The Small Room by May Sarton

I have never read anything by May Sarton – except for a few short stories. When a member of my book club recommended this title, I became intrigued. I enjoy novels describing the ins and outs, ups and downs, and other antics which play out behind the scenes in academia. Sarton’s novel, A Small Room takes its place among several novels of this genre I read over the last few years.

Lucy Winter has a newly minted PhD in hand, and she takes a job at a small New England women’s college as a professor of English. The dynamic relationships in the college fascinate me the most. Among the faculty, between the faculty and the administration, and between the students and the faculty.

Carryl Cope is a veteran professor with lots of clout with the administration. She is also intimately involved with a member of the Board of Trustees who holds the purse springs of a substantial endowment in a will. Carryl also has a prize student, Jane Seamen, whom she is grooming for grad school and what promises to be a stellar academic career. Then Lucy discovers Jane has seriously plagiarized an essay for the college literary magazine. Lucy caught in the eddy of the politics – pro- and anti-Carryl, pro- and anti-Jane, and then the agitated students are thrown into the mix. Lucy handles all this with aplomb, but with a touch of trepidation since she must slide on a knife’s edge to the resolution of the situation.

The novel overflows with statements and observations most teachers have felt at one time or another – I know many of them are all too familiar to me. For example, “‘The hell of teaching is that one is never prepared. I often think that before every class I feel the same sort of terror I used to experience before an examination … and always I imagine that next year it will be different’” (28). A familiar refrain in our building at every semester’s end runs like this: “Next semester will be better!”

On her first day of class, Lucy decides to reveal something about herself to the students. She tells them, “‘You will discover,’ she added with a smile, ‘that you appreciate teachers rather a long time after you have suffered from them’” (34) I can only hope this one has a grain of truth. I know I want it to be true. Lastly, Sarton writes, “‘The relation between student and teacher must be about the most complex and ill-defined there is’” (83). I know this one to be absolutely true. Literally dozens of other examples have my pencil marks.

Another little game I played with this interesting cast of characters included matching some of Sarton’s characters with some of my colleagues. And, of course for fans of Mad Men, ubiquitous cigarettes and martinis accompany every meeting no matter the size. This quite dates the novel in the year originally published – 1961.

All in all, May Sarton’s The Small Room will surely appeal to anyone who has spent some time at the head of a class. At our book club, an animated discussion lasted nearly all of the two hours allotted. I noticed that a few non-teaching members of the club were uncharacteristically silent during these discussions. Nevertheless, everyone seemed to enjoy the novel. 4 stars for so much smoking I found myself coughing as I read.

--Chiron, 8/20/12

The Lives of the Heart by Jane Hirshfield

I had never read anything by Jane Hirshfield, but she did carry a recommendation from a good friend. In addition to The Lives of the Heart, Hirshfield has written about eight books of poetry, some essays, and edited, or contributed to, other collections.

My usual custom when opening a book of poetry by an author I do not know is to read through rather quickly, sometimes skipping poems with openings I did not care to finish. Then, I read a second time – slowly -- thinking, digesting, marking a few poems for a third or fourth read.

That plan did not work out so well this time. I found myself, on the first read, digging into some of these thought-provoking, intelligent, and wonderfully crafted poems.

For example, “Mele in Gabbia” is one of my favorites from this collection:

The pastry / is dusted with sugar. / The slices of apple inside, / just sour enough. // The name, / “apples in a cage.” // I eat them / in this good place -- / the pastry warm, the linen / impeccably white -- / and consider. // (65)

Like many of the poems this one has a rather opened ended finish. This device, I believe, allows me to immerse myself in the scene, and then “consider” for myself what passes through the mind. When I read this one for the first time, memories flooded over me of when I was a child and sat at the breakfast table. My Dad would pluck a jelly donut from the plate, point to the tiny spot of jelly on one side, shake his head no, and bite into the other side. He explained, the idea is not to get all the jelly at once, but also not to let it all escape. To this day, I bite into a jelly donut on the side, and until I read this poem, I had forgotten the incident.

Some of the poems have a Zen-like quality. “Reading Chinese Poetry Before Dawn” is another favorite:

Sleepless again, / I get up. / A cold rain / beats at the windows. / Holding my coffee, / I ponder Tu Fu’s / overturned wine glass. / At his window, snow, / twelve hundred years fallen; / under his hand, / black ink not yet dry. / “Letters are Useless.” / The poet is old, alone, / his woodstove is empty. / The fame of centuries / casts off no heat. / In his verse, I know, / is a discipline / lost to translation; / here, only the blizzard remains. // (83)

Again, one easily slips into other times and other places. In this poem, I recall many days of my youth – pre-Texas! – of blizzards roaring down the street, covering the cars, closing the schools, and stopping trolleys and buses from carrying my father to work. This poem also has that quiet, sparse feeling of a Chinese poem, or a painting of a farmer laboring in the snow to tend his herd.

One last short poem I also found thought-provoking is “Wine Grapes for Breakfast”:

Sweet / at first / on the tongue, / hours later / the red grapes / still sting, / as if trying / to tell me something -- / what the hook / tells the fish / perhaps, / or the wand / or stick hears / before conductor / or mule driver / brings it down. // (66)

I have to end now, because I want to read this collection again. 5 stars

--Chiron, 8/22/12

Mockingjay: Book Three of the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I started reading this series, because many of my students listed it as a book they had read “for fun” as opposed to something read for an assignment. I thoroughly enjoyed volume one – The Hunger Games. Several of these same students told me they didn’t like the second volume – Catching Fire – so I waited until I read this, the third before finishing my rating of the series.

Volume Two admittedly lacked the excitement of the first, but, as I began the third, I realized Parts 2 and 3 were really more closely related than I thought. Catching Fire told the story of the aftermath of the hunger game in the first, and Mockingjay, the third volume, follows close on the heels of the second.

