Omg – yes! Clearly, I need Miranda July in my life more than once a year. She makes me laugh and… well, maybe not cry, but think! And cringe. DefiniteOmg – yes! Clearly, I need Miranda July in my life more than once a year. She makes me laugh and… well, maybe not cry, but think! And cringe. Definitely cringe at times. She shies away from absolutely nothing! Sometimes I find this annoying, this no holds barred approach to writing. Just as in real life, a person that refuses to hold back a single damn thing can get on my nerves. It feels too forced. But with July, there’s a purpose. She’s not going to show you part of her character. You are going to see the genuine person - the good, the bad and the ugly (and it does get “ugly” here at times!). She is refreshingly honest, and I’d say that’s the appeal to me as a reader.
“The only dangerous lie was one that asked me to compress myself down into a single convenient entity that one person could understand. I was a kaleidoscope, each glittering piece of glass changing as I turned.”
When the narrator, a forty-five-year-old artist, embarks on a cross-country drive, she ends up not at the end of her intended excursion to New York City, but at a dumpy motel only thirty minutes away from home. And there begins an entirely different sort of journey of a mid-life wife and mother of a young son. Don’t expect the same old story of a conforming, middle-aged woman breaking free, however. The narrator is anything but your typical housewife to begin with, so this ride gets wild and bumpy and raunchy! And poignant and meaningful. Do not lose focus or you will miss out entirely on the significance, the essence of the whole thing.
“If I lived to be ninety I was halfway through. Or if you thought of it as two lives, then I was at the very start of my second life. I imagined a vision quest-style journey involving a cave, a cliff, a crystal, maybe a labyrinth and a golden ring.”
“Everyone thinks they’re so securely bound into their lives. Really I had done almost nothing to end up here. I had walked the wrong way around the block and then gone the wrong direction on the freeway.”
What I loved most about this was that the narrator really had no clue, no plan as to what she was going to do next. She was entirely spontaneous, figuring out herself and her desires and her needs as she went along. Ideas shifted, circumstances changed, and she wound up in a variety of situations as she evolved into this new person. Well, “new” person isn’t really the right word. She figured out what she wanted next out of life, given the person she had been all along really. Have you ever made a list or a plan and then botched it up completely? Of course you have! Went off the rails and done something else entirely different? Or maybe not off the rails, but had to regroup and change direction a bit? The narrator is so damn funny – so relatable at times that I had to laugh and nod my head.
“I spent the rest of the afternoon planning the rest of my life. I made lists of the different areas and how I could throw myself into them. They included Family and Marriage and Work but also Service. I had not been of enough service in my life. I could see getting deeply involved in all sorts of helping… Also the rest of my life would be a slog and then I would die. Which is the case for many people. It’s no big deal.”
This woman isn’t really about to give in though. She has grit and determination and the admiration of this reader! Even if you can’t fully relate to her actions, someone going through a time of life transitions should surely be able to empathize with her feelings. Perhaps her sexual adventures aren’t to your liking, but if you try to look beyond that at the bigger picture, then you will gulp this novel down in one big, appetizing bite too! Make sure to read the Acknowledgements section if you make it through to the end. July conducted a series of interviews with women in midlife and garnered a range of physical and emotional changes that went along with it. Oh, and several doctors as well. Bonus points for doing the extra legwork! She’s truly brilliant. I might have loved this even more than The First Bad Man, and that's saying a lot!
“Maybe it all began now, my life as a wife comfortable in her own home, a real wife. I tried to remember how Pinocchio had become a real boy. It had something to do with being in a whale, maybe saving his father’s life; I hadn’t done anything like that. But surely a woman was more complex than a puppet boy and she might become herself not once-and-for-all but cyclically: waxing, waning, sometimes disappearing altogether.”...more
I was completely ignorant of the poetry of Kaveh Akbar, until I read Martyr!, his first novel. Now that I’ve read his beautiful, lyrical prose, I’ll bI was completely ignorant of the poetry of Kaveh Akbar, until I read Martyr!, his first novel. Now that I’ve read his beautiful, lyrical prose, I’ll be sure to seek one of his poetry collections. At first, I thought this book was going to take me to some very dark places. Well, the subject matter is often quite dark, but Akbar manages this with a lighter touch by the addition of humor and the care which he has for his characters. There’s a warmth to the writing that keeps the reader from wallowing in the depths of despair. When we first meet twenty-seven-year-old Cyrus, he’s a recovering alcoholic and drug addict.
“It felt like the only time Cyrus ever really felt now-ness was when he was using. When now was physiologically, chemically discernible from before. Otherwise he felt completely awash in time: stuck between birth and death, an interval where he’d never quite gotten his footing. But he was also awash in the world and its checkboxes – neither Iranian nor American, neither Muslim nor not-Muslim, neither drunk nor in meaningful recovery, neither gay nor straight. Each camp thought he was too much the other thing. That there were camps at all made his head swim.”
Now that he’s sober, he’s completely obsessed with the idea of death. His mother died a senseless death when her airplane was shot down in the Persian Gulf when he was just a baby. His father, an employee at a chicken factory farm in the Midwest, died shortly after raising Cyrus to adulthood and seeing him off to university. There’s a lot of struggling with the meaning of life which further leads to Cyrus’s decision to delve into the lives of the martyrs. He wants to write a book about martyrdom and the idea that a death means something. That one doesn’t live and die for nothing.
“… my whole life I’ve thought about my mom on that flight, how meaningless her death was. Truly literally like, meaningless. Without meaning. The difference between 290 dead and 289. It’s actuarial. Not even tragic, you know? So was she a martyr? There has to be a definition of the word that can accommodate her. That’s what I’m after.”
When he learns of a visual artist living out her last days in a Brooklyn museum, Cyrus buys a ticket east. This might be his chance to find that meaning for which he’s been searching. Orkideh has been diagnosed with terminal breast cancer and has installed herself in an exhibit called Death-Speak. Visitors are invited to sit with Orkideh to talk openly about death. The first thing I thought of was Marina Abramović and her 2010 MoMA performance titled The Artist is Present. As it turns out, Kaveh Akbar was thinking of this as well. Abramović’s performance was referred to briefly in this book. This is the part of the book that truly engaged me the most. That philosophical dialogue between Cyrus and Orkideh really made me think about a lot of things. Life and death, of course. But more than that. The two discuss the role of art and language in our lives. Identity, faith, grace and love are examined. I wanted to sit with the two of them for many more days and glean what I could – particularly from Orkideh. After all, it’s through her that Cyrus learns a bit more about living a life rather than getting hung up on death itself. Oh, and the act of writing and what language holds and fails to hold! I’m sure many of us could relate to these discussions, as lovers of words ourselves.
“I guess, I write these sentences where I try to lineate grief or doubt or joy or sex or whatever till it sounds as urgent as it feels. But I know the words will never feel like the thing. The language will never be the thing.” - Cyrus
“There’s nothing in my life that isn’t bound to my language, or my DNA. What comes the closest, I think, is sex. Not entirely without language of course, and certainly not without the body. But in terms of earnest, mellifluous human communication involving the least junk, sex reigns. It’s where the comprehension density is the greatest. A discerning lover can read an Odyssey in a gasp, a Shahnameh in a sigh.” - Orkideh
I’m giddy thinking about this book! I kept going back and forth between four or five stars. It’s not a perfect book, but when it comes down to it, the question I ask myself is how much enjoyment did I have while reading this? The answer is a whole lot! I loved Cyrus and his questions, his doubts, and his imperfections. I won’t ever forget Orkideh. Akbar adored his characters and made me do the same, even at their most selfish and self-destructive moments. A writer who can do that and manages to offer such thought-provoking topics is going to get five stars from me. I’m going to read your poetry next, dear man.
Note: I just watched a bit of Kaveh Akbar reading one of his poems on YouTube as well as a piece where he reads a portion of this novel. Yep. He’s just as endearing as I imagined him to be.
