I throw open my closet door and run my hands over the clothes, the coats, the gowns, what pleasure, such feeling of contentment.
I sit at my chair and I throw open my closet door and run my hands over the clothes, the coats, the gowns, what pleasure, such feeling of contentment.
I sit at my chair and watch the world go by…I have my favourite mug…My things.
But Alice does not have any ‘her’ things; she only has a little box with three sets of clothes.
When she goes from foster home to foster home, she runs away, she just cannot fit in with the people; she is and always will be the ‘Outsider’
A foster care child does not have any ‘her’ things, she never owns anything and that to some extent takes out the joy of living.
Eventually Alice does live with a very kind couple on a large farm and has a very good life and is adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Potter.
But I am left with a heart filled with sorrow…the foster children going from home to home, always grateful to their foster parents, always walking on eggshells , never having their own family, aunts and uncles who remember your birthdays.
There is never that occasion when someone says, ‘remember our Elsie when she couldn’t climb down that tree...?’ bursts of laughter . Nobody ‘guards’ the foster children’s memories. There are no boxes of photographs or of mementoes.
If you are lucky someone really likes you and adopts you…or you go with a little box to another house....more
**spoiler alert** Common enough theme in Young Adult Literature, parents separated. Here in this book however, Katherine Paterson stretches sadness to**spoiler alert** Common enough theme in Young Adult Literature, parents separated. Here in this book however, Katherine Paterson stretches sadness to a point of no return…
Father in jail, Mother who likes life and has no desire to look after her children, disappears leaving the children with an elderly grandmother who sleeps a great deal. Somehow the children Angel and Bernie manage a decent sort of a life on their Grandmothers Cheque.
Then the wandering Mother appears on the scene and kidnaps Bernie from school. Angel and the Grandmother do not see Bernie for a long while.
Meanwhile, Angel has found a friend who teaches her how to admire and study stars. He is her bright spot in a very dark world, but the friend turns out to be a blood relative who very ill dies in the hospital. Paterson piles more and more unhappiness on Angel…
And then out of the blue Bernie calls up…he is at the hospital. The Mother’s boyfriend was driving recklessly and meets with a terrible accident, injuring everyone…
At the ICU the vagrant Mother confesses that she has not been a good Mother to Bernie and that Angel was a better Mother. She then decides to leave Bernie with her Angel
Angel a naïve young girl hopes that the entire family would be reunited and that everyone including the Grandmother would live happily together.
Jaded old me feels that such things happen only in Hollywood movies and that the vagrant Mother is planning her getaway.
Feel that Katherine Paterson has given the children no hope at all and has pulled at their sadness until there is a point of no return....more
Susana Kaysen in her Autobiography, 'Girl Interrupted' shows us how getting better from mental illness is a long, long difficult road...
At the asylum Susana Kaysen in her Autobiography, 'Girl Interrupted' shows us how getting better from mental illness is a long, long difficult road...
At the asylum she was in she makes friends and keeps a Diary that is the basis for her Autobiography.
But her story struggles, there are incomplete patches where she trails off, leaving the reader hanging midway...
I never thought I would say this, but it is Hollywood that comes to her aid, stitching up her story beautifully. Who can forget the amazing performances of Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder.
Yes it is the movie that shows us what Susana's World really was......more
The Grandmother cackled, check Romans the ninth chapter, verse thirteen, the Grandmother who always had nothing but disdain for Sara Louise…
And SarahThe Grandmother cackled, check Romans the ninth chapter, verse thirteen, the Grandmother who always had nothing but disdain for Sara Louise…
And Sarah Louise checked it out and it was right; God did love Jacob more than he loved Esau. It was Sara Louise’s story…
Her twin Caroline…beautiful with a voice of an angel always seemed to have the best of everything and she Louise was someone nobody ever even noticed…
She worked so hard and contributed to the family expenses but did anyone ever think of giving Louise anything?
Everyone thought of Caroline as fragile not cut out for hard work, but Louise on the other hand was strong, a mule?
And then the Captain bequeaths Caroline from his wife’s inheritance a sizable sum of money to enable Caroline to study in Baltimore, did anyone think it fit enough to decide anything good for Sara Louise…?
Now Cal her friend from forever, she never had loved him but he was her friend and she did not mind if he married anyone else but he chose to marry Caroline…
Sara Louise studies her best but is denied a seat at the Medical College because many veterans returning from the War would want to study Medicine…
Would you think of yourself as chosen by God? No you wouldn’t.
But Sara Louise does turn out to be a splendid midwife and moves on to Truitt, and has a great time treating Animals and Men.
And she meets Joseph Wojtkiewicz the man with three children and an impossible name and a beautiful smile and she knew he was lovely, he was a man who could sing to the oysters like her Father did…
And then Sara Louise does the best thing any person would do…she saves a newborn baby… and (this is my most favourite part) she allows the baby to suckle, the most perfect pink tongue catching the few drops of milk, finding the nipple starts guzzling…
Oh the Wonder of it all. Sara Louise you are a beautiful person....more
In May 1940, Germany is the super power. She has annexed Austria in 1938, with hardly any conflict, in the year 1939 Czechoslovakia and Poland belong In May 1940, Germany is the super power. She has annexed Austria in 1938, with hardly any conflict, in the year 1939 Czechoslovakia and Poland belong to her. It is only after Poland has been annexed that Great Britain and France declare war.
But it is a Phony War. Great Britain waits...And Germany waits too... The Phony war ends when Germany advances into the Netherlands. France sends troops to Belgium and Britain sends the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to aid her allies, the French.