Anyone who read the first and liked it will undoubtedly enjoy two and three. Considering the series as a whole, I would give it four and a half stars. I took some away, because I did not like the ending very much. I know this is fantasy/dystopian literature, but I think the bounds were stretched a bit in Part Three.

Overall an interesting, fun, and quick read.

--Chiron, 7/26/12

Inheritance by Lan Samantha Chang

Lan Samantha Chang holds the position of Director of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop in Iowa City. She has published three books: Hunger, a collection of short stories, All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost, her latest novel, published in 2010, and her second book and first novel, Inheritance. I won an advance reading copy of All is Forgotten at a conference. I had never heard of Chang, but the novel involved an English Professor and some poetry students, so I read it and reviewed it July of 2010. Somehow, her other two books I ordered became lost in a pile. While straightening it out a couple of weeks ago, I came across them. Since I needed a nice solid paperback for a flight to Philly, I began Inheritance on the airplane. I am glad I did, because this sweeping novel of four generations of Chinese women was interesting, exciting, with lots of psychological insights into Asian customs – particularly regarding courtship and marriage.

As I have done with several books lately, I made a family tree to keep all the relationships straight. Chanyi marries Wang Daming and produces two daughters, Junan and Yinan. These two sisters are extremely close, but are torn apart when they both fall in love with the same man, Li Ang, who marries Junan. Yinan is rather plain, but when Junan is separated from her husband by war, she remains home to protect her children, and she sends Yinan to “keep house” for Li Ang. An affair destroys the sisterly bonds.

Li Ang has a brother, Bing Ang, and these two find themselves on opposite sides following World War II. Li becomes a general in the Nationalist Chinese Army, and Bing becomes a colonel in the Communist Chinese Army.

The novel is narrated by Xaio Hong, Junan and Li Ang’s daughter. Xaio’s sister, Hwa, marries Pu Li and Xaio has a baby with Hu Ran, son of her mother’s servant. This shames Junan. The families flee Mainland China in 1949. Hu Ran stays behind along with Li Ang, Yinan, and Bing Li. Xaio and Hwa move to America, but live on different coasts -- Hwa in San Francisco and Xaio in New York. Xaio marries Tom Marquez, and she has two daughters.

This really interesting story of four generations of women shows how times and cultural influences warp and waft relationships – sometimes to the breaking point. Chang’s writing is smooth and calm as the emotions of these women in the story.

Hong frequently recalls advice she received from her mother. For example, Chang writes:

“My mother once warned me not to be too proud of how much I could see. I believe it wasn’t pride but righteous curiosity that made me strive to notice things. Curiosity mingled with a need to uncover what flowed beneath our household calm, a hidden source of pain that wasn’t mentioned. I had seen it in my grandfather, his hair a shock of white, his gaze sliding away as if the sunlight hurt his eyes. I had seen it in my solitary aunt. Now, in the aftermath of Yao’s birth, I could see it in my mother. It wasn’t a ghost. My mother worked to keep it hidden, yet it didn’t disappear. Nothing could vanquish it: not Hwa’s devotion nor my good grades in school; not even my mother’s growing stash of jewelry and gold” (182).

Chang's Inheritance will appear high on my list of the best of 2012. 5 stars

--Chiron, 8/10/12

The Signal by Ron Carlson

Last March, while in a used bookstore, I picked up this novel by an author of whom I had never heard. He has published five collections of short stories and this, his fourth novel. This slim novel, The Signal by Ron Carlson, had a premise which sounded rather interesting.

Mack comes from a long line of ranchers, and his ex-wife Vonnie, a headstrong, intelligent woman, meet for a hiking trip in the mountains of Wyoming. This trip occurred, at Mack’s request, as a goodbye after his release from prison. The ranch his family owned began to slip financially, and Mack turned to some petty crimes to save the property. When he landed in jail, Vonnie asked for a divorce. The trip into the mountains – a trip the couple had taken together many times in happier days – turns sour because Mack has a secret, and the trip proves to be more than either bargained for.

Carlson's prose is smooth and slow as Mack’s reticence in his conversations with friends and Vonnie. Carlson writes,

“Vonnie shook her sleeping bag and lay down on it, unlacing her boots. ‘You want me to cook?’

‘No, I’ll do it,’ he said. She lay and watched the sky and Mack saw her eyes close. The sun was down behind the western slope.

He cut the heads from the trout and they were still too big for the pan, so he left the tails on and stuffed them with lemon wedges and pepper and butter and double wrapped them in foil and set them aside. He knelt and fingered a mound of tinder, moss, and hairy duff and lit it and fed it up, and the fire rose quiet and straight. When he looked up from his work, the day was gone, the mountain sky a bowl of glowing, grainy dark. He snugged the fish into the coals burying them carefully by using a forked stick. Away from the fire it was chilly and he could hear her napping. He put his hand on her shoulder and she woke without a word, her eyes a sleepy kindness, and she crawled into her bag and napped again. Mack made a tour of the perimeter and gathered an armload of branches using half now to stoke the fire. He broke and sorted the rest into piles close at hand. He shook up a water bottle with powdered lime punch and set it back on the rock shelf.”

On page 149 – the first page of the last chapter – I came across a curious phrase. Carlson writes, “The deer was in no hurry and disappeared seamlessly into the fifty shades of gray at this hour.” Since this novel came out in 2009, one wonders if the author of that notorious book was inspired by this novel. E.L. James, who wrote FSG, lives in London England. Perhaps it is a mere coincidence.

The thrilling conclusion of The Signal makes me want more of Carlson. This is exactly why I love haunting used bookstores! 5 stars --Chiron, 7/29/12

The Red and the Green by Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch has written twenty-six novels. She also has written five plays and five volumes of philosophy and a book of poetry. She has won numerous awards for her work, including the 1978 novel, The Sea, The Sea. I came to read Murdoch after hearing an interview on NPR in 1988 about her newest novel, The Book and the Brotherhood. This novel may be my earliest invocation of the “Rule of 50.”

