Accordion Crimes by Annie Proulx

I have loved and admired the work of Annie Proulx since I first read The Shipping News when it first came out in 1993.  Since then I have read her collections of stories, That Old Ace in the Hole, and the delicious Bird Cloud.  Accordion Crimes was the next on my list, and for the first time, I was really disappointed.

This novel relates the story of a home-made accordion that travels from place to place and owner to owner.  The story had gaps in some of the movement of the instrument, which I found a bit confusing.  But the worst flaw was the characters.  I simply could not connect -- much less care about any of them.  Several times I flirted with invoking my “Rule of 50,” but I did not want to give up on Annie.  Finally, nearly half way through and another cast of thin, cardboard characters introduced, I called it quits.  I have a couple of other of Proulx’s works, so after those I may come back and give it another try.

Nobody is perfect, but before Accordion Crimes, Annie Proulx was really close.  If you have read it, and have a different take on this novel, I would love to hear from you.

--Chiron, 5/8/13

Vanessa and Virginia by Susan Sellers

I have read a lot of Virginia Woolf, including some of her journals, letters, and a biography by her nephew, Quentin Bell.  But I know almost nothing about her sister, the painter Vanessa Stephens Bell.  After reading this wonderful, insightful novel of the relationship between the two sisters, told from the point of view of Vanessa, I now have a starting point for understanding them, their relationship, and the connection to Virginia’s work.

Normally, I am wary of this genre I call biographical fiction, but Susan Sellers has the credentials which made me want to read.  She is a professor of English at St. Andrews University in Scotland and co-editor of the Cambridge University press editions of Virginia Woolf’s work.  She has won the Canongate prize for New Writing and has authored many short stories and non-fiction books.  As the jacket also says, this is her first novel.

At first, I found it a bit hard to know who was talking and who was listening, because Sellers does not use traditional attribution tags with dialogue.  Then I began to notice clever clues in the text.  For example, when she referred to “your writing,” or “my painting,” I was able to sail through the story.  I also enjoyed some of the obscure references to Virginia’s works.

Virginia

 In the folllowing passage, Vanessa has had one of many confrontations with her father.  Sellers writes,

“‘Can you not imagine what it is like for me now?  Have you no pity?’  It is bearing down on me, Father’s beak.  I feel it ripping into my flesh, ravenous for sympathy. / Finally, I am released.  I go out onto the landing bowed down by my failure.  You are sitting on the bottom stair.  I can tell from your expression that you have been listening to our exchange.  Your eyes signal your compassion, your powerlessness to help. / “‘Damn him!’ I burst out. / I realize from the tapering light in your eyes that I have gone too far.  You look away.  You are only a partial accomplice.  I sense from the set of your shoulders, a sudden movement of your arm, that though you acknowledge Father’s tyranny you love him still” (41). 

Vanessa

 This interesting twist on sibling rivalry is only the beginning of the wonderful aspects of this novel.

Virginia Woolf is one of the most important feminist writers of the early 20^th century.  Her novels – To the Lighthouse, Orlando, and Mrs. Dalloway, represent some of the finest modernist novels.  Reading Virginia Woolf requires a great deal of concentration, because time and place can easily slip slide away from consciousness.   5 stars 

Susan Sellers

--Chiron, 5/5/13

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

A good friend recommended The Dog Stars by Peter Heller for my book club.  At first, I thought, Oh, no, another apocalyptic, dystopian novel!  But I am a loyal member of the club, so I decided to plow through to the end.  Then I faced another obstacle.  A peculiar style – sentence fragments, and something like a focused stream of consciousness.  In other words, the narrator jots down words and phrases to tell the story of an earth devastated by an outbreak of flu closely followed by a mysterious blood disease, which killed millions.  But I stayed with it, and as I became accustomed to the style, I found the story so absorbing, I could barely put it down.

Hig is a pilot, and he flies “The Beast” -- an old Cessna manufactured in the 1950s.  He lives near an airport with supplies of aviation fuel, tools, and parts to keep The Beast flying an 8-mile radius around the perimeter looking for wandering bands of survivors.  He takes these trips with his beloved companion, Jasper.  Hig has a soft spot for a family of Mennonites who live a few miles away.  The family is infected with “The Blood,” and when Hig visits to give them some food and medical supplies, he stays 15 feet away and never touches any of the children.

