Hospital is an Australian writer who now teaches at the University of South Carolina. She received the Patrick White Award for lifetime literary achievement. I met her at the American Library Association's annual summer convention in Anaheim, California.
Orpheus Lost is one of several “Post 9/11” fictional accounts surrounding or influenced by those events. Hospital has done an excellent job of capturing the mystery and the fear engendered by our government’s reaction to the attacks. The clandestine operations, kidnapping, torture, murder, and other horrific acts our country has perpetrated following 9/11 are all described in chilling detail.
The novel begins innocently enough with the meeting of two scholars in Boston who both study music. Leela from South Carolina, and Mishka Bartok from Sidney, Australia hit it off immediately. They seem destined for each other. The first section of the book detailing their meeting and growing relationship is musical, calm, and beautiful.
However, both have dark secrets, and the story quickly descends into a maelstrom of horror. The novel ends with a crescendo, but if the story has any flaws, the end happens too quickly. At 353 pages, another hundred pages could have easily detailed the resolutions. I wanted more of the story in the last 80 pages or so.
Hospital’s prose is absorbing and deceptively simple. She draws readers into the story with interesting, likable characters. What happens to them has happened to way too many people over the last eight years. We can only hope change is coming.
--Chiron, 11/30/08
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
Blue Bicycle Book Shop, Charleston, SC
My annual visit to Charleston always includes a visit to the Blue Bicycle, and this year was no exception.
Sometimes a first visit is not quite as good as I remember, so the second visit is a disappointment. Not so this time! It was not long before we had a stack of some interesting books on the front counter.
I found a title I needed in my "All About" series from Random House. These books are a fond connection to my early days of reading in the 50s. I also found a copy from 1957 of Otto of the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle. The wonderful illustrations came back to me as soon as I opened it. My collection has a recent paperback, but it is not the same as the small hardback with dust jacket.
Blue Bicycle boasts over 50,000 volumes, and we could have picked up quite a few more. It is a good thing we didn't because the ones we did buy put our suitcase 15 pounds over the limit!
Every visit to Charleston must include a visit to Blue Bicycle!
-Chiron, 11/10/08
Sometimes a first visit is not quite as good as I remember, so the second visit is a disappointment. Not so this time! It was not long before we had a stack of some interesting books on the front counter.
I found a title I needed in my "All About" series from Random House. These books are a fond connection to my early days of reading in the 50s. I also found a copy from 1957 of Otto of the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle. The wonderful illustrations came back to me as soon as I opened it. My collection has a recent paperback, but it is not the same as the small hardback with dust jacket.
Blue Bicycle boasts over 50,000 volumes, and we could have picked up quite a few more. It is a good thing we didn't because the ones we did buy put our suitcase 15 pounds over the limit!
Every visit to Charleston must include a visit to Blue Bicycle!
-Chiron, 11/10/08
Monday, November 10, 2008
Independence Day by Richard Ford
This review departs somewhat from my original format, in that I reveal more of the plot than usual. I read this book for a class I am taking for my MFA. I have pasted the analysis I wrote for the class.
Independence Day, by Richard Ford is the story of Frank Bascombe who decides on a father and son bonding trip over the 4th of July weekend. An interesting story, with lots of engaging, even if long-winded, characters.
Frank is an exasperating character. His marriage has failed, he has abandoned careers as a sportswriter, a short story writer, and after an attempted escape to France, he returns to try his hand at real estate sales in his home town of Haddam, NJ. During the period of about a week covered by the novel, Frank recalls, and has glancing encounters with, several acts of violence. A son has died years before, a colleague was brutally raped and murdered in a house she was showing in Haddam, and he arrives at a motel shortly after a tourist was shot and killed. Finally, the climax of the novel involves an attempted suicide by his son Paul who deliberately stands in front of a baseball pitching machine and is hit in the face by a baseball traveling at 75 MPH.
Frank doesn’t know what he wants. His marriage is over, but he clings to the hope he and his ex-wife will get back together by moving into the house they shared when married. He is trying to revive a failing romance with Sally, and most importantly, he is trying to rescue his son who is acting out as a result of the divorce and disapproval of his mother’s remarriage.
The “existence period,” Frank frequently references, is his way of “going through the motions.” The acts of violence are signs of how precarious life is in Frank’s view, and his helplessness in dealing with his son all point to the lost nature of his life. Frank Bascombe is not “independent” and he never will be. His life is entangled in false starts, false hopes, failures, and lack of a clear plan for his life and a relationship with his son.
The final paragraphs tell us Frank’s future will mirror his past. Ford writes, “There is, naturally, much that’s left unanswered, much that’s left till later, much that’s best forgotten. Paul Bascombe [his injured son], I still believe, will come to live with me for some part of his crucial years. It may not be a month from now or six. A year could go by, and there would still be time enough to participate in his new self-discovery.” The last sentence is also telling. I feel the push, pull, the weave and sway of others.”
Frank is floating in water way over his head. He does not know where he is headed, and barely where he has been, since he does not seem to have picked up much from his past life. Life, for Frank is an Independence Day parade, and all he can do is watch it go by. Four stars
--Chiron, 11/08/08
Independence Day, by Richard Ford is the story of Frank Bascombe who decides on a father and son bonding trip over the 4th of July weekend. An interesting story, with lots of engaging, even if long-winded, characters.
Frank is an exasperating character. His marriage has failed, he has abandoned careers as a sportswriter, a short story writer, and after an attempted escape to France, he returns to try his hand at real estate sales in his home town of Haddam, NJ. During the period of about a week covered by the novel, Frank recalls, and has glancing encounters with, several acts of violence. A son has died years before, a colleague was brutally raped and murdered in a house she was showing in Haddam, and he arrives at a motel shortly after a tourist was shot and killed. Finally, the climax of the novel involves an attempted suicide by his son Paul who deliberately stands in front of a baseball pitching machine and is hit in the face by a baseball traveling at 75 MPH.
Frank doesn’t know what he wants. His marriage is over, but he clings to the hope he and his ex-wife will get back together by moving into the house they shared when married. He is trying to revive a failing romance with Sally, and most importantly, he is trying to rescue his son who is acting out as a result of the divorce and disapproval of his mother’s remarriage.
The “existence period,” Frank frequently references, is his way of “going through the motions.” The acts of violence are signs of how precarious life is in Frank’s view, and his helplessness in dealing with his son all point to the lost nature of his life. Frank Bascombe is not “independent” and he never will be. His life is entangled in false starts, false hopes, failures, and lack of a clear plan for his life and a relationship with his son.
The final paragraphs tell us Frank’s future will mirror his past. Ford writes, “There is, naturally, much that’s left unanswered, much that’s left till later, much that’s best forgotten. Paul Bascombe [his injured son], I still believe, will come to live with me for some part of his crucial years. It may not be a month from now or six. A year could go by, and there would still be time enough to participate in his new self-discovery.” The last sentence is also telling. I feel the push, pull, the weave and sway of others.”