The French are taken aback; the so called impenetrable Maginot line is all of a sudden redundant, truth be told, the fortified line should have extended through to the boundary of Belgium and Germany and beyond, but it did not... The ‘formidable’ Ardennes Forest is not as impassable as earlier thought... The result, German troops are pouring in through every available opening. The mighty German Panzer Divisions went traipsing through the French countryside trapping the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), two French armies, and all Belgium soldiers, nearly one million men pinned against the sea at Flanders.
How shocked Prime Minister Winston Churchill must have been, when informed early on the morning of May 15, 1940 by French Premier Paul Reynaud that the French had been defeated by the Germans and that there was nothing else that could stop the Germans. Now there is utter chaos, soldiers and people running everywhere and the Panzers drawing closer and closer… It is then that Field Marshal Viscount Gort Commandant of the BEF decides that the best action would be to retreat to Dunkirk and from there to be lifted to England.
Quoting from Wikipedia: ‘Gort took the unilateral decision to abandon the orders he had received from the British Government for a southward attack to support the French Army, instead on 25 May 1940 ordered a retreat by the BEF northwards to the French coast. On reaching the coast, Gort oversaw the en masse retirement of the BEF back to the British Isles, involving the Battle of Dunkirk and the Dunkirk evacuation’ The French never knew of this evacuation...
A layman assumes that the BEF reached Dunkirk quite easily, hardly so... the trek was long and arduous and behind them the mighty Panzers...
Meanwhile, Heinz Guderian was terribly worried, the Panzers were skipping far ahead of the Army and thus lacked support, besides the Flemish terrain would bog them down which would be a colossal loss as they were required for the Battle to conquer Paris, Hitler’s main target.
There was another aspect too, Göring was envious, he believed that the credit of utterly destroying the BEF would go to the army and not to the Luftwaffe that he headed, so he spoke to Hitler about it and Hitler gave his famous ‘Halt Order’ on May 4th 1940, an order that seemed inexplicable to the British as it stopped the panzers when they reached as close as ten miles from the beaches of Dunkirk.
From then on it was the ‘Miracle of Dunkirk’... There were so many miracles; first the weather so very crucial...In normal circumstances, the English Channel is usually rough. Calm weather was essential for the evacuation...and during the nine days of the evacuation it was as calm as a mill pond. Only on June 5th the day after the evacuation was over, the wind moved from the North and great breakers came rolling on to the empty beaches. Overhead clouds mist and rain always seemed to come at the right time. It took three days for the Germans to realise about the eastern mole mainly because the south-westerly breezes screened it with smoke. There were scenes of utter desolation too...Quoting from the book, ‘A thousand French soldiers stood at attention four deep as General Lucas prepared to leave. They would be left behind, no longer a chance to escape, yet not a man broke ranks. They stood motionless, the light from the flames playing off their steel helmets.’ Saddest, most heartbreaking thing ever.
‘Dunkirk was a miracle, there is no doubt about it but for the forty thousand French soldiers, who fought till their last breath to keep the corridor open, seeking time till every BEF soldier was on a transport home, and then waiting hopelessly on the pier heads and the mole with no transport to evacuate them...
It was no Miracle... It was a tremendous sacrifice from thousands of soldiers who were left behind....more
The night Serafina came to the Convent it was bedlam, she screamed and cursed the entire night until Soror Zuana gave her a potion that put her to sleThe night Serafina came to the Convent it was bedlam, she screamed and cursed the entire night until Soror Zuana gave her a potion that put her to sleep for some hours.
Serafina loved a handsome musician, but her Father wasn’t happy about this young man, so the next best thing was to put the offending girl into a Convent. Who would look after Serafina after the death of her Father? There would not be any male, person in the family. In a convent with other women and under the protection of the Mother Abbess, she would be shielded from the outside world.
There were times, when even the rich could not get a husband for their daughters, the parents could not afford a dowry befitting the status of the Family, in such cases the ‘best’ of the daughters would be married and the others sent to a Convent Girls, who either did not want to marry the man chosen for them or had fallen in love with a person who was ‘undesirable’ were dispatched to the Convent, of course nothing, absolutely nothing works without money, so the girl entered a Convent with a huge dowry, a magnificent trousseau and even maids to look after her.
But life in a Convent is not as calm and placid as one would think...
There were factions, as in the case of the Abbess who a skilled politician is the one who negotiates with the outside world, with the Fathers of the girls for better dowries and keeps the other nuns in a tight group all loyal to her. Her main rival the Novice Mistress wants the Convent to be a place of Spirituality. However it is not the conventional Spirituality that the Novice Mistress is looking for, she would love stigmata and ecstasies which was common enough at the time.
But in this case the Abbess and a Novice Mistress are not such formidable women as the Infirmarian, Suora Zuana who had entered the convent not out of choice but because after the death of her Father she had nowhere else to go. Her Father had been a Doctor and had taught her everything he knew, things no lady should know, had even bequeathed her his precious books.
Soror Zuana lives for healing the sick, with her potions, pomades and her vast array of medicinal herbs. The Abbess forces Zuana to train Serafina, but here there are consequences...
To me it is Zuana’s story that is important, a nun totally dedicated to healing, just healing...
‘...Any understanding of a man’s body was to be forever denied to her.
Except, that is for one.
For she, like every one of her sisters, spends each and every day in the presence of the most perfect male body: That of God Himself made flesh.'
Zuana, feels the need to heal Him.
