A very Dostoevskian story. The narrative comes from one source, the husband of a dead girl, and this man is racked with guilt, grief, and probably shoA very Dostoevskian story. The narrative comes from one source, the husband of a dead girl, and this man is racked with guilt, grief, and probably shock, so that it is very difficult to sort out the truth from the rantings. What is obvious from the tale is that the girl was pushed beyond her limits, and the husband has much of the fault to carry. Dostoevsky's works epitomize the bleakness and often unsalvageable nature of the human soul, and this story could be recognized as belonging to him from the first sentence. ...more
The first thing I have to say is that this book touched too closely on recent events in my own life not to feel almost oppressive at times. I had to rThe first thing I have to say is that this book touched too closely on recent events in my own life not to feel almost oppressive at times. I had to read it slowly, because I could only handle it in small doses and because I was frequently unable to see the printed page because my eyes were flooded with tears. When the book opens, Ettie has just lost her husband of 55 years, Vince. I could relate so well to her loss and her feeling that reality had slipped away with the death of this man.
It was the first time in her life she felt the earth was round, not flat; that it was slowly but unmistakably turning under her feet. How could Vince’s tiny and ever more wasted body represent such security for her? She stood there, leaning against the gatepost that hadn’t seemed quite real to her for days, as if Vince had taken the reality of the stones and planks away with him and left only a ball of white noise, a mere fog behind.
Vince and Ettie have lived a simple life in the country, surrounded by people they have always known, and careful to be frugal with their money and respectful of those who have less than they do. Life has had difficulties, some of it severe, but they have been contented, and life has had meaning. Their only daughter, Iza, is a well-respected doctor and has a flat in Budapest and all the material trappings that reflect her position. The parents have lived through her vicariously, and they are extremely proud of her accomplishments. When her father dies, she disposes of her mother’s life and things with the snap of a finger and takes her back to live in the cold, sterile flat in Pest, where she is treated like a houseguest and deprived of any sense of purpose.
Maybe she was already dead and hadn’t noticed? Could a person die and not be aware of it?
What Szabo does so well in all her novels, is to view the interior workings of human beings, the desire to be generous and the failure to do so, the mistaken concept that money and things will feel the void in a soul. Iza is not entirely bad, she is emotionally stunted, and she has learned all too well to hide her feelings and her needs. Because she pushes away from her own needs, she fails miserably to understand her mother’s.
For the first half of the novel, I felt I was reading Ettie’s story; for the second half, I was reading Iza’s. There could not have been less understanding or more misunderstanding between two people, and the result is as sad a tale as I have ever encountered.
I will not say anything more, at the risk of revealing too much of the plot, but I felt the angst of Ettie, Iza, and Antal (Iza’s ex-husband). Vince makes only short appearances in the book, and those in retrospectives from other characters, but I loved him so much, and like Ettie, I felt his presence tying all these characters together and leaving them at loose ends when he was gone.
This is my fourth Szabo, and perhaps my favorite. She has a singular ability to plumb the depths of the human mind and soul. ...more
Chekhov is a masterful storyteller, particularly within the genre of the short story. This story is about grief, understanding or the lack thereof, anChekhov is a masterful storyteller, particularly within the genre of the short story. This story is about grief, understanding or the lack thereof, and internalized anger.
The unhappy are egoistic, spiteful, unjust, cruel, and less capable of understanding each other than fools.
This might be so. Some of the emotions we have when we experience a great loss are not the ones we anticipate. ...more
The Dry Heart is about as sad a story as I have ever read. It opens with a wife’s confession that she has shot her husband between the eyes. What follThe Dry Heart is about as sad a story as I have ever read. It opens with a wife’s confession that she has shot her husband between the eyes. What follows is an account of everything leading up to this event. Throughout, I wondered how many people there are out there living with people they neither know nor understand, and yet hoping that there will be success just around the corner if they can just hold on long enough.
It would be easy to dislike the husband here, but there is a theme that runs from beginning to end that screams “we are all caught”. Our narrator, the wife, is unreliable, telling the story from the traumatic aftermath of having committed murder and having suffered the other life altering events she relates; and the story is hers alone, no other voices.
