Life As I Blow It by Sarah Colonna

One of my guilty pleasures is watching “Chelsea Lately” Monday through Thursday evenings on E! -- The Entertainment Network. In case some of my faithful readers have never encountered this comedy talk show, Chelsea Handler is the host, and she has three comedians on a panel. The three rotate among a seemingly endless list of A, B, C, and the occasional D-List stand up comics. Chelsea reads snippets of news mostly about show business figures. Once in a while, she talks about a politician or a world leader. The show is edgy, daring, provocative, and tends to specialize in sexual humor.

I find it hilarious.

Of all the regular comics, my absolute favorite is Sarah Colonna. I like her hair – reddish – I like her comedy – always funny and a bit dry – and I think she is sexy!

Now, I have read a couple of Chelsea’s books, which tend to deprecate her father, her brother, her friends, and her staff. These kept me laughing from beginning to end. When Chelsea announced Sarah had published a book, I immediately got a copy.

Unfortunately, I did not find this one as funny as Chelsea’s, nor was it as funny as Sarah is on the show. Perhaps my expectations had climbed a bit too high. While I did not hate the book, and while I felt no need to invoke the rule of fifty, I did have a pretty clear level of disappointment.

As the memory of Chelsea’s books fades, I think I will take another look at Life as I Blow It by Sarah Colonna. She is still sexy. 3 stars

--Chiron, 11/11/12

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

The publication page of Aimee Bender’s The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, reads: “1. Taste—Fiction. 2. Family Secrets—Fiction.” Normally, I rarely look at this page before reading a novel, but, while searching for my next read after a couple of complicated novels, I stumbled on the page and immediately decided to try Bender out.

The premise is as interesting as the Sears’ Subject Headings librarians use to categorize books into neat compartments. Rosie is about to turn eight, and her mother, Lane, bakes her favorite cake. Rosie spies the finished cake and a bowl of icing nearby, while her mother naps, waiting for the cake to cool. Rosie helps herself to a chunk and slathers icing on it. Bender writes,

“To be clear: the bite I ate was delicious. Warm citrus-baked batter lightness enfolded by cool deep dark swirled sugar.

“But the day was darkening outside, and as I finished that first bite, as the first impression faded, I felt a subtle shift inside me, an unexpected reaction. As if a sensor, so far buried deep inside me, raised its scope to scan around, alerting my mouth to something new. Because the goodness of the ingredients – the fine chocolate, the freshest lemons – seemed like a cover over something larger and darker, and the taste of what was underneath was beginning to push up from the bite. I could absolutely taste the chocolate, but in drifts and traces, in an unfurling, or an opening, it seemed that my mouth was also filling with the taste of smallness, the sensation of shrinking, of upset, tasting a distance I somehow knew was connected to my mother, tasting a crowded sense of her thinking, a spiral, like I could almost even taste the grit in her jaw that had created the headache that meant she had to take as many aspirins as were necessary, a white dotted line of them in a row on the nightstand like an ellipsis to her comment: ‘I’m just going to lie down.” (9-10)

This really long, absorbing sentence captures the gift – or the curse – Rosie must learn to live with for quite a few years.

Rosie’s brother, Joseph, also has a mysterious gift, but in an entirely different direction. Her reclusive grandmother also has some secret. In fact, all the members of the Edelstein family harbor strange, inner fantasies, which reveal themselves in odd behavior.

Joseph has plans for a brilliant career in physics; however, his friend George receives an acceptance to CalTech, but Joseph is rejected and ends up unhappily in a small local college. Bender describes Joseph as, “brilliant, adults often said as they shuttled out of the house, shaking their heads at the precise drawing he’d made on sketch paper of planets yet to be discovered, complete with atmosphere thicknesses and moons. Our mother lowered her eyes, pleased. I was often admired for being friendly.” (40)

To the consternation of Rosie and her parents, from time to time he disappears without a trace, then, just as suddenly, reappears. Rosie has a crush on George, especially after he believes her claim of “tasting the emotions of people who make the food she eats.” Lane tells Rosie, “Such a sweet supporter you are. Much nicer than your father.” (42) Paul, Rosie’s Dad, a moderately successful attorney on the other hand, describes himself as “without any special skills” (108 et al).