'In her first weeks in the convent, when her future had felt like a life sentence, she had kept herself from despair during the endless hours in chapel by studying that great hanging body, detailing the ways in which, had she been called upon, she might have repaired the damage. Which poultices herbs she might have used to staunch the flow of blood, the salves with which she would have treated the whip lashes and the cuts, the ointments she would have rubbed around the jagged flesh to avoid infection. And even the most heretical of all, the draught she might have given him to blunt his pain.'
The story here is that of a healer. Not the romance... Not the Power struggles between the Abbess and the Novice mistress...
But the continued healing of Soror Zuana, Doctors who braved everything to heal and cure despite all sorts of prejudices......more
As I look back, I realise I was focussed on the question, to the exclusion of everything else... ‘Who is a ‘Mummy?’
At eleven I knew all the answers to As I look back, I realise I was focussed on the question, to the exclusion of everything else... ‘Who is a ‘Mummy?’
At eleven I knew all the answers to the question... A Mummy is a very special person;
Take the case of my best friend Cintia... we used to share everything, stories, sweets, picture papers, went to tea to each other’s houses and then Cintia just left me and started being friends with Lucy. How I tried to be her friend...I wept, threatened but Cintia and Lucy just laughed, called me a whiner... Mummy was there for me and she hugged me and hugged me...She and Gwen got a splendid tea for us all but there were all my favourite things. Mummy just knew how terribly hurt I was...
And whenever I returned from grooming Topaz, Mummy was there to listen to all the stories about him. She never said, ‘Darling I am busy’...She listened, she truly listened...
That is a Mummy... So when we returned from our holidays and rushed to meet Mummy. Dad hugged us tightly, ‘Mummy has gone away’...’ Gone away but where?’ ‘She has found a new person to love, Rob’. Daddy sounded absolutely broken... That Night we could not sleep and next door we heard Daddy weeping as though his heart would break and truly Mummy had broken our hearts.
Apparently, Mummy had met this Rob creature when they were filming quite close to Stebbings and Mummy had fallen in love with him. But why we kept asking ourselves, why, didn’t she love Daddy, kind, very kind Daddy? He who called her his Mona Lisa?
But she had and she had gone off with Rob, gone off to Italy... Sadly we had to stay in a London flat; Daddy could not manage Stebbings all by himself. And my poor, poor Topaz had to be kept with a farmer. How I felt... who would groom him? Who would feed him carrots? Who would talk to him? Unlike Hugh, I thought of ways to get Mummy back...
And we did... We managed to get money; I made the ultimate sacrifice of selling Topaz, but it was after all for a good cause. We took trains, we walked for miles, we were tired, very dusty, and very hungry but we were doing it for Mummy, we wanted her back.
And there we were at the Villa Fiorita... The Villa was splendid...the gardens, the house, the smells of the flowers mixed with the smell of the Sea was divine. Was this Rob so very rich, to own a Villa like this? Mummy was very happy to see us, but Rob and we could understand, wanted us to go back immediately... Of course Mummy protested vehemently but then Hugh was violently ill, puking all over the place. Rob was adamant, Hugh could stay for a while but I had to go immediately. So I went to airport... Just when I was about to board the plane, I will never ever know why...but Rob yanked me out collected my bags and here comes the surprise, I had the most wonderful dinner and then Opera. Even today after so many years I can never understand why Rob was so kind to me...
We returned to the Villa, but things got really bad for Rob and Mummy, they fought constantly and it was all about us. It never seemed to strike them how much Mummy meant to us...Mummy had been with us all of our lives... And then Rob got his daughter Pia to the Villa. Did Mummy know that Pia was there in Rob’s life?
We did not want Rob to marry Mummy and Pia did not want Rob to marry Mummy so we decided on a hunger strike... At that time I believed in people...in Hugh, in Pia that they would stick to the deal. That they would stick through even if it meant terrible hunger with all the good food around us.
It was at the Villa that I learnt what betrayal meant, Hugh and Pia had been eating, they had not followed the hunger strike...Things went from bad to terrible when Hugh and Pia ran away on the boat and met with an accident. Luckily they were saved but Pia had a broken bone... Rob went off with his daughter and we realised that the Villa was not Rob’s at all. It had been rented... Mummy looked terrible, as though she had been kicked in the stomach.
I was immensely happy that Mummy was coming home with us...but as Hugh said was it the same Mummy? The Mummy we had adored, this Mummy’s heart was with Rob now not with us at all...
At the Villa I learnt what betrayal was...And I realised I was alone and it did not really matter so much......more
**spoiler alert** Kizzy is the Muggle of our world...a Diddakoi part Irish part Gypsy.
As her parents are dead she lives with her aged Grandmother in a**spoiler alert** Kizzy is the Muggle of our world...a Diddakoi part Irish part Gypsy.
As her parents are dead she lives with her aged Grandmother in a caravan. Things are not bad at all although there isn’t much in the way of food. Troubles begin when the Grandmother dies and according to her wishes, the caravan is to be burnt with all its contents...with no thought for Kizzy at all. Kizzy shocked and very ill manages to stagger to the Admiral’s house. The Admiral in his brusque kind way together with his men bring Kizzy back to health. It is now that the story really begins...