Frank is floating in water way over his head. He does not know where he is headed, and barely where he has been, since he does not seem to have picked up much from his past life. Life, for Frank is an Independence Day parade, and all he can do is watch it go by. Four stars
--Chiron, 11/08/08
Friday, October 31, 2008
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
In his 1823 play, Almansor: A Tragedy, Heinrich Heine wrote: “Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.”
Book-burning is the practice of ceremoniously destroying books or other written materials. In the last 50 or so years, we have seen phonograph records, video tapes and CDs added to the pyre.
Book-burning generally is motivated by moral, religious or political objections to the material, or, more specifically, the ideas the material contains.
Book-burning can have a profound effect on culture, especially when the works destroyed are irreplaceable and their loss results in severe damage to a people’s history and heritage. Book-burning — indeed, book-banning — has become a symbol of harsh and oppressive regimes.
China’s Qin Dynasty burned books and buried scholars during in the second century bce. Four destructive fires at the Library of Alexandria spanned 700 years. The late 17th century saw the destruction of Mayan codices by Spanish conquistadors and priests. The 20th century was marked by Nazi book-burnings of the 1930s and the destruction of the Sarajevo National Library in 1992.
However, burning is not the only method of destroying cultural artifacts. In our country, school and public libraries are under constant assault by elements that would force their views on the majority in absolute contradiction to our First Amendment freedoms.
Fahrenheit 451 tells the story of an oppressive society in which books are forbidden objects, and firemen are required to burn all books they encounter.
It’s not without irony, then, that Fahrenheit 451 has been the object of book bans itself.
Dawn Sova writes of it in Literature Suppressed on Social Grounds. She states the reasons for its banning have included the mention of hell, and the words “damn,” and “abortion.” Also, objections were raised to the reference of a “drunk man” and “cleaning fluff from the navel.”
Such oppression helped set in motion the establishment of the American Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee, Young Adult Division. All this happened in 1967. But as recently as 1992, students in a California middle school were issued copies of Fahrenheit 451 with all the above-mentioned offending words blacked out.
Parents have the absolute right to control what their children read. They do not have the right to control what other people’s children can read.
Frequently, supporters of free speech will raise objections, censored copies will be removed and removed books will be re-shelved.
Following such an outcry, the expurgated copies of the book distributed in California were replaced with the original version.
Libraries are temples of democracy, and librarians are the priests and priestesses. They guard information. As the great English essayist, Francis Bacon, wrote more that 400 years ago, “access to information is power.”
We must take Heine’s dictum and Fahrenheit 451 as a warning. Overzealous individuals who would control ideas really want to control our minds. Read it, Waco, and decide for yourself.
--Chiron, 10/31/08
Book-burning is the practice of ceremoniously destroying books or other written materials. In the last 50 or so years, we have seen phonograph records, video tapes and CDs added to the pyre.
Book-burning generally is motivated by moral, religious or political objections to the material, or, more specifically, the ideas the material contains.
Book-burning can have a profound effect on culture, especially when the works destroyed are irreplaceable and their loss results in severe damage to a people’s history and heritage. Book-burning — indeed, book-banning — has become a symbol of harsh and oppressive regimes.
China’s Qin Dynasty burned books and buried scholars during in the second century bce. Four destructive fires at the Library of Alexandria spanned 700 years. The late 17th century saw the destruction of Mayan codices by Spanish conquistadors and priests. The 20th century was marked by Nazi book-burnings of the 1930s and the destruction of the Sarajevo National Library in 1992.
However, burning is not the only method of destroying cultural artifacts. In our country, school and public libraries are under constant assault by elements that would force their views on the majority in absolute contradiction to our First Amendment freedoms.
Fahrenheit 451 tells the story of an oppressive society in which books are forbidden objects, and firemen are required to burn all books they encounter.
It’s not without irony, then, that Fahrenheit 451 has been the object of book bans itself.
Dawn Sova writes of it in Literature Suppressed on Social Grounds. She states the reasons for its banning have included the mention of hell, and the words “damn,” and “abortion.” Also, objections were raised to the reference of a “drunk man” and “cleaning fluff from the navel.”
Such oppression helped set in motion the establishment of the American Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee, Young Adult Division. All this happened in 1967. But as recently as 1992, students in a California middle school were issued copies of Fahrenheit 451 with all the above-mentioned offending words blacked out.
Parents have the absolute right to control what their children read. They do not have the right to control what other people’s children can read.
Frequently, supporters of free speech will raise objections, censored copies will be removed and removed books will be re-shelved.
Following such an outcry, the expurgated copies of the book distributed in California were replaced with the original version.
Libraries are temples of democracy, and librarians are the priests and priestesses. They guard information. As the great English essayist, Francis Bacon, wrote more that 400 years ago, “access to information is power.”
We must take Heine’s dictum and Fahrenheit 451 as a warning. Overzealous individuals who would control ideas really want to control our minds. Read it, Waco, and decide for yourself.
--Chiron, 10/31/08
The Emotional Lives of Animals by Marc Bekoff
The second read for this year of my book club was picked by a Buddhist/vegan/animal rights activist friend of mine. I was not sure at all I would enjoy it, but I did. This thoroughly enjoyable read was informative, if a bit repetitious at times.
Anyone who lives with a dog or a cat or has grown up on a farm is well aware of the intelligence, memory, and emotions expressed by animals. Bekoff’s book is loaded with anecdotes from ethologists (researchers in animal emotions) as well as lay persons. As he says, “the plural of anecdote is data” (121). Many of his anecdotes closely match what we have observed with our pets at home.
Bekoff shows how animals and humans share brain structure and chemistry. He posits that our emotions have evolved along with our physical structure. To my surprise, Darwin also speculated about animal emotions, and he believed they evolved along with physical structure.
One chapter ends with, “if we try to learn more about forgiveness, fairness, trust, and cooperation in animals, maybe we’ll also learn to live more compassionately and cooperatively with one another” (109).
This read has not made me a vegetarian, but it has made me more conscious of products I buy. I simply like meat too much to give it up completely. However, I try and buy products not tested on animals, free-range chicken, and organic, hormone and antibiotic-free milk and eggs. It is a first small step.
The most interesting question Bekoff poses is, would you treat your family pet the same way you would treat the animals in your lab, on your farm, or in the wild? I suspect almost everyone would answer with a resounding, “No!”
--Chiron, 10/31/08
Anyone who lives with a dog or a cat or has grown up on a farm is well aware of the intelligence, memory, and emotions expressed by animals. Bekoff’s book is loaded with anecdotes from ethologists (researchers in animal emotions) as well as lay persons. As he says, “the plural of anecdote is data” (121). Many of his anecdotes closely match what we have observed with our pets at home.