“I’ve had a rich life. I’ve eaten oysters fresh out of the Caspian! I’ve been to the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City! I’ve made love and been in love and fallen out of love. I’ve made art. I’ve been so lucky.”
“Love was a room that appeared when you stepped into it.”...more
This book, which I chose quite randomly, is part travelogue, yet so much more than that. It’s a memoir and a celebration of immersion into a culture tThis book, which I chose quite randomly, is part travelogue, yet so much more than that. It’s a memoir and a celebration of immersion into a culture that brings pure joy to the one that has actively participated. Hannah Kirschner, an artist and food writer from Brooklyn, travels to Japan for a saké apprenticeship and ends up spending four years in the company of craftspeople and farmers in the rural village of Yamanaka. Here she learns about the traditions that have survived centuries despite the constant push of modernization. To this reader, it was beautifully evocative. I may never make it to Japan in body, but I spent some time there in spirit along with Hannah.
“Misty ridges encircle tile-roofed wooden houses and weathered shrines. The smell of cypress and saké permeates the air. Artisans and farmers carry on centuries-old traditions, making tableware by hand and cultivating rice and vegetables. I went there hoping that my two-month apprenticeship at a saké bar would be a gateway into deeper understanding of Japanese food and drinks.”
Not only did she gain better knowledge of the region’s food and drinks, but she also learned a great deal about a number of crafts and a way of living drastically different from our own. She did this with a little bit of luck combined with an admirable desire and willingness to take the time to truly understand the ways of the inhabitants of Yamanaka. No other way to do it successfully, really. Along the way, she made several friends, too. Word got around that this young woman was an enthusiastic and dedicated pupil. Traditional values and practices didn’t necessarily allow for a woman to learn some of these crafts, much less a foreign woman. Hannah, however, was willing to set aside some of her own preconceived notions of how a society “should” live according to our modern ideas. She’s rewarded many times and shares her pleasure with a bit of humor, too.
“Some feminists will think me a traitor, but there’s a certain amount of sexism I’m willing to tolerate for a good pickle.”
Sharing a few days in Hannah’s company, I watched the transformation of rice and water into saké at the local brewery, took part in a tea ceremony, had a soothing soak at the onsen (hot spring), observed the craft of wood turning, participated in a duck hunt, checked wild boar traps, tended a small tanbo (rice paddy), and planted seeds and seedlings in a hatake (vegetable garden.) Honestly, I couldn’t really imagine myself doing some of these things before reading this, but I’d love to take part or at least observe some of these traditions personally. “One of the greatest pleasures of life in Yamanaka is eating a saké kasu soft serve after a soak in the public hot spring…” Yes, please! I nearly skipped the chapter on duck hunting but am pleased I set my initial aversion to the topic aside. The hunters’ reverence for the animal and nature was something I grew to understand, even if you won’t ever see me personally netting ducks at the Katano Duck Pond. In addition to being informative, Hannah Kirshner also writes some lovely, descriptive prose.
“For the darkest months of the year, when I usually feel melancholy and reluctant to go outside, I spent evenings watching the sunset at the edge of the duck pond and days in anticipation of what the next hunt would bring. I noticed the landscape change day to day as the camellias bloomed and dropped their flowers and the long sasa leaves dried to look like goose feathers scattered on the trail. I learned to track the direction and strength of the wind. As light faded from the sky, I meditated on the sound of beating wings.”
I quite enjoyed the time I spent rather peacefully with this book. It felt like a meditation of sorts, and I’d recommend it to anyone that wants a glimpse into the values, traditions and crafts (as well as the lives of those artisans that bring those things to life) of a rural Japanese village. Oh- and Hannah shares some scrumptious recipes at the end of each chapter too! How fun is that?!
“So many times I’d felt excluded and lonely because I didn’t understand or I didn’t belong, but then I’d come to accept that fitting in is not my thing – anywhere in the world – so I may as well be an outsider in a place I love.”...more
“To walk the city is to invite the serendipity of coming upon a community garden or the wooden piles of a decrepit pier or spring crocuses pushing thr“To walk the city is to invite the serendipity of coming upon a community garden or the wooden piles of a decrepit pier or spring crocuses pushing through cracked pavement. It is to experience the endless juxtaposition of this with that, which is New York’s calling card.”
If I close my eyes, click my heels together three times, and imagine myself somewhere else in this world other than where I’m currently planted and wilting, I would be in the middle of a big, vibrant city. It would be the sort of place where I can walk out my door and reach the local library and bookstore, stop by the art museum, grab a coffee, pick up a loaf of bread, a tin of sardines, a jar of olives, and a bottle of wine, all without jumping into the car. I’d get my exercise without even having to make the effort to set aside extra time at the end of a long, satisfying day. The author of this book, the architecture critic for the New York Times, took me on a virtual walk and left me hungering to get back to New York City once again. Through a series of short essays, which were essentially conversational interviews with architects, historians, urban designers, and landscape architects among others, the reader is taken on a journey by foot through eighteen neighborhoods across four of the five New York City boroughs. The experience was wholly invigorating.
“The Germans say “spazierengehen,” the French “promener” or “flaner,” all of which imply more than simply getting by foot from one place to another. They suggest a journey, a lark, an excuse to wander, to get some air, escape the house, consume an ice cream cone or a podcast while pretending to exercise. To walk New York, as opposed to experiencing it through, say, a car window, is to expand time.”
During these walks, we are dipped in and out of the past and the present. Tidbits of the history of the city and its neighborhoods are interspersed with the current skyline, the architectural marvels, and the people that inhabit these places. I learned quite a lot along the way. The tone is fun and engaging, and the love for the city shines through the words of the author and his interviewees. The city’s democratic spaces and its culturally diverse population are emphasized and celebrated.
“… New York… is inseparable from the memory of the parents who raised me to love the city in all its chaotic, crowded, imperfect, precarious, diverse, humane glory and democratic ambition.”
It’s also important to point out that the book is loaded with exquisite photographs highlighting many of the buildings, bridges and parks noted on these strolls. The book itself is a treat to hold. It’s one that I plan to refer back to during the many, future visits I hope to make to the city. I even had a resourceful coworker cover the book for me at the library in order to extend its shelf life, if you will. That way, if I happen to stop for a slice of thin crust pizza on Bleecker Street, grab some dumplings in Chinatown, or eat an ice cream cone at Morgensterns, I won’t risk spoiling the beauty of this gem!
A resounding thanks to Justin whose review and contagious enthusiasm for the city helped make my end of year reading land on such a positive note!
“The philosopher Immanuel Kant associated cosmopolitanism with hospitality and a common understanding that human beings are members of a universal community with a shared right of humanity. By this definition, New York City just might be humanity’s greatest achievement.”...more
Reading this book by Mischa Berlinski felt much like sitting around the bar (or the coffee shop, if you prefer) with a really cool friend and listeninReading this book by Mischa Berlinski felt much like sitting around the bar (or the coffee shop, if you prefer) with a really cool friend and listening to a super engaging story. You only want him to pause long enough to order another round of drinks. You are that drawn into his world. Your mouth might gape open from time to time, when you realize there are people in the world like Mischa that run into such electrifying experiences on a regular basis. Your own version of adventure might be to have dessert before dinner. Or you might have thought you had gone completely wild when you seriously considered getting a tattoo and running off to a neighboring city. But then Mischa comes along and sets you straight. You might be a little jealous, but not enough to hate the guy. He’s too much fun for that – he’s lovable, even if a bit lazy, perhaps. Then there’s his friend, Josh, who makes Mischa look like an amateur globetrotter. Which makes you a sad sack indeed.
“There was hardly a corner of the kingdom that Josh didn’t know, where he wouldn’t be greeted by the abbot of the Buddhist temple – or by the madam of the best bordello – with a huge smile.”