I started it, but became confused by the mass of characters and background detail. I put it aside for another day. Shortly after, I found myself laid up for a week, and tried it again. This time I stuck to it, and became enthralled with the power of Murdoch’s prose, her attention to the minutest detail, and the deep, psychological insights of her characters. I immediately set out to gather the rest of her work. I have all of her novels, and since 1988, I have been slowly working my way through them. The Red and the Green, published in 1965, is the thirteenth I have read.

The Red and the Green tells the story of an extended family in the week before the Easter Rising in 1916 Ireland. Andrew Chase-White is a protestant and an officer in the British Army. His cousin Pat Dumay, is a Catholic and a member of the Volunteers, a group planning the uprising. These families are tightly woven, and the political situation in Ireland bubbles beneath the surface when the family members meet. The “troubles” appear in the form of petty squabbles.

As in all her novels, she has a large number of characters, and, as is my custom, a family tree helps keep all the cousins, aunts, and uncles in order. Christopher is the widowed father of Frances, who is very close to Andrew Chase-White. They discuss which theater to attend one afternoon. Murdoch writes:

“It was about a half hour later and tea was nearly over. They were sitting round the low wickerwork table in the conservatory, while outside the garden was being caressed or playfully beaten by the light rain which drifted a little in the breeze from the sea. Rain in Ireland always seemed a different substance from English rain, its drops smaller and more numerous. It seemed now to materialize in the air rather than to fall through it, and, transformed into quick-silver, ran shimmering upon the surface of the trees and plants, to fall with a heavier plop from the dejected palms and the chestnut. This rain, this scene, the pattering on the glass, the smell of the porous concrete floor, never entirely dry, the restless sensation of slightly damp cushions, these things set up for Andrew a long arcade of memories. He shifted uneasily in his basket chair, wondering how long it took to develop rheumatism.” (29)

Few novelists can grip me by the heart and soul and transport me to a distant time and place. Murdoch does it to me every time. I think my first encounter caught me unawares of the power of this great 20th century novelist. She died in February 1999 after suffering from Alzheimer’s. A film, starring Judy Dench told the story of her final years. An extremely interesting and detailed biography came out in 2001 by Peter J. Conradi, a friend of Iris’s, who gave him complete access to her journal, letters, and papers.

Iris Murdoch is one of the finest novelists of the 20th century. It has taken me many years to get to The Red and the Green, the halfway point of her novels, but I mean to get through the entire list. I guess then I will have to start over from the beginning. 5 stars

--Chiron, 7/9/12

Catching Fire: Hunger Games: Part Two by Suzanne Collins

Every class I have taught starts with an icebreaker with some questions about hobbies, favorite foods, and the “Last book read for fun.” Many students mentioned Suzanne Collins’ series beginning with The Hunger Games. When the movie came out, I decided to see what all the hype was about before I saw the film. I loved the book and really enjoyed the film. So, I decided to continue reading the series, even though some students told me the second book was not as good as the first.

I partially agree. Yes, there was a lot less action and suspense, but I feel the second and third in the series really go together, so I am going to defer judgment until I read part three.

Part Two, Catching Fire, begins shortly after the first book ends. The annual selection of Tributes is about to begin -- but with a twist. These games are the 75th, and every 25 years a “Quarter Quell” calls for some special reminder that Capitol City rules Panem, and rebellions will be brutally crushed. Meanwhile, the appearance of some refuges and shortages of supplies from other districts feed rumors of uprisings.

The special twist for this Quell is that each district will select two tributes who have already won games. Of course, this means Haymitch, Katniss, Peter are all eligible, despite the fact that winners were exempt from the lottery. Peter and Katniss agree to volunteer, so Haymitch can be their sponsor and advocate.

It seems President Snow has a particular vendetta to settle against Katniss. The book ends with a cliffhanger. I can’t wait to get to Volume Three, Mocking Jay. ? Stars

--Chiron, 7/13/12

Cotton Rock by Janet Smith Post

One of the pitfalls of voracious readers and book collectors is the well-meaning friend who urges a new novel with, “You have to read this!” or “I think you will like it.” Such is the case with Cotton Rock by Janet Smith Post. When I first received the book, I skimmed a few pages, looked at the cover and the blurbs, and decided the novel was not a priority. But I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so I put it on my summer reading list.

The novel has an interesting premise. John Sinclair, is an English Professor at a small college. He is on sabbatical to complete his novel, but since the death of his wife in a tragic car accident, he has been unable to write. As the end of his leave approaches, he moves to his grandfather’s cabin on the White River in Arkansas. He offers to teach, gratis, a class in creative writing to the local residents. Three of his students figure prominently in the novel.

Emmett has been hired to write a newspaper column on fishing in the White River. Lucy wants to tell stories that angels gossip about when otherwise unoccupied in guarding children. Lastly, Anna, an older woman caring for her mother who has Alzheimer’s, also lives with her daughter, Leah, and her granddaughter, Harlo. Two of Anna’s children drowned in the river, although the body of Sam, her oldest, was never found. Anna writes about her life on the river.

Sinclair writes “Thoughts from the Backporch” wherein he muses on his life, his novel, the class, the three students I mentioned, and the river. In fact, the White River becomes a character itself.

After a few entries about fishing and angel gossip, I began skipping those entries in favor of concentration on Sinclair and Anna’s compelling stories. Post’s prose is lyrical, and flows right alongside the river. In one of Sinclair’s “Thoughts,” he recounts a fishing trip with a colleague who came for a visit. Post writes,

“‘The motor’s loud; I’ll row for a while.’ I gave a pull on the oars. ‘Catch the true serenity of the river.’

Patches of fog lifted from the water. The hoarse cry of a blue heron carried down the channel.

Just below my cabin, we entered a series of hills shouldering the river on either side, their thick woods running down to the waters edge. Occasionally the woods gave way to meadows filled with willows. I spied a doe and her fawn feeding. They lifted their heads and gazed our direction, but being accustomed to boats sliding by, they resumed their feed” (48).

