I find it so difficult to judge a book that I know, in part, does not appeal to me because I was never its intended audience. This is no doubt an inteI find it so difficult to judge a book that I know, in part, does not appeal to me because I was never its intended audience. This is no doubt an interesting read for a 9-12 years old child, but without much to hold an adult reader. I have heard so much about this author and the substance of her writing that I was surprised to find so little to admire.
It is the story of young Margaret, who moves from her New York home to a New Jersey suburb and begins a new life with new friends there. In her efforts to find her place, she struggles to determine what religion she wishes to be, because she is a product of a Jewish-Christian marriage, and her parents follow no religion at all.
I felt the book rather strongly disparaged any religion and painted both sets of grandparents as narrow-minded and bigoted because of their beliefs, but the Christian couple were portrayed as truly obnoxious. It conflicts with my own views too much to garner much praise from me and I would not be handing it to my own child to read without having a lot of discussion about the values of both faith and tolerance. I also think a sixth grader is old enough to know that a religious faith is more than a decision between whether you want to belong to the YMCA or the Jewish Center, so I think the premise of this book also sells children of this age short. ...more
My friend, Lucy, came for a visit today. We sat down at the kitchen table, I poured the coffee, we debated about whether we ought to have a muffin to My friend, Lucy, came for a visit today. We sat down at the kitchen table, I poured the coffee, we debated about whether we ought to have a muffin to go with it, then I asked her about her ex-husband, William.
“Oh, William,” she said. And from there she told me about a trip they had recently taken together to Maine…but you can’t start there, you have to know some back story or the trip won’t make sense, so she began to tell me about her life, the one with William and the one without. She is a very good storyteller, my Lucy, she makes you want to sit and listen, and to listen between the lines.
Elizabeth Strout is so good at character creation that this is exactly what I felt as I was reading. I felt I knew Lucy and that she was simply telling me her story because the easiest way to sort yourself sometimes is to lay the feelings before a friend.
I wonder how anyone can read this book and not stumble across feelings that they recognize intimately. It might be different bits for different people, but every kind of humanity is buried in there somewhere. Lucy is so genuine in her efforts to understand herself. She knows her lack of confidence and self-worth come from her sorry childhood, but she cannot help feeling them anyway. Don’t we all carry those kinds of useless images in our heads?
I have always thought that if there was a big corkboard and on that board was a pin for every person who ever lived, there would be no pin for me.
That isn’t self-pity, it is self-awareness.
But when I think Oh William!, don’t I mean Oh Lucy! too? Don’t I mean Oh Everyone, Oh dear Everybody in this whole wide world, we do not know anybody, not even ourselves!
The older I get, the more resonance this statement has for me. We humans are such complicated creatures. We say what we do not mean, we put up fronts, we draw conclusions on only half the story, and we punish ourselves for other people’s faults.
I have no idea how Elizabeth Strout does it so effortlessly, but she seems to hold up a mirror to each of us and dare us to find the reflection there. There is already another Lucy story out there, waiting for me, and I will happily dive into it as soon as the library list whittles itself down to my name, because Lucy Barton is welcomed at my breakfast table any time....more
Two lovely essays by Dickens on his family's favorite seaside vacation spots, one Broadstairs in England, and the other Boulogne in France. With his aTwo lovely essays by Dickens on his family's favorite seaside vacation spots, one Broadstairs in England, and the other Boulogne in France. With his always delightful sense of fun and powers of description, Dickens makes you feel as if you, too, have visited these lovely towns and participated in the activities available there. I could not help thinking how wonderful it would be to have the resources to spend so much time in such a place that it begins to feel like a second home....more
A year like this one anything you do is a mistake. Just being a rancher is a mistake. Only real difference I see between ranching and poker is, witA year like this one anything you do is a mistake. Just being a rancher is a mistake. Only real difference I see between ranching and poker is, with poker you got some chance.
This is an age-old story of man against nature, man against man, and man against government; and Elmer Kelton tells it so well that you can feel that he has lived much of it in his own lifetime. There is a drought in West Texas, where Charlie Flagg owns a ranch and leases another large section of land to run cattle and sheep. Drought is not a new experience for Charlie, he has lived through the big drought of 1933, but this drought is to prove different, this one continues beyond the limits of memory and leaves few men standing in its wake.
It was a comforting sight, this country. It was an ageless land where the past was still a living thing and old voices still whispered, where the freshness of the pioneer time had not yet all faded, where a few of the old dreams were not yet dark and tarnish.
Charlie loves this land and he lives in the memories of the old days, when the line between right and wrong was less gray and more black and white. He is a bit of an anachronism, but that is because he still has the honor and dignity of the best of his generation. He pulls his own weight, and he doesn’t want a handout.
His son, Tom, has a young man’s view of life. He wants to make the rodeo circuit. He doesn’t understand his father’s brand of pride and principle, and he certainly fails to have his wisdom.