Bekoff shows how animals and humans share brain structure and chemistry. He posits that our emotions have evolved along with our physical structure. To my surprise, Darwin also speculated about animal emotions, and he believed they evolved along with physical structure.
One chapter ends with, “if we try to learn more about forgiveness, fairness, trust, and cooperation in animals, maybe we’ll also learn to live more compassionately and cooperatively with one another” (109).
This read has not made me a vegetarian, but it has made me more conscious of products I buy. I simply like meat too much to give it up completely. However, I try and buy products not tested on animals, free-range chicken, and organic, hormone and antibiotic-free milk and eggs. It is a first small step.
The most interesting question Bekoff poses is, would you treat your family pet the same way you would treat the animals in your lab, on your farm, or in the wild? I suspect almost everyone would answer with a resounding, “No!”
--Chiron, 10/31/08
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Hello!
I am still here! Not lost, dead, or hospitalized! I am in a very busy period with grading, studying, and planning the school's student literary magazine.
Things will begin to loosen up this week, and I will have a couple of new posts by next weekend.
-Chiron, 10/26/08
Things will begin to loosen up this week, and I will have a couple of new posts by next weekend.
-Chiron, 10/26/08
Thursday, October 16, 2008
The Twyborn Affair by Patrick White
Patrick White has been one of the great discoveries I have made over the last couple of years. I now own copies of all his books, and I am working my way through them. Each book I read increases my admiration for this Nobel-Prize winning author. The Twyborn Affair was no exception. The splendid prose, the fascinating characters drawn with precision and a breathtaking depth, so absorbed my consciousness, I missed clues leading up to the climactic ending that exploded in the early days of the blitz of London.
This novel tells the story of three characters: Eudoxia, married to an elderly Greek aristocrat with delusions of grandeur; Eddie Twyborn, the son of a respected judge in Sydney, who takes a job as a hired hand on a farm in the outback; and Eadith, the mysterious madam of a posh brothel in London of the 1930s.
These three characters spin their lives in various directions, but the stunning conclusion brings them together. Eddie’s mother, Eadie, also plays a role in the ending.
As I have said before, White’s novels are thoroughly enjoyable, but the prose requires close attention and a second read. Once I get through all his novels, I will most definitely start all over again.
If you have never read anything by Patrick White, I urge you to remedy this major gap in your reading experience. Ten stars! No kidding.
--Chiron, 10/16/08
This novel tells the story of three characters: Eudoxia, married to an elderly Greek aristocrat with delusions of grandeur; Eddie Twyborn, the son of a respected judge in Sydney, who takes a job as a hired hand on a farm in the outback; and Eadith, the mysterious madam of a posh brothel in London of the 1930s.
These three characters spin their lives in various directions, but the stunning conclusion brings them together. Eddie’s mother, Eadie, also plays a role in the ending.
As I have said before, White’s novels are thoroughly enjoyable, but the prose requires close attention and a second read. Once I get through all his novels, I will most definitely start all over again.
If you have never read anything by Patrick White, I urge you to remedy this major gap in your reading experience. Ten stars! No kidding.
--Chiron, 10/16/08
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Physics for Future Presidents -- The Science Behind the Headlines by Richard A. Muller
My book club selected this for the first read of the new year, and I am glad and sad to have read it.
First my glad side: considering the last eight years have seen a rejection of science in many areas, not to forget the general demonetization of intellectualism, this volume shows in a clear and concise manner, scientific explanations of important issues of the day. The best sections were on terrorism, nuclear weapons, and nuclear power. Muller taught me a lot about these issues. I was on the fence about nuclear power, but his statistics and logical discussions of the real dangers has caused me to lean somewhat in favor.
The section on space was the thinnest, and added nothing to my knowledge of this subject. Over all, the book was written at about a 10th grade level. The “Presidential Summaries” at the end of each chapter, were at about a 9th grade level. The reading level was glaring, and sometimes this came across as condescending. I sure hope the next president can at least read at a college level!
The book grew out of course the author teaches at UC-Berkeley, which makes the reading level even more glaring. Perhaps he has the current president in mind. Bush 43’s dictum, early on in his presidency, that all position and policy papers be no longer than 2 pages and his admission that he does not read newspapers, make me want to vote for an intellectual – not someone I’d like to talk sports with over a beer. 4 stars
--Chiron, 9/25/08
First my glad side: considering the last eight years have seen a rejection of science in many areas, not to forget the general demonetization of intellectualism, this volume shows in a clear and concise manner, scientific explanations of important issues of the day. The best sections were on terrorism, nuclear weapons, and nuclear power. Muller taught me a lot about these issues. I was on the fence about nuclear power, but his statistics and logical discussions of the real dangers has caused me to lean somewhat in favor.
The section on space was the thinnest, and added nothing to my knowledge of this subject. Over all, the book was written at about a 10th grade level. The “Presidential Summaries” at the end of each chapter, were at about a 9th grade level. The reading level was glaring, and sometimes this came across as condescending. I sure hope the next president can at least read at a college level!
The book grew out of course the author teaches at UC-Berkeley, which makes the reading level even more glaring. Perhaps he has the current president in mind. Bush 43’s dictum, early on in his presidency, that all position and policy papers be no longer than 2 pages and his admission that he does not read newspapers, make me want to vote for an intellectual – not someone I’d like to talk sports with over a beer. 4 stars
--Chiron, 9/25/08
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Yesterday's Weather by Anne Enright
Anne Enright won the Booker prize in 2007. I had never heard of her, so when this volume came to my attention, I decided to read it first. Partly because it has been a while since I have read any short stories, partly because I am working on a short story now for my seminar in fiction, and partly because I did not want to begin by reading Enright's prize-winning novel.
The best I can say about this collection is the stories are uneven. Some of the more conventional ones are memorable, but the stream of consciousness ones are, as the English say, rubbish. This is not to say I am sorry I read the collection -- there are plenty of good stories.
I especially liked the ones about relationships, for example, "Until the Girl Died" and "Here's to Love." Most of the stories are short -- 3-5 pages -- and perfect for those odd moments in the doctor's office or between groups of deplorable essays I had to grade last weekend.
Now, I am looking forward to Enright's Booker novel, The Gathering.
--Chiron, 9/14/08
The best I can say about this collection is the stories are uneven. Some of the more conventional ones are memorable, but the stream of consciousness ones are, as the English say, rubbish. This is not to say I am sorry I read the collection -- there are plenty of good stories.
I especially liked the ones about relationships, for example, "Until the Girl Died" and "Here's to Love." Most of the stories are short -- 3-5 pages -- and perfect for those odd moments in the doctor's office or between groups of deplorable essays I had to grade last weekend.
Now, I am looking forward to Enright's Booker novel, The Gathering.