Anna’s entries are warm and soft and filled with good old country common sense. In her eleventh entry, Anna writes,

"I think how Harlo loves the bread when it’s warm from the oven. She will spread it with butter and fill her little mouth with its goodness. I think how the bread and a cup of tea will bring a sweet moment to my Momma’s life. The bread is one moment I can fix. A little fix. I add more flour, knead and fold” (151).

Anna carries much pain and sorrow, but she handles the regrets with dignity and wisdom.

One minor flaw in the novel is some confusion over family relationships. Early on, I began constructing a family tree, which helped quite a bit. There were also a number of typographical errors. Despite all this, Cotton Rock is a lovely, heart-warming and heart breaking story. No matter how simple we try and live our lives, complications always intrude. So why do we add complications of our own? Life should flow calmly, relentlessly – just like the river – and we should expect an occasional flood. 4-1/2 stars

--Chiron, 7/9/12

Canada by Richard Ford

Quite a few years ago, I heard a lot of buzz about Richard Ford. His novel Independence Day won a Pulitzer and a Pen/Faulkner Award. I have always been a bit skeptical about the Pulitzer for fiction – too often I have not liked their selection. I felt some of their picks relied on gimmicks and attempts – it seemed to me – intended to shock and break out of the usual conventions of the novel. Now, I am not against a bit of iconoclasm when it comes to novels, but I sense – on occasion – that rule breakers break rules simply for the sake of making a ruckus. That, added to a fragment of a review, turned me away from Ford.

Then, I found myself in a class which required me to read Independence Day, and to my surprise, I enjoyed the novel enough to give it four stars. That was the Spring of 2008. Since then, I have read and watched interviews, read a short story or two, and read some reviews of ID. When I saw Ford had a new novel, I decided to dive in head first.

Canada Is a sprawling story of a dysfunctional family and how that dysfunction can affect the lives of its members in a variety of ways. The story is narrated by the son, Dell, about 50 years later. Dell has a twin sister, Berner. The mother, “Neeva,” short for Geneva, has been disowned by her Jewish parents for marrying Bev Parsons, a World War II bombardier, who now flits from job to job. He was demoted and honorably discharged from the Air Force for his participation involving some stolen beef for the officer’s club. He continued this sort of shadowy activity in civilian life. Finally, faced with death threats over a beef deal gone bad, he takes desperate measures to save his family.

Ford’s prose is most notable for his attention to details. These really bring the characters, the settings, the situations to life. Ford writes, “[Dad] had brought home two bottles of Schlitz beer, and they’d each drunk one – which they didn’t regularly do. It made them playful, which was how our mother’d become with us while he was gone. She’d put on a pair of white pedal pushers that revealed her thin ankles, some flat cotton shoes, and a pretty green blouse – clothes we didn’t know she owned. She looked like a young girl and smiled more than she normally would’ve and held her beer bottle by its neck and drank it in small swallows. She acted affectionately toward our father and laughed and shook her head at silly things he said. A couple of times she patted him on the shoulder and said he was a card. (As I said, she was a good listener.) Though he didn’t seem any different to me. He was a man in a good humor most of the time” (73).

As the dust jacket tells us, when Berner and Dell were 15, their parents robbed a bank, but the plan did not rise to the level of perfection Bev assured Neeva it would. She fought against the idea, but in the end, she agreed to accompany Bev to the bank and drive the getaway car. This catastrophic even tore the family apart. Berner ran away to California, and Dell was taken by Neeva’s friend, Mildred to Canada to live with her brother.

The second half of the novel deals with Dell’s adventures in Fort Royal, a near ghost town in Saskatchewan. Eventually, Dell learns some lessons from his parents, and begins to make sense of them, his life, and his relationship with his sister.

Ford leaves lots of clues about the future of this family, and these are interesting. Ford is now in that hallowed group of my favorite authors. 5 stars

--Chiron, 7/5/12

The Shallow End of Sleep by José Antonio Rodríguez

For anyone who aspires to write a good poem now and again, the discovery of a new poet can be a touch and go matter. How closely will the poet’s work appeal to my idea of a good poem? How closely will I relate to the images, the diction, and rhythm? Probably half of the poets I first encounter do not pass at least some of these tests. Every once in great while, however, I come across a book of poetry which rings all these bells for me. The Shallow End of Sleep by José Antonio Rodríguez resoundingly passes with flying colors.

The poems in Rodríguez’s collection have a warmth and an ability to call up memories of my own that somewhat match his. However, a shadow hangs over most of the endings -- a reminder of poverty and the hardship of adjusting to a new culture.

One of my favorites in the collection, “Playing Monopoly,” has many, many ties to my childhood.

“the green homes with perfect corners, the red hotels that looked like the textbook picture of George Washington’s home. The kids gloated guiltless when they won and the losers frowned for a second, their hands empty, until they decided to play again, like losing and winning were nothing” (38).

The poem then moves from the game of real estate to the realities of providing shelter for the family:

“I could tell you that I thought then of everybody putting in late hours, pooling money together to eke out the $400 payment on the house with a sink that drained into a bucket, with curtains for doors, with broken mattresses for beds, but it wasn’t like that – thoughts lined neatly like blocks.

“It was like when you finished your serving of beans and knew not to ask for seconds, that moment between taking the last bite and pulling the chair away from the table, the taste of that and the swallowing” (39).

The poems in this collection fill the page with powerful memories and even more powerful emotions. Rodríguez has won the 2009 Allen Ginsburg Poetry Award and a Pushcart Prize nomination. His work has appeared in Paterson Literary Review, cream city review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, among others. He currently works on a Ph.D in English and creative Writing. 5 stars.