Tom Flagg said behind him, “I’d testify to anything for a free trip to Washington.” Charlie grumbled, “There’s damn little in this life that ever comes free. One way or another, you pay for what you get.”
Charlie’s hired man is Lupe Flores, who has lived in the house next door to Charlie’s, raised his large family, and managed the ranch, working alongside Charlie for years. Through Lupe, and his son, Manuel, we get a chance to look at Mexican-Anglo relationships and the fight a man like Charlie has between what is expected, which is to look down at the Mexican population, and what he truly feels, which is respect and a knowledge of how much he depends on this good man who works beside him.
To make things worse, the government programs that were promised as help for the farmers and ranchers in the region are proving to be a sand trap in themselves, and those who might have survived otherwise are being pulled down by them.
There was a time when we looked up to Uncle Sam; he was something to be proud of and respect. Now he’s turned into some kind of muddle-brained sugar daddy givin’ out goodies right and left in the hopes everybody is going to love him…It’s divided us into little selfish groups, snarlin’ and snappin’ at each other like hungry dogs, grabbin’ for what we can get and to hell with everybody else.
This book might be labeled as a “western”, but like so many great books, it is more than the label it is slapped with…it is a book about humanity, about struggle and about perseverance; it is a book about survival–it just happens to be set in the West.
My thanks to the Southern Literary Trail for making this our August selection and to Howard, whose remarkable review let me know that regardless of what I had planned, this book was not one I wanted to miss reading.
This collection is a group of fairy tales, rewritten, reimagined, and given the sensual, sexual connotations that are only implied in the originals. TThis collection is a group of fairy tales, rewritten, reimagined, and given the sensual, sexual connotations that are only implied in the originals. They are not lewd, they are tactile. These are stories as familiar as our childhood beds, but these are not fairy tales for children.
The Bloody Chamber is a retelling of Perrault’s Bluebeard fairy tale. I had recently read a collection of stories by Margaret Atwood in which this story was retold, so it was interesting to contrast what the two authors did with the same tell. Angela Carter has a marvelous skill for describing the eerie and setting the mood, and she is all suggestion and atmosphere.
“Soon”, he said in his resonant voice that was like the tolling of a bell, and I felt, all at once, a sharp premonition of dread that lasted only as long as the match flared and I could see his white, broad face as if it were hovering, disembodied, above the sheets, illuminated from below like a grotesque carnival head.
We know our lady is in peril from the outset, but we little expect how the rest of her story will unfold. Carter is inventive.
I particularly enjoyed the next two tales, The Courtship of Mr. Lyon and The Tiger’s Bride. Both are retellings of Beauty and the Beast, with The Tiger’s Bride being a reverse tale in which the girl changes into a beast at the end, rather than the other way around. It is not the only reversal in the tale, and the contrasts were beautifully conceived and executed. Both have the rose of virginity, the sexual desire of the heroine exploited, the them of inner darkness, the insecurity of the beast, and the poor girl who is traded by her father to regain his lost fortune. What is amazing is how differently she constructs the plot elements, so that the tales, while essentially the same, are so vastly different. This isn't Disney's Belle.
My father, of course, believed in miracles; what gambler does not?
I drew the curtains to conceal the sight of my father’s farewell, my spite was sharp as broken glass.
A few less captivating, but well-written, tales follow: Puss in Boots; The Snow Child (which I found a bit disturbing); The Lady of the House of Love (a vampire tale); The Erl King (a tale of seduction and enlightenment); and Wolf-Alice.
Then another pair of tales that turn Little Red Riding Hood on its head. The Werewolf which has a sinister twist of betrayal, with the Grandmother paying the price, and The Company of Wolves which has Red submitting to sex with the wolf, which wins the day.
These stories served as bedtime fare for me, but they are far from being soothing or sleep-inducing. If you are not careful, they will, rather, induce nightmares.
When Emmett Watson is given an early release from Salina, a juvenile prison, due to the death of his father, he has a plan. He will take his younger bWhen Emmett Watson is given an early release from Salina, a juvenile prison, due to the death of his father, he has a plan. He will take his younger brother, Billy, and they will head for Texas and a new life. But, he hasn’t figured on Billy, who has a plan of his own to find their long lost mother, whom he believes is in California. His plan involves following The Lincoln Highway from their home in Nebraska to San Francisco, but there is almost an immediate wrench in the works with the arrival of two of Emmett’s fellow inmates who have escaped Salina. What ensues is a mad road trip and a lot of character revelation.
This book is a metaphor for life. Like life, you may plan the trip, think you know exactly where you are going and how to get there, in fact, plot it out neatly on a map, but it is not only unlikely, but impossible, that your plans will be followed, for life has a mind of its own. Just when you seem to be on track, life will throw you a detour, a roadblock, a missed turn or a side trip. What you will find, if you are perceptive, is that the journey is far more important than the destination, that what makes it worthwhile, or not, is usually the company you keep along the way, and one true friend to share your room in the Howard Johnsons is worth a suite of rooms in the Hilton alone. What you will also find is that you have your own destiny, with disappointment and heartache, and while you share the road with others, the choice for your future is yours alone.