Ginzburg just went on my list of authors I fear I can never have enough of. Like Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth Bowen and Maggie O’Farrell, she captures my imagination and stirs both my heart and my mind. There might be dry hearts in her stories, but I suspect hers was not dry at all.
There is an afterword in my edition of this novel, written by the daughter of Elizabeth Taylor, explaining why she feels this is Taylor’s most personaThere is an afterword in my edition of this novel, written by the daughter of Elizabeth Taylor, explaining why she feels this is Taylor’s most personal novel and detailing a few elements of true experience contained within. This novel was written as Taylor was dying. She knew she was dying. She fought hard to complete it before she did. That alone, her emphasis on being sure it was finished, tells you the importance she put in what she was trying to say.
Blaming is about loss, guilt, and responsibility–the responsibility we have one toward another as we go through life. As is the usual case with Taylor, it seems such a subtle and ordinary tale in so many ways. Amy, Nick, Martha…they are not extraordinary people, they are in many ways mundane, but Taylor seems to tell us repeatedly in her work that no individual is mundane, we simply fail to see beneath the surface and observe what is unique about them.
The interesting dynamic in this tale is between Amy and Martha, two women who are thrown together by circumstances, and who are seeking such different things from one another. Having recently become a widow, I felt Taylor excruciatingly accurate in painting what it is to lose a spouse, to navigate the way your own life changes, but also the manner in which it changes the way others see you.
But the worst of all was when she simply dreamed the truth – that she had lost him, came with relief from such a nightmare to realise bleakly that it was not. It was a bad way in which to face a day.
I found this passage particularly poignant, for it often still happens to me and I suspect it might be so for years and years into the future. Amy is speaking to Gareth, both of whom have lost spouses:
“Last night I was watching the telly, and I suddenly took it for granted that he was sitting there, too, in his chair; like old married things, we always sat in the same chairs… well, you also know that… and I turned to him. I almost saw the shape of him out of the corner of my eye. ‘What rubbish!’ I said aloud, meaning the television. Can you imagine it?” “Yes.”
The title is both clever and telling. There is a lot of blaming that goes on in the novel. Thanks to the resident servant, Ernie, some of it is delightfully humorous. (This is another of Taylor’s skills–she treats depressing subjects, but she sprinkles humor in just the right places and in just the right amounts.) While Ernie's blaming is completely for others, most of the blaming here is self-directed and sadly justified, because we are all so self-absorbed and often downright selfish that we forget to be attentive to others, when perhaps we should.
Amy began to think that we all leave everything too late.
Perhaps this is what Taylor most wants to say. We leave it too late–all of us. There comes a moment when we will no longer be able to say or do what is generous, kind, thoughtful, or deserved; when we will regret our pettiness, our tendency to take things for granted, our selfishness–a time when we will have to live with the blame....more
I wanted to love this book, but then we could say that about them all, couldn’t we? When did you open a fictional book for any other reason than that I wanted to love this book, but then we could say that about them all, couldn’t we? When did you open a fictional book for any other reason than that you wanted to love it? Authors really have that from us at the get-go. But, I did not “love” this book, and the reason might lie as much in me, in where I am in life, as in the writing of David Miller.
The story is very opaque, with skewed relationships that don’t ever come completely clear. A family is gathering for a son’s birthday, with friends invited for a party, when suddenly the patriarch of the family dies. We are carried through his death and his funeral and introduced to the people to whom he was important in life. However, I always felt at a disconnect. I did not have a single emotional tug. Perhaps the real emotions in my own life are too close to the surface to spare any for the fictionally dead.
In speaking of a cathedral lost in the fog, one of the characters says:
it rattled me–having something I know so well, know as part of my landscape–it simply wasn’t there. It made me think absence is sometimes so much more present than whatever we are looking at now,”
I have felt that kind of absence in the loss of a person.
It seemed alien. All John wanted was to talk with his father, just once more, and for him to say something back.
If you have lost a parent, you will know this feeling all too well. Just one more conversation, about anything, anything at all. But all any of us have is today, and sometimes today is the last thing we will ever have.
I will never know if the disconnect is in this book or in myself. The writing is crisp and terse, but it fits the subject it addresses. The writer is skilled and it seems obvious to me that he is dealing with a subject close to his own heart. Not a bad book or a huge disappointment, just not one that will sear itself into my heart. ...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.