--Chiron, 7/1/12

By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham

Michael Cunningham has written a series of novels about relationships – how they form, how they grow, and how they die. He manages this without being too dark, but rather he handles them in a thoughtful and sensitive manner. He is probably best known for The Hours, a multilayered reworking of the Virginia Woolf novel, Mrs. Dalloway. Specimen Days tells the story of three people in three different time periods – similar to the structure of The Hours – however, Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass provides a backdrop. By Nightfall parallels the story of Aschenbach and Tadzio from Thomas Mann’s erotic classic, Death in Venice.

Peter and Rebecca married in their early 20s, had a daughter Bea, and live in the Soho section of Lower Manhattan. Peter owns an art gallery struggling to reach the upper tier of galleries in a crowded NY market. Rebecca is a writer, and she publishes a literary magazine just barely surviving.

The families of the couple cast a shadow over their lives. Peter’s brother, Michael, died as a young man, and Rebecca’s younger brother is a drug addict. One day, Ethan “Mizzy,” shows up in Soho, and adds further complications to the plot.

Peter and Rebecca have a tender and loving relationship, which Peter frets over and second guesses at every turn. Cunningham does this in a structurally peculiar way. As Peter muses on his marriage, his life, and work, he frequently inserts parenthetical asides, as if a second narrator stood over his shoulder adding details or making corrections.

Here is an example from a passage about the home of Rebecca’s parents. She felt a slight embarrassment, but, as Cunningham writes: “Some – many – would have found this room disheartening, would have in fact been unnerved by the Taylor’s whole house and the Taylors’ entire lives. Peter was enchanted. Here he was among people too busy (with students, with patients, with books) to keep it all in perfect running order; people who’d rather have lawn parties and game nights than clean the tile grout with a tooth brush (although the Taylor’s grout could, undeniably, have used at least minor attention). Here was the living opposite of his own childhood, all those frozen nights, dinner finished by six thirty and at least another four hours before anyone could reasonably go to bed” (49).

I also enjoyed another aspect of this novel -- the generous sprinkling of literary references throughout the story. Joyce’s Ulysses, Proust, Jane Austen, Anna Karenina, Eliot’s Daniel Deronda, Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady, Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Dante, Hamlet, Homer, Cheever, and many others. Fitting these selections into the fabric of the story would make an interesting research project.

But the most telling of all, occurred on a train trip to visit a client of Peter’s. Mizzy is searching for an occupation to save himself from drugs. He thinks “something in the Arts, perhaps a curator” would be a good choice. Peter sits opposite Mizzy and notices a copy of Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, which “sits open but unread on his lap” (169). They discuss Mann and Peter asks him about Death in Venice.

Cunningham’s By Nightfall is altogether a clever, absorbing psychological voyage into the lives and loves of Peter and Rebecca with an unusual twist on the last pages. If you have never read Cunningham, this novel is a good starting place. 5 stars

--Chiron, 6/30/12

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

For many, many years, I have loved and admired Homer’s Odyssey. Lately, I have experienced a growing admiration for his Iliad. I recently reviewed The War that Killed Achilles by Caroline Alexander. And now, a new entry onto my “desert island shelf” will take its place with these foundations of western literature. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller tells the story of the greatest warrior of the ancient world from the point of view of Patroclus, his companion.

Even though I knew exactly how the story would end, I reveled in every page of this enthralling story. Miller has a tinge of the voice of Homer, with a couple of epithets thrown in for good measure. Rosy-fingered dawn even gets a mention.

Patroclus accidentally killed a boy who bullied him relentlessly. Clysonomous was the son of a noble family, and the penalty for such a killing was death or exile. Patroclus lacked the physical and mental strengths required of the son of a king, and his father’s disdain appeared evident to everyone – even the young Patroclus. The verdict was exile.

Peleus, King of Phthia, and father of Achilles by the divine nymph, Thetis, routinely accepted such exiles for the treasure that came along with the unfortunate individual. Patroclus became a close friend and companion to Achilles, destined to become “Aristos Achaion. Best of the Greeks” (176), “the greatest warrior of his generation” (160).

When Achilles turns thirteen, he is sent to study with the centaur, Chiron, to learn the arts of war and medicine. Patroclus is left behind, but by this time, he has developed a deep and abiding relationship with Achilles. He wheedles Achilles location from Peleus, and Patroclus immediately runs after his friend. The bond with Achilles is mutual. He says, “I hoped you would come” (70).

Years pass and the boys grow closer. When Achilles is 16, Odysseus, King of Ithaca, the “man of twists and turns” comes to seek Achilles’ help in rescuing Helen of Greece, wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta. But Peleus knows of the prophecy and the flimsy bond drawing all these heroes together for the Trojan War. Achilles and his father were not present when Agamemnon and his brother Menelaus extracted a promise from the disappointed suitors to swear allegiance to Helen and her chosen husband, Menelaus. Peleus spirits him away – again without Patroclus -- to an obscure, poor kingdom famous for its dancing women, led by the daughter of the king. But Patroclus and Odysseus find him again. Odysseus convinces Achilles to raise and lead the best army in the ancient world – the Myrmidons.

Patroclus realizes he will lose Achilles to this adventure. Miller writes, “If he was nervous, even I could not tell. I watched as he greeted them, spoke ringing words that made them stand up straighter. They grinned, loving every inch of their miraculous prince: his gleaming hair, his deadly hands, his nimble feet. They leaned towards him, like flowers in the sun, drinking in his luster. It was as Odysseus had said: he had light enough to make heroes of them all” (186).

Thus, they set sail for that fateful battle before the walls of Troy. Hector, Ajax, Achilles, Odysseus, Menelaus, and countless others -- all players in one of the greatest stories ever sung, recited, read, studied, and loved. Read The Song of Achilles. As soon as you can. You, too, will be captivated and enthralled. 5 stars

--Chiron, 6/24/12

Hunters and Gatherers by Francine Prose

Francine Prose, a relatively recent discovery of mine, has a powerful, yet interesting and quirky style. I first read her excellent non-fiction work, Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them. Of course, the title intrigued me, and the curious cat in me wondered how she read. The book absorbed my attention and admiration from page one. I agreed with much of what she wrote and learned quite a few tips along the way. Naturally, this led me to her novels.