Kezzy is now being cared for by Mrs Burton who really tries to give Kizzy a good home...but it is at school that Kizzy really suffers, the ‘polite girls’ turn into a pack of wolves, insulting Kizzy, beating her, taunting her until one evening when Kizzy returns from school they beat her so savagely that she nearly dies... Like many of the reviewers I really cannot understand why Mrs. Brooks decides to keep quiet about the entire affair...The parents are not told and the entire episode is shrouded in mystery. In fact Mrs. Brooks feels that Kizzy should be the first one to make peace... Why? Did Godden feel that because Kizzy is a child, she should not grow in isolation, as a recluse? It is a possibility... Yes, everything turns out for the best and Kizzy is adopted y Mrs. Burton and the Admiral who marry......more
The inhabitants of Paris are up in arms against the Aristocracy, Paris is in turmoil. The Parisian aristocracy is guillotined without trials, without The inhabitants of Paris are up in arms against the Aristocracy, Paris is in turmoil. The Parisian aristocracy is guillotined without trials, without mercy.
Are the aristocrats innocent?
We don’t know for at the moment they are just people fleeing from a maddened rabble…
But hark is that the eerie call from the cemetery…What is it? Is it the Savior of the Aristocrats, he who helps them flee as far away as possible from France?
A mysterious Englishman, crosses the English Channel, to rescue the French Aristocrats calling himself ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel’, a modest, English flower... He organises a band of twenty high-born men, whose daring deeds thrill the world. ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel’ has a huge price on his head...But who is he?
No, no...Never in a thousand years it could be the fop, Sir Percy Blakeney? That buffoon, that silly unintelligent, dandy? Not a chance! Sir Percy has friends in High Society; he is friends with the dissolute Prince of Wales... A group of similar men are his followers... Blakeney, is their idol, they copy his clothes mimic his mannerisms, utter all his witty sayings and he is the richest man in England... Not he...Never in a million...
And then this fop marries a French actress, Marguerite, one the most beautiful and the smartest woman in the England. A former friend of Lady Blakeney. Citizen Chauvelin the spy, who is also an accredited official of the French regime threatens Marguerite Blakeney... When her brother Armand, tries to help some aristocrats escape France he is apprehended... But now the ruthless Chauvelin, threatens to kill Armand, if Lady Blakeney, doesn't find out who the Scarlet Pimpernel is...
But does Lady Blakeney know who the Scarlet Pimpernel is? No way...Her husband is the dandy who loves clothes, is witty and is very rich... Does she know her husband is a master of disguises? Never... He loves silk, satin and lace...
Well what happens next...? No idea...
And in the midst of this amazing thrilling book a fourteen year old, sits at her window, watching the rain pouring in sheets wondering what Lady Blakeney is going to do to save her brother, Armand......more
How will Rosie marry Arnold the high school graduate?
And then Mama comes up with the 'handful plan'.
This is one of the mostWhen Papa loses his job...
How will Rosie marry Arnold the high school graduate?
And then Mama comes up with the 'handful plan'.
This is one of the most heartwarming story, it brought a lump to my throat, but then I am always crying whenever I read books and watch movies......more
**spoiler alert** There have been times when we have looked back, sighed and said, ‘if only I could go back, I would tell my Father how much I loved h**spoiler alert** There have been times when we have looked back, sighed and said, ‘if only I could go back, I would tell my Father how much I loved him...’ or ‘if only I had put down my foot and not studied Chemistry... or even ‘if only, if only I had had the courage and left him when he was having all those affairs, not looked back even once’
These thoughts cross our mind frequently but as we know...there is no turning back. Never.
But strangely there was a turning back for Linny and Hilary... they are thrown back a year to the time when Linny lived with his Mother who was dying. Linny was fed up, his Mother who lay asleep through the day but needed him constantly, ‘Linny get my medicine from the store’, ‘Linny do not go out I need you, stay with me...’ Yes, Linny wanted to break free to practise his skateboard for the Most Important Competition, he leaves her for a minute, ignoring her beseeching eyes but sadly when he returns she is no longer alive, this haunts Linny through the year...
And Hilary blames her Mother for the Divorce, if only her Mother had been nicer and kinder, her Father would still have been with them...
Linny has three days, he wants to change back the clock...he wants to ‘keep’ his Mother. He will ‘not allow her to die’, he talks to his Mother about much he loves her and needs her and that he has never been angry with her, he never will be... But his Mother is very ill and cannot come for the skateboarding competition so he puts up a magnificent show for her outside on the street below her bedroom window. He then realises that the ‘disdain’ he thought was there for him in her eyes was her fear of leaving him, fear of never seeing him again.
And Hilary gets to know her Father’s true colours, his careless attitude to her and her Mother. Oh yes Hilary sees her Father for what he really is a ‘ladies man’
Can Linny hold back his Mother? Can Hilary prevent the Divorce?
No, we know there is no turning back...They come back to the present but with more courage and peace in their hearts.
But for us...We will never have the ‘chance of turning back the clock’... ...more
When eleven-year-old Owen Meany, playing in a Little League baseball game hits a foul ball and kills his best friend's mother, he unlike other boys hiWhen eleven-year-old Owen Meany, playing in a Little League baseball game hits a foul ball and kills his best friend's mother, he unlike other boys his age does not think he has made a terrible, terrible mistake.
No way does he feel it is an accident or a mistake... he firmly believes it is a part of God’s plan for him. Owen resolutely believes he is God’s instrument... Does he believe he is something like Jesus? He was a part of God’s Plan too, it could be, maybe... Sadly Owen never thinks there is something called free will... Owen never goes to think that what God cherishes for us is our free will, at no point in our lives are we the puppets of God.
Quoting from Ron Hansen's the Mariette in Ecstasy
‘God gives us just enough to seek Him and never enough to fully find him. To do more would inhibit our freedom and our Freedom is very dear to Him’.
And...