John Campton is a renowned painter, an American living in Paris for years and more French than American in reality. His ex-wife has married a very weaJohn Campton is a renowned painter, an American living in Paris for years and more French than American in reality. His ex-wife has married a very wealthy banker, and the two of them vie for the love and attentions of their only son, George. Although Julia, the ex-wife, is also American, George was born on French soil, so he is of dual citizenship.
At the beginning of the story, Campton is planning a trip for himself and George, a chance to spend some private time together, but before they can embark on their journey, hostilities reach a breaking point and World War I erupts as Germany invades Belgium. Campton considers his son an American, but the French have him on their military roles and he is conscripted into the French army.
What ensues is a story full of sorrow and enlightenment as George and his father navigate the changing, and sometimes conflicted, feelings toward the cause before them. As the casualties begin to pile up and people begin to understand the nature of the conflict, Campton must struggle with his desire to keep his son safe and his realization that this war and its demanded sacrifices belong to every man, and most particularly to every Frenchman.
The killing of René Davril seemed to Campton one of the most senseless crimes the war had yet perpetrated. It brought home to him, far more vividly than the distant death of poor Jean Fortin, what an incalculable sum of gifts and virtues went to make up the monster’s daily meal.
What is the most unique about this book is that we follow the war, the loss, the effect through the eyes of a father. There are so many other books that show us the war from the soldier's point of view, but this is the angst of the ones who cannot participate and can only watch as all they love is put at risk. We are walked through Campton’s attempts to understand his son’s experiences and developing attitudes with only secondhand information to draw on.
He says he wants only things that last—that are permanent—things that hold a man fast. That sometimes he feels as if he were being swept away on a flood, and were trying to catch at things—at anything—as he’s rushed along under the waves… He says he wants quiet, monotony … to be sure the same things will happen every day. When we go out together he sometimes stands for a quarter of an hour and stares at the same building, or at the Seine under the bridges. But he’s happy, I’m sure… I’ve never seen him happier … only it’s in a way I can’t make out…
This is Edith Wharton at her best, as she deftly tears apart the surface of these two people and shows us everything that lies beneath. All the secondary characters, as well, are fully drawn and engaging, down to the elderly landlady who loses her son and then her grandsons to this spreading horror. And, while men die in droves, Americans in Paris wait and watch for America to understand what is at stake and enter the fray.
While reading, I thought of other novels I have read that have brought WWI home to me. All Quiet on the Western Front and Testament of Youth came to mind, and I felt Wharton was a significant addition to the canon, for she reveals yet another side of the horror. However, this novel is more universal than that, because it also deals with the intimate relationships that bind and separate people, the petty jealousy that prevents sharing and the small moments of understanding that create bonds that are unbreakable. So that, in the end, you might learn to see life, not only from your own view, but from that of others.
What did such people as Julia do with grief, he wondered, how did they make room for it in their lives, get up and lie down every day with its taste on their lips? Its elemental quality, that awful sense it communicated of a whirling earth, a crumbling Time, and all the cold stellar spaces yawning to receive us…
What an excellent work of art this book is. As I have often said, Edith Wharton is one of the great writers. I am in awe of how she can deliver, over and over again, books that leave such an impression upon the heart, the mind, and the soul. I will not be forgetting this one.
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
In the tradition of Edith Wharton, Charles Dickens, and Henry James, Ellen Glasgow gives us the gothic ghost and a psychological puzzle. Do you believIn the tradition of Edith Wharton, Charles Dickens, and Henry James, Ellen Glasgow gives us the gothic ghost and a psychological puzzle. Do you believe, or is it madness?
Beautifully written and exactly the kind of ghostly tale that I enjoy. Thanks to Kathleen for steering me to this delightful way to end the haunts of October. Now on to tales of gratitude for the Thanksgiving Season....more
When times are difficult, which they are a bit right now, there is such a balm in reading Wendell Berry. He can find a heartstring and tug it about thWhen times are difficult, which they are a bit right now, there is such a balm in reading Wendell Berry. He can find a heartstring and tug it about the best of anybody I have known since my own Grandfather tugged at mine. He takes me back to better times, simpler ones, perhaps because I was so much younger and unjaded, and perhaps because I was surrounded by so much love and security in the family that I had. He also reminds me of the mortality of us all, that death is the end product of life and that the life we have lived matters more than the death we are approaching.