So what is this book really about then? In a nutshell, this is about an anthropologist named Martiya van der Leun who committed suicide while serving a prison sentence for the murder of a Christian missionary in Thailand. (This is not giving anything away, but is the premise of the book from the first chapter.) Or instead, it might be more correct to say that Fieldwork is about journalist Mischa Berlinski’s quest to uncover the mystery surrounding both the suicide and the murder. Not only is Mischa Berlinski the author, he has also inserted himself into the story as narrator. This is, however, a work of fiction. As you may have guessed from my first paragraph, Berlinski tells this story with the finesse of a savvy conversationalist. Like Berlinski himself, we can’t help but fall under the spell of Martiya and those with whom she became connected, including both the Walker family of missionaries as well as the Dyalo people of northern Thailand.
“There is something about the life as a foreigner in Thailand that draws those who find themselves unwilling or unable to think about their 401(k)s; and in the leisure, freedom, and isolation that that Far East provides, these types swing inexorably toward the pendulum-edges of their souls… Then Josh told me about Martiya van der Leun and my soul, too, began to swing. Such is the power of a good story.”
Fieldwork covers a lot of ground, going back several generations to the original Walker missionaries who landed in this very remote, beautiful corner of the world. Martiya’s background and that of her parents are also explored. Like a true reporter, Berlinski speaks to a number of people, each of whom hold a little piece of the entire puzzle. The most fascinating parts of the novel are when the reader learns about the customs, language and beliefs of the Dyalo tribe, at least to the extent that Martiya and the Walkers are able to convey this after years of living amongst these people. There’s a lot to learn about what it means to insert oneself into another culture that is completely different from one’s own. Often more questions are raised than answers are given – in particular, the question as to how these interactions ultimately change both the observer and the observed.
“The field did to Martiya what the field always does: it scoured her and revealed the person underneath the encrusted layers of culture and ingrained habit and prejudice.”
Before I leave you with the message that this book should be more widely read, I want to point out that Berlinski also has a great sense of humor. I love a bit of humor interjected here and there into a more serious story! At one point, the son of one of the missionaries led a bit of a “double life”, sneaking off to the picture show without parental permission. I really did laugh out loud at this exchange between father and son, when good ole’ pops discovered his shenanigans:
“People in America go around watching your Star Wars or what have you, and thinking that there is something else in this world more powerful than Jesus Christ, and they forget to pray. David… I asked if there were kids at your school who had seen this movie?” “Yes.” “And what do you say to them?” “May the Force be with you.”
Fieldwork is extensively researched and intelligently written. What I admire about Mischa Berlinski, both the author and the character, is that he never attempts to be judgmental towards his “subjects”, including the missionaries and the Dyalo people. He’s obviously smitten with learning about how other people live and interact with one another. He is a champion of fairness and truth. His writing is descriptive, the dialogue is engaging, and the plot is thoroughly intriguing, especially for a reader like myself. I never tire of learning something new about the rest of humanity outside of my little place in the world....more
Sometimes I just need a book to take me completely out of my own world and to someplace else altogeth“Real comes and goes and isn’t very interesting.”
Sometimes I just need a book to take me completely out of my own world and to someplace else altogether. This time I don’t mean the armchair travel sort of story. I need something that doesn’t make me have to sit and reflect on my own life. I want a novel that is so far out there that I can just sit and bask in its weirdness, but at the same time marvel at its cleverness. A book that can make me laugh and one that can make me say “Oh, how wonderfully rude!” When I saw Goodreads friend Justin had read this, I couldn’t resist the intrigue I felt while reading his review. I put the book on hold right away. When it came in I took a peek at the first paragraph while at work. I laughed out loud and then had to explain myself. Or rather, Miranda July needed to explain herself. I knew I was going to follow through with the whole thing.
“I strolled through the parking garage and into the elevator, pressing 12 with a casual, fun-loving finger. The kind of finger that was up for anything.”
About a year ago I fell in love with Marcy Dermansky’s writing. Hurricane Girl stirred me from a blue funk. Bad Marie dared me to fling caution to the wind. The First Bad Man by Miranda July propelled me to… well, honestly, I have no idea! I’m still thinking about this one a week later. It was like Marcy Dermansky on crack… maybe. The characters are bizarre. The plot is disorienting (at first). The tone is funny and raunchy. It’s hilariously and delightfully inappropriate! Often, I couldn’t separate the reality of these characters from their fantasies. I suspect this stems from the underlying hum of abject loneliness which courses through the novel. It might also be due to the fact that Miranda July writes one super unconventional story. Oh, and before you think it’s all fun and warped games, there is something very serious about it as well. But July takes you there in a rather circuitous manner; all the while you are tugging at the blindfold to try to see exactly where you are going.
This is not a perfect book, but it is one that held me captive for a day’s worth of reading. It kept me thinking about it, smiling to myself and spreading the word for days after. I don’t have a clue who would react the same way, but if you’re at all intrigued, then why not give it a try?!
“… given the right psychological conditions, a person could fall in love with anyone or anything. A wooden desk -- always on all fours, always prone, always there for you. What was the lifespan of these improbable loves? An hour. A week. A few months at best. The end was a natural thing, like the seasons, like getting older, fruit turning. That was the saddest part -- there was no one to blame and no way to reverse it.”...more
There are three books I’ve read in the past couple of months that quickened my pulse and roused my sense of being more alive in the world. Those standThere are three books I’ve read in the past couple of months that quickened my pulse and roused my sense of being more alive in the world. Those standouts were The Little Friend, No Country for Old Men and this, Dirt Music, my first outing with author Tim Winton. I’d say that’s pretty lucky – three remarkable books in a space of a mere two months. Georgie Jutland, the somewhat reckless and plucky heroine of this novel, might dispute the idea of luck having anything to do with it, however. (Come to think of it, the idea of luck, whether good or bad, was a theme in No Country for Old Men as well!)
“Georgie had always assumed that an obsession with luck was the preserve of passive people, others unlike herself.”
So rather, let’s just go with the fact that sometimes I know exactly what I’m doing when I choose certain novels! Actually, I thought a lot about that obsession with luck. I don’t believe in it either, Georgie. It does make one passive and makes for a poor excuse for inaction many times. I’m not necessarily pleading innocence, yet I do believe it! There are many people I know that rely on it and hold to it like a life preserver, and I do believe that’s dangerous. But I’m both meandering and getting ahead of myself now. I should focus on what the hell this book is really about!
“A speck of light, you were, an ember. And happy. Even after his mother died he had it, though it waned. Later on only music got him there. And now that is gone there is only work. It’s a world without grace. Unless the only grace left is simply not feeling the dead or sensing the past.”
Luther Fox is holed up with his grief and his memories in a small coastal town in Western Australia. He rarely leaves the house, except for some illegal fishing and sales. He has no friends, by circumstance and by choice. Until Georgie. But Georgie is in a three year relationship with Jim Buckridge, the big man in town, and a fisherman to boot. The two of them “saved” one another from loneliness and now Georgie is back at it again. In her former life, she was a nurse. So rescuing is kind of her thing. She’s starting to feel confined, questioning her role in this place where she does not fit in.
“Georgie had always held back and she knew what it cost her. There was always some lingering doubt about Georgie.”
This ends up being a sweeping tale across the continent of Australia. It’s both an adventure and a love story. It’s also a reckoning with one’s place in life. A story of how to overcome tragedy and adversity and come to terms with the ghosts of one’s past. It asks the question, where is home? And how do we make a place for ourselves despite whether or not we “fit in” with the crowd. Likely, we can travel to all ends of the earth to escape one thing or another, but until we can find peace with ourselves, can we really ever claim a place as ours, as the right one? Is it the place or is it a piece of ourselves that we need to claim and come to terms with before we can settle?
“She had never understood the grip that places had over people. That sort of nostalgia made her impatient. It was awful seeing people beholden to their memories, staying on in houses or towns out of some perverted homage.”