--Chiron, 9/14/08
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
A Time in Xanadu by Lars Gustafsson
Readers might recall my disappointment with two volumes of poetry by Gustafsson earlier this year. This volume was recommended by Amazon, and I decided to take a chance. This is a nifty volume of poetry published by Copper Canyon Press. I subscribe to their catalogue, and, if I had noticed they were the publisher, I would have waited and bought it directly from them.
This collection of poems is really rather good. The poems still have that sparse, Scandinavian style, but there are plenty of touches of humor, as he juxtaposes profound insights with ordinary images, events, and ideas. Here is a good example:
“…it’s nice sleeping with cats
in bed, somewhere down
in the foot area just where the toes
cautiously peep out into a nocturnal world
like watchman on the wall
of a very old city
Sleep City on the Plain of Dark.
The cat then at a suitable distance
but in a kind of understanding
with the toes, these ten watchman
against the dark, chaos, the void,
and the sound of the distant train.” (73)
Anyone who sleeps with a pet – cat or dog – can recognize the images here. Settle in after turning off the lights, wiggle and slide under the covers. A foot comes near the soft, still body of a pet, and then the warmth they exude touches the toes, the feet, and travels up the leg. Wonderful stuff.
This is one of those books that requires an immediate, slow, second, or maybe even a third read. One at a time, moments before the light goes out.
--Chiron, 9/10/08
This collection of poems is really rather good. The poems still have that sparse, Scandinavian style, but there are plenty of touches of humor, as he juxtaposes profound insights with ordinary images, events, and ideas. Here is a good example:
“…it’s nice sleeping with cats
in bed, somewhere down
in the foot area just where the toes
cautiously peep out into a nocturnal world
like watchman on the wall
of a very old city
Sleep City on the Plain of Dark.
The cat then at a suitable distance
but in a kind of understanding
with the toes, these ten watchman
against the dark, chaos, the void,
and the sound of the distant train.” (73)
Anyone who sleeps with a pet – cat or dog – can recognize the images here. Settle in after turning off the lights, wiggle and slide under the covers. A foot comes near the soft, still body of a pet, and then the warmth they exude touches the toes, the feet, and travels up the leg. Wonderful stuff.
This is one of those books that requires an immediate, slow, second, or maybe even a third read. One at a time, moments before the light goes out.
--Chiron, 9/10/08
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The novel got a lot of buzz when it came out, and this was compounded when Oprah choose it for her book club. Normally, I am skeptical of over-hyped novels, but my wife read this, and she knows what I like.
This epic novel of three generations of a Greek family begins with a brother and sister escaping from the ethnic cleansing of Greeks by the Turks living in Smyrna in 1922. They came to Detroit, after marrying on the ship from Athens, and began the long journey narrated by their grand daughter, Calliope.
Calliope is one of the nine muses – daughters of Mnemosyne and Zeus – and she is associated with epic poetry. Aristotle tells us that an epic is a long narrative poem about the travels and adventures of a hero. The call on the muse is first, and here the muse tells her own story. The epic also contains a catalogue of heros and heroines, and Eugenides has certainly filled his story with those. The epic simile (an extended metaphor) is next, and Middlesex abounds in those. Here is a fine example, "I’d never been this close to the Obscure Object before. It was hard on my organism. My nervous system launched into “Flight of the Bumblebee.” The violins were sawing away in my spine. The timpani were banging in my chest. At the same time, trying to conceal all this, I didn’t move a muscle. I hardly breathed. That was the deal basically: catatonia without; frenzy within" (326).
Finally, the epic question posed by the author, answered by the story: Calliope or Cal?
Joseph Campbell, author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, builds on Aristotle, by adding elements of the hero’s journey. The call to adventure was Calliope’s need to fulfill the destiny of her grandparents who planted the seed of Calliope’s misfortune when they decided to marry. She had many helpers in the Greek community, which insulated her family from the changing environment of the New World. She embraces atonement with her father when she returns (another element of the hero’s journey) and plays the role of her father. The trip to New York and the visit to the “Sexual Disorders and Gender Identity Clinic” is a descent to the underworld where Calliope must confront the terrible secrets of her family's past while embracing her future.
Lest I reveal too much more of the plot, I will let the reader discover more parallels with Campbell’s theory. But this is a must read. The descriptions are vivid, the poetry of the story is enchanting. Calliope tells her story, siren-like, and pulls the reader onto the rocks of disbelief. But in the end, Calliope is the hero of this story. Cal does come back, and his life is made better by the elixir of self-knowledge and realization of his place in the world. The ending is sweet without being sappy. Five stars.
--Chiron, 8/30/08
This epic novel of three generations of a Greek family begins with a brother and sister escaping from the ethnic cleansing of Greeks by the Turks living in Smyrna in 1922. They came to Detroit, after marrying on the ship from Athens, and began the long journey narrated by their grand daughter, Calliope.
Calliope is one of the nine muses – daughters of Mnemosyne and Zeus – and she is associated with epic poetry. Aristotle tells us that an epic is a long narrative poem about the travels and adventures of a hero. The call on the muse is first, and here the muse tells her own story. The epic also contains a catalogue of heros and heroines, and Eugenides has certainly filled his story with those. The epic simile (an extended metaphor) is next, and Middlesex abounds in those. Here is a fine example, "I’d never been this close to the Obscure Object before. It was hard on my organism. My nervous system launched into “Flight of the Bumblebee.” The violins were sawing away in my spine. The timpani were banging in my chest. At the same time, trying to conceal all this, I didn’t move a muscle. I hardly breathed. That was the deal basically: catatonia without; frenzy within" (326).
Finally, the epic question posed by the author, answered by the story: Calliope or Cal?
Joseph Campbell, author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, builds on Aristotle, by adding elements of the hero’s journey. The call to adventure was Calliope’s need to fulfill the destiny of her grandparents who planted the seed of Calliope’s misfortune when they decided to marry. She had many helpers in the Greek community, which insulated her family from the changing environment of the New World. She embraces atonement with her father when she returns (another element of the hero’s journey) and plays the role of her father. The trip to New York and the visit to the “Sexual Disorders and Gender Identity Clinic” is a descent to the underworld where Calliope must confront the terrible secrets of her family's past while embracing her future.
Lest I reveal too much more of the plot, I will let the reader discover more parallels with Campbell’s theory. But this is a must read. The descriptions are vivid, the poetry of the story is enchanting. Calliope tells her story, siren-like, and pulls the reader onto the rocks of disbelief. But in the end, Calliope is the hero of this story. Cal does come back, and his life is made better by the elixir of self-knowledge and realization of his place in the world. The ending is sweet without being sappy. Five stars.
--Chiron, 8/30/08
Monday, August 11, 2008
The Raw Shark Texts Steven Hall
This first novel appeared to be some version of experimental fiction. I kept a firm hand on the “Rule of 50,” and now I am activating the rule.