Towles has created a cast of characters that are distinctive, believable, lovable and pitiable, but never dull. I find him to be the best of the modern writers, proving time and again that he can write about completely different subjects in equally enthralling ways. I count A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility among my favorite books. I wondered if he could do it again. I am not on the fence; I loved this book. ...more
This novel is my first Jack London that is not an animal or nature tale, but then it mostly deals with the animal nature of a man, so maybe not that dThis novel is my first Jack London that is not an animal or nature tale, but then it mostly deals with the animal nature of a man, so maybe not that different. The Sea Wolf is Captain Wolf Larsen, a seaman who believes in nothing but his own welfare, and stops at no atrocity if he finds it to benefit his own desires. He is materialism and atheism run amok. He is intellectual, without emotion, values nothing but money, including anyone’s life aside from his own, and he has no moral code of any kind.
That London manages to make this character seem real instead of caricature is a bit of miracle in itself. As a foil, London has Larsen impress into service a shipwreck victim, Humphrey Van Weyden. To Hump, as he is called, Larsen expounds upon his philosophy and he and Hump argue the existence of the soul or the worth of a life that is not your own. For me, the repeated conversations became tiring. It was as if London was pounding the issue, but perhaps he was simply engaging in his own struggle with his own beliefs.
What I did like about this book were the passages related to life at sea. I could feel the rising of the storms and the swaying of the ship, and there is a very detailed description of an engineering feat that is so intricately described that you know it would be exactly how the maneuver would be achieved. There is extreme brutality, but it is necessary to the tale being told and it is not so graphic as to make it intolerable to read.
I try not to superimpose the beliefs of an author over the fiction that he writes, but that was hard to avoid with this book. London was an atheist and a socialist, and I am wondering how comfortable he was with either position based upon his arguments in this book.
Finally, there is a love story introduced late in the book that I found improbable, to say the least. I thought about the other London’s I have read and realized none of them contained any women or love stories; they are about rugged individualism and animal instinct. I think he is better suited to that subject.
All in all, I had hoped to like it better. I’m sure I would have liked it less had I been reading alone and not sharing the experience with a group of very savvy readers who helped to keep my interests alive and brought me a balanced view of the extreme philosophy expressed here. ...more
4.5 stars. One of my favorite poems is Browning’s My Last Duchess, so I was immediately interested when I knew Maggie O’Farrell was writing a book bas4.5 stars. One of my favorite poems is Browning’s My Last Duchess, so I was immediately interested when I knew Maggie O’Farrell was writing a book based on the life of Lucrezia de Medici, whose portrait is said to have inspired the poem.
The book seemed to get off to a slow start, where O’Farrell normally pulls me in immediately, so I was in fear of disappointment, but I need not have worried. By the time Lucrezia married and headed off to Ferrara, I began to feel as if I knew her intimately. I became very invested in her struggle to make sense of her husband and her marriage and her efforts to maintain her identity in the face of the cruelties around her.
Lucrezia suddenly sees that some vital part of her will not bend, will never yield. She cannot help it—it is just the way she is built. And Alfonso, possessed of such a swift and perceptive way of reading people, must have sensed this. Why else would he have become so furious with her, if not to try to break down the walls of that citadel, capture it and declare himself victor?
While reading, I kept thinking about having all this happen, this ritual of marriage to a stranger and separation from every part of your world; the helplessness of being reared as a political pawn. This was, in truth, a way of life for women of royal birth for centuries upon centuries. I thought how frightening it would be for a woman, then I thought of what that would have felt like to a fifteen year old, and I quaked.
Maggie O’Farrell’s writing is powerful, her descriptions flawless.
And then it is done. The dress is on her. It reaches her ankles, it covers her wrists, it stands up on all sides of her, a fortress of silk. Above it is her piled hair, the ruby collar, below it her feet, now in satin shoes. In the mirror, she sees a girl surrounded by a sea of blue and gold, like an archangel fallen to earth.
I might have been present for this wedding, it was described so perfectly. I might have been the girl carrying the weight of that dress and those jewels.
This is historical fiction, not history, so liberties were taken, and that is always fine with me, as long as the author does not alter the basic facts that are known to be true. O’Farrell can be counted on for that, and then she can be counted on to supply the unknown details in such a way that they feel they might be the truth. Her imagination never fails her or her reader. ...more
I was much afraid this book would not be able to live up to its predecessor, These is My Words. For one thing, I knew it would be missing one of its mI was much afraid this book would not be able to live up to its predecessor, These is My Words. For one thing, I knew it would be missing one of its most dynamic characters and how could it have that same impact. It would be set in a later period as well, and that seemed to me to invite a less stirring tale. Ah, I have underestimated this terrific writer, for she wove this story and took me right back into Sarah’s world.