Winton’s novel is cinematic and fast-paced. It’s more than just an action piece, however. The two main characters are fully fleshed and survive in your head long past the ending of the book itself. I’m still picturing them in that very first part of the book. And in the end. Both scenes made me gasp for different reasons, but both gave me that sense of being alive in the world. Something I very much needed! I’m still longing for Luther Fox and Georgie Jutland....more
There’s a newish independent bookshop not far from me. I’ve decided to do my little part in helping to keep it open. (If you know me well at all, you’There’s a newish independent bookshop not far from me. I’ve decided to do my little part in helping to keep it open. (If you know me well at all, you’ll know that’s not an onerous task in the least!) The first time I stepped through the door, the satisfying scent of fresh wood made me instantly content. An adorable Double Doodle named Vera greeted me and occasionally rubbed her wet nose in my palm while I was browsing. The owners have an intriguing history, having left a flourishing bookshop behind in Hong Kong to open this one a couple of towns over from my own. The only thing I worry about is whether it will thrive out in the suburbs. I can imagine such a store being successful in my ramblings throughout New York City though. So, it was fortuitous that I found this little hardback-bound essay by E.B. White on its shelves. It turns out I’ve read Here is New York before, in a collection titled The Essays of E.B. White. A wannabe New Yorker like me can’t get enough of this bit of yummy writing though, so it’s fitting that I have this particular essay as its very own little book.
“On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy. It is this largess that accounts for the presence within the city’s walls of a considerable section of the population; for the residents of Manhattan are to a large extent strangers who have pulled up stakes somewhere and come to town, seeking sanctuary or fulfillment or some greater or lesser grail… No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.”
I, for one, have my eyes on the prize. Bring on the luck!
Read this if you adore New York City or if you revere evocative prose like this: “I heard the Queen Mary blow one midnight, though, and the sound carried the whole history of departure and longing and loss.”
My review of the collection The Essays of E.B. White can be found here ...more
“I know other people’s stories are out there in their thousands, but this is my encounter with the place where the light comes ashore, where the sea m“I know other people’s stories are out there in their thousands, but this is my encounter with the place where the light comes ashore, where the sea meets the beach, whips up, calms, sits up at the table like a creative child, puts greaseproof paper over the map and finds a pencil. The land, now, is engulfed in fog. But I draw a single stroke by following the line I can make out. So there it is, itself, and I shall meet it. See, look – it’s moving, the line. It’s dancing like a dervish.”
Danish writer Dorthe Nors has put together an astonishing book that is part memoir and part travelogue. But to call it those two things alone would do her and this work a huge disservice. Once again, I find myself in debt to the impeccable reading tastes of Goodreads friends for pointing me towards these lesser known gems (thank you, Justin, for this one). What I found at its heart was a deeply reflective work on our relationships with nature and with one another, as well as a personal reckoning of our memories and our greatest desires. The “line” to which she refers in the quote above is the coastline stretching from the northern tip of Denmark in the North Sea down the western coast into the Frisian Islands on the Wadden Sea. The stunning prose demonstrates that this “line” is much more than ink on paper on a map; it’s a place alive with people and history and the ever present and changing forces of the natural world.
“Civilization is a snapshot. Forces such as the sea’s, the wind’s, the rain’s, the ungraspability of the universe, to say nothing of the Earth’s glowing core, compared to your reality, strung frail and taut between birth and death? Your concepts of space? The universe would laugh if it knew that you existed and could hear your little joke.”
In a series of essays, we learn a lot about how geography and environmental forces have affected the people that have lived in this corner of the world at different points in history. Vikings, floods, the fishing industry, surfer culture, war, an agrochemical plant, and the patterns of migratory birds are among the topics Nors relays to us in the fashion of a natural storyteller, rather than simply a disseminator of facts. She also contemplates the man-made quality of borders and how they shift and are meant to be crossed and explored. The sea and the wind don’t give a damn about borders. Weaved throughout these tidbits of knowledge are her own memories of childhood and her path towards a writer’s life. Paying a visit back to her homeland has its own challenges in addition to the rewards. As a woman that sought a different path, a way of life not common to the inhabitants of the “line”, she was sometimes viewed as an outsider. Yet she squarely claims her heritage, her family, and her birth right here.
“I don’t belong here, according to the locals, but I have roots here. Strong roots. They run through my senses, my family, our history, and they reach my love of the Limfjord and the North Sea. They run down through the sand, the marine clay, to the groundwater and the ochre.”
One aspect of Nors’ life that truly resonated with me was the relationship with her mother. This was so respectfully and lovingly shared. Not because it reminded me of my relationship with my own mother, no. Rather, it struck a chord when thinking about my bond with my young adult daughter. Mothers will fiercely protect their daughters. They will sacrifice for them. Mothers also have their own dreams and greatest hopes, some to be realized and others to be lost like a bird’s cry in the wind. Nors recognized this about her mother. Not all children, even the grown ones, have the perspicacity to do so. I love this about Dorthe Nors.
“I thought of my mother, walking around Skagen Museum and dreaming of a studio with north-facing windows… She walked here dreaming of a life of grapes on pale dishes and Dad’s hunting dog at her feet. But in reality, that dog ate our shoes… my mum dreamt of a life of contemplative beauty under a grand sky, with rose bushes in the garden, on her own terms…”
This book is beautifully composed and thoughtfully shared. Nors is not without her fair share of humor either. It’s not the sort of book you’d point someone towards if he or she seeks simply a textbook description of the landscape or the history of a place. This is a piece for deeply reflective readers who have a love affair with both nature and the written word. Indeed, it’s for those of us that have a sense of wanderlust, a reverence for solitude, and a desire for true intimacy with our kindred spirits.
“I longed to be in the nacelle during a raging storm. To be drawn into its power, enveloped by it, lifted, carried, shattered. To be a Viking or a small animal in the North Sea between Blavand and Harwich. To live my brief and arbitrary life while I still have it.”...more
“I feel exhausted, a feeling of catching up, a feeling of something finding me. My heart is a thin thing, these days—shred of paper blown between the “I feel exhausted, a feeling of catching up, a feeling of something finding me. My heart is a thin thing, these days—shred of paper blown between the spaces in my ribs.”
I can’t think of a more perfect way to phrase how I felt after reading this beautiful novel, so I might as well borrow that exquisite passage from Julia Armfield. I grabbed this book on a whim, needing an audio book to make the time pass more quickly on my little hikes in the fields behind the house. I wished for an adequate distraction, but what I found was so much more. Our Wives Under the Sea is one of the most deeply moving books I’ve read this year (or ever, really!).
“The deep sea is a haunted house: a place in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness.”
The story begins when Miri’s wife, Leah, returns from a deep sea expedition that lasted months beyond the original plan. When she returns, it is clear that something is wrong. Miri can’t quite put her finger on it immediately, but as the story unfolds, the reader is taken on a journey to the sea floor as well as through the process of a relationship unraveling. Goodreads labels this as a horror novel, and I think that is perhaps a bit misleading. Those that expect full-on horror will be disappointed. Those that run in the opposite direction from that genre likely won’t give this a well-deserved chance. Instead, this is a deeply unsettling, introspective novel. You could take the theme of this book for what it is on the surface - the repercussions of a submarine sunk to the bottom of the ocean floor without detection for weeks on end. The trauma that resulted from this accident. Or, the reader could look at this from the bigger picture. What would it be like to have your partner become so utterly changed that the ache of that drifting apart is so raw, bewildering and unbearable? I could see this working as a metaphor for a debilitating disease as well. This is more about what the partner of the afflicted goes through, rather than the affected person him or herself.
“I look at her and feel unusually sure that the Leah of the previous night was my Leah, but that this one almost certainly isn’t. If I cut her, I’m not altogether sure she would bleed. I feel, at once, a sense of cavernous terror at being left alone and then set it aside.”
A note about the structure of this book – it was brilliant and worked exceedingly well. The voice and chapters alternate between Miri and Leah. All of Leah’s chapters are from her expedition. In this way, the reader learns a little at a time about the misadventure beneath the sea. Miri’s chapters alternate between the present time with Leah’s return and reflections of the past when she first met her partner. Some of Miri’s thoughts are about the grief of having recently lost her mother. There are some ancillary characters that aren’t greatly fleshed out but they teach us even more about Miri and Leah in the way that they interact with these friends, family and coworkers. There are so many things that could have gone wrong with this structure but consider me enormously impressed!