‘Christ still sends me roses. We try to be formed and held and kept by him, but instead he offers us freedom. And now when I try to know his will, his kindness floods me, his great love overwhelms me, and I hear him whisper, Surprise me.’
I wish with all my heart that Owen Meany had just kept God in his heart...
He would have told him how to go along in his life and maybe told him, that we are born with freedom...
Oh! what a beautiful, beautiful book...Makes me howl out loud....more
**spoiler alert** Tobias Wolf has combed the length and breadth of the World of Short Stories and has come up with this gem of a collection. But these**spoiler alert** Tobias Wolf has combed the length and breadth of the World of Short Stories and has come up with this gem of a collection. But these are not for the faint hearted... These stories are not for the beach, lounging under a shady stripped umbrella sipping lemonade nor are they for a summer evening with a genteel cup of tea and some cucumber sandwiches. These stories are brutal. These stories twist your guts. You need to be in a darkened room, a lamp illuminating just the page you are reading and a shot of vodka at your elbow with a bottle within easy reach.
No one should see your face when you weep as you read Dorothy Allison’s ‘River of Names’, you gasp when before your eyes eight-year old Billy is found hanging from the rafters. Was it an accident? Was he playing? But with a terrible shock you realise it is just an everyday occurrence in a society that has lost control over itself. The narrator is a part of this Society, the narration an attempt to cleanse her life of happenings that defy imagination. What do you use to rape a woman? Just about everything, well try a broom handle, too banal? Grass shears? Imaginative.
You move on, Richard Bausch ‘All the way in Flagstaff, Arizona’. What do you do when your father drinks, on a picnic he sneaks out to the boot of car where he has hidden a bottle... You pretend everything is okay, it is of course. You smile when he says, ‘I just found a bottle’. Then your Mother just cannot take it anymore. He now lives in Flagstaff, Arizona, alone and lonely... He remembers the day he stood on the lawn, looking in... His house all lit up, thinking of the people inside, whom he had named and who he loved and called sons, daughters, and wife. How he had stood there, trembling, shaking as from a terrific chill, while the dark night descended.
How easy it is for the very rich to discard friends, she just sells a precious Vintage Thunderbird on a whim... You want to but you just cannot do anything about it, you have no money to buy it, all you have is this tremendous desire to hit her when she says with a shrug ‘I need a new car’ Oh yes you know how helpless it is to be poor when you read Ann Beattie’s ‘A Vintage Thunderbird’
In Carol Bly’s ‘Talk of Heroes’, A Gestapo Officer methodically and slowly pries off the knee caps of a Norwegian resistance fighter, Willi. The Gestapo Officer, promises Willi a good future if he betrays his compatriots. But the Gestapo officer makes one tiny mistake when he says ‘Willi everyone talks... sooner or later.’ It is then that Willi realises, ‘that talking sooner is not the same as talking several hours later’ He wipes his mind, no rosy future for him and then in his mind he follows the escape route his friends will take if he doesn’t betray them Oh yes it is much later that he gives the names but it was not sooner but much later.
You are by now addicted to violence, sickness, alcoholism, sexual exploitation, as well as divorce. You wait for everyone to leave the house, you light that lamp that encircles just your page, you are ready for your encounter with the violent psychopath, a murderer who dislikes men of all shapes and sizes in Scott Bradfield’s ‘The Darling’.
On her fifth month of sobriety she is stalked by Lenny a cocaine-heroin addict who drags her deep down into his dark world in Kate Braverman’s ‘Tall tales from the Mekong Delta’.
Raymond Carver in ‘Cathedral’, talks about the Husband who is exasperated by his wife. She has this friend who is her confessional, knows everything about her. She has even told him about her husband. On the way to visit his in-laws, Robert, the friend and he is blind visits them. How do you deal with a Blind person wonders the Husband, Robert comes, drinks, eats with gusto, the Husband even smokes pot with him and both realise that they enjoy each other’s company. Then Robert and the Husband start building a cathedral so that the Husband can visualise what it is to be blind. It is then that the Husband is aware that although he can see, he is drawn deep down in the world of the sightless.
You are confused by Andre Dubus’ ‘Fat Girl’.
By now the mood is happier, you decide just one more and it will be time for bed, just one more and then you will hit your pillow. But you are mistaken, sadly mistaken...
Stuart Dybek in his ‘Chopin in Winter’ manages to wring out the last drop from you. From some faraway place you hear your wife calling you for dinner, hoarsely you manage a weak, ‘coming honey’. They ignore you and continue with their dinner, you sigh and move to the Eighteenth Street, that’s where Mrs. Kubiac, the Polish landlady lives and rents out apartments. As you move through the small building you hear so many voices, so many stories, you hear Marcy, Mrs. Kubiac’s daughter a gifted pianist who returns home pregnant, but refuses to tell who the father of the baby is. Dzia-Dzia has also returned from one of his endless wanderings. Soaking his feet in boiling water with a fizzy tablet that fogs the entire kitchen, he listens to Marcy playing some boogie-woogie and he tells his grandson Michael, ‘Marcy is playing boogie-woogie music, she’s in love with a coloured man’ Oh yes, Dzia-Dzia, loves and shares Marcy’s music. She plays her beautiful soul searching, heart wrenching Chopin on her magnificent piano and Dzia-Dzia plays Chopin on his dining room table. Oh what duets they have and all the while Michael the dyslexic grandson tries his penmanship on the same table, Dzia-Dzia screams music at Michael. And then Michael meets Marcy whilst playing on the landing and she says ‘Are you the little boy, I used to hear crying at night?’ ‘I don’t know’ ‘If your name is Michael and if your bedroom window is on the fourth floor right below mine, then you are,’ Marcy says. Michael then realises it is not he crying but his Mother crying for hours seated at the foot of his bed after she loses her husband in the war. Oh yes, you hear so many stories in Mrs. Kubiac apartments, whispers and shreds of music everywhere, in the chutes, in the vents, through open windows, through the wallpaper... and then ‘deep and pure silence beyond daydreams and memory. You stagger to bed drained. You have a long day ahead of you.