I love books like these that feel authentic to their times, that weave an adventure you would never want to live but enjoy participating in from afar. What a hard life our ancestors lead settling this country. It would have required a lot of courage, not to mention the perseverance to keep starting over disaster after disaster, loss after loss. I hardly came up for air while reading it and now I’m quite anxious to get to the third book in the series.
Another thank you to Lori for introducing me to this series of books. Great fun and totally memorable.
Good Morning, Midnight is the story of a young woman’s plunge into depression and loneliness in the years following World War I. Sasha Jensen, an Engl Good Morning, Midnight is the story of a young woman’s plunge into depression and loneliness in the years following World War I. Sasha Jensen, an English woman, who had spent the years immediately following the war with her husband, Enno, a Frenchman, in Paris, finds herself back there retracing her steps through their old haunts and reliving her past. Paris does not seem to be a city of lights in Rhys novel, but one of seediness and gutter trolling.
I’m not sure what I should say about this novel. I had read that it was vaguely autobiographical, and I sincerely hope that is not the case, for this is a book of so much despair and darkness that it was a struggle to continue to read. It is not melancholy that drives Sasha, it is utter despair, and how a person with this little connection to life keeps living is beyond explanation. The ending was just too, too bizarre and awful for my tastes. The haunting promise of the Dickinson poem the title is derived from came flashing to my mind.
Rating the book is equally difficult, because there is not one thing about it I could say I liked, but I can recognize the emotional investment Rhys has made in her character. I thought of A Farewell to Arms, because the desolation of the ending of that novel seems to permeate this one, but while Hemingway is fairly straightforward in the telling of his tale, Rhys writes in the most meandering way, with random thoughts that require a re-read sometimes just to make sure you have caught the sense of them. And, there is the temptation to believe that she mostly wanted to shock her audience by forcing them to view the depravity of the post-war Parisian society.
Perhaps this was just too much of an intellectual and emotional investment for me at this moment in time, or maybe this is Rhys taken too far into herself for my pleasure. I enjoyed Wide Sargasso Sea and think of it fondly, but that was written by an older, perhaps more mellow Rhys. This book was written in 1939, and having come through one World War, Rhys could surely see the world standing at the threshold of the second. I doubt I will think of this book again, and if I do there will not be any fondness. When I closed the cover, I believe the sensation I was feeling was nausea. ...more
Hearing the sound of your own soul can be an enlightening and satisfying thing, even if it isn’t a pretty sound.
This novel was recommended to me bHearing the sound of your own soul can be an enlightening and satisfying thing, even if it isn’t a pretty sound.
This novel was recommended to me by someone whose taste generally crosses with mine. I read the first chapter before deciding I would read the book, and I found it quite strange but somehow interesting. I took a leap of faith and chose it as a group read, and I might owe my apologies to the group! I’d say it isn’t for everyone.
It isn’t the worst thing I have ever read, in fact it is oddly mesmerizing, with some eloquent prose and some catchy characters. It is also just exceedingly weird and at times totally meaningless. I believe it is meant to be about death and the cycle of life, but it is a mix of too many floating ideas for me to be sure that is even the impetus. It no doubt falls into the Magical Realism category, which isn’t a favorite for me, although the magical part of this is part of the Louisiana bayou voodoo culture and seems to blend in believably with the environment it is set in.
Imaginary people real, too—in their way. If a person can remember or even dream up a face, then the face does exist in some kinda way. Things remembered are sometimes more real than what a person holds in his hand.
At about halfway through, courtesy of a fellow reader, I found out that one of the characters, Buddy Bolden, was a real person. He is held to be the first Jazz player and made his way through the seedier side of New Orleans nightlife and brothel areas, playing his trumpet in his own distinctive style. Somehow, knowing that at least one of these characters actually existed, added some grounding and credence to the novel itself.
When we think about death and New Orleans, there is a marked difference from death in other places. The way the dead are buried, the way they are seen to their graves in parades and with music, and the always sweeping threat of the water.
In this city there is a long and curious relationship with death, a closeness, a delicate truce. They say in New Orleans death is so close that the dead are mostly buried above ground, that the dead share altitude with the living.
This book is more about the dead than the living, but then, in this book, it is sometimes hard to tell which we are dealing with. In the end, it was just a little too strange for me. 2.5 Stars, rounded down.
Starla Claudelle is a nine-year old dynamo with red hair, who has a lot to learn about the way things are in the 1963 Mississippi she inhabits. She li Starla Claudelle is a nine-year old dynamo with red hair, who has a lot to learn about the way things are in the 1963 Mississippi she inhabits. She lives with her grandmother, Mamie, who is far from kind and loving, and she dreams of life with her mother, who she believes is a career singer in Nashville. When events unfold in a way that makes her feel she must run away, she heads out to Nashville alone and is given a ride by a black woman, Eula Littleton.