Many of these stories were not new to me. I had encountered them before in other collections, but a few were newly found shiny pennies, and among the new characters that I either did not remember or had never met were Tol Proudfoot and Miss Minnie–a pair that couldn’t fail to make anyone smile. Some of my favorite stories are here, among them those about the last days of Mat Feltner and the death of Burley Coulter, and every one of these stories is a treasure and a joy.
Wendell Berry sees the world as it was and as it is, and he has the measure of what has been lost.
“And now look at how many are gone–the old ones dead and gone that won’t ever be replaced, the mold they were made in done throwed away, and the young ones dead in wars or killed in damned automobiles, or gone off to college and made too smart ever to come back, or gone off to easy money and bright lights and ain’t going to work in the sun ever again if they can help it. I see them come back here to funerals–people who belong here, or did once, looking down into coffins at people they don't have anything left in common with except a name.”
He just turned eighty-eight himself. He was Andy Catlett, but now he is Mat Feltner, and I think he would be just as happy to be either. He has given us a gift that cannot be valued, for it is immeasurable, it is a world into which we can slip and find the past and a hope for the future. ...more
When I began this novel, what struck me right away was how little I knew about 1979 Kurdistan. I wonder if I even knew Kurdistan was a place or the KuWhen I began this novel, what struck me right away was how little I knew about 1979 Kurdistan. I wonder if I even knew Kurdistan was a place or the Kurds a people back then. I imagine my mind would have still been focused on Southeast Asia and the sorrow of coming out of the Vietnam War.
Gian Sardar draws on her own intimate knowledge of the place and the people in writing this novel, which follows the trip of an American girl, who is a photographer, on a visit to the country with her Kurdish boyfriend, ostensibly to attend a family wedding. It is a frightful place to be at this time, and the fright I felt for her and for this family was quite real. You could tell the story was grounded in actual experiences and memories, some of them Gian’s own, and some those of her own Kurdish father and her American mother.
It isn’t a perfect novel. At times it is too slow, and at other times too repetitive in its efforts to impress upon us the danger that is around every corner. There were moments in the book that didn’t feel quite real, or maybe the right word would be genuine. Most of those had to do with the romantic angle. I am not a fan of romance novels, however, so this might have worked perfectly for someone who is. What did work marvelously was Sardar’s connection to the area itself. The descriptions of the terrain and the culture were beautifully written and often fascinating. The Kurdish characters felt very real to me, as did the fear and the sense of foreboding that were present from the moment the couple landed on Iraqi soil. I have one other objection, but it would be impossible to account for it here without a spoiler, and I try very hard never to ruin a book for any future reader, so I will just count that one silently.
The point in selecting this novel was to read something outside my normal reading preferences. This was a different culture, a different genre and a different time period than I usually choose, so it filled the bill. It was a perfectly satisfactory read, and earns a 3.5 star rating, which I rounded down....more
I am dead; Thou livest; ...draw thy breath in pain, To tell my story. --Hamlet, Act V, Scene II
I find it amazing when an author takes a seed of truth andI am dead; Thou livest; ...draw thy breath in pain, To tell my story. --Hamlet, Act V, Scene II
I find it amazing when an author takes a seed of truth and spins it into a tale that is complete and poignant and full of life. That is what Maggie O’Farrell has done with just the scant knowledge that we have of the short life of Hamnet Shakespeare.
The main character in this novel is not Hamnet, it is his mother, Agnes. She is a woman in touch with the earth, nature, and the intangible, the world that others do not see or choose to ignore. The death of her child has a profound effect upon her, and I saw the main theme of this novel to be how grief affects people, how they cope with loss, how they sometimes fail to cope with it.
How is anyone ever to shut the eyes of their dead child? How is it possible to find two pennies and rest them there in the sockets? To hold down the lids? How can anyone do this? It is not right. It cannot be.
We are told Agnes’ story in the present, but also in flashbacks to her meeting with her husband and her life on the farm and in the woods before her marriage. She is a unique, almost wild creature. She flies a kestrel.
She was able to peer into people and see what would befall them. She knew how to help them. Her feet moved over the earth with confidence and grace. This person is now lost to her for ever. She is someone adrift in her life, who doesn’t recognise it. She is unmoored, at a loss.