He shares this airport residence with Bangley, who has a military mindset and an impressive collection of weapons – both small and large.  He is justly paranoid, and encounters with wanderers turn deadly.  He tries to convince Hig to be more aggressive when wanderers appear, and he also has a slightly distrustful eye always on Hig.

I can’t say much more without giving away the twists in the plot and the suspenseful flight Hig takes to track down a mysterious signal he receives from an airport just at the edge of The Beast’s range.

My friend provided a series of questions as launching points for discussion.  One interesting question involved the significance of the title.  No one came up with a plausible idea, but it occurred to me that perhaps the word “stars” in the title is not a noun but a verb.  I won’t go any further with this thought, because I do not want to give any of the plot away.

The Dog Stars is my first encounter with Peter Heller and his first novel.  He has also written non-fiction works on surfing, whales, and travelogues on China and Tibet.  I rarely read this kind of non-fiction, but Heller has made me travel-curious.  5 stars

--Chiron, 5/3/13

Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith

In Waco, April means the Beall Poetry festival at Baylor University.  In 1994, Mrs. Virginia B. Ball established the John A. and DeLouise McClelland Beall Endowed Fund to honor her parents and to encourage the writing and appreciation of poetry.  Mrs. Ball was an English major who graduated from Baylor in 1940.  Since 1995, the festival has celebrated some of the finest contemporary poets with readings, a panel discussion, and a lecture on contemporary poetry.  Some of the invited participants include Donald Hall, Gary Snyder, Derek Walcott, Maxine Kumin, Galway Kinnell, Billy Collins, W.S. Merwin, Robert Bly, Philip Levine, Adrienne Rich, Louise Glück, Charles Wright, and Anthony Hecht.

The 2013 invitees included Bobby C. Rogers, James Fenton, Les Murray, and Pulitzer Prize winner, Tracy K. Smith.  Henry Hart delivered the Virginia Beall Ball Lecture..

Tracy won the Pulitzer Prize for her third collection of poetry, Life on Mars.  She read several poems at her reading, so I had a tough time selecting my favorite.  Even after a couple of reads, the power of description and the emotion in these poems shine through to this reader.  “The Good Life” well-represents her talents:.

“When some people talk about money / They speak as if it were a mysterious lover / Who went out to buy milk and never / Came back, and it makes me nostalgic / For the years I lived on coffee and bread, / Hungry all the time, walking to work on Payday / Like a woman journeying for water / From a village without a well, then living / One or two nights like everyone else / On roast chicken and red wine.”  (64).

It must be obvious I like short poems, and here is another, titled “The Soul”:

“The voice is clean.  Has heft.  Like Stones / Dropped in still water, or tossed / One after the other at a low wall. / Chipping away at what pushes back.  Not always making a dent, but keeping at it. / And the silence around it is a door / Punched through with light.  A garment / That attests to breasts, the privacy / Between thighs.  This body is what we lean toward, / Tensing as it darts, dancing away. / But it’s the voice that enters us.  Even / Saying nothing.  Even saying nothing / Over and over absently to itself.” (23).

Tracy K. Smith

A good poet, in my opinion, is one who consistently produces thought-provoking poems, with imagery that rakes my imagination over cooling coals of emotion, then leaves me with a smile, or maybe a frown, or even laughter at the clever connections to my life, loves, and experiences.  Tracy K. Smith is one of those poets.  5 stars..

--Chiron, 4/17/13

Here and Now: Letters 2008-2011 by Paul Auster & J.M. Coetzee

Way back in 1976, someone, whom I have long forgotten, gave me a copy of The Letters of William Faulkner. I never read any such collection, and I could not imagine it would be worth my time. The friend asked me if I had read the book, but I pleaded too much work, too many things to read, but I would get to it. After the third request, I decided to spend a rainy weekend with Faulkner. I was completely surprised at how interesting the letters were. Since then, I have amassed a nice collection of letters – mostly those of writers.

Recently published, Here and Now collects letters exchanged between Paul Auster and J.M. Coetzee from 2008 to 2011. I have read a few of Australian writer Coetzee’s works, but only recently discovered Auster. I admire both these writers, and I was thrilled when the book arrived at my door within a day or two of publication.

Paul Auster

J.M. Coetzee receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature

Paul and John – as they address each other – share wide-ranging but similar interests. An extended dialogue on sports was interesting, as were comments on the political situation in the U.S. and other parts of the world. History comes into play as well, since Coetzee was born in South Africa, but now lives in Adelaide, Australia. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003. Auster lives in Brooklyn. He won the prestigious Prince Asturias Prize for Literature in 2006.