Eula is a damaged soul, but a sweet and caring person, and her meeting with Starla is God’s way of watching out for both of them. They are both misunderstood, but in understanding one another, they come to grips with what it means to be a complete human being.
He’d called her stupid, but she wasn’t stupid. She was just empty.
What ensues is a series of adventures that cause Starla to see first hand the racial divide in a way that she had never seen it before. As she comes to question the way of life she has always known, she develops a bond with Eula that is touching and scary for both of them.
I couldn’t explain the tangled up way things was making me feel. Mamie said I’d understand when I got older. But the older I was getting, the more confused I got.
As you get older, I guess the assumption is that the prejudices have been well taught and whether you understand better or not, you will at least understand the consequences of not adhering and accept this as just the way things are. Thank God for some brave people who stood up and said “no” despite the consequences, like Miss Cyrena, but also those, like Starla, who stand up for what they know is right, without knowing the possible consequences.
As she comes into contact with the Jim Crow world around her, she meets the worst of the white people and the worst of the black, she sees the fear that each can cause in the other, and she recognizes the basic human injustice that is taken for normal in her own world. But, she also sees the best of both, and that many struggle to be good and decent in a world that does not place enough value on those qualities. It is genius to see this through the eyes of a child, an innocent, not yet taught to hate someone for the color of their skin.
I had to hold on to the mad so the sad didn’t drown me.
I love the characters Susan Crandall has invented for this story, particularly Starla, Eula and Miss Cyrena. As improbable as the story was at times, they all seemed uncannily real and the predicaments strangely believable. The book reminded me of The Secret Life of Bees, another coming-of-age tale that addressed these issues. The mood and subject are the same, the story is quite different. Well worth the read.
But the sea is a different sort of enemy. Unlike the land, where courage and the simple will to endure can often see a man through, the struggle agBut the sea is a different sort of enemy. Unlike the land, where courage and the simple will to endure can often see a man through, the struggle against the sea is an act of physical combat, and there is no escape. It is a battle against a tireless enemy in which man never actually wins; the most that he can hope for is not to be defeated.
Wow, who knew an account of a failed expedition across Antarctica could be so emotional. I feel I crossed a continent with these men and that I was cold and hungry and wet, always wet. And, it was miserable, but these men were amazingly optimistic and congenial and stoic. I am sure I would have been worthless and depressed just watching the ship, the Endurance, fall into the sea, crushed by ice pressure. I know I would have been devastated by some of the difficult tasks they had to perform and some of the things they were required to eat.
The heart of this journey was Ernest Shackleton himself, a man who led quietly and competently and never despaired; a man who showed great care and concern for his men and made tough decisions without looking backward; and a man who never gave up his faith or tenacity in the face of unbelievable odds.
When I had finished reading the book, I went online to find the pictures were taken on the voyage and survived. They were amazing and reinforced, even more, the courage and resilience needed to endure this catastrophe.
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I enjoyed every page of this book, and as I always say when I have finished such an historical account, I need to read more non-fiction! ...more
Written in 1840, when Dickens himself was less than 30 years old, The Old Curiosity Shop, while still a lovely read, introduces themes and writing thaWritten in 1840, when Dickens himself was less than 30 years old, The Old Curiosity Shop, while still a lovely read, introduces themes and writing that would become so much more mature and complex in Dickens’ later novels, Little Dorrit and Dombey and Son. That this is one of his more sentimental efforts can be easily explained by knowing that Dickens was still grieving the premature loss of his young sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth, who died at the age of 17.
The death of Mary Hogarth was a blow that Dickens perhaps never recovered from. He was quite young himself, and Mary makes appearances in many of his novels, as angelic female characters, lost before their time. What the loss of one so young must undoubtedly trigger in anyone is a sense of their own mortality, an issue each of us grapples with daily.
That this was paramount in Dickens’ mind at the time of this writing seems to me to be evidenced in the following passage from the book:
The child admired and praised his work, and shortly afterwards departed; thinking, as she went, how strange it was, that this old man, drawing from his pursuits, and everything around him, one stern moral, never contemplated its application to himself; and, while he dwelt upon the uncertainty of human life, seemed both in word and deed to deem himself immortal. But her musings did not stop here, for she was wise enough to think that by a good and merciful adjustment this must be human nature, and that the old sexton, with his plans for next summer, was but a type of all mankind.
The story of Little Nell is the central one of The Old Curiosity Shop, but it runs parallel to a second story, which I think of as Kit’s story. While the two tales overlap in places, they seemed to me to be two distinct threads, with only a tenuous attachment. What they do have in common is the same villainous enemy seeking to do them harm, the dwarf, Quilp. Quilp is a villain of no subtlety. He is rotten from the brim to the dregs, and his inner character is reflected in his outer visage. He is the frightful thing a child hopes is not lingering under the bed or in the closets when the light goes out. He is, in fact, almost a caricature of evil, which, for me, lessens his impact. I tend to be more frightened by the evil that lies hidden beneath kinder words and countenances.