At first, this seemed like an interesting premise, but it quickly disintegrated into the ravings of a psychotic goof ball. Think of Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now, only add steroids, acid, primo hydro hemp, crack, and speed. I did not care in the least about this character or what was happening to him. ½ a star.
--Chiron, 8/11/08
At first, this seemed like an interesting premise, but it quickly disintegrated into the ravings of a psychotic goof ball. Think of Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now, only add steroids, acid, primo hydro hemp, crack, and speed. I did not care in the least about this character or what was happening to him. ½ a star.
--Chiron, 8/11/08
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Excellence Award!
Many thanks to my dear niece and friend Bibliolotrist over at http://bookworship.blogspot.com/for nominating my blog for an excellence award. After looking at her nominees (all of which I have listed below) I am not sure plain old RabbitReader belongs in such august company! I confess I am a Luddite when it comes to reading book reviews on the Internet. I cling to the old fashioned paper journals and book reviews that arrive in my mailbox weekly – always with a tingling sensation of what new books and authors I might find.
However, I have bookmarked all these, and I will give them a go.
http://www.littlemanwhatnow.com/
Lots of interesting posts on topics not well-covered in the main stream press.
http://tickettoanywhere.blogspot.com/
The Erasmus quote is all over my home and office. I ran my mad money account down to 63 cents yesterday to buy a novel by Paul Scott for my Man Booker Prize collection.
http://books4breakfast.blogspot.com/
Wow! You sure put my paltry 75+ books a year to shame! Teaching six classes for 30 weeks out of the year, plus three more for an additional seven weeks, really puts a crimp in my reading! Can you guess how many essays I grade in a year?
http://www.alifeinbooks.com/
Great short reviews, the same kind I favor and write, although lately, I have been getting a bit longer-winded. Great visuals, too. I need to get off Blogspot or find some other way to jazz up my site.
http://deweymonster.com/
Love the question approach to reviewing. I always tell my students reading and writing should raise questions in their minds or they are not really reading and writing.
http://tanabata.blogspot.com/
Another great site. I loved the “hangman” game.
Well, these sites are all great, but I guess I do not have the time to devote to mine, so I appreciate every one of you, and hope you will come and visit me once in a while.
I have my favorites, and they certainly do not need any endorsement from me. In no particular order, here they are:
The New York Times Book Review (Weekly -- Sunday) – The grand old lady of book reviews. I have nearly every issue back to 1970 in my office closet at home.
The New Yorker Magazine (Weekly -- Monday) – Another old reliable. I have discovered too many authors to list them all, but Patrick White, Lars Gustaffson, James Salter, and Anne Beattie come to mind. That closet also bulges with every issue back to the 70s, and about a hundred or so I have found at yard sales from its founding in 1925 to 1970. A great source for obscure and serious fiction, poetry, biography, and non-fiction. I also love the cartoons, the profiles, and the articles on current events.
The New York Review of Books (Bi-monthly) – Quirky with long erudite reviews that many times cover five or six related titles, or a review of significant works by a single author, or long articles about art, history, current events. Lots of great advertising, too by small and independent presses.
The Times (London) Literary Supplement (Weekly – Sunday) An expensive subscription, but more than worth it. This keeps me up to date on publishing in the rest of the English-speaking world. The peculiar columns are also a hoot as only the British can produce. Even the letters are worth my time. Each issue devoted to a particular topic, although fiction and poetry are there every week.
The Atlantic Monthly – One of the best written magazines available. Lots of good reviews, but more non-fiction than fiction. The articles are in-depth studies of current affairs and trends. Good poetry, too.
So, Bibliolatrist, thanks so much again, and we will see each other on the web.
--Chiron, 8/10/08
However, I have bookmarked all these, and I will give them a go.
http://www.littlemanwhatnow.com/
Lots of interesting posts on topics not well-covered in the main stream press.
http://tickettoanywhere.blogspot.com/
The Erasmus quote is all over my home and office. I ran my mad money account down to 63 cents yesterday to buy a novel by Paul Scott for my Man Booker Prize collection.
http://books4breakfast.blogspot.com/
Wow! You sure put my paltry 75+ books a year to shame! Teaching six classes for 30 weeks out of the year, plus three more for an additional seven weeks, really puts a crimp in my reading! Can you guess how many essays I grade in a year?
http://www.alifeinbooks.com/
Great short reviews, the same kind I favor and write, although lately, I have been getting a bit longer-winded. Great visuals, too. I need to get off Blogspot or find some other way to jazz up my site.
http://deweymonster.com/
Love the question approach to reviewing. I always tell my students reading and writing should raise questions in their minds or they are not really reading and writing.
http://tanabata.blogspot.com/
Another great site. I loved the “hangman” game.
Well, these sites are all great, but I guess I do not have the time to devote to mine, so I appreciate every one of you, and hope you will come and visit me once in a while.
I have my favorites, and they certainly do not need any endorsement from me. In no particular order, here they are:
The New York Times Book Review (Weekly -- Sunday) – The grand old lady of book reviews. I have nearly every issue back to 1970 in my office closet at home.
The New Yorker Magazine (Weekly -- Monday) – Another old reliable. I have discovered too many authors to list them all, but Patrick White, Lars Gustaffson, James Salter, and Anne Beattie come to mind. That closet also bulges with every issue back to the 70s, and about a hundred or so I have found at yard sales from its founding in 1925 to 1970. A great source for obscure and serious fiction, poetry, biography, and non-fiction. I also love the cartoons, the profiles, and the articles on current events.
The New York Review of Books (Bi-monthly) – Quirky with long erudite reviews that many times cover five or six related titles, or a review of significant works by a single author, or long articles about art, history, current events. Lots of great advertising, too by small and independent presses.
The Times (London) Literary Supplement (Weekly – Sunday) An expensive subscription, but more than worth it. This keeps me up to date on publishing in the rest of the English-speaking world. The peculiar columns are also a hoot as only the British can produce. Even the letters are worth my time. Each issue devoted to a particular topic, although fiction and poetry are there every week.
The Atlantic Monthly – One of the best written magazines available. Lots of good reviews, but more non-fiction than fiction. The articles are in-depth studies of current affairs and trends. Good poetry, too.
So, Bibliolatrist, thanks so much again, and we will see each other on the web.
--Chiron, 8/10/08
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Holiday by Stanley Middleton
One shelf of my library now holds a nearly complete collection of Booker Prize-winning novels which date back to 1969. The short list for the 40th award for 2008 has just been announced, and Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence is there. I have never been disappointed in the Man Booker Prize, awarded annually for English-language novels from the British Commonwealth and Ireland. This 1974 prize winner bears a striking resemblance to the 2005 winner, The Sea by John Banville, so I catapulted it to the top of my TBR list.