I want to say so much more about this little book. It was an expansive reading experience but so hard to put into words. I felt on edge, knowing that something was not right and waiting to find out exactly what was wrong. I lived Miri’s fear and dreaded anticipation. My heart was in my mouth, and then it was ripped right out. Oh, and the marine biology bits that were scattered throughout were super cool! Nothing hard for a layman like myself to grasp. Julia Armfield did some legwork in that regards as well. It’s a love story minus the sappy romance. It’s a story of transformations, and it has made a huge impact on me.
“I used to think there was such a thing as emptiness, that there were places in the world one could go and be alone. This, I think, is still true, but the error in my reasoning was to assume that alone was somewhere you could go, rather than somewhere you had to be left.”
“… loving is something we all do alone and through different sets of eyes." ...more
“The worlds of the past can sometimes seem unimaginably distant. The geological history of the Earth stretches back about 4.5 billion years… The lands“The worlds of the past can sometimes seem unimaginably distant. The geological history of the Earth stretches back about 4.5 billion years… The landscapes that have existed over geological time, revealed by the palaeontological record, are varied and, at times, quite other to the world of today… Those worlds, those otherlands, cannot be visited – at least, not in a physical sense. You can never visit the environments through which titanic dinosaurs strode, never walk on their soil nor swim in their water. The only way to experience them is rockwise, to read the imprints in the frozen sand and to imagine a disappeared Earth. This book is an exploration of the Earth as it used to exist, the changes that have occurred during its history, and the ways that life has found to adapt, or not.”
Science class was never this much fun! Using the word “fun” might be a bit misleading, however, as this was written for educational rather than purely entertainment purposes. Thomas Halliday shares loads of information, facts and scientific inferences with his readers, but he does so in a very engaging way. I won’t say this book is unputdownable, because you absolutely must take the time to digest after each chapter as I did. Unless you are a brilliant paleobiologist like Halliday, chances are that although some information might ring a bell, a lot of it will be new to you. There is an extensive list of resources at the end of the book – if Halliday didn’t already know it himself, he did his research without a doubt! This review won’t be an attempt to explain any of the science. I’m just here to tell you that if looking back at the geological and biological history of the earth interests you at all, then this is the book to pick up. I felt like I was on the most incredible journey for the past couple of months.
“The journey through the history of life is at times unfathomably long.”
I found the structure of the book quite interesting. Rather than starting with the oldest geological epoch, instead we are taken back through time, beginning with the Pleistocene, about 20,000 years ago. This is the epoch just prior to the one in which you and I exist – The Holocene (yes, I had to look this up; I don’t just know this stuff!) From here we travel backwards 550 million years to the Ediacaran. There are sixteen different epochs covered and what fascinating worlds those were! I’m not sure I could pick a favorite if you asked; I was intrigued by them all. Evolution, weird creatures, mass extinctions, greenhouse Earth, icehouse Earth, volcanoes, asteroids, oceans, rivers, forests, climate change – it’s all here. The thing is, Thomas Halliday is not a “preacher”. He’s done his work, he presents the information beautifully, and you can’t walk away from this wondering where our planet is headed next. What goes around comes around and cycles are repeated for one reason or another. But naturally, with the evolution of humanity, things are a bit different now.
“This is now undoubtedly a human planet. It has not always been, and perhaps will not always be, but, for now, our species has an influence unlike almost any other biological force.”
There are some chilling facts shared in the epilogue. If any piece of this book should be construed as a warning of sorts, it would be here. However, it’s not a matter of finger pointing or shaming or even scaring one to death about the consequences of inaction. Thomas Halliday is too smart to take that approach. Rather, he allows us the freedom to use our own intellect and draw some conclusions. If one is clever enough to take the information given and make informed assumptions, then it’s rather obvious. It’s happened before and it can happen again. If you have any desire to learn about Earth’s geological history, the evolution of various species, and the amazing feats of adaptation; and if you ever think about where we might be headed next, then by all means grab this book. It’s informative and extremely well-written. If I could be allowed one very minor criticism, it would be that I wished for more incredible illustrations. Having said that, I would be very gratified if I found another book by this genius in my hands again someday!
“We know that change is occurring, we know that we are responsible, we know what will happen if it continues, we know that we can stop it, and we know how. The question is whether we will try.”...more
“I had always been curious about how you could live a life where you never worried about repercussions, never considered that the thing you did ripple“I had always been curious about how you could live a life where you never worried about repercussions, never considered that the thing you did rippled out into the world.”
When Goodreads friend Debbie lugs her pogo stick out of her shed, I pay attention, despite the fact I worry about her breaking a bone one of these days! A contagiously enthusiastic review (Check it out here) combined with my hunch “I have a very good feeling about this” makes a book an instant add. I also know I can’t wait long, despite the fact I literally have hundreds (okay, thousands) of books vying for my attention. Along with Allison from Hurricane Girl, I now have another favorite – Frankie! It’s unusual for me to suffer from a reading slump, but I was getting deeper into one when this book rescued me. Now I want to read the entire backlist of Kevin Wilson’s work!
“It was summer, which meant that nothing was happening. It was insanely hot, making it hard to care about anything other than eating Popsicles.”
Remember those days when you were a teenager, and the summer loomed ahead? I’d always look forward to them as the last days of school approached, but no sooner had they started, the boredom quickly set in. My sister and I tried to crank up the imaginative spark, but I’m pretty certain I lacked that gene. At least, I came nowhere near as close to what sixteen year old Frankie and Zeke dreamed up as a way to cure the monotonous drag of those long, sultry hours. This is a fantastic coming of age story told from the perspective of a grown woman. Before you write this one off, however, let me tell you that I have very few coming of age stories on my favorites list – something has to be truly remarkable in order for it to land there as this one now has!
“We didn’t understand how normal this was, to be young, to believe that you were destined to make beautiful things… And that was it. That was going to be our summer. If something happened to me, it would happen to him. The next few months opened up, turned shimmery in the heat. We’d make something.”
I’m not going to reveal any more of the plot, because that would be a real disservice to any potential readers – and I want lots more friends to join the fan ranks here! But if you have any interest in the passion that drives one to write or create art, then this book is definitely for you. If you have any inkling about what it’s like to be truly obsessive about something – whether it’s a person or an idea or a habit or whatever – then you might recognize a little bit of yourself in these characters. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough! I’m a slow reader. I like to take breaks between chapters. I wish to extend the reading experience as much as possible. Not so here! I might as well admit I was obsessed with this book!
“At that moment, I could feel something opening up in me and I realized how hard it was to walk through the day when you had an obsession and you couldn’t say a word about it… Real obsession, if you did it right, was the same intensity every single time, a kind of electrocution that kept your heart beating in time. It was so good.”
Ah, so that explains it! I’ve often wondered why I seem to “enjoy” my obsessions, no matter if they are painful or otherwise! It makes me feel alive! Kevin Wilson gets it. Maybe some of you do, too. Read this and find out if anything strikes a chord – you’ll know right away if it does. Then, like me, you’ll be spreading the word to everyone who does and does not want to hear about this book on a daily basis!
“Is that why we do anything in this life? To feel it vibrate along the line that starts at birth and ends way after we die?” ...more
“You can be lonely anywhere, but there is a particular flavor to the loneliness that comes from living in a city, surrounded by millions of people… me“You can be lonely anywhere, but there is a particular flavor to the loneliness that comes from living in a city, surrounded by millions of people… mere physical proximity is not enough to dispel a sense of internal isolation… Cities can be lonely places, and in admitting this we see that loneliness doesn’t necessarily require physical solitude, but rather an absence or paucity of connection, closeness, kinship: an inability, for one reason or another, to find as much intimacy as is desired.”