In the same vein, Nell is so good and so sweet that she becomes almost a symbol of childhood innocence and virtue, instead of a real little girl in a precarious position. While I was moved to tears over Florence Dombey and Amy Dorrit, I shed none for Nell. This told me that she affected me in a less personal way. Her Grandfather is, I believe, meant to elicit our sympathies, but like Mr. Dorrit, he never completely redeems himself for me. Without him, exactly as written, however, the extent of Nell’s love and devotion could never be portrayed.
The book has been compared to a fairytale, and it fits the description well. The child is in peril, the evil forces pursue her, particularly in the form of a Rumpelstiltskin-like Quilp, good forces collude to save her. But there is more depth than that to this tale. There are the actions of the Grandfather, which bring himself and Nell into the clutches of such evil and leave them exposed to a world where even the elements of nature can be cruel. There are sharp contrasts between the bucolic countryside and the industrialized city, where the fires burn day and night and threaten to suck everyone into a nightmare existence.
Kit’s story, I believe, saves the book from being maudlin or saccharin. He adds both humor and reality to the story and as it progresses, his story becomes the meat of the tale–the portion where you begin to see the inner workings of the characters, both good and bad. It is primarily in this story line that we see my favorite character from the book, Dick Swiveler and the marvelous Marchioness. What I like about Dick is that he grows over the course of the story. He swivels, if you will, from not seeing clearly, or perhaps even caring about others, to being one of the most insightful and caring characters penned. With him comes the Dickensian humor that brightens the bleakest of Dickens’ tales.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It is an established fact that Dickens at his worst spreads a richer table than most authors at their best. If I were not comparing this to other Dickens novels, it would doubtless get a five-star rating. As it is, it is a smidgen below his best, so I give it four-stars and encourage everyone who hasn’t done so to read it....more
How fragile our lives are anyways. How quickly things can change forever.
This is a splendid book, full of human trial and victory, and singing witHow fragile our lives are anyways. How quickly things can change forever.
This is a splendid book, full of human trial and victory, and singing with love and endurance. I developed a deep respect and admiration for Sarah Prine. Living in the Arizona Territory in the second half of the 19th Century would have been a challenge that not everyone could survive. In fact, Sarah herself says
Anyone who hasn’t got some backbone has no business trying to live in the Territories.
I am pretty sure that there is no one who reads and appreciates this book who doesn’t end up in love with Captain Jack Eliot. He is the kind of man who would not escape the adoration of a woman or the approbation of a man. He is an enigma and an awakening for Sarah, and we are so privileged to see him through her eyes, for we recognize his wonderful character while she is still discovering it. His superb characterization is what makes this book a 5-star read. Like Sarah, I found myself always peering into the distance, waiting for Captain Eliot to return.
Captain Elliot has this recklessness about him, and a way of holding on that you don’t know he is holding on, and a way of laughing that is like he takes pleasure in the act of laughing itself. He is better to have around in a scrap than a trained wildcat, though.
All the secondary characters, Sarah’s mother, Jack’s father, Savannah and Albert, the brothers, the children, the myriad of people who pass through Sarah’s life, are painted with exacting care. We are given every sort of strength and weakness, tenderness and meanness alive in the human race, and it was hard to imagine the hardships and tribulations these people, particularly the women, endured.
I marked dozens of passages to remember, for Nancy Turner puts words of wisdom into Sarah’s diary entries that even Sarah does not wholly grasp the sageness of. In fact, one of the most appealing things about Sarah is that she is often still so innocent and naive for a woman who has had such a harsh and serious life experience; and that she has that ability of children to see right into the heart of things and people.
A few of my favorites:
…this has hurt my heart and spirit more than all the other trials, for being forsaken is worse than being killed.
The likes of her isn’t going to listen nor be changed in the mind just from hearing sense. Some people sense is wasted on, and that’s purely a fact.
After a couple of hours the children began playing. They just cannot be sad too long, it is not in them; as children mourn in little bits here and there like patchwork in their lives.
Sometimes I feel like a tree on a hill, at a place where all the wind blows and the hail hits the hardest. All the people I love are down the side aways, sheltered under a great rock, and I am out of the fold, standing alone in the sun and the snow. I feel like I am not part of the rest somehow, although they welcome me and are kind. I see my family as they sit together and it is like they have a certain way between them that is beyond me. I wonder if other folks ever feel included yet alone.
It seems there is always a road with bends and forks to choose, and taking one path means you can never take another one. There’s no starting over nor undoing the steps I’ve taken.
It fascinated me to think that Nancy Turner based this upon an actual diary left by her own ancestor, and that there was an element of truth to Sarah's experiences.