For kinky sex you turn to Mary Gaitskill’s ‘A Romantic Weekend’. A sadistic married man and a masochistic unmarried woman decide to have a beautiful romantic weekend. ‘They are almost quaint in their attempts to be perverse’ but as the weekend moves on, you realise with alarm, that there are shades of dark as the liaison reveals itself as a fight for control.
In Allan Gurganus’ ‘Minor Heroism’, a young boy reveals how terrified he is of his father who has returned from the Second World War. The father was used to a long war and does not have much to do in peacetime so he concentrates on disciplining his son who does not fit in his picture of ‘Son the Achiever’. The son’s terror is palpable, whenever he tries to draw pictures that do not resemble his father, his father is incensed, as he has to have ‘himself’ in every picture. Strangely the boy finds a way to pay back, but subtly. You cannot believe adults bash their kids, such tender fragile bodies. Power?
You relax, this promises to be a nice coming of age story and it is. You loosen up, because the nicest part is that it is all about music. In fact it is all about Ravel’s Bolero which you love, just as a lark you put it on as you read Barry Hannah’s ‘Testimony of Pilot.
Just as you calm down and start Ron Hansen’s ‘Wickedness’ you are horrified at the devastation Nature can wreck, entire towns blanketed with such deep, deep snow and such mind numbing cold killing hundreds.
For some reason you cannot read Denis Johnson’s’ ‘Emergency’ as also Thom Jones’ ‘A White Horse. It is one of those things, the stories fall flat for you.
You are so comfortable and enjoying yourself, such pleasure a short story is. But swiftly you are drawn into a pool of sadness, a whirlpool of disrespect when an illiterate black mother takes her well scrubbed daughter to school for the first time. Your heart squirms when the story opens with ‘long before I learned to be ashamed of my mother’ in Edward P. Jones’s ‘The First Day’. This feeling of sadness, such contempt for another human being spills on to Jamaica Kinkaid’s ‘Girl’ as she says ‘to prevent yourself from looking like a slut I know you are so bent on becoming’.
In John L’Heurex’s ‘Departures’ all the mother wanted to do was kiss and hug her son, a seminarian when he returns home on a vacation But then he says with icy self control, ‘I’ll just kiss you on the cheek, don’t touch me, and I’ll shake hands with Dad. As he bends to kiss her on the cheek, she pulls slightly away... ‘she has gone white, and the look of panic on her face is not nearly as terrible as the look of drowning in her eyes.’ Even when she is dying she thinks of that one occasion, she looks at her son and murmurs ‘You’re not to worry. When the train comes in, I won’t kiss you. I won’t touch you.’ ‘No!’ the priest cries out sharply. ‘Mother, no’. He leans over the bed to kiss her, but as he does she turns from him, saying, ‘I’ll be good. I promise. I’ll be good. And she dies with her head still turned away from him.
You drink your last bit of vodka and stagger to bed... But you cannot sleep. You now have finished with most of the stories, they have drained you and you cannot stop weeping. Your wife says you have changed, you drink too much, you are morose and you have forgotten to laugh......more
**spoiler alert** Every day, the news shows thousands of migrants from different parts of the country, trying to get home, No buses, no trains. Covid **spoiler alert** Every day, the news shows thousands of migrants from different parts of the country, trying to get home, No buses, no trains. Covid has left most of them stranded, with little or no savings... But there is one difference; all these people are on their way Home. Somewhere a Home awaits them... This was not the case for the millions of refugees who fled East Germany at the end of the Second World War; the Russians had occupied most of the territory, throwing out the Germans from their homes, sometimes shooting them. Thousands of orphans foraged for food in the woods. These were terrible times and this is what Margot Benary-Isbert writes about in her two books ‘The Ark’ and ‘Rowan Farm’ The Ark, talks about displaced East Germans fleeing to West Germany, in this case the Lechows whose son Christian and Cosi their dog were both murdered by the Poles, who wanted to rob them. What a terribly hard time Mother has bringing four children to West Germany. Queues for Identification Papers, queues for Ration Cards and most important no roof over their head. Think of winter in Germany. Losing the War had disastrous consequences for the civilian population in Germany. Where could they live? The Lechows had it pretty easy as compared to thousands of others; they were billeted in an elderly widow’s house, who was truly unhappy that she should accommodate a family with four children. But when the kids pitch in and help the widow, Mrs. Verduz, with all her household chores, she is immensely pleased... The Lechows were thunderstruck, two rooms all to themselves? They would have gladly scrubbed the street for a roof over their head. Sadly, they owned nothing; everything just about everything had to be borrowed from Mrs. Verduz, who lent them bed sheets, kitchen utensils and countless other things. Slowly they came back to life although at the back of their minds there was always the thought of their Father in a POW Camp in Russia. Magret, a shy girl worked very hard as did the Mother waiting in long queues for long hours for rations, the oldest of them Mathias works as a mason’s helper to clear all that rubble a legacy of the bombing, meanwhile Andrea and Joey attend school after ages. Mother made house almost pretty because she was an extremely good seamstress. Slowly Mrs. Verduz warms up to the children, comes often to their two rooms. The saddest but extremely stoic was little Hans Ulrich, who had no name, and no birthday. You see, Hans Ulrich and his Mother were bombed and his Mother was badly burnt and died on her way to the hospital before she could tell anything about Hans to anyone. However luck was on their side and Margret and Mathias get jobs albeit with very little pay at the Almut’s to help in the stables and to rear Great Danes that Mrs. Almut raised to sell. Eventually they are reunited with their Father and live in ‘The Ark’ an old railroad car on the farm converted into a home,
Margot Benary-Isbert, speaks in all honesty about her life as a refugee after the War, painting a realistic picture of the terrible aftermath of Germany, a country defeated in War. But really it is a story of the courage of real people, who had no time for bitterness and looked at the future with just loads hope....more