I first read Blue Angel – the story of an English professor trapped in a web of deceit by a ruthless student. Then I read Goldengrove, and now her 1995 novel, Hunters and Gathers. I found this paperback in the sadly missed used bookstore in my hometown, Plotz Books. The cover intrigued me – three satyrs sit on rocks while dozens of nymphs seem to cascade down a mountain toward them. Inexplicably, neither the painting nor the artist are identified, but some research proved it to be by the 19th century artist, William-Adolphe Bourguereau.

Martha works as a fact checker for a fashion magazine in Manhattan. Her boss, Eleanor, is a tyrant and has Martha checking facts “any school child knew.” Dennis, her lover of about a year, has dumped her and Eleanor fired her after she asked for some time off to get herself together. The novel opens with Martha on Fire Island. Her friend, Greta, wanted to spend a weekend with her new lover, and she asked Martha to fill in for her with her elderly parents. While on the beach, she wanders into a group of oddly dressed women, and makes the acquaintance of Hegwitha, who stands apart from the main group.

Martha learns this is a gathering of Goddess-worshiping, New Age women. The central figure in this group is Isis Moonwagon, who promptly strolls into the ocean. Martha recognizes Isis is in trouble, and she dives into the surf to rescue her. Martha is then gently folded into the group. Thus ends chapter one.

This eclectic group of women spends most of its time squabbling over mundane and mountainous points of disagreement. Isis usually has a calming effect – if only for a short time. The novel does have its comic moments. Lonely Martha is drawn into the group, but she remains skeptical throughout. The group travels to the Arizona desert to spend some time learning from a Native American healer.

Although I enjoyed the story of these women, I did notice a rather glaring error in the novel. In an explanation of the gathering, Hegwitha tells Martha, “All over the world women are honoring the harvest and Persephone’s return from Hades to rejoin her mother” (10). A few pages later, still on the beach, “Martha shivered. Oh dear God, it was autumn” (13). The story of Persephone has her returning in the spring to rejoin her mother Ceres, the Goddess of grain, and thus flowers bloom, trees begin to leaf. Neither the fact checker Martha, nor anyone else, notices the error.

This novel is unlike anything else I have read by Prose, but it did have the quirkiness of the others. 4 stars.

--Chiron, 6/20/12

I, Iago by Nicole Galland

Shakespeare’s Othello is one of his four great tragedies along with Macbeth, Hamlet, and King Lear. I especially enjoy teaching Othello, which I alternate with Lear. When I heard about Galland’s novel, I, Iago, which is part prequel and all retelling of the story from Iago’s point of view, I eagerly awaited its rise to the top of my TBR pile. This recently published novel is great fun – especially for those familiar with the play.

I won’t go into any of the details of the plot – if the play is not familiar territory, this novel would be a great introduction. But the real fun is in noticing lines and characters from the play as they pop up almost from page one. So, I would advise reading the play first.

Othello has some of the great lines from the Bard: “green-eyed monster,” “the beast with two backs,” and, of course, Iago’s final line in the play, “Ask me nothing, … What you know, you know. From this time forth I will not speak another word” (368). Some of these lines Galland alters slightly, but the essence is always there.

Galland recounts Iago’s early days from his childhood pranks with his boyhood friend, Rodrigo to his relationship with his father, and the origin of the epithet, “Honest Iago.”

Even though I knew exactly how the plot would spin out, the last hundred pages or so were as thrilling as the downhill side of the highest roller coaster in the land.

Incidentally, I think the 1995 Kenneth Branagh, Lawrence Fishburne, and Irène Jacob Othello is a most interesting and accessible version of the play. 5 stars

--Chiron, 6/13/12

Lucky You by Carl Hiaasen

Carl Hiaasen has a distinguished career as a newspaper reporter in Miami, Florida. Like Pete Dexter – a former columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News -- he turned his hand to novels. I have read about six of Hiaasen’s works and thoroughly enjoyed them all. His stories are gritty and down to earth, and have that special something which sounds a lot like newspaper writing. This 1997 novel, Hiaasen’s 7th, is no exception.

Tom Krome has been relegated to covering mall openings, beauty pageants, and, in this case, the story of a woman who won $14 million in the Florida Lottery. Hiaasen writes, “The downsizing trend that swept newspapers in the early nineties was aimed at sustaining the bloated profit margins in which the newspaper industry had wallowed for most of the century. A new soulless breed of cooperate managers, unburdened by a passion for serious journalism, found an easy way to reduce the cost of publishing a daily newspaper. The first casualty was depth. … Cutting the amount of space devoted to news instantly justified cutting the staff” (21). Investigative teams were one of the first cuts these business types made.

Krome was just “peaking in his career as an investigative reporter” (21). He applied for a job as a “feature writer” for The Register. He was offered a job as a divorce columnist, which he declined. A week later, the managing editor offered him a job as a feature writer, which Krome accepted, since he was trying to save for a move to Alaska.

Meanwhile, JoLayne Lucks won half of a $28 million dollar lottery prize. The other half was won by a white supremacist in Miami, who was furious he had to share the prize with what he was sure was a member of one of Florida’s two major minority groups. His plan was to start a militia to protect the US from a NATO and UN led invasion of the US to eliminate all the white people from America. The lunatic conspiracy theories which came out of Bode Gazzer’s twisted mind were just that – sheer lunacy. His partner in this insanity was Chub, a trigger-happy racist, who occasionally expressed some skepticism about Bode’s theories but liked the idea of being part of a militia.

Bode and Chub decide to steal JoLayne’s ticket. They find her shortly before Tom Krome does, and the two set out to track the thieves and recover her ticket. This is the main plot, but a humorous sub-plot involves Lucks’ hometown of Grange, Florida and some crazy con-artists running a religious miracle racket. All this is revealed in about the first 20 pages, so I am not giving much away.