This was a tough read. The style is difficult, largely due to strange word order and comments dropped at the end of a line of dialogue. It took a while to become accustomed to this strange wording, but the story was absorbing; however, it was nothing at all like Banville’s “elegant and lyrical language so rich it takes the breath away” as I wrote in my review of The Sea. After about 100 pages, comfort set in, and it was no longer a problem. There were occasional flashes of brilliance, for example: “The sun-bars angled down packed wild with dust-specks so that the air danced alive with energy between the areas of dim cleanliness” (2).
Perhaps Middleton has matched his language to the confused state of mind of the main character, Edwin Fisher, who has escaped from his wife, whom he now detests. Before leaving, Edwin seemed genuinely to have tried to smooth things over and save his marriage – at least from his version of the story told in a series of brief flashbacks. Like the character in The Sea, Edwin travels to a seashore vacation resort of his youth to grapple with a life-changing event, but Edwin also has to contend with the memory of a stormy relationship with his father.
The ridiculously formal meeting of Meg and Edwin at the end seemed too contrived to be realistic. I did not get the impression that this meeting was “in character” for either of them. Placing this novel in time was difficult, assigning an age to the characters even more so. This might all be attributed to a setting in the middle to late 50s. An annoyingly intrusive father-in-law seems to sympathize with Edwin, but his condescension should have caused Edwin to send him packing.
The novel was also peppered with words and phrases I have never heard. My library contains a lot of British fiction – old and new – and this is not usually a problem for me. One intriguing word (biro, biroing) appeared quite a few times. After three, I surmised it was some sort of writing instrument, but I could not be sure. It was not in my large Random House Dictionary, nor was it in the O.E.D. 3-1/2 stars because I had to work so hard without much reward.
--Chiron, 8/9/08
This was a tough read. The style is difficult, largely due to strange word order and comments dropped at the end of a line of dialogue. It took a while to become accustomed to this strange wording, but the story was absorbing; however, it was nothing at all like Banville’s “elegant and lyrical language so rich it takes the breath away” as I wrote in my review of The Sea. After about 100 pages, comfort set in, and it was no longer a problem. There were occasional flashes of brilliance, for example: “The sun-bars angled down packed wild with dust-specks so that the air danced alive with energy between the areas of dim cleanliness” (2).
Perhaps Middleton has matched his language to the confused state of mind of the main character, Edwin Fisher, who has escaped from his wife, whom he now detests. Before leaving, Edwin seemed genuinely to have tried to smooth things over and save his marriage – at least from his version of the story told in a series of brief flashbacks. Like the character in The Sea, Edwin travels to a seashore vacation resort of his youth to grapple with a life-changing event, but Edwin also has to contend with the memory of a stormy relationship with his father.
The ridiculously formal meeting of Meg and Edwin at the end seemed too contrived to be realistic. I did not get the impression that this meeting was “in character” for either of them. Placing this novel in time was difficult, assigning an age to the characters even more so. This might all be attributed to a setting in the middle to late 50s. An annoyingly intrusive father-in-law seems to sympathize with Edwin, but his condescension should have caused Edwin to send him packing.
The novel was also peppered with words and phrases I have never heard. My library contains a lot of British fiction – old and new – and this is not usually a problem for me. One intriguing word (biro, biroing) appeared quite a few times. After three, I surmised it was some sort of writing instrument, but I could not be sure. It was not in my large Random House Dictionary, nor was it in the O.E.D. 3-1/2 stars because I had to work so hard without much reward.
--Chiron, 8/9/08
Friday, August 08, 2008
Love Poems edited by C.N. Edwards
An excellent collection with lots of old favorites and plenty of new names and voices, this is an all-occasion volume. Shakespeare, Marvell, Emerson, Rilke, and Poe are well-represented.
Included are marvelous illustrations. Lots of Pre-Raphaelites, some modern (the "The Kiss" by Klimt on the cover is a good example).
Some of my favorites are the real short ones. For example, this one by Ranier Marie Rilke, “Time and Again”:
“Time and again, however well we know the landscape of love,
and the little church-yard with lamenting names,
and the frightfully silent ravine wherein all the others end:
time and again we go out two together,
under the old trees, lie down again and again
between the flowers, face to face with the sky.” (148)
Buy a copy and dazzle your lover. 5 stars
--Chiron, 8/8/08
Included are marvelous illustrations. Lots of Pre-Raphaelites, some modern (the "The Kiss" by Klimt on the cover is a good example).
Some of my favorites are the real short ones. For example, this one by Ranier Marie Rilke, “Time and Again”:
“Time and again, however well we know the landscape of love,
and the little church-yard with lamenting names,
and the frightfully silent ravine wherein all the others end:
time and again we go out two together,
under the old trees, lie down again and again
between the flowers, face to face with the sky.” (148)
Buy a copy and dazzle your lover. 5 stars
--Chiron, 8/8/08
Sunday, August 03, 2008
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame; Illustrated by Robert Ingpen
2008 is the 100th anniversary of the publication of this classic of children’s literature, and I have never read it. This wonderfully illustrated edition fixed that up nicely!
This collection of tales about Rat, Mole, Mr. Toad, Mr. Badger, Otter, and all the characters that inhabit the river and "The Wild Woods," is nothing less than enchanting. My favorites are all of them, but I especially liked "Dulce Domum." In this tale, Mole smells an old house he lived in long ago. He is traveling with Rat, who neither smells nor understands Mole's reluctance to continue. The ever patient Rat consoles his friend, and together they retrace their steps and find the old house. The spend the night, even entertaining a group of mice who are out caroling.
If I had to pick a favorite, it would be "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn." Determined to find a lost baby otter, Rat and Mole paddle a boat upstream, and find the lost boy after following some mysterious and haunting music. When they find him, he is alone except for some cloven hoof tracks in the sand. Here is a passage typical of the pastoral style of Grahame:
"The line of the horizon was clear and hard against the sky, and in one particular quarter it showed black against a silvery climbing phosphorescence that grew and grew. At last, over the rim of the waiting earth the moon lifted with slow majesty till it swung clear of the horizon and rode off, free of moorings;" (119)
A relaxing, comforting, delightful read. I am sorry I missed this as a child. Perfect for a hot summer's day. 5 stars.
--Chiron, 8/3/08
This collection of tales about Rat, Mole, Mr. Toad, Mr. Badger, Otter, and all the characters that inhabit the river and "The Wild Woods," is nothing less than enchanting. My favorites are all of them, but I especially liked "Dulce Domum." In this tale, Mole smells an old house he lived in long ago. He is traveling with Rat, who neither smells nor understands Mole's reluctance to continue. The ever patient Rat consoles his friend, and together they retrace their steps and find the old house. The spend the night, even entertaining a group of mice who are out caroling.