She is changed by death, by loss, by her inability to stop the evil of the plague in its tracks.
What is given may be taken away, at any time. Cruelty and devastation wait for you around corners, inside coffers, behind doors: they can leap out at you at any moment, like a thief or brigand. The trick is never to let down your guard. Never think you are safe.
I loved the pacing of this story, the brilliant writing, and the narrative that drew me in and made me feel the anguish of a mother’s loss. Maggie O’Farrell is a genius. ...more
I have been in the strangest mood the last several days. I am not generally a soft or weepy person, but life has been throwing me curves lately and I I have been in the strangest mood the last several days. I am not generally a soft or weepy person, but life has been throwing me curves lately and I think the build up was like a dam bursting. At any rate, the crying sort of began before I read this book, but man, Carter Sickels touched every emotional nerve in my body and by the time I reached the finish I was crying so hard I could barely see the page to read. I kept having to pause and go into the bathroom and wash my face, then I would read a few sentences and start up again.
If it doesn’t affect you that way, you can just put it down to my hormones being aflutter, but I found this to be charged mainly because there was thoughtfulness and understanding for every character Sickels depicted, not just the main character, Brian. People are so multi-faceted. There are so few of us who are all good or all evil, every one of us falls in between, although some tip the scales more to one side than the other. (Okay, there is one character in this book that I would label evil, but he isn't a main character and even he is probably more insecure and afraid than we know).
It is 1986 and Brian has AIDS. He is from the mountains in Ohio but has been living in New York City, but the death of his partner and his knowledge that he is dying makes him decide to return home to his family; a family who has never openly acknowledged that Brian is even gay. I lived through the 1980s and the AIDS epidemic. I know the fear and horror of this time. I witnessed first hand the disgusting lack of compassion on the parts of so many and the difficult struggle of other, good people, to understand and not condemn in a world that was more accepting if you would.
What Brian endures, what his parents endure, how his little sister copes, how this small town reacts; all of these things rang 100% true. It made me hurt to see this young man lose his life when it had barely begun. I felt for his mother who just wanted to love her son and protect him from this horrible disease and, perhaps worse, from the viciousness of the town that she had felt so much a part of her life. I even felt sorry for the father who just could not come to grips with the truth, so buried his head in the sand, missing his only chance to know who his son was. My heart swelled with pride for Brian’s grandmother, who puts her love first and never feels an ounce of the shame her neighbors seem to want to force upon her, and for his friends Annie and Andrew who show that true love and bravery are what truly matter.
The only way for my family to get their lives back is for me to go. How sad would it be to feel that at the end of your life?
Sickels writes beautifully and thoughtfully. He tackles death and reminds us that any death, every death, is a loss and that the next death might be our own. Every character here must face the reality of death and reach for some kind of comfort. Brian’s sister, Jess, imagines that we become whales at our ends:
Nothing transforms, there is no magic. Or, does everything transform? I hesitate, and then reach up and touch my brother’s face. His skin is warm. I don’t pray anymore, but sometimes I dream. Giant, enormous, beautiful bodies. All of us together in the ocean. We die and we swim.
For one who has sat beside a sick bed and gone from hoping and praying for the survival of the ill to praying for the cessation of the suffering, I got how hard it was for this family to watch this slow deterioration.
We’re waiting. We don’t want the moment to come, we do.
Compliments of my GR friend Debbicat, a ghost story of the Victorian era that is read to perfection. Takes about 30 minutes and filled my waiting timeCompliments of my GR friend Debbicat, a ghost story of the Victorian era that is read to perfection. Takes about 30 minutes and filled my waiting time this morning.
My thanks to my friend, Kathleen, for bringing this story to my attention. Chekhov writes poignantly about death and the meaning of life itself, bringMy thanks to my friend, Kathleen, for bringing this story to my attention. Chekhov writes poignantly about death and the meaning of life itself, bringing a lot to bear in just a few pages. I believe this is a story as much about love, intimacy and connection, as about death and separation. Chekhov wrote it while awaiting his own impending death. Write what you know....more
Finn, her family, her parents best friends and their daughter, and Finn’s best friend, Mo, set out on a skiing vacation at a remote cabin that once beFinn, her family, her parents best friends and their daughter, and Finn’s best friend, Mo, set out on a skiing vacation at a remote cabin that once belonged to her grandfather. There is an accident that leaves them hurt and stranded in severe cold and a snowstorm. The accident is not really the story, though, the story is how each of these people reacts to the accident. We see the best and the worst come out in these people and the inevitable consequences of choices made in this life and death situation. Raises the question of what do we really know about anyone until the stakes are high.