This book was living a bit of a lonely existence itself. There it sat, on the bookshelf at the local library, amongst hundreds of other non-fiction books. No one had bothered to check it out during the past three years or more and was therefore doomed to the cruel fate of being axed from the catalog. (This, in my opinion, being a failure on the local community’s part to support a much needed library expansion. Who needs a new library when one can pour his or her money into athletic fields and school sports? Does anyone actually read anymore?! Ugh! But I digress!) In any case, this book, as well as a few others, weren’t necessarily saved from the ax but were given a nice new home by yours truly.
Gosh, this is another one of those books that came along at just the right time! For me, it was a perfect combination of a relevant topic (loneliness), fabulous setting (cities, particularly NYC), and art. Olivia Laing found that she was extremely lonely even in the hustle and bustle of a huge metropolis. Not surprising, really. But her attempt to relieve her feelings of aloneness was brilliant – she decided to study others who had lived their lives in isolation in one way or another. She began to research a number of artists, but her focus was mainly on the work produced by Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol, Henry Darger and David Wojnarowicz.
“Not all of them were permanent inhabitants of loneliness, by any means, suggesting instead a diversity of positions and angles of attack. All, however, were hyper-alert to the gulfs between people, to how it can feel to be islanded amid a crowd.”
There’s a lot of narrative about the work these artists produced, as well as their background stories. I was more familiar with some (Hopper and Warhol) than with the others. But as is often the case, I found myself looking up images and adding other works of non-fiction to my list as a result. Interspersed throughout are also anecdotes about other artists, information learned by psychologists and other researchers, and stories about the author’s personal experiences in the city. She ventures into the territory of the internet and how that has affected our connectivity in a variety of ways, not necessarily always for the best. As I went along, I found myself nodding my head in agreement with a lot of what was shared. It’s not fun to talk about being lonely, particularly when one is surrounded by people nearly all the time. But there’s something about actually being seen, heard and understood that makes all the difference.
“What does it feel like to be lonely? It feels like being hungry: like being hungry when everyone around you is readying for a feast. It feels shameful and alarming, and over time these feelings radiate outwards, making the lonely person increasingly isolated, increasingly estranged. It hurts, in the way that feelings do, and it also has physical consequences that take place invisibly, inside the closed compartments of the body. It advances, is what I’m trying to say, cold as ice and clear as glass, enclosing and engulfing.”
I read this alongside a highly acclaimed novel I’d been anticipating for quite some time. Surprisingly, it was this book rather than The Handmaid’s Tale that I craved and reached for whenever I had a free moment! Go figure! While Atwood, one of my favorite writers, handled a topic near and dear to my heart as well, this is the one that truly latched onto me. It’s all in the writing, the timing and a whole lot of other personal variables sometimes, isn’t it?!! Highly recommended if you’ve ever felt lonely, love art, and yearn for New York City.
“Loneliness is personal, and it is also political. Loneliness is collective; it is a city. As to how to inhabit it, there are no rules and nor is there any need to feel shame, only to remember that the pursuit of individual happiness does not trump or excuse our obligations to each other. We are in this together, this accumulation of scars, this world of objects, this physical and temporary heaven that so often takes on the countenance of hell.” ...more
Whoa! This book was a ton of fun! Seriously, I didn’t know what to expect, but it most definitely wasn’t this. It’s deceptively simple – and I don’t mWhoa! This book was a ton of fun! Seriously, I didn’t know what to expect, but it most definitely wasn’t this. It’s deceptively simple – and I don’t mean that in a bad way at all. At first I thought this was going to be light and breezy. A thirty-something leaves her boyfriend in LA to buy a house on the beach in North Carolina. Her needs are minimal – turkey sandwiches and an occasional bottle of wine. She’s kind of done with people at the moment. Especially men… and particularly the asshole variety. Oh, and she loves to swim – she’s pretty obsessed with it!
“She had a weakness for swimming pools the way some people need to pet every dog they see.”
But then a hurricane destroys her dream home after just a week and a half. What happens after this… well, it’s completely wild! I’m not going to tell you any more details. Don’t read the blurb for the book. I didn’t, so a lot of this came as a surprise. I totally welcomed it! I loved being caught off guard more than once! I will say that at times this became dark – often funny, sometimes sad. I was completely engrossed in Allison’s life. Her interactions with other people were sometimes relatable, sometimes puzzling. She made me laugh. She tries to take a positive approach to her misfortune. But the reader can sense something deeper underlying what she tells herself (and therefore us).
“She had been out in the world. She did not particularly like it. For a long time, Allison had not felt safe, loved, looked out for, taken care of, respected.”
This was a really compulsive reading experience. Marcy Dermansky is one clever and talented writer. As much as I love lyrical prose, I’m also crazy about something minimalist – if done properly, as it is here. I was a pretty satisfied reader, but wondered a bit where this was heading. And then… I was completely floored by the ending. Yes! I thought I was going to go with four stars, but what the hell! I’m going with all five. Kudos to Ms. Dermansky. Pass me another, please!
Thanks to my Goodreads friend Debbie for hauling out her pogo stick and sharing this one with me!
“Anyway, she was fine. She still had her health. That was what people liked to say. She had her health.”
Why aren’t we all reading Hugh MacLennan?! First of all, thanks go to my friend Diane who pointed me towards this one with her stellar review. It tookWhy aren’t we all reading Hugh MacLennan?! First of all, thanks go to my friend Diane who pointed me towards this one with her stellar review. It took me a couple of years to get here, but, as I learned from this novel, perhaps my timing was just as it should be. There’s so much to unpack within these pages: love, friendship, marriage, faith and the loss of faith, fascism, communism, World War II, the meaning of our existence, and Montreal. The characters will stay with me much like those from a Wallace Stegner novel. So will Montreal which is treated much like a character in its own right. In fact, I’m now wondering why someone like Hugh MacLennan isn’t as widely known, at least on this site, as is Stegner. His writing is equally brilliant, in my opinion. I’ve only read this one work so far, but I’m willing to bet on the rest.
“There are some stories into which the reader should be led gently, and I think this may be one of them.”
I suspected from that first sentence that MacLennan was going to take care with his characters and his telling of their lives. I so loved the meandering nature of his story. Not meandering in a meaningless way, but rather in a way that takes us gently through the course of their lives. These lives were far from quiet, uneventful ones, however. Catherine has endured the threat of rheumatic heart disease since a child; Jerome had a childhood no one should ever have to bear. The narrator, George, walks a less tenuous course, but is caught up in the lives of these two. Yes, it’s a love triangle. But it’s a love triangle without all the hate and drama one might assume. Can a love triangle be a beautiful thing? Maybe that’s taking it a bit too far, but it was certainly very moving.
“Some people have within themselves a room so small that only a miniscule amount of the mysterious thing we call the spirit can find a home in them. Others have so much that what the world calls their characters explodes from the pressure. I think of it as a force… Catherine had more of this mysterious thing than anyone I ever knew with one exception, and the exception was Jerome Martell.”
MacLennan brings us straight to the heart of his characters. I got to know them so intimately that I had a hard time leaving them in the end. We see how they were shaped by their childhoods as well as the time into which they come of age: the 1930s. The Great Depression and the dawning of World War II play a major role in their development as well as in the plot itself. At the very beginning of the novel, MacLennan lays the groundwork for a major conflict: one of these characters has been presumed dead for years and has now resurfaced. He then moves us back in time so we can follow the events that lead up to this plot point. I liked the structure a whole lot. It added tension that leaves the reader a bit in suspense right from the start. It feels nostalgic and melancholic at times. Much is said about time and the passage of it.
“What is time anyway? The past seemed part of the present today. Time had lost its shape. Time is a cloud in which we live while the breath is in us. When was I living, now or twenty-five years ago, or in all those periods of my life simultaneously?”
I went to bed last night thinking I would sleep on this a bit and decide what more I should say. The problem is, it’s all crowding in on me, clamoring to be told. One thing I really should share is this idea of Montreal being a main character. I’m sure Hugh MacLennan can describe it much better than I.