I am happy that there are two more books featuring Sarah to follow this one. I enjoy Nancy Turner’s writing style and her beautiful descriptions and characterizations. I do not, however, expect the next two will be able to hold up to this one. It is so hard to make lightning strike twice in the same place–let alone three times, and this book is pretty darned perfect to me. And, for anyone who has read it, there is an obvious reason to not expect the same delight can carry through.
My sincere thanks to my friend, Lori, for recommending this book to our little reading group. I am excited that there will be discussion of it and I will not have to let go of these people or this place quite yet....more
We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. And this has been based on the even flimsier assumption thatWe have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. And this has been based on the even flimsier assumption that we could know with any certainty what was good even for us.
The Art of the Commonplace is a collection of twenty-one essays written by Wendell Berry over an expanse of time. In the collection, he presents his philosophy regarding agrarian life vs. urban life, and sets a comprehensive case for why separation from the land leads the modern man into social, spiritual and economic desolation.
Within these pages, I found all those heart-warming, wholesome qualities that make Berry’s fictional books such a joy to read. The first section was a literal walk with him through his own farmland and into the woods that neighbor it, and I found that very enjoyable. His connection to the past, the present and nature herself is somehow very gratifying.
One of his greatest qualities is his ability to find the majestic in the mundane, the beauty in the everyday, the delight in the details. He is a sharp observer of life, and he knows how man ought to fit into the natural world and exactly where he has missed doing so. All the right questions are asked, and I believe we are further from the answers today than we were when this book was published. What is the cost of losing our farmland to conglomerates, allowing our families and communities to disintegrate, and leaving the bulk of our populations stranded in cities that are havens for stress and isolation?
The points being made here are both relevant and interesting, however, as I read one essay after another, I found them less captivating. Often the point was the same and expressed in much the same terms, so that it seemed repetitive and then almost evangelical. I agree with him on 95% of his points, and I knew if I had read each of these essays individually, as they were written and originally published, I would have probably enjoyed each and every one of them. It seemed to me the best way to read them was not as a collection, one after another, in too close succession, but spaced over time.
I have the utmost admiration for Wendell Berry, for who he is, how he lives, what he believes, and how he writes. There is no doubt, however, that he has my heart more soundly in hand when I am with him in Port William and the points are made subtly and soundly through the characters that I have come to love.
We would do well to listen to his voice, whether through his fiction or his non-fiction, for he is issuing a warning to us all that the life we are living is lacking something essential, something we were meant to have. The loss is ours....more
The Trees is the first of a trilogy in Conrad Richter’s American saga, The Awakening Land: The Trees, The Fields, & The Town. Whenever I read about thThe Trees is the first of a trilogy in Conrad Richter’s American saga, The Awakening Land: The Trees, The Fields, & The Town. Whenever I read about the settling of this country, I am taken with the strength of the people who forged ahead to unknown places and dangers, leaving all they knew behind them forever. Such a family are the Luckett’s, Worth, Jary, and their five children, who leave Pennsylvania for the uncharted forests of Ohio, and such a family stands behind all of us whose families founded the U.S. and Canada.
The main character followed through the book is the oldest daughter, Sayward, who is a monument to strong women everywhere. She is physically able and quick, but it is her mental endurance that left me awed. Even one of the tragedies she faces would be too much for many of us, but we know that only the strong survive and only the strongest build. For if Sayward is anything, she is a builder, a worker, and a woman who will leave more behind her than she finds.
I had no difficulty in relating to each of the characters in the book. The rugged loner, that is Sayward’s father, Worth; the reluctant mother who follows him into places she never wishes to go, the children who adapt to whatever environment they are thrown into, and the good and evil people that come to populate their world–all seem real. There are no stereotypes here, even though several of the characters could easily have become that.
There are, of course, nuggets of truth sprinkled among these pages. When Sayward is wishing to make some Moss Tea, her Mother’s recipe, she can only remember pieces of the procedure and she reflects, “What moss it was and what you did then was forever buried now under the big white oak.” Do you think we all die with things we know that nobody else ever will? I do. I wish there were a million things I had thought to ask my Mama when she was here with me, and my Daddy was a fountain of folklore and family stories that have disappeared except in snatches over the years. Like Sayward, we don’t often think of it until it is too late.
This novel reads easily and feels very authentic, as if Richter might have lived in those times himself. If I had a complaint it would be that it ends abruptly, but then that wouldn’t be a valid complaint because it is part of a trilogy and Sayward and all the others are just waiting for me to pick them up again in The Fields, which I am quite anxious to do. ...more
And perhaps that was the great ill of the world, that those prone to evil were left untouched by guilt to a degree so vast that they might sleep throuAnd perhaps that was the great ill of the world, that those prone to evil were left untouched by guilt to a degree so vast that they might sleep through a storm, while better men, conscience stained men, lay awake as though that very storm persisted unyieldingly in the furthest reaches of their soul.