If I had to pick a favorite, it would be "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn." Determined to find a lost baby otter, Rat and Mole paddle a boat upstream, and find the lost boy after following some mysterious and haunting music. When they find him, he is alone except for some cloven hoof tracks in the sand. Here is a passage typical of the pastoral style of Grahame:
"The line of the horizon was clear and hard against the sky, and in one particular quarter it showed black against a silvery climbing phosphorescence that grew and grew. At last, over the rim of the waiting earth the moon lifted with slow majesty till it swung clear of the horizon and rode off, free of moorings;" (119)
A relaxing, comforting, delightful read. I am sorry I missed this as a child. Perfect for a hot summer's day. 5 stars.
--Chiron, 8/3/08
The Essential Dalai Lama: His Important Teachings edited by Rajiv Mehrota
The writings of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, form an important part of my philosophy collection. His simple, smooth style relaxes the mind while challenging the intellect. Samples from all his works are here, and I highly recommend this as an introduction to his philosophy.
At one time, there were several individuals I loathed with a seething passion for what they had done to me, to my loved ones, or to my friends. Reading his book, The Art of Happiness, showed me the folly of the energy wasted on hatred. For that simple lesson alone, I owe him a debt of gratitude. Now, I hardly think of those individuals at all. In fact, as I sit here typing this, I doubt I could name all six of them.
Anyone can read this most accessible explanation of Buddhist perspective. There is no need to convert; in fact, Buddhists discourage conversion, believing, rightly so, that Buddhist principles can fit into any philosophy of life, religion, or world-view without disturbing anything in the process. This volume contains perspectives on the teachings of Jesus. 5 stars
--Chiron, 8/3/08
At one time, there were several individuals I loathed with a seething passion for what they had done to me, to my loved ones, or to my friends. Reading his book, The Art of Happiness, showed me the folly of the energy wasted on hatred. For that simple lesson alone, I owe him a debt of gratitude. Now, I hardly think of those individuals at all. In fact, as I sit here typing this, I doubt I could name all six of them.
Anyone can read this most accessible explanation of Buddhist perspective. There is no need to convert; in fact, Buddhists discourage conversion, believing, rightly so, that Buddhist principles can fit into any philosophy of life, religion, or world-view without disturbing anything in the process. This volume contains perspectives on the teachings of Jesus. 5 stars
--Chiron, 8/3/08
A Family of Poems selected by Caroline Kennedy; Illustrated with watercolors by Jon J. Muth
I bought this book solely because of the illustrator. My library has several of his books, and my favorite is The Three Questions, based on a short story of the same name by Leo Tolstoy. His watercolors are nothing less than enchanting and match perfectly the text.
After enjoying the paintings, I turned to the poems. Numerous favorites by Frost, Lear, Carroll, Neruda, Yeats, Nash, and Langston Hughes are here. Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussycat” may have been the first poem I memorized.
Once, I was in Paris, France riding the Metro, when a shabbily dressed man stood up and began reciting poetry by Verlaine. When he was finished, he walked around with a cup and a few people dropped in some coins. I thought this was a splendid idea, so I stood and recited "Owl." I got some applause and bowed. One man offered some coins, I laughed and thanked him, but he insisted. I bought a crepe with apricot butter on the street that night, and it was the best I ever tasted.
This book of poetry will take all readers back to their childhood. 4-1/2 stars because she left out “The Duel” (The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat) by Eugene Field.
-Chiron, 8/3/08
After enjoying the paintings, I turned to the poems. Numerous favorites by Frost, Lear, Carroll, Neruda, Yeats, Nash, and Langston Hughes are here. Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussycat” may have been the first poem I memorized.
Once, I was in Paris, France riding the Metro, when a shabbily dressed man stood up and began reciting poetry by Verlaine. When he was finished, he walked around with a cup and a few people dropped in some coins. I thought this was a splendid idea, so I stood and recited "Owl." I got some applause and bowed. One man offered some coins, I laughed and thanked him, but he insisted. I bought a crepe with apricot butter on the street that night, and it was the best I ever tasted.
This book of poetry will take all readers back to their childhood. 4-1/2 stars because she left out “The Duel” (The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat) by Eugene Field.
-Chiron, 8/3/08
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Terrorist by John Updike
Updike is one of my favorite authors of all time. I have 323 books by, about, or containing a work by him and literally thousands of magazines in which he has appeared. The fact that I have not read anything, except magazine appearances, by him in a while desperately needed remedying. I will not be away so long again.
No one writing today can fashion and shape language the way John Updike can. To me, he is The Master wordsmith of the last fifty years. His essays, his book reviews, his poetry, his short stories, and his novels spin webs of incredible beauty with deep insights and characters as finely drawn and accurate as any ever written. His prose is so graceful, the reader is carried along to places never visited, to characters never met, to situations unimaginable, with the ease of an early morning walk as the eastern sky grows pink and a soft breeze cools the face.
Terrorist is such a story. The reader is taken on a ride in a truck driven by a misguided, manipulated young man, who is determined to wreak vengeance on people he does not know, because he has been convinced the strangers he kills have stolen his God.
Early in the novel, the third-person narrator reveals something about the angry young man. Updike writes:
"Ahmad knows it is a sin to be vain of his appearance: self-love is a form of competition with God, and competition is what He cannot abide. But how can the boy not cherish his ripened manhood, his lengthened limbs, the upright, dense, and wavy crown of his hair, his flawless dun skin, paler than his father’s but not freckled, blotchy pink of his red-haired mother and those peroxided blondes who in white-bread America are considered the acme of beauty?” (18).
In the unlikely event that nothing else happens while reading this novel, it will force any one with a shred of heart or soul to closely examine our culture, what it values, and how we treat each other.
Updike also anoints unlikely characters as heroes in the epic sense -- disillusioned, semi-failed, lost souls searching for some light at the end of the dark tunnels which are their lives. At first, these individuals seem to be mere dressing, a bit of bright ribbon on a dull coat or shirt. But Updike brings them along with the reader, and in the end they all find something, even if it was not what they were seeking.
In the early pages of the novel, I felt a bit frustrated because of the many Arabic words and phrases which were not translated. Only a few could be worked out from the context; however, as I read on, I realized Updike was deliberately wrapping Islam in a shroud to keep it as mysterious as it is in real life. How can we understand the anger, the hatred of the fanatical jihadist who believes in a God that will welcome a martyr with 72 “houris” at the instant of death. They believe this God is as close to them as the veins in their necks.
I don’t pretend to understand any of this after reading Terrorist, but I could feel the anger, the hatred, and the devout belief in a religion that promises the best of everything after a life that offers the worst of everything. This is the same message which fixed the grip of the Catholic Church on the hapless, ignorant peasants of the Middle Ages. The scary thing is these characters are not ignorant and not hapless. Perhaps that is the greatest danger of all. A perfect novel! Unqualified five stars.
--Chiron, 7/27/08
No one writing today can fashion and shape language the way John Updike can. To me, he is The Master wordsmith of the last fifty years. His essays, his book reviews, his poetry, his short stories, and his novels spin webs of incredible beauty with deep insights and characters as finely drawn and accurate as any ever written. His prose is so graceful, the reader is carried along to places never visited, to characters never met, to situations unimaginable, with the ease of an early morning walk as the eastern sky grows pink and a soft breeze cools the face.