The real meaty bits of their correspondence, however, can be found in their discussions of writing and reading. I have added a half dozen books to my wish list, along with a few films.

Coetzee receives a letter from a woman accusing him of anti-Semitism. He asks Auster for advice on how to respond. He wrote, “Do nothing—or something […] write to the woman … and tell her that you have written a novel, not a tract on ethical conduct, and that disparaging remarks […] [of] anti-Semitism, are a part of the world we live in, and just because your character says what she says does not mean that you endorse her comments. […] Do writers of murder stories endorse murder?” (95). I have found myself defending a number of writers over the years in exactly the same way.

Auster also comments on reading, “Isn’t reading the art of seeing things for yourself, of conjuring up images in your own head? And isn’t the beauty of reading all about the silence that surrounds you as you plunge into the story, the sound of the author’s voice resonating inside you to the exclusion of all other sounds?” (177).
Oh, how I long for the days of letters coming from far away! I carried on (and off) an exchange with a pen-pal I got in high school for over 30 years. The onion skin paper, the strange stamps, trying to translate the German to English all held many, many fond memories. I still have the box of letters and small gifts I received. All that is lost in the age of email.

Try this slim volume of letters, and I am sure you will find a whole new world ripe for exploration. 5 stars

--Chiron, 4/14/13

Cain by José Saramago

José Saramago won the Nobel Prize in 1998. He died in 2010, and Cain is his last novel. While it takes a bit of effort to get used to his style, his books are a lot of fun and well-worth the effort. In The Stone Raft, a geologist discovers a fissure in the Pyrenees Mountains. He returns for further investigation to find the gap has widened. Eventually, Spain and Portugal break off from Europe and float out into the Atlantic Ocean, narrowly missing the Canary Islands. Blindness is a retelling of Camus’ novel, The Plague, and All the Names involves a clerk in a registry office who becomes obsessed with a card accidentally removed from a drawer.

Cain recounts the story following the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and the murder of Abel. Marked by the Lord and condemned to wander the earth, Cain slingshots from various places and time periods to witness events in the Old Testament. He sees Abraham preparing to sacrifice his son, Isaac; he sees the remains of the Tower of Babel; he hitches a ride on Noah’s Ark; he spends some time working for Job, until his fortunes take a downturn; Cain spends some time with Joshua before the trumpets blare; and he is present when Moses comes down from the mountain. In all of these encounters, Cain questions the actions and motives of God.

At the conclusion of the novel, when Noah tries to complete the Ark on time and in budget, God sends an army of angels to assist with the construction. Cain engages them in a conversation about the Lord. The following two passages are reproduced exactly as printed to give an idea of Saramago’s style. Cain establishes a friendly bond with some of the angels, who claim, “happiness on earth was far superior to that in heaven, but the lord, of course, being a jealous god, must never know this, because if he did, such seditious thoughts would merit the severest of reprisals with no regard for the perpetrators’ angelic status” (144). He likes long sentences and he is stingy about paragraphing and capitalization.

Cain replies, “if they really thought that, once this humanity had been destroyed, the race that followed would not fall into the same errors, the same temptations, the same follies and crimes, and they answered, We are mere angels, we know little about the incomprehensible charade that you call human nature, but to be perfectly frank, we don’t see how the second experiment will be any more satisfactory than the first, which ended in the long string of miseries we see before us now, in short, in our honest opinion as angels, and considering all the evidence, we don’t believe that human beings deserve life” (144-45).

 The dust jacket quotes John Updike on the author. “Saramago is a writer, like Faulkner, so confident of his resources and ultimate destination that he can bring any improbability to life.” I am in complete agreement. José Saramago’s Cain is a fun, thought-provoking, and interesting rational look at some of the best-loved stories of the Old Testament – a great place to begin exploring this amazing author. Five stars.
--Chiron, 4/10/13

The Odds by Stewart O'Nan

I stumbled on Stewart O’Nan with the intriguingly titled novel, Last Night at the Lobster. This story of ordinary working people and their struggles working minimum wage jobs entertained me all the way through. Emily Alone came next, and in May 2011, I wrote on my blog, “a quiet, earnest story of ordinary people going about their daily lives, trying to manage the vagaries of existence as senior citizens.” So, when his latest came out, I had high hopes for a three-peat. The Odds did not disappoint.