“In those days the streets of Montreal were a kind of truth to me and I roamed them. I learned them block by block from their smells and the types I saw, I came to love the shape of the city itself, its bold masses bulging hard against the sky and the purple semi-darkness of the lower town at evening when Mount Royal was still high and clear against bright sunsets. I loved the noise of the ships booming in the harbor and along the canal to the Lakes, and the quiet little areas some said were like London but which were actually indigenous to this wise, experienced, amiably cynical town.”
Through George, the narrator, we see how the city morphs from one thing into another following the war. The characters also develop into different sorts of people, forever changed by this world war. I was swept away by their stories and can feel how they have seeped into my being now. The first and middle sections of the book had already gripped me, but the last section was astonishing. If this book sounds at all depressing, let me set that straight. It’s truly life-affirming.
“Life for a year, a month, a day or an hour is still a gift. The warmth of the sun or the caress of the air, the sight of a flower or a cloud on the wind, the possibility even for one day more to see things grow – the human bondage is also the human liberty.” ...more
This book snuck up on me like one of those stealth aircraft at the local air show! I’m not sure what I was expecting, but Claudia Piñeiro knocked me fThis book snuck up on me like one of those stealth aircraft at the local air show! I’m not sure what I was expecting, but Claudia Piñeiro knocked me for a loop. On the surface, it seemed like a relatively simple novel. Elena suffers from Parksinson’s disease. Every day is a struggle. The medication just barely allows her to get by on her own. Her daughter, Rita, has recently committed suicide, but Elena refuses to believe that it was anything short of murder. She is on a mission to prove this on her own, as the police have nothing further to say in the matter. When she decides to call in an old debt, she must cross town by foot, by subway and by cab. The minute details of her undertaking are excruciating and wholly believable. I’ve known people both past and present that have been victims of this debilitating illness and it was not difficult at all to imagine Elena’s journey.
“What’s left of you when your arm can’t even put on a jacket and your leg can’t even take a step and your neck can’t straighten up enough to let you show your face to the world, what’s left? Are you your brain, which keeps sending out orders that won’t be followed? Or are you the thought itself, something that can’t be seen or touched beyond that furrowed organ guarded inside the cranium like a trove?”
As Elena makes her way across town we catch glimpses of the past. We learn about her life with Rita. We see what a strain such an illness can become on not just the patient but the caregiver as well. Mother-daughter relationships are never a breeze and no less so under such circumstances. What does it mean to be a parent once you have lost your child? We learn more about this debt that Elena is going to collect. Along the way, I felt that this was a cautionary tale. Never, ever should we assume that we know what anyone else is going through. Unless perhaps we walk along in their shoes for a time - much as we did with Elena on this day. We must defend our personal freedoms – they are not to be given away carelessly or taken from us so thoughtlessly. I can’t say anything more other than I believe this was brilliantly written! Please read this book!
“[They] were united by their convictions more than anything else, that way they both had of stating the most broad, arbitrary, clichéd notions as absolute truths. Convictions about how another person should experience something they themselves had never experienced, how people should walk through life along the roads they’d walked down and the ones they hadn’t, issuing decrees about what should and shouldn’t be done.” ...more
This first chilly weekend of autumn has forced me to drag out the super soft blanket a dear friend gave me for my birthday last year. That fleecy throThis first chilly weekend of autumn has forced me to drag out the super soft blanket a dear friend gave me for my birthday last year. That fleecy throw wasn’t needed while reading The Fortnight in September earlier this month, yet the novel offered all the same snug comforts of that prized possession. I haven’t been to the beach in five years, but I feel I’ve been there for a short while through the sublime writing of R.C. Sherriff. With clear, uncomplicated prose, he vividly evokes the feelings one has while anticipating, preparing for, traveling towards, and arriving at one’s longed-for destination.
“The night before they left home for their holidays was always one of family celebration. When Dick and Mary had been children it was a night that rose almost to the height of Christmas Eve: a night voted sometimes as the best of all the holiday, although it was spent at home and the sea was still sixty miles away.”
Everything in this novel literally happens in one fortnight, exactly as the title promises. There are no showy devices, no clever tricks and no complicated jumps in time. Occasionally a character will quietly reflect on a happening in the past – the first meeting with a spouse, a time spent in a boy’s school, a former trip to the sea – but Sherriff does this with a skill that manages to keep the reader firmly planted in his story. The Stevenses are everyday people: a middle-aged, unassuming mother and father, their two young adult children, and a school-age son. I could easily understand them, if not often relate to them, in some fashion. We spend a little bit of private time with each one, understanding their hopes, worries, disappointments, dilemmas and revelations.
“… over all lay a spirit of joyful, unrestrained freedom. They were no servants – no masters: no clerks – no managers – just men and women whose common profession was Holidaymaker.”
Vacations can be tricky things with families. How can everyone agree on the best place to visit? Where to stay? How much to splurge on the little luxuries? Someone is bound to be let down by the choices made. This book doesn’t harp on those things in a depressing way, however. I enjoyed hearing each person’s secret thoughts. This book was written in 1931, so I’m certain Mrs. Stevens is a product of her time. She’s accustomed to toiling away in the home, making her children and husband as comfortable as possible, likely neglecting her own needs and passions. No one really considered asking her opinion of returning to Seaview in Bognor each year for two decades, and she never contemplated expressing her deep hesitations. She’s a trooper who does it all in the spirit of making her family happy. I’m grateful that I was a mother in the 2000s and never hesitated once to declare my objections if a vacation spot didn’t manage to entirely please me as well. I could never return year after tireless year to the same spot if I didn’t reap a bit of joy from it myself. I’m sure Mrs. Stevens would gasp at my bad manners!
“The sea had frightened Mrs. Stevens, and she had never conquered her fear. It frightened her most when it was dead calm. Something within her shuddered at the great smooth, slimy surface, stretching into a nothingness that made her giddy.”
Sherriff handles the passage of time with a great deal of perception and wisdom. The passing of the days while on the holiday, the speeding up of time as the two weeks progress, and also the changes in people and places as time advances. Seaview isn’t the same as it used to be, the children are growing, and Mr. and Mrs. Stevens, while aging themselves, feel all of this with the same acute awareness I’ve been forced to admit myself just recently. Yet, I’m hopeful of the future as is Mary Stevens. Things don’t have to come to a bitter end. Things change yet new adventures are within our grasp if we allow ourselves the opportunities.
“She had thought of life as something that just began, before you knew, and went quietly on, until you died: she had never known that it could end – and begin again so wonderfully.”
The reading of this charming novel proved even more enriching by sharing insights with my wonderfully thoughtful buddies, Jennifer (Review Here) and Violeta (Review Here). ...more
"Longing was energizing my muscles and organs and brain. Longing was replacing my blood with fizzy, expansive liquid."
Whee! That was an exhilarating r"Longing was energizing my muscles and organs and brain. Longing was replacing my blood with fizzy, expansive liquid."
Whee! That was an exhilarating ride! I was super curious about this debut novel, and also a bit skeptical. I mean, look at that cover! I know. I was surprised to be caught with it in my hands, too. All my gal pals at work had a field day with this one. Actually, to be honest, I sort of instigated all the shenanigans that followed after picking up this book. With grand extravagance, I showed it off to all my coworkers before driving home at the start of yet another blizzard. I had big plans to be snowed in with this one. The thing is, friends – this book is not at all what you or I would expect from that odd choice of a cover. Nor does the title exactly portray the contents quite properly. Vladimir does exist, yes. But the reader doesn’t spend the weekend warming up in the arms of this fellow. Instead, he or she spends the entire time in the head of one of the most complex narrators I’ve met in a very long time.
“Vanity has always been my poorest quality. I hate it in myself, and yet am as plagued with it as I am with needing to sleep or eat or breathe.”