Rosie reduces herself to eating “factory” food, made strictly by machines. However, she does do some cooking of her own, and tastes, “Sadness, rage, tanks, holes, hope, guilt, tantrums. Nostalgia, like rotting flowers. A factory, cold.” (222)

In The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Bender has put together a story with prose which runs like a quiet stream in the coolness of a fall afternoon. I could hardly admire her and her work any more than I do. 5 stars

--Chiron, 10/31/12

Winter King by Thomas Penn

During my days at LaSalle University in Philly back in the 60s, I took a bunch of history classes, because I was always fascinated with the subject. I reveled in a couple on the ancient Greeks and Romans, but my heart fell in a class on Tudor England.

Since then, I have been consumed with the Tudor dynasty, which began in 1485 after Henry Tudor defeated Richard III at Bosworth Field, thus ending the War of the Roses between the Royal Houses of Lancaster (red rose) and York (white rose). The family reign ended with the death of Elizabeth I in 1603.

Over the years, I have collected biographies of every major figure in the Tudor family – all the kings and queens, all six of Henry VIII’s wives, and a number of other peripheral figures around the court. However, I lacked one important piece of the puzzle – King Henry VII, the founder of the dynasty. Late last year, I discovered a new biography of Henry by Thomas Penn, who holds a PhD in early Tudor history from Cambridge University.

One of the fascinations I have with history revolves around the amazing discovery that history repeats itself over and over. Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England amply proves the truth of that statement once again.

Following the defeat of Richard at Bosworth Field, Henry became King of England. Many people in England resented his crown, and numerous plots to dethrone him popped up over the next 20 years. Numerous factions, especially those with connections to the defeated York family, complained that Henry illegitimately claimed the crown.

The corruption, back-stabbing, spying, treachery, and extortion, which were the hallmarks of the Tudor family throughout its existence leaves me gasping in fascination. In the “Introduction,” Penn quotes Francis Bacon, who wrote, “Henry VII was ‘infinitely suspicious’ and he was right to be so, for his times were ‘full of secret conspiracies and troubles’. Perhaps the most telling verdict of all,” Penn writes, “is that Shakespeare, omits Henry VII altogether from his sequence of history plays – not for want of material, but, one suspects, because the reign was simply too uncomfortable to deal with” ( xxv-xxvi).

Penn tells us, the idea of Henry VII as a “time of transition, one in which the violent feuds of the previous decades gave way to a glorious age of renaissance and reformation … was a myth the Tudors themselves built” (xxv). Most scholars now see him as “the unifier of a war-torn land, a wise king who brought justice and stability, and who set the crown on a sound financial footing. Nonetheless they were unable to eradicate the lingering sense of a reign that degenerated into oppression, extortion and a kind of terror, at its core a Machiavellian king who inspired not love but fear” (xxv). Bacon, his first biographer, referred to Henry as a “dark prince” (xxv).

A splendid biography for anyone interested in the history of one of the most famous – and infamous – families in English history. 5 stars

--Chiron, 10/26/12

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murikami

The timing – and indeed the reading of this novel – has an unusual genesis: a specific request for a birthday present from a close friend. The present takes the form of a blog entry on Rabbit Reader and the October 4th segment of “Likely Stories,” my twice-monthly radio show on the local NPR affiliate, KWBU-FM 103.3 in central Texas. Happy birthday, P.! I hope you enjoy my review.

This might be the hardest review I have ever written. I have read Joyce’s Ulysses, and Proust – of which I have only read a few fragments -- and Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves. These great works share some things in common: complex plots, a large cast of characters, enough symbolism to make one’s head spin, and a plot which defies simple explanation. Muraki Hurakami’s The Wind-up Bird Chronicle definitely belongs in the company of these stunning novels.

I first encountered Murakami when I heard of a new novel, Kafka on the Shore. I bought it simply because of the intriguing title. I loved the book, and went in search of something else by the Japanese author. I quickly found the Chronicle, but because it was over 600 pages, I put it aside. Then the request for the birthday present arrived.

Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto, Japan in 1949. He attended Waseda University as a theater arts major. He runs marathons, and reportedly has a collection of over 40,000 jazz recordings. In 1974, he opened a Jazz bar, which he named “Peter Cat.” He published his first novel, Hear the Wind, in 1979, and he won a major Japanese literary award for it. In 1992, he was named an Associate Professor at Princeton University. In 1996, he published Chronicle and won another major Japanese Literary prize.

Normally, my habit in these reviews is to place a quote or two to give a flavor of the novel. However, I have so many passages underlined, bracketed, and starred, I would have difficulty choosing one. Furthermore, those I might choose would require so much background information, I would spoil the plot, while making the review impossibly long. Suffice it to say Murakami’s prose sparkles with amazing and hypnotizing detail. A reader cannot help but be drawn into the story, as if descending into a deep, dark well, with no light and only inner thoughts for company. Readers of the novel will understand this reference – like many others – repeated in various forms throughout the story.

Now, I always tell my students that reading and writing should raise questions in the reader’s and the writer’s mind. So rather than only a cursory trace of the plot, I will also share some of my questions.

The core plot set in Japan is simple. Toru and Kumiko meet and decide to marry. Her father does not like Toru, but agrees to the marriage on one condition: the couple must meet weekly with the mysterious Mr. Honda. Kumiko’s father will pay for the sessions. Mr. Honda proceeds to tell the couple strange and sometimes terrifying stories of his experiences in the Sino-Soviet war in Manchukou in the 1930s. This continues for about a year. Then, the couple’s cat, named Noburu Wataya, after Kumiko’s brother, disappears. Kumiko is heartbroken, and she insists Toru spends his days looking for the cat. Then, one day, Kumiko leaves for work, and completely disappears. Toru’s life then takes a surreal and, at times, bizarre turn. He meets a succession of strange characters, and the novel takes a sharp detour into the realm of magical realism.

Some of the questions which emerged as I read include: Why are all the products mentioned western? Why are all the long dreams of these characters described in vivid detail? Why is all the music the characters listen to exclusively western classical pieces? Who are all these strange surreal people who pop in and out of Toru’s life? What really happened to Kumiko? What boundary lines divide reality from dreams? Dreams from hallucinations? Hallucinations from reality? I could go on, but I do not want to discourage anyone from reading this great work.

Haruki Murakami is a genius, and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle is one of the great pieces of world literature. I classify it as a must read for all devotees of serious fiction. 5 stars.

--Chiron, 9/29/12

Mortality by Christopher Hitchens

Mortality, Christopher Hitchens’s essays on his slow walk to death, all have an air of seriousness, of course, but a vein of humor runs through them like a stream of cool water. I read this 104-page gem in a single sitting. The book includes a forward by Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, for whom Hitchens wrote for many years, and an Afterword by his wife, Carol Blue.

According to her, “Hitch” – as his friends and readers affectionately knew him – wrote up until the end. In fact, the main point of the book is about the importance of writing. His greatest fear seemed to be the loss of this ability. During the final stages, speech became almost impossible, but he kept writing away. The last chapter consists of fragments, which “seem to trail off, but in fact were written on his computer in bursts of energy and enthusiasm as he sat in the hospital using his food tray for a desk” (103) as Carol Blue says.

Hitch gave some advice to writing students, which I have shared with my writing classes. He would begin, “by saying that anybody who could talk could also write. Having cheered them up with this easy-to-grasp ladder, I then replaced it with a huge and loathsome snake: ‘How many people in the class, would you say, can talk? I mean really talk?’ This had its duly woeful effect.” He then added this advice: “Avoid stock expressions (like the plague, as William Safire used to say) and repetitions. … So, this above all: Find your own voice” (50).

He wrote on an incredibly wide variety of topics, but I did not always agree with him, particularly in regard to his support of the Iraq War; however, I always loved his prose, his way with words, his humor, and his evident love of the English language. Mortality is a sad good bye to and from Hitch.