Lucky You is exciting and takes many unexpected twists and turns. I am not really a fan of mysteries and suspense stories, but the newspaper angle intrigues me, so I am working my way through Hiaasen’s work. This novel, like the others I have read, are great stories, with several interesting characters ranging from serious to funny to the bizarre. 5 stars

--Chiron, 6/10/12

The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht

Last month I reviewed the Best Short Stories of 2011 edited by Richard Russo. One of the stories I mentioned, “The Laugh” by Téa Obreht, reminded me I had a copy of her first novel, The Tiger’s Wife. It lay near the bottom of my TBR pile, but I decided to promote it. This turned out to be a most fortuitous decision.

Natalia is a young doctor, and she has a close relationship with her grandfather – also a well-known and respected doctor. The story is set in the Balkans at the end of the recent war. Natalia has set out to inoculate children in a remote orphanage with her best friend Zora. Interspersed among the narrative are flash backs to instances Natalia spent with her grandfather as a child. As the story opens, she learns her grandfather has died at a remote clinic, to the horror and amazement of his family, none of whom knew he was sick – except Natalia.

I could not help sensing touches of Salman Rushdie or Nobel Prize winner, Orhan Pamuk in this novel. Like these two world-renowned authors, Obreht’s prose mesmerizes. She describes one late-night adventure as a child with her grandfather:

“We were nearing the end of our street where it opened out onto the Boulevard, and I assumed the silence of our walk would be shattered by the bustle along the tramway. But when we got there, nothing, not even a single passing car. All the way from one end of the Boulevard to the other, every window was dark, and a hazy yellow moon was climbing along the curve of the old basilica on the hill. As it rose, it seemed to be gathering the silence up around it like a net. Not a sound: no police sirens, no rats in the dumpsters that lined the street. Not even my grandfather’s shoes as he stopped, looked up and down the street, and then turned left to follow the Boulevard east across the Square of the Kojanik.

“’It’s not far now,’ he said, and I caught up with him long enough to see the side of his face. He was smiling.

“’Not far to where?’ I said, out of breath, angry. ‘Where are you taking me?’ I drew myself up and stopped. ‘I’m not going any further until you tell me what the hell this is.’

“He turned to look at me, indignant. ‘Lower your voice, you fool, before you set something off,’ he hissed. ‘Can’t you feel it?’ Suddenly his arms went over his head in a wide arc. ‘Isn’t it lovely? No one in the world awake but us.’ And off he went again. I stood still for a few moments, watching him go, a tall, thin, noiseless shadow. Then the realization of it rushed over me: he didn’t need me with him, he wanted me there” (52-53).

Natalia and her grandfather spent many hours together doing simple things. Visiting the zoo became an almost daily excursion. While there, the two would sit opposite the tiger’s cage, and he would read to her from Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. These visits, the book, and other stories run like threads in a skillfully woven tapestry. It explains her grandfather and it prepares her for her own life.

Obreht weaves a tale of science and superstition experienced by her grandfather and relayed in stories to Natalia. Then Natalia becomes faced with similar obstacles in her practice. She comes to a realization about her grandfather and her own life. A must read for anyone interested in literary fiction. 5 stars

--Chiron, 6/3/12/

Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes by Daniel L. Everett

Everett’s Don’t Sleep, There’s Snakes was the May read for my book club. From the description offered by the member, it seemed as if it might be an interesting anthropological look at an isolated group of indigenous peoples in the Amazon. The Pirahã (pronounced “pee-da-HAN”). When I got a copy of the book, the dust jacket revealed Everett went to the Amazon as a missionary.

Since I am adamantly opposed to missionary work – I admire the prime directive of the Federation of Planets: non interference in the culture of indigenous people – I almost stopped right there. But, this man lost his faith, so I was intrigued.

Daniel Everett moved his wife, Keren, and their children (seven, four, and one!!!) to this remote jungle village with no electricity, no water, and no contact with the outside world. Shortly after his arrival, the Brazilian government banned missionaries from these tribes, so his sponsor, The Summer Institute of Linguistics, tried “to find a way around the governments prohibition” (14). Nice. So Daniel enrolls in a graduate school to study linguistics, and his project is to study the language of these people. He is re-admitted to the Amazon as a “scientist.”

The next problem involves linguistics. Linguistics is akin to “statistics” for English majors -- boring. But for the sake of a friend, I began to slog through the jungles of crazy spellings, crazy phonetics, and lots of missionary-speak.

Then, I did something I rarely do. I skipped to the end to see what later chapters had to offer, and I came upon Chapter 17: “Converting the Missionary.” Everett writes, “the challenge of the missionary [is] to convince a happy, satisfied people that they are lost and need Jesus as their personal savior” (266). He quotes his “evangelism professor,” who said, “You’ve got to get ‘em lost before you can get ‘em saved” (266). Disgusting. When I think of the millions of lives lost as a result of missionaries over the ages, the cultures destroyed, the languages, traditions, stories, obliterated, the acts of genocide committed in the name of religion and progress, my stomach turns over and over.

Fortunately, Everett comes to the conclusion that “the universal appeal of the spiritual message I was bringing was ill-founded” (269). Indeed. Everett’s wife was from a missionary family, and inexplicably, she found it impossible to stand by her husband after his enlightenment and took the children and went home.

The “primitive” Pirahã asked Everett if he had ever seen Jesus, and when he said no, the wondered how he could believe in such a person. The Pirahã live an immediate life, closely intertwined with their environment and the daily struggle to find food. These people have a clear “acceptance for things the way they are, by and large. No fear of death” (271). Who is the most rational in this story?.

Everett closes this chapter with some startling admissions: “I have given up what I could not keep, my faith, to gain what I cannot lose, freedom from what Thomas Jefferson called ‘tyranny of the mind’ – following outside authorities rather than one’s own reason” (272) Hallelujah! Later, on the same page, “William James reminded us, we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously. We are no more nor less than evolved primates” (272)..