Set in the great depression of the 1930s, A Jar of Dreams is what I term the first book of the Rinko trilogy. Rinko Tsujimura and her parents live in BSet in the great depression of the 1930s, A Jar of Dreams is what I term the first book of the Rinko trilogy. Rinko Tsujimura and her parents live in Berkeley California. As any of us who live in an alien country, Rinko wants to fit in school very badly, but her very straight black hair and her black eyes do not help her much. She has a very hard time with her classmates. Rinko wishes she could be just ‘like everybody else’. Her family too is not exempt; they are treated with great disrespect. Her Father runs a barber’s shop which is not thriving, her Mother worries incessantly about bills and feeding four children. When things get bad and money is really tight, Rinko’s Mother decides to start a small Home Laundry, it is now that they face threats from a large laundry service, The Starr Laundry. They threaten Rinko’s family and even kill their pet dog. But the family does not give up.
It is at this time that Aunt Waka comes from Japan to visit the family. Aunt Waka has had her own share of problems; she had been a cripple and lost her husband and son too. But quiet Aunt Waka is extremely resilient, she urges Rinko’s Father Mr.Tsujimura, to face the Starr Laundry owner which they do, they stand up to him and explain that their small home based laundry could never ever be any competition to the Starr Laundry, the very large machine-run-laundry.
The background is extremely important for the reader to understand that Rinko Tsujimura and her family were victims of discrimination because of their background. Americans were resentful of their presence and did not trust them. This was before the Second World War, it must have been worse during the War and soon after it.
A Japanese neighbour tries to get Aunt Waka to marry a Japanese man settled in the United States and is very surprised that Aunt Waka has no desire to live in the United States, she values the culture and traditions of her own country and she is comfortable in her kimono which is her second skin......more
Rinko # 3 In ‘The Best Bad Thing’ Rinko had gone to help Mrs. Hata who was in the midst of a terrible crisis after her husband had died. When Rinko was Rinko # 3 In ‘The Best Bad Thing’ Rinko had gone to help Mrs. Hata who was in the midst of a terrible crisis after her husband had died. When Rinko was helping Mrs. Hata, her young son Abu had met with a terrible accident and Mrs. Hata’s little truck had been stolen. Rinko had stayed on to help the family… In the final book of the Rinko trilogy, we realise that the Tsujimura family had helped Mrs. Hata get a job as a cook in a Men’s Hostel. Meanwhile, Rinko is sent to learn Japanese with Mrs. S who runs a boarding house for Men. At Mrs. S, Rinko meets all the boarders and is completely taken up by the very handsome wannabe actor Johnny Ochi. Rinko now plans to get Mrs. Hata’s daughter Teru, who has just arrived from Japan to marry Johnny… It is agreed that the man Teru is to marry, a boarder, Mr. Kinjo is pretty much older than his bride. The problem is Teru is already engaged to Mr. Kinjo, who has paid the passage to bring Teru to the United States. This has been explained to Rinko by Cal her brother and Teru herself who does not want to marry Johnny Ochi and who is really grateful to Mr. Kinjo… Of course 12 year old Rinko has visions of a grand wedding and she as a go-between. Sadly, predicament strikes Mrs. S’s little boarding house, Mr. S a gambler robs a third boarder of his life savings. Everyone steps in and Mr. Kinjo gives the boarder his savings, money he had collected to have a feast for his wedding to Teru… It is then that the 12 year old Rinko realizes that Johnny Ocho may be handsome but is not one of those you can depend on in time of crisis....more
Rinko #2 When Mrs. Tsujimura’s friend, Mrs. Hata, loses her husband, she just cannot cope; there is the sadness of losing a loved one, the entire crop Rinko #2 When Mrs. Tsujimura’s friend, Mrs. Hata, loses her husband, she just cannot cope; there is the sadness of losing a loved one, the entire crop of cucumbers to be harvested and two very naughty sons, Zenny and Abu, to be taken care of... Mrs. Tsujimura decides to send her daughter during the summer holidays as a Help. It is amazing how the Japanese rush to help one another in times of crisis. And crisis does descend on the Family. The naughty little boys, Zenny and Abu, play a very dangerous game of jumping on and off freight cars and during one such game, Abu is very badly injured, Mrs. Hata rushes him to the hospital where he just about makes it. When Mrs. Hata goes to get her little truck loaded with the harvested cucumbers she finds it gone, stolen, the produce too stolen. Rinko’s parents rush to help Mrs. Hata, sadly we are not told how Mrs. Hata copes... Rinko was supposed to spend only a part of her holidays at Mrs. Hata’s and her parents ask her if she would like to go home, but unsurprisingly knowing how the people of Japan never let their friends and family down, Rinko refuses to come home. She now loves Mrs. Hata and cannot imagine leaving her alone with the harvest and Abu so very ill.