Terrorist is such a story. The reader is taken on a ride in a truck driven by a misguided, manipulated young man, who is determined to wreak vengeance on people he does not know, because he has been convinced the strangers he kills have stolen his God.
Early in the novel, the third-person narrator reveals something about the angry young man. Updike writes:
"Ahmad knows it is a sin to be vain of his appearance: self-love is a form of competition with God, and competition is what He cannot abide. But how can the boy not cherish his ripened manhood, his lengthened limbs, the upright, dense, and wavy crown of his hair, his flawless dun skin, paler than his father’s but not freckled, blotchy pink of his red-haired mother and those peroxided blondes who in white-bread America are considered the acme of beauty?” (18).
In the unlikely event that nothing else happens while reading this novel, it will force any one with a shred of heart or soul to closely examine our culture, what it values, and how we treat each other.
Updike also anoints unlikely characters as heroes in the epic sense -- disillusioned, semi-failed, lost souls searching for some light at the end of the dark tunnels which are their lives. At first, these individuals seem to be mere dressing, a bit of bright ribbon on a dull coat or shirt. But Updike brings them along with the reader, and in the end they all find something, even if it was not what they were seeking.
In the early pages of the novel, I felt a bit frustrated because of the many Arabic words and phrases which were not translated. Only a few could be worked out from the context; however, as I read on, I realized Updike was deliberately wrapping Islam in a shroud to keep it as mysterious as it is in real life. How can we understand the anger, the hatred of the fanatical jihadist who believes in a God that will welcome a martyr with 72 “houris” at the instant of death. They believe this God is as close to them as the veins in their necks.
I don’t pretend to understand any of this after reading Terrorist, but I could feel the anger, the hatred, and the devout belief in a religion that promises the best of everything after a life that offers the worst of everything. This is the same message which fixed the grip of the Catholic Church on the hapless, ignorant peasants of the Middle Ages. The scary thing is these characters are not ignorant and not hapless. Perhaps that is the greatest danger of all. A perfect novel! Unqualified five stars.
--Chiron, 7/27/08
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Fire in the Blood by Iréne Némirovsky
Iréne Némirovsky was born in Russia, but her family fled to Finland after the Russian Revolution in 1917. From there, they emigrated to France where she lived until she was arrested by the Gestapo in 1942. She died at Auschwitz in 1943. She published nine books between 1928 and 1937. She was working on Fire in the Blood when she was arrested. Her notes and manuscripts were scattered among her family members, and this novel has finally been assembled for the first time.
My first experience with Némirovsky was Suite Française -- a great story of rural villagers trying to survive the early days of the German occupation as refugees streamed through their land trying to reach free France. Originally planned for three parts, it was never finished. I was hoping Fire approached, even slightly, the power of that narrative.
I have not been disappointed, and I would even say my expectations have been exceeded.
Fire is a story of an insular French village in the days between the World Wars. Anyone who has ever visited the French countryside will instantly recognize the slow, measured pace of life. “The farmers around here don’t gossip and would rather walk through fire than get involved in other people’s business” (74). When tragedy strikes a newly married young man, it is marked up as fate, an error of judgment, or simply an accident, and the reader only gradually hears the quiet murmurs as the truth is passed from farmhouse to tavern to kitchen.
The story is narrated by Silvio, a retired gentleman farmer who, because he has no wife and no heirs, has gradually sold off his land and now lives alone, except for an occasional visitor and the company of his housekeeper. One night he writes,
“I was desperate for her to leave, as if I were expecting someone. And, in fact, I was: I was expecting my youth. Memories of the past would return to us more often if only we sought them out, sought their intense sweetness. But we let them slumber within us and, worse, we let them die, rot, so much so that the generous impulses that sweep through our souls when we are twenty we later call naive, foolish…Our purest, most passionate loves take on the depraved appearance of sordid pleasure” (105-6).
Prose like that is not nearly common enough. How can anyone not let the mind wander back to days of care-free youth when there was fire in the blood?
The secret visitor that Silvio awaits comes barging in to turn upside down this quiet little place. Although I guessed part of the secret early on, the end is a stunner, and the full story really took the wind out of me.
All the characters are searching for their own form of happiness, some in the past, some in dreams of the future. Practically every page has the word happy, happiness, unhappy, or some other variation on that theme. Silvio says, “I don’t want to get involved in your problems…all I want is a quiet life” (84-5).
Only a few works of Némirovsky’s have been translated, but I am going to keep a weather eye out for any more that come along. She is a hidden treasure waiting to be rediscovered by all fans of serious fiction. Five stars
--Chiron, 7/24/08
My first experience with Némirovsky was Suite Française -- a great story of rural villagers trying to survive the early days of the German occupation as refugees streamed through their land trying to reach free France. Originally planned for three parts, it was never finished. I was hoping Fire approached, even slightly, the power of that narrative.
I have not been disappointed, and I would even say my expectations have been exceeded.
Fire is a story of an insular French village in the days between the World Wars. Anyone who has ever visited the French countryside will instantly recognize the slow, measured pace of life. “The farmers around here don’t gossip and would rather walk through fire than get involved in other people’s business” (74). When tragedy strikes a newly married young man, it is marked up as fate, an error of judgment, or simply an accident, and the reader only gradually hears the quiet murmurs as the truth is passed from farmhouse to tavern to kitchen.
The story is narrated by Silvio, a retired gentleman farmer who, because he has no wife and no heirs, has gradually sold off his land and now lives alone, except for an occasional visitor and the company of his housekeeper. One night he writes,
“I was desperate for her to leave, as if I were expecting someone. And, in fact, I was: I was expecting my youth. Memories of the past would return to us more often if only we sought them out, sought their intense sweetness. But we let them slumber within us and, worse, we let them die, rot, so much so that the generous impulses that sweep through our souls when we are twenty we later call naive, foolish…Our purest, most passionate loves take on the depraved appearance of sordid pleasure” (105-6).
Prose like that is not nearly common enough. How can anyone not let the mind wander back to days of care-free youth when there was fire in the blood?
The secret visitor that Silvio awaits comes barging in to turn upside down this quiet little place. Although I guessed part of the secret early on, the end is a stunner, and the full story really took the wind out of me.
All the characters are searching for their own form of happiness, some in the past, some in dreams of the future. Practically every page has the word happy, happiness, unhappy, or some other variation on that theme. Silvio says, “I don’t want to get involved in your problems…all I want is a quiet life” (84-5).
Only a few works of Némirovsky’s have been translated, but I am going to keep a weather eye out for any more that come along. She is a hidden treasure waiting to be rediscovered by all fans of serious fiction. Five stars
--Chiron, 7/24/08
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