories are
loosely connected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most deal with teenagers
suffering under the onus of parents, who are all, to my mind, parents normally
concerned about the welfare of their offspring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The peek into the mind of teenagers at the beginning and middle of their
rebellious years awakens memories of my teen years and reminds me of what my
students endure today.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">One character who
appears in the first story, “What Magic Realism Would Be,” and in the seventh
story, “Endless Rain into a Paper Cup,” is Jocelyn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In “Magic Realism,” she agonizes over an
assignment in her English class, and in “Endless,” Uncle Raleigh, now worries
about her passing algebra.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He encourages
her, because he knows she is smart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Beattie writes, “‘Thanks for saying something nice to me.’ // ‘That’s
because I believe you deserve niceness, Jocelyn.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[…]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>‘If you don’t mind, could you print [your essay] out, because I can’t
read that little screen, as you know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And as I tell you every night.’ // She got up from his office chair, where
she’d been slumped, writing and picking at her pedicure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She turned on his printer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When it printed out, it was not quite two
pages. // ‘Yesterday’s was three pages,’ he said immediately. // ‘She’s tired
of reading long papers.’ Jocelyn lied to Raleigh and Bettina – certainly to
Bettina – and to her sort of best friend, who was lucky enough to be in
Australia this summer, even if it did have to be with her family and her
retarded – really, actually retarded – brother, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">challenged </i>Daniel Junior, who picked his nose right in front of
you” (3).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No political correctness in
Jocelyn, and she certainly spares no one.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguPSw2xweaZKEljrsBESd1C6G9Lt8rm3DaDni5UNdNx4A5Q7HelrNaCRHnH9_pEvh1yiT3iGIjGxIExmgxHnKIqfU1CFgJBKE5oCAC12Lu5N8-slmaEEVZPp01tDy5HieOMbfQsA/s1600/a_ann_beattie3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguPSw2xweaZKEljrsBESd1C6G9Lt8rm3DaDni5UNdNx4A5Q7HelrNaCRHnH9_pEvh1yiT3iGIjGxIExmgxHnKIqfU1CFgJBKE5oCAC12Lu5N8-slmaEEVZPp01tDy5HieOMbfQsA/s1600/a_ann_beattie3.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In “Endless,”
Jocelyn has a conversation with her English teacher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beattie writes, “Ms. Nementhal held open the
side door.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jocelyn trotted ahead of her,
her ears a little zingy, for some reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Just listening to Ms. Nememthal had been exciting. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She seemed to think she could do anything. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If Jocelyn ever got into any college, it would
be a miracle. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her mother said that tutoring
for the SAT was too expensive, and she couldn’t disagree. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All you could do was read stuff on the Internet
and get pointers from your friends, the most helpful so far being that the questions
were essentially simple, but they pointed you in a direction that made you question
your own perceptions, so you’d change things at the last second and answer wrong”
(76). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>English professors can be quite influential.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I found the occasional
use of second person a bit off putting, but I see that in my students’ essays, so
I guess that’s the way of the world. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anne
Beattie has been included in four O. Henry Award collections, in John Updike’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Best Short Stories of the Century, </i>and
in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Best American Short Stories of 2014.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>She has won numerous other awards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>currently teaches creative writing at the
University of Virginia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If Anne Beattie is
an unfamiliar name, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The State We’re In</i>
is a fine entre into the world of Anne Beattie. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>5 stars</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">--Chiron, 10/3/15</span>Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32181667.post-66987422930981015722015-10-04T19:34:00.001-05:002015-10-04T19:42:29.915-05:00A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV095XvfVpk6_sw_6EooLqrq1Z0ZLiuDCoIWYnH4sdGI9tQyQp3rX5-eSeOmg-KKIcOTSHYH6e6eYw8gXiYh6E2u9132O1WjS6GmJHzJxIpFd-sWJzj3f8QO_17faFiYUDHUiHYQ/s1600/Tyler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV095XvfVpk6_sw_6EooLqrq1Z0ZLiuDCoIWYnH4sdGI9tQyQp3rX5-eSeOmg-KKIcOTSHYH6e6eYw8gXiYh6E2u9132O1WjS6GmJHzJxIpFd-sWJzj3f8QO_17faFiYUDHUiHYQ/s1600/Tyler.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Pulitzer Prize
winner, Anne Tyler, has been a favorite of mine for a long time, I have already
read all of her novels, so when a new title appears, it becomes a major event
in my mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She writes relatively slowly