Strangely, the Kenny Rogers’s song played in my mind... "You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille With four hungry children and a crop in the field I've had some bad times, lived through some sad times But this time your hurting won't heal You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille" Yes, the Japanese never desert their friends and family in times of crisis. I am greatly humbled...
The illustrations in this book are beautiful, just about amazing.
Thought I would be in the trenches of the First World War, but this was surprisingly another type of ‘War’ far removed from the battle zone. It was thThought I would be in the trenches of the First World War, but this was surprisingly another type of ‘War’ far removed from the battle zone. It was the life of the war workers, a group of young ladies, who live in a Hostel. These young ladies ran supply depots, met hundreds of soldiers on troop trains late at night giving them sandwiches, cake and steaming cups of tea, boosting their morale, ran canteens, worked in the ammunition and much more. As we know, wars liberate women from their routine drudgery, they learn to cope, and mostly they become independent, away from the shackles of Society and Family. So it is not surprising that the Midlands Supply Depot is run by an extremely capable 29 year old Charmaine ‘ Char’ Vivian, the only daughter of Lady and Sir Percy Vivian. Char Vivian lives with her parents at their rural estate ‘Plessings’. It is to be admired that Char, who has never done a stroke of work in her life organizes and manages the Midlands Supply Depot with great efficiency. Oh yes, as pointed out she does return to her Estate Plessings every night and lives there in great comfort, with good food and most of all warmth on that cold winter. Meanwhile across the street the ‘war girls’ live in a very overcrowded hostel, here they share rooms with hardly any hot water and pretty much unpalatable food. It is here that the tremendous class divide is highlighted, the girls who work at various war related jobs are in awe of Char, because in 1915 which girl with a background like Char’s works so hard to do her bit for the War Effort? Char has never had to consider the ‘feelings’ of the ‘girls’ and honestly which CEO of a modern day Company has great bonhomie with his workers? Are we really that naïve? In this day and age, does the Queen know and consider every little cold the footman has or every sneeze an unfortunate maid might have? It does not happen, it maybe callous but the rich and nobility do not have the time nor are they aware of the discomforts of the poor and the people who work in their homes. Sadly for Char it is with her parents, particularly her Mother that the friction begins. Her Mother never thought Char would be able to run the Depot and takes every opportunity to run her down, to cut in every remark Char makes with a snide comment. Lady Vivian too is an extremely capable woman as is proved when she runs her house as a convalescent home after Sir Percy dies of a stroke. Was Lady Vivian a tad envious that Char had had the opportunity to be in charge and to run the Depot admirably? She herself did nothing but look after the needs of her husband as he was about 25 years her senior? Lady Vivian insisted Char leave her job and ‘stay around’ when Sir Percy Vivian suffers a stroke, Char is not to do anything as Lady Vivian would do all the nursing. Smacks strange to me... Then in their midst comes Grace Jones, ‘also a lady’ Grace becomes Miss Vivian’s under-secretary, although quite capable, Char Vivian stubbornly refuses to see her as being as capable as she is. Here Char shows her weakness when she refuses to take into account that others too can be as capable... But it is Lady Vivian’s behavior that makes me wonder, without knowing anything about Grace she makes her the confidante, shares a great deal with Grace to the extent of calling Grace to be her solace when Sir Percy dies, ostracizing Char completely, badgering her with her spiteful remarks. Of course Char is irritated, we are all human and no one can be a saint enough to see one’s own Mother cozying up to a total stranger and keeping her Char, out of everything. And Grace? The feud works marvelously well for her...She gets to be Lady Vivian’s confidante, becoming her Secretary at the convalescent home, she ‘falls in love with’ John Trevellyan, everything did go well for Grace... Truth be told Char had never felt anything for John Trevellyan and what’s wrong with that?
It is terribly sad that nobody saw it fit to see the qualities in Char, her hard work, her desire to do something for England, her tremendous ability for organization, she was admirable... And sadly all Char ever heard were things like ‘here are those who recognise the monster within Char Vivian.’ ‘Grace Jones not the least of them.’ ‘John Trevellyan, her mother’s cousin, is annoyed and dismayed by Char’s behavior, John is just one more thing Char takes for granted, and so she is a little uncomfortable when she sees him getting rather friendly with Grace.’ It has happened to all of us at one point or the other hasn’t I it, we have resented women poaching on guys we do not love but keep just in case nothing good pops up?
But it is Dr Prince, the old doctor who has known Char since childhood, who shocks me the most. The patriarchal sod in the guise of being a good doctor and who runs the hospital rather shoddily gets bristling when Char sets some guidelines for the hospital, starts talking rather badly of her. We have seen that too... One Sunday when the girls are at their tea at the Hostel, old Dr. Prince gathers them around, much like a benevolent, tell-it-all Santa... Narrating to them Char’s ‘evil ways’ I would have thought that as a Doctor and an older man, the good Doctor would have had more decorum, more niceness, but no he rambles on and on... Quoting things like ‘Char’s slavish obsession with her work has more to do with being seen to do it and the power and prestige it gives her than anything else.’ And to Char herself... “I’ll tell you something else. It’s not the work you want to get back to, young lady, it’s the excitement, and the official position, and the right it gives you to interfere with people who knew how to run a hospital and everything connected with it some twenty years or so before you came into the world”
Poor Dr. Prince could only get at Char by mocking and bad mouthing her.
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