It is post-Civil war Georgia, and the men have come home from the war in various states of mental and physical disrepair. The slaves have been freed, but few of them know how to embrace the new life they have found, and most of the townsmen and previous slave owners do not mean to see them succeed. Disarray is everywhere, loss is everywhere, and the scavengers have control of things.
Two of the freedmen released into the town of Old Ox, Georgia are brothers, Landrey and Prentiss, who make their way onto the land of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. George is a good man, who recognizes that he and the brothers might fill one another’s needs: his to begin a field of peanuts (a task he is ill-equipped to perform), and theirs to make enough money to leave the town and find their way North to a new life. He has a genuine respect for these men, he pays a fair wage, neither of these facts is considered an attribute by his neighbors.
That this relationship should end in tragedy is almost a given. In fact, there is much these men have in common, but little they understand of one another, and they are all struggling to find their feet in a world that has just turned inside-out. Woven into this tale is another kind of struggle, experienced by two other men, but one that impacts directly the events that follow.
Harris has also created, along with this variety of male characters, a couple of female characters that make the book whole and complete. Isabelle, and her growth during the course of the novel, shows, for me, how truly adept a writer Nathan Harris is. She reacts in ways that I did not anticipate, but never in ways that do not ring true.
There is so much one wishes to say, but too difficult to do so without spoiling some aspects of the book for others, which I always strive to avoid. So, I will simply say this is a powerful read, it deserves the attention and award nominations it has received.
The Sweetness of Water is Nathan Harris’ debut offering, and I hope it is a sign of things to come from this very talented and skillful writer. ...more
I have made countless treks into the Blue Ridge Mountains, growing up in North Georgia and having people in Tennessee. To my shame, I don’t believe I I have made countless treks into the Blue Ridge Mountains, growing up in North Georgia and having people in Tennessee. To my shame, I don’t believe I ever gave a thought to how many people were displaced by the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, how their land was taken from them, or the personal heartache that was suffered in order to give the land over to the enjoyment of the population in general. That is, I never gave it a thought until I stumbled across Wayne Caldwell’s Cataloochee.
Requiem by Fire is the continuation of the Cataloochee story and deals directly with the establishment of the Park and the almost cruel way in which people were evicted from their homes to make it happen. Caldwell is one of the most even-handed writers I have ever encountered. He does not draw black and white pictures, he paints in color. He lays all the facts and feelings before you and he lets you decide. After all, these are human beings and there are all kinds of motivations and emotions that go with that. I understood the desire to protect the area and build the Park, but I mostly felt the anguish of the men and women who had already invested lifetimes into this soil and these mountains, being told they might not even be allowed to be buried next to their kin in their own family cemeteries.
The mountain flavor here is genuine, the dialog perfection. Silas Wright, an old timer, says these words to Jim Hawkins, the newly minted warden who also happens to be born and raised in Cataloochee himself:
”What’s fine at seven in the morning can be awful at midnight. Seven in the morning, a man’s got some small reason to hope he’ll have a good day. Come dark, he knows he ain’t had one, and he’s got eight more hours to put up with whatever ghosts his mind might care to entertain.”
For me, this rang so true.
There is a way of life being lost, and as the older Cataloochians reminisce, we realize it was a way of life already abandoned in the valley, years ago. I became very attached to several of these characters, Silas, Mary Carver, and Jim; I cringed at at least one of them, the despicable Willie McPeters, and pitied the young ones, riding off to the city, who would never know what they had lost.
Wayne Caldwell is an amazing writer and a consummate storyteller. I hope to see many more gripping tales penned by his hand before he is through. I know he admires Wendell Berry, he quotes him in his opening to this book, and he is one of a rare handful of writers who might be able to fill his shoes. ...more
If there is one thing you can say about Kazuo Ishiguro, it is that each novel he writes is different from the last. This one bears the most resemblancIf there is one thing you can say about Kazuo Ishiguro, it is that each novel he writes is different from the last. This one bears the most resemblance to Never Let Me Go, mainly because it explores the feelings of those who are meant to have none--those who are meant to simply serve.
Klara is artificial intelligence carried to its logical extreme; she is an AF, artificial friend. It seems to me that she is, in fact, a true friend and exhibits far more feeling and moral character than the flawed humans around her. But then, isn’t that what it is to be human? To be human is to be flawed, confused, selfish, irrational. She is Mr. Data, but with a bit less grasp of her place in the scheme of things, and no Geordie to explain things or make her feel more like her human counterparts. She is solar powered, and for her the Sun is God. It would be easy to dismiss her childish misunderstanding, but her faith is strong, so what you feel as a reader is not dismissive, it is hopeful.
I enjoyed this, as I have enjoyed all the Ishiguro’s I have read. He is a superb writer, and while I keep hoping he will someday repeat for me the magic of Remains of the Day, I know that is just measuring him against his own best work…against others he always gets high marks. ...more
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