Reading this meditation upon his impending death, inspired me to dig into the recently published mammoth, Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens. At nearly a thousand pages, it contains well over a hundred of his essays. I would rarely sit down and begin reading something like this from cover to cover, so I devised a plan -- an homage -- to Hitch. Starting on Sunday, September 16, 2012, I read one essay every night before bed. It will take more than three months, but that will be my own meditation on the loss of one of the great writers and orators of the 20th and 21st centuries. 5 stars

--Chiron, 9/22/12

Winter Journal by Paul Auster

Through the years, the name Paul Auster would occasionally pop up in interviews, reviews, blogs, and even a half-hearted suggestion from a friend. But none of these sparked any interest in this prolific author. He has written 16 novels, 4 screenplays, 6 works of non-fiction, a volume of poetry, 3 illustrated books, and he has edited 3 anthologies. When I received an advance reader’s edition of his latest work – a memoir, Winter Journal -- from Henry Holt through the early reader’s club of www.LibraryThing.com, I decided it was time to find out what Paul Auster was all about.

Winter Journal appears 30 years after his critically acclaimed memoir, The Invention of Solitude, and, as the cover notes say, “Auster gives us a second unconventional memoir.”

The cover notes further state, Auster writes a “history of his body and its sensations – both pleasurable and painful.” Unconventional is a bit of an understatement. Auster wrote Winter Journal in the second person. Normally, I do not read second person novels. Ever since Jay McInerny’s, Bright Lights, Big City, I have resisted the temptation to read second person works. Auster’s memoir, however, has given me pause – a great, big, eye-opening pause. His narrative is engaging, and drew me almost from the first page, once I got over my “you/your phobia.”

Early on, when Auster examines his young body, he writes,

“…you ask your mother the question all children ask their parents, the standard question about where babies come from, meaning where did you come from, and by what mysterious process did you enter the world as a human being? Your mother’s answer is so abstract, so evasive, so metaphorical that it leaves you utterly confounded. She says: The father plants a seed in the mother, and little by little the baby begins to grow. At this point in your life, the only seeds you are familiar with are the ones that produce flowers and vegetables, the ones that farmers scatter over large fields at planting time to start a new round of crops for harvest in the fall. You instantly see an image in your head: your father dressed as a farmer, a cartoon version of a farmer in blue overalls with a straw hat on his head, and he is walking along with a jaunty, insouciant stride out in some rural nowhere, on his way to plant the seed.” (36).

My mother told me an almost identical story, except that the seed was “planted” beneath the mother’s heart. I had no idea back then my mother was so poetic!

Auster’s Winter Journal becomes a new connection to a favorite author. I already have a copy of The Invention of Solitude. I might even go back and take another look at Jay McInerney’s novel. 5 stars

--Chiron, 9/16/12

Making Things Better by Anita Brookner

Anita Brookner’s novels usually feature women loners floundering under bad relationships, who then try to escape depressing situations. As I wrote in 2009 about Strangers, this might seem boring – mining the same plot line over and over, but she draws her characters as finely as detailed, realistic paintings. Brookner spent years teaching art history in England. Furthermore, each of these characters deals with the escape and resolution in an entirely different manner. Strangers was the first of her novels I read that featured a man as the main character. Making Things Better, published in the U.S. in 2002, also features a man -- a loner, a dejected, rejected man who suffers some serious losses in his life.

Julius Herz manages a business owned by his father, Willie, and his partner Ostrovski. He lives alone in a flat over the shop. Julius meets Josie, and they marry. They try to live in the cramped flat, but Julius’s mother needs care, so they move into the even smaller flat with his mother. Julius’s world is shrinking – literally and figuratively. Josie hangs on for two years, but she abruptly leaves and files for divorce.

Then, the last prop is shoved out from under Julius. Ostrovski decides to retire to Spain, and he sells the business, but he does take care of Julius by settling a large amount of money on him for his years of service. Julius is now confronted with the possibility of a life style he never thought possible. He first leases a larger flat, and then – a creature of some serious habits -- continues his daily routine broken only by an occasional trip to a museum. Then he decides to take a holiday.