Art and Marion are nearing their 30th wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, both have lost their jobs, and they teeter on the brink of financial ruin. Their marriage isn’t in great shape either. Their solution to these problems is wild. They liquidate all their savings, make a reservation at the bridal suite fanciest casino/hotel in Niagara Falls. Art has a plan to win a great pile of cash to pay off their debts and avoid a financial cliff of their own making.

Early on, fellow Pennsylvanian, O’Nan sums up Art’s and Marion’s characters in a neat little package. He writes, “the brittle, rigid Art … emerged more frequently since he’d been laid off, always lurking just beneath the cheerful veneer. His mother had been the same way, affecting a patrician calm, then breaking into self-righteous tirades when the smallest thing went wrong--tipped juice boxes or overcooked steaks. They shared a sense of entitlement and a selective paranoia, as if the world were conspiring against them. Marion was hurt and angry too, but knew the world wasn’t to blame. They’d had their share of good luck, more than most couples, especially after the mistakes they’d made. She didn’t hold hers above his or vice versa. Like the world, no one was perfect. … If Marion was disappointed in anyone it was herself. She’d promised not to give up on him, but [sometimes] she was convinced she’d be happier alone, and felt selfish” (81).

Relationships are complicated – this one more so that others, but Art and Marion are giving it one last chance with a pile of cash, an American Express Card, and fool-proof system to beat the roulette wheel.
Despite this plan, they are somewhat practical. Marion muses, “You couldn’t relive your life, skipping the awful parts, without losing what made it worthwhile. You had to accept it as a whole—like the world, or the person you loved” (98).

This pleasant little novel of only 179 pages also has a streak of humor. Each chapter heading gives the odds for a variety of activities. For example, “Odds of a tourist visiting Niagara Falls: 1 in 195” (1); “Odds of a married couple making love on a given night: 1 in 5” (37); “Odds of a couple taking a second honeymoon to the same destination: 1 in 9” (57); “Odds of a jazz band playing 'My Funny Valentine' on Valentine’s Day: 1 in 1 (123); and “Odds of the Cleveland Indians winning the World Series: 1 in 25,000” (161).
However, the odds of enjoying Stewart O'Nan's fun novel – by my calculations – 1 in 1. 5 stars.

--Chiron, 4/10/13

The Train by Georges Simenon

Georges Simenon was a Belgian writer who wrote over 200 books and a number of short pieces. He is most well-known for his Inspector Maigret Novels. I never read Simenon, because I most closely associated him with detective fiction, a genre I do not care about at all. When I picked up a copy of The Train at a recent library convention, I decided to give him a try.

Simenon’s The Train, tells the story of Marcel Feron, his pregnant wife Jeanne, and their daughter, Sophie in the opening days of World War II. The Ferons lived near the Belgian border in the town of Fumay, where Marcel ran a small business repairing and selling radios.

When the Germans approached the French frontier, Marcel decided to bundle up his family and take a train south to no one knew where to escape the advancing Wehrmacht. Marcel and the men were herded into cattle cars, while the women and children were loaded into first class compartments. After numerous delays, the train left the station and all breathed a sigh of relief – but this was a bit premature, since their troubles had only begun. At one stop, a woman snuck onto the train and befriended Marcel. The two spend the rest of the trip together.

Marcel narrates from the perspective of several years later, and he worries about the details of his story. Simenon writes,

“One detail, for instance, has worried me a lot, because I am rather persnickety and tend to think over an idea for hours until I have got it right. When I wrote about the plane machine-gunning our train, about the fireman gesticulating beside his engine, and about the dead driver, I didn’t mention the guard. Yet there ought to have been a guard, whose job it was to make the necessary decisions.

“I didn’t see him. Did he exist or didn’t he? Once again, things didn’t necessarily happen in a logical way.
“…I know that my skin, my eyes, the whole of my body have never drunk in the sunshine as greedily as they did that day, and I can say for sure that I appreciated every nuance of the light, every shade of green of the meadows, the fields, and the trees” (96).

This scene occurs after Marcel and Anna have grown closer sharing this experience. Marcel thinks, “I wonder whether, that particular day, I didn’t get as close as possible to perfect happiness” (94). He suddenly has difficulty recalling the face of his wife and daughter. “I am writing this mainly in the hope of discovering a certain truth” (95).

At only 153 pages, this short novel is packed with suspense and excitement. Several times I thought I had worked out the course of the story, only to find myself at a dead end. I would have read this in a single sitting, had not that pesky habit of eating dinner interfered.
The Train by Georges Simenon offers a whole new side of this well-known writer of detective novels. I intend to search for more of his shorter works. 5 stars.