The fifty-eight year old, unnamed narrator suffers from what I found to be a whole lot of contradictory feelings as well as actions, which made the reading of this oh so irresistible and propulsive. Her point of view is deliciously unreliable. She’s a professor of English in a small liberal arts college, and her husband, John, has been accused of sexual misconduct with several of his students. The two of them have been in an open marriage for years. A relevant topic indeed, but here it is handled with what I found to be a somewhat unique and intriguing point of view. A refreshingly different take, really. Not that I agree with everything she says. She’s a bit of an enigma. Like many of us. It makes for a very interesting character study. Don’t expect to fall in love with this woman. She just may rankle some readers. I’m starting to realize that as long as a character allows me the opportunity to think about how I would react to certain situations, then I’m on board with reading about him or her, likeable or otherwise. She expresses her rather controversial views throughout. The author doesn’t beg for us to agree with the narrator; rather, she encourages us to think deeply about these issues on our own terms as well.
“My anger is not so much directed toward the accusations as it is toward the lack of self-regard these women have – the lack of their own confidence. I wish they could see themselves not as little leaves swirled around by the wind of a world that does not belong to them, but as powerful, sexual women interested in engaging in a little bit of danger, a little bit of taboo, a little bit of fun. With the general, highly objectionable move toward a populist insistence of morality in art, I find this post hoc prudery offensive, as a fellow female.”
And the other characters, though we see them from our narrator’s point of view, are equally absorbing - her husband, her daughter, Vladimir’s wife. To be honest, Vladimir himself was probably the least interesting character here; which is odd, given the title. He’s more of a device really, the means by which the narrator can explore her own feelings. She wrote a couple of novels nearly two decades ago but the creative spark basically extinguished. Now Vladimir serves as a muse to ignite the urge to write something more than just academic pieces once again. Who doesn’t like to see what spurs on the writing process?! I gobbled this stuff down.
“The voice I wrote with felt new to me – unrestrained. For years I had been trying to cool down the temperature of my writing, to pull it back... – neutralize it, contain it, make it crisp, clear, and sharp, every word carved out of crystal. This writing was nothing like that – it was drippy, messy, breezy. I was working through a mind frame, not a conceit. I was creating a world, not words on a page.”
There’s so much more all wrapped up in this addictive novel: thoughts about the aging process and its effect on attraction and desirability, the voice of the younger generation, academia (I know, again!), the writing process, the credibility of mixing morality with art, motherhood, marriage and relationships, power and how it’s perceived, trauma and addictions. It is thought provoking and often amusing in an acerbic sort of way. I wouldn’t call this book romantic or sexy. Readers will be disappointed if that’s what they are looking for. Intelligent and provocative are the words that come to mind instead. I could write a whole other page about this one, but then I’d lose your attention. Just know that I’m on my knees, pleading for some more friends to read this and discuss it with me. Especially that last part of the book! It screams for discussion! I was debating between 4 and 5 stars, but I so thoroughly enjoyed this and know that it will be in my head for a long time to come. 5 stars it is. I’ll read whatever Julia May Jonas is (hopefully) madly scribbling away at next!
“Should we only portray the world we wanted to see? Should we consider certain stories “damaging,” and restrict them from a general audience, not trusting them to take in the story without internalizing the messaging? Hadn’t we all agreed that morality in art was bad?... did we all have to see ourselves in the presentations of types? Did I have to feel like every wife and mother was presenting an overarching narrative of Wife and Mother that reinforced or rejected my own experience?”...more
Wow! This was a real surprise for me. This book passed through my hands quite casually. I didn’t recognize the cover, the title, or the author – whichWow! This was a real surprise for me. This book passed through my hands quite casually. I didn’t recognize the cover, the title, or the author – which is surprising considering how much time I spend looking at books on this site! And yet, I was completely drawn to it simply because of the title. I took it home on a whim. Reading it was a magical experience. It’s highly evocative, deeply contemplative and written with some really sublime prose. There’s a gentleness to it, and a bit of a haze much like the reader is seeing it all unfold through the drizzly rain that falls on this mother and daughter on their sojourn to Tokyo. For being a very slim novel, there’s a lot of heft to it – not necessarily plot-wise, but in the form of deeper thinking. There’s so much to uncover that it really could use a second reading, but I don’t have the luxury of that at the moment.
“I thought about how vaguely familiar this scene was to me, especially with the smells of the restaurant around me, but strangely so, because it was not my childhood, but my mother’s childhood that I was thinking of, and from another country at that. And yet there was something about the subtropical feel, the smell of the steam and the tea and the rain. It reminded me of her photographs, or the television dramas we had watched together when I was still young. Or it was like the sweets she used to buy for me, which no doubt were the sweets her mother used to buy for her.”
A daughter travels to Japan with her mother in an attempt to make some sort of connection with her. Both are in a land foreign to them, and the daughter thinks this will help them both to be on equal footing. How much of ourselves is connected to our parents due to biology alone? What pieces of a son or daughter can be said to have been shaped by the memories a parent has shared with us? How much distance comes between us due to generational gaps and education? The daughter, as narrator, imparts to us a feeling of loneliness while in the midst of trying to understand both herself and her relationship with her mother. Anyone that has ever tried to find some common ground with a parent, and perhaps failed, will feel this even more deeply. The mother will often smile or nod, while the daughter fails to verbalize what she is thinking. What is it that keeps us from fully communicating our inner selves to another? Is it perhaps the fear of being misunderstood, or worse, scorned?
“But who’s to say how anyone would act on a given day, not to mention the secret places of the soul, where all manner of things could exist?”
As the two women wander through Tokyo, visiting various sites, the daughter reflects back on moments in the past that seem to have brought her to this point in her life. Art plays a large role in shaping her thoughts. Mother and daughter visit an art museum, the daughter gazing at the Monet paintings and wishing that her mother would notice the same impressions of a dreamlike quality to the work. The daughter also recalls a time when she stayed at a professor’s home for several days, reminiscing over porcelain and other objects chosen with care. When she returns home, her own belongings seem cheap and randomly selected. Rather than providing serenity, they seem to create a sense of chaos. Oh, how I can relate to this feeling! Lately I’ve been staring at the stuff I’ve accumulated over the years, much of it not just my things. I want to chuck it all in the trash and start over. I would love to go completely minimalist. There is a sense of calmness in simple objects when not overwhelmed by the excess of superfluous junk.
“… something continued to elude me, both in the house and afterward, a feeling I could not quite shake… it felt like I was living my life from the outside in. I picked up objects that had long been mine – clothes, makeup, books – and at times it was as if they did not belong to me but were a stranger’s.”
What causes the distance between people, even those we are close to – our parents, our lovers, and our friends - differences in education, culture, language, and religious beliefs? The expansiveness that some of us crave, while others are perfectly content to carry on without the risks inherent with change? The daughter has been to college and has assimilated, while her mother is an immigrant, no longer having anyone with whom to share her memories of her homeland. Both women find themselves on foreign land during this excursion; both have the disadvantage of a language barrier. Yet the daughter yearns to understand the language in order to bring herself closer within the orbit of the people she finds herself among. She recalls the hunger for knowledge and passionate discussions she’s had with classmates.
“I thought of the instances when I had been able to converse in a string of sentences, like with the woman at the bookshop, and how good this had felt, how electric. I wanted more of those moments, to feel fluency running through me, to know someone and to have them know me.”
The more I think about it, the more amazed I am at the number of themes touched upon by Jessica Au. She does this in few words, but they continue to resound long after finishing. She offered me what initially felt like a soft nudge to reflect on life, but suddenly I was surprised by how deeply I had been plunged into a sea of introspection. In some ways, the entire novella evokes the feeling of a dream. Both the imagery and the nature of the narrator’s reflections impart this quality. The ending has an exquisite ethereal feel that left me both satisfied and a bit unsettled. Highly recommended for those who love to travel through quiet books, and those that like a splash of melancholy and a good share of contemplation in their reading adventures. I’ll have another, please!
“It was strange at once to be so familiar and yet so separated. I wondered how I could feel so at home in a place that was not mine.” ...more
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