Brookner’s novels feature little in the way of dialogue. Rather, her forté is the serious interior examination of her protagonist’s life, loves, dreams, fears, and pleasures. In this scene, Ostrovski has broken the news of his retirement to Julius. Brookner writes,

“The suddenness of Ostrovski’s announcement seemed to have obliterated any response. Julius went to his small desk and scrutinized the invoices and accounts, the contents of which he knew by heart. But it was no good; he could make sense of none of it. His working life, it seemed, was over. Not quite what he had expected, he had admitted to himself in the course of the afternoon. Yet he had expected nothing, and had been endowed with freedom, a freedom for which he was entirely unprepared. … he would have to find somewhere to live. The prospect posed even more difficulties; he had never exercised his own wishes in this respect. … all his homes had been chosen for him. And home was such an emotive concept that he doubted whether he would be able to live up to it, to make a place for himself in a world where people exercised choices” (63-64).

The name “Julius Herz” sounds like a clue to the main character’s state of mind. My faithful readers know I am a fan of novels with deep psychological insights. Making Things Better fills that bill perfectly. 5 stars

--Chiron, 9/10/12

Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

One of my favorite books of the last few years is Geraldine Brooks’ The People of the Book. She also won a Pulitzer Prize for March, as well as critical acclaim for The Year of Wonders. Brooks has set all of these novels in remote time periods, and they all share one important similarity. Each time, Brooks captures the voice of the characters in their time and place. Her latest novel, Caleb’s Crossing follows this pattern with superb results.

Geraldine Brooks loosely based Caleb’s Crossing on the true story of Caleb, a Native American living near some less than strict Puritans, in 1660, on what is now known as Martha’s Vineyard. He befriends the 15-year-old Bethia Mayfield, daughter of a strict Calvinist minister trying to convert Caleb’s tribe. The two form a bond which lasts for many, many years.

Bethia’s father agrees to tutor Caleb, and another young Indian, Joel, in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew in order for them to qualify for a scholarship dedicated to Native Americans to the recently founded Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Before the arrival of Caleb, he tutored Makepeace and Bethia, but his son proved a poor student, and he despaired and stopped the lessons for both his children. He tried again with the two Indians in the hopes that Caleb would inspire his son.

He succeeded with Caleb and Joel, both of whom received the scholarships; however, Makepeace faltered. His father could not afford the cost of sending Makepeace to a preparatory school – along with Caleb and Joel – but he solved this difficulty by sending Bethia as an indentured servant to the headmaster of the school. Bethia narrates the story and reveals many of the secret meetings she has with Caleb. Her struggles with religion and her blooming womanhood are the keystones to the story.

As always, Brooks’ plots have a certain something, which creates vivid images in the mind of the reader. Her attention to detail raises the story to a level of realism I find most admirable. The icing on this marvelous dessert, however, consists of the voice of the narrator. I have spent a fair amount of time studying the 17th century, and have read a few books set in that period, not the least of which is Iain Pears’ An Instance of the Fingerpost. Brooks deserves a place of honor right next to that spectacular novel.

Bethia struggles with her religious views after spending some time with Caleb. He explains to her his pantheon of deities after Bethia tells him of the “one, true God of the Christians.” Brooks writes,

“But then, I remembered the singing under the cliffs. An inner voice, barely audible: the merest hiss. Satan’s voice, I am sure of it now, whispering to me that I already knew Keeskand, that I had already worshipped him many times as I bathed in the radiance of a sunrise, or paused to witness the glory of his sunset. And did not Nanpawshat have power over me, governing the swelling, salty tides of my own body, which, no so very long since, had begun to ebb and flow with the moon. It was good, the voice whispered. It was right and well to know these powers, to live in a world aswirl with spirits, everywhere ablaze with divinity” (36).

Numerous words in the Wampanoag tongue add additional spice to the story. Bethia explains some of the words, some are clear from context, while translation of others are easily found with a smart phone.

Bethia seems a bit too mature for a girl of 15, and sometimes I found this a bit annoying. Nevertheless, in Caleb’s Crossing, Geraldine Brooks has another wonderful historical novel to her credit. I can’t wait for the next. 4-1/2 Stars.

--Chiron, 9/1/12

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