--Chiron, 3/20/13

Wild Decembers! by Edna O’Brien

Edna O’Brien was described by Jonathan Yardley, a reviewer for The Washington Post, as, “among the leading English-language novelists of the day.” My fondness for Irish Fiction led me to O’Brien, and the novels I have read are thoroughly enjoyable works. The reviewer also wrote, “Wild Decembers proceeds toward a climax that is Irish to the quick, violent, and sad and, in a strange way, beautiful. Just like the novel itself.” That is what I like about O'Brien – “Irish to the quick” with beautiful writing.

Wild Decembers! tells the story of Joseph Brennan and Michael Bugler. Joseph has a prosperous farm and lives with his sister, Breege. He not only farms and runs livestock on his own land, but he also rents out land from adjoining farms for his cattle and to cut peat for heating. Michael Bugler left Ireland for a sheep station in Australia, but has returned home with a small fortune and bought a run-down farm. He immediately begins making improvements, including the purchase of a tractor, which is noisy and bothers the quiet of the villagers, who cling to the old ways of farming. Michael falls in love with Breege and decides he will fix up the estate for her.

As Michael buys up the grazing and peat cutting rights Joseph’s family has informally held for years, tension grows between the men, and suddenly lawyers and lawsuits abound – almost like Dickens’ Bleak House.
I spent some time during Spring Break on a farm, and I could see farming is hard, hard work. O’Brien writes,

“[Michael] had read the books on turf cutting and consulted Thady, an old man who had once been the fastest slanesman in the country. Earnestly he had listened, then watched as Thady brought in a rusted slane from an outhouse and, using the kitchen floor as a bog, enacted the stripping off of the top skin of grass, then marking out the bank, and with the slane having to dig and dig, doing it slantwise so as to cut the sods straight.

“In the kitchen it had been an amusement, but out there in the heat and dryness, insects crawling over him, his back breaking from having to bend and push in an unaccustomed way, he realized he had never worked so hard or so gruelingly and yet so satisfyingly.” (124).



The disputes and law suits escalate and Joseph faces ruin after losing at every turn. Then he discovers Breege and Michael have been secretly meeting.

Edna O'Brien has written over 20 novels, and Wild Decembers! is my third but by no means, my last. 5 stars.
--Chiron, 3/12/13

The Woman Who Walked Into Doors by Roddy Doyle

Generally, I have a pretty happy life. A wonderful family, a great job, lots of friends, so not much really comes to my attention which I abhor. However, there are a few things. Cockroaches are one. I have been known to cross the street rather than share the largest pavement with one of these vermin. Lima beans, Brussel sprouts, and cooked spinach top my most detested food list. But one thing really bothers me, because I cannot understand how it occurs or how it is allowed to continue to recur. That is abuse. I include, of course, abuse of children, the abuse of animals, but one of the most disturbing examples in this category is the abuse of women. I also find it difficult to understand how woman can put up with such behavior after even a single transgression. After reading Roddy Doyle’s novel, The Woman Who Walked into Doors, I now have a smidgen of understanding this terrible, terrible behavior.


Roddy Doyle won the Man Booker Prize in 1993 for the hilarious Paddy Clarke, Ha, Ha, Ha. Since then, I have collected most of his novels, because of my fondness for Irish fiction. The Woman Who Walked Into Doors is anything but hilarious.

It starts out all full of flowers, birds, rainbows, and Leprechauns, and the poverty and hard times afflicting Ireland. Then it takes a sinister turn, when Charlo punches his wife, Paula, and knocks her to the ground.
Gradually, Doyle reveals the true nature of Paula’s relationship with her husband. As the novel progresses, Paula remembers more and more of the 17-year long ordeal he inflicted on her. Numerous times, she thinks, “I love him. He loves me. He can’t help it. He’ll stop if I only behave.” Charlo threw that first punch because he asked for a cup of tea, and she responded, “Make your own feckin’ cuppa tea!” Later she imagines if she had simply made that cup of tea, he would never have hit her and the abuse would never have begun. In short she continually blames herself for the abuse.

I will not even begin to list the examples of the abuse Charlo inflicted on his wife. Frankly, it was a bit difficult to read – it literally turned my stomach. On the other hand, I could not stop reading it mesmerized me that much.

--Chiron, 3/1/13