– about 2-3 years or more between books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Spool of Blue Thread</i>, her
twentieth novel, has been shortlisted for the 2015 Booker Prize.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is the first American woman to be so
honored.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My fingers, toes, and eyes are
all crossed as I await the announcement in mid-October.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The most interesting
thing about the novel is its structure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The novel is a story of four generations of a family in Baltimore,
Maryland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tyler begins with Red and Abby
Whitshank, who have two daughters, a son, Denny, and a boy taken in by Abby as
an infant when his parents are killed in an auto accident.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They conceal this last bit of information
from Douglas – nicknamed “Stem,” until he has reached adulthood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oddly, the other children know about the
circumstances of his birth but never tell Stem.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As the novel opens,
Denny has disappeared from the family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Every few months, he calls from some unusual place, far away from his
parents, only to cut off contact, until he resurfaces somewhere else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Suddenly, he shows up at his parents’ home
with a child, Susan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The novel then
shifts to the story of the meeting and courtship of Red and Abby.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Abby is about to give into Dane, who wants to
marry her, but she has an eye on Red.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then the narrative shifts to Junior and Linnie, Red’s parents, how they
met and eventually married and had a daughter, Merrick. The novel ends with the
sale of the family home – built by Junior – and the removal of Red to an
apartment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This part – foreshadowed in
several of the chapters, struck me so deeply with its verisimilitude.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am experiencing the same anguish as my
parents pass mile marker 90.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Tyler has a gentle,
smooth, and completely absorbing style.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She draws characters as round and full as humanly possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">By
telling the story in reverse order – from youngest to eldest – Tyler excavates
the Whitshank family tree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Late in the novel, Junior and Abby
“interview” Dane, who is between jobs and working for Junior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A narrator takes up an observation about
Junior and Linnae.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tyler writes, “How
could this man have been the hero of Mrs. Whitshank’s romance?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether you found it dashing or tawdry, at
least it had been a romance, complete with intrigue and scandal and a wrenching
separation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Junior Whitshank was as
dry as a bone, droning on relentlessly while the other diners ate their food in
dogged silence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only his wife was
looking at him, her face alight with interest as he discussed the value of hard
labor, then the deplorable lack of initiative in the younger generation, then
the benefits conferred by having lived through the Great Depression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If young folks today had lived through a
depression the way <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">he</i> had lived
through a depression – but the he broke off to call, ‘Ah! Going out with your
buddies?’ // It was Merrick he was addressing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She was crossing the hall and stopped to face him. ‘Yup,’ she said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Don’t wait supper.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her hair had become a mass of bubbly black
curls that bounced all over her head” (255).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In several of
Tyler’s novels – especially <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Accidental Tourist</i> – a quiet, reserved man becomes enamored by a bubbly,
vivacious woman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite the man’s
protests, he succumbs to the charms of the woman, and as the novel ends, it is
clear to the reader, the guy is falling for the girl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A
Spool of Blue Thread</i>, the bubbly girl turns out to be 18-year-old Linnie,
who has a desperate crush on Junior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
is trying to survive the depression by doing odd jobs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He cannot afford another mouth to feed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">All things
considered – to borrow a phrase from NPR – Anne Tyler’s wonderful saga of four
generations will surprise and delight the reader.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A
Spool of Blue Thread,</i> I believe everyone can find a family member which
that seems ever so tantalizingly familiar. 5 stars</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">--Chiron, 10/2/15</span></span>Chironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04209919646830520344noreply@blogger.com0