When they heard a story of cowardice or cruelty, they would have shaken their heads and tsked and thought, Never, not me, unaware that at any given moment, all of us are capable of doing what we least expect, them included.
The book was fast-paced and held my interest. There is one creepy character that I wanted to pulverize, and in an afterward the author explains that this character is based on a real person and an event that occurred in her own life. I’m sure that is why this situation feels real; in some regards it was.
If you have ever trusted your child to someone you felt you could rely upon, you might think again when you have finished this novel.
I grapple with this. Is goodness only true if it is at a personal cost? Anyone can be generous when they are rich; anyone can be selfless when they have plenty. ...more
If there has ever been a writer who can cut you open, pull out your heart, and make you sit and contemplate it while it beats in your hands, Wallace SIf there has ever been a writer who can cut you open, pull out your heart, and make you sit and contemplate it while it beats in your hands, Wallace Stegner is that man. He does it so casually sometimes that you cannot feel it coming, but I felt it in almost every page of this novel. I felt tension and anger as Joe Allston dealt with the encroaching hippie, Jim Peck, and his out of control lifestyle that spreads destruction all around him, while preaching love that has a cost to everyone but himself. And I felt anger and sadness as, with Joe, I watched Marian Catlin, a lovely soul whose love is real and universal, slowly losing her battle against cancer.
Written at the height of the “free love” hippie movement in California, Wallace Stegner captures to perfection what is wrong with this philosophy and how detrimental it can be to society in general. Both Ruth, Joe’s wife, and Marian want Joe to be indulgent and understanding of the young hippies, but I felt complete sympathy with Joe, who wants to be kinder and more tolerant, but who cannot help seeing the truth of the situation and the danger in it. The idea that a person should never have to work, should be allowed to live off the land (anyone’s land) and put nothing in, but only take things out, is shown for the hypocrisy it is, as Jim Peck takes water and electricity, scatters filth and trash, and preys upon the innocence of a rebellious young girl who is too young for the sexual awareness she embraces.
Marian Catlin wants the world to be taken for what it is. She believes that we have to experience the pain in order to experience the joy. It is Marian who loves the “little live things”. She celebrates all life, even the downside, and she refuses to believe in evil as anything real.
Maybe what we call evil is only, as she told me the first day we met, what conflicts with our interests; but maybe there are realities as ignorance, selfishness, jealousy, malice, criminal carelessness, and maybe these things are evil no matter whose interests they serve or conflict with."
Again, I understood Marian's argument, but ascribed to Joe’s.
Dangerousness is not necessarily a function of malicious intent. If I were painting a portrait of the father of evil, I wonder if I wouldn't give him the face of a high-minded fool."
Joe is not perfect, nor does he think he is. He often feels guilty for things he should not regret, and sometimes he does things that I found just crass, hurtful and unnecessary. What sets him apart is his inability to pretend to himself. He doesn’t persuade himself to believe what he doesn’t believe, even when he thinks he should. I like his honesty and his strong sense of observation and his ability to love without worshipping or excusing. He wonders if he could have had a better relationship with his dead son, and he ponders whether he handled things as well as he could have, but he never pretends he could have or would want to have behaved differently where his beliefs were concerned.
There is no way to step off the treadmill. It is all treadmill.
Sadly, he is right. If you have lived as long as I have, you come to realize that there is at least as much of life that you cannot control as there is of what you exercise even minimal control over. Death, our own or that of those we love, is one of those things we cannot control, but even with death looming, Stegner seems to say, life is a trip worth taking.
If you have not ever read Wallace Stegner, please do yourself the favor of experiencing him. I waited far too long before I read my first Stegner. He has become a favorite author and one of the few that is guaranteed to make me laugh, cry, seriously ponder, and always treasure every word he writes. ...more
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