The nuns would always tell us about the “Eleventh Commandment” – MYOB – Mind Your Own Business. At the book club, I raised the question, “Why can’t we just leave these people alone? What is the purpose of studying them, proselytizing them, and destroying them in the process?” One member suggested, if we don’t study them some corporation, oil company, logging firm, or factory farmers will..

Have humans learned nothing from history? Especially the history of the last 135 years or so? The near extinction of native peoples stripped of their land, their culture, the source of food and shelter, driven to shameful living conditions on reservations – in many cases far from their ancestral homes? Why don’t we pay attention to the oft quoted line of George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Five stars for Chapter 17..

--Chiron, 5/31/12

Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang by Chelsea Handler

Spoiler alert! Chelsea Handler holds a high position in the realm of my guilty pleasure reading. If you like her show, you will love her books. I also cannot help hearing her voice on every page.

Her practical jokes are elaborate, involve many people – including film crews – and are relatively harmless, if you allow for the humiliation she seems to enthusiastically enjoy pouring over her friends, family, staff, and co-workers.

Two of the chapters towards the end, are a bit less than the rest of the book, but even they have their moments.

Again, rated NC-17, her humor is not for everyone, but I love it. Like I said: A guilty pleasure par excellance!” 4-1/2 stars

--Chiron, 5/21/12

The Twoweeks by Larry Duberstein

This peculiar novel comes from the overwhelmingly reliable Permanent Press. It is roughly divided into four parts. But first some background.

Cal and Winnie are married and have two kids. Call loves Winnie, Winnie loves Cal, and Cal is absolutely devoted to his children. Lara and Winnie are friends. Lara and Ian are married but have no children. Cal and Lara bump into each other, and Cal notices her beauty. He is smitten. Duberstein writes, [I only have an uncorrected proof, but as soon as I get a trade copy, I will post a quote.] (25). Cal and Lara decide to take two weeks together to work out of their system the mutual attraction that had been building. Lara tells Ian, but Call does not tell Winnie.

Numerous stories crossed my mind while reading The Twoweeks by Larry Duberstein. These stories involve people married or involved with the wrong partner. Someone new comes along, and suddenly chaos breaks out. Think The English Patient, Bridges of Madison County, Shakespeare in Love, and The End of the Affair by Graham Green.

Part one involves Lara reading a journal of The Twoweeks, but Cal interrupts her and insists the “backstory” is important and relevant. Part two reveals the journal, frequently interspersed with comments mainly from Cal explaining, revising, or adding details in the journal. Part three describes separately Lara and Cal’s reaction in the immediate aftermath of the two weeks. Part four has a narrator outside the novel. Here all is revealed.

Duberstein’s prose is down to earth and conversational – lots of dialogue between Cal and Lara, and between Cal and himself and Lara and herself. The reader delves deeply into the psychology of these two characters, and clearly reveals the trauma and heart ache associated with finding oneself in a marriage when someone “better” or “more suited” comes along.

Having been in such a relationship myself not too many years ago, I had a great deal of empathy for Cal and Lara, as well as a lot of sympathy for Ian and Winnie. The major complicating factor in this novel, is of course, the children.

The Twoweeks is Larry Duberstein’s eighth novel along with two collections of short stories. I see a future spent hunting for the rest of his works. 5 stars

--Chiron, 5/19/12

The Best American Short Stories 20120 edited by Richard Russo

One of my favorite annual publications is the Best American Series, edited by Heidi Pitlor. In addition to fiction, the series also includes the best comics, essays, mystery stories, non-required reading, science and nature, sports, and travel. Each volume has a different guest editor, and the 2010 editor was Richard Russo, one of my favorite authors.

In his magnificent introduction, Russo discusses the purpose of literature. He writes, “The writer’s real job is not to court the affection of readers but to force them to confront hard truths” (xv). Furthermore, the artist “desires to show people a good time” and “comes to us bearing a gift he hopes will please us.” The writer “starts out making the thing for himself, perhaps, but at some point …realizes he [or she] wants to share it, which is why [an author] spends long hours reshaping the thing, lovingly honing its details in the hopes it will please us, that it will be a gift worth the giving and the receiving” (xv).

He goes on to say that writers and readers understand “how wonderful it is to lose the “self” in a story so that … for a time, the reader’s life, troubles … none of it matters” (xv).

These twenty stories fulfill that mission splendidly. The finest magazines publishing fiction today are well represented: The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Tin House, The Paris Review, and Ploughshares among others.

Some well-known authors, but just as many gems by new and young writers have found their way into this prestigious collection. Charles Baxter, author of Feast of Love, Jennifer Egan, author of the critically acclaimed Visit from the Goon Squad, Jill McCorkle, who write, Going Away Shoes, and Téa Obrecht, who wrote The Tiger’s Wife. Most of the authors in the volume teach at some of the finest writing programs in America today.

The advantage of this series comes in the form of exposure to the reader of many new and established writers in a wide variety of styles.

As an example, my favorite story from the collection is “The Cousins,” by Charles Baxter. Baxter received the Award of Merit for the Short Story by the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2007. In the story, Brantford is the ne’er-do-well younger cousin of Benjamin, or “Bunny” as Brantford calls him. Like all of Baxter’s work, the prose is sparkling and wonderfully phrased. Benjamin, the narrator, travels from party to party and from one relative’s house to another. He engages people in conversations which usually end badly. He approaches a “famous poet” but cannot ask him about his play. Benjamin pontificates about Yeats and Eliot, and the poet interrupts him with a vulgar insult as if from an “Old Testament style prophet” (49). This conflict between writer and reader hangs like a shadow over Benjamin.

The volume concludes with a handy list of U.S. and Canadian magazines publishing short stories. This annual series is a real treasure for anyone who loves the art of the short story. 5 stars

--Chiron, 5/19/12