Give Back Tuesday for Save The Rio and The Big Read

THE POCKET EMILY DICKINSON by Margaret McLaren

I ambled complacently into the library to pick up my copy of “The Pocket Emily Dickinson”, wondering idly why I had never actually read a single poem of hers, and knew practically nothing about her life.  “I don’t get her,” a friend had recently commented.  “Emily Dickinson,” said another, “Wasn’t she . . . ummm . . . “  

 

So on the way back to my car, I opened the little book, entirely at random, and on page 91, I read:

 

“There is a pain – so utter –

It swallows substance up –

Then covers the Abyss with Trance –

So memory can step

Around – across – upon it –

As one within a Swoon –

Goes safely – where an open eye –

Would drop Him – Bone by Bone”

 

I found myself sobbing uncontrollably by the middle of the second line, there in the parking lot of the Guerneville library, and knocked flat by the time I reached the end of the poem.  Please understand, I am not a woman who cries, but it took me a good hour, and a very long walk in Armstrong Woods, to get myself together again.

 

Suffice it to say I am not likely to ever forget the day I read my first Emily Dickinson poem, and I am determined, once I can read page 91 with equanimity, to attempt another one.  

 

I think it is safe to say that I now “get” Emily Dickinson.

Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

This is a wonderfully well-balanced book.  The writing is excellent, with an interesting theme and research that is impressive without being dominating.  The time transitions are especially smooth and effortless for the reader.  I was never at a loss to know what was going on, but always tantalized about what was to come next.  Edugyan’s plot development is a model example of taking the reader right to the edge of suspension of disbelief.

We care about these men and women.  They are flawed but likeable characters when they are youngsters in their 20’s.  We love the remaining men when they are old and callous; still flawed, but humbled by their experiences.

There was a rich field of as yet untapped plot-line themes that make up this book: African-American jazz musicians and other sorts of entertainers traveling in Nazi Germany; the anomaly of racial purity as a political doctrine that can dominate a nation; the whole dangerous mystique of moving around in Nazi-held territory [She steals the departing Paris train scene from “Casablanca” where Rick and Ilsa don’t meet up as planned, {but why not – it was a great scene} ].

 

An unusual twist, for us Americans, was that, through Edugyan’s research, we learn that African-Americans were respected and welcomed into the dinner tables of Deutschland.  However, through parental-indiscretion, Hiero, is an African-German and considered a racial outcast.  That’s just the tip of the iceberg of what rich, fascinating information this book contains

The author examines the mischling situation from all angles, not just African mixtures, but Jewish as well.  She seemingly writes herself into the book as Delilah, the only real female character: mysterious and all-knowing, she dominates the action until the book shifts completely to the present.

This book appears to be the complete opposite treatment of the effects of racially-mixed blood lines as last year’s “Cane River”, which was such an intellectual treatise on the subject.  However, they both stimulated deep thoughts about this subject area

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

I did make it through this book, but it became increasingly boring as we crept to the 512^th page.  For those who didn’t make it, I’ll end the suspense by saying, Henry got his mojo back [last line of the book]. 

It was boring to me even though:

-     I’m a male

-     I’m a bachelor

-     and I like baseball.

I can only imagine the sheer reading torture this was for those who are:

-     female

-     aren’t into frat-house gross jokes

or lives focused around pizzas and beer.

-     and aren’t into training regimens of athletes.

 

Where did this book go wrong?: let me count the ways.  The boredom started a third of the way through the book as the reader became aware that the cast of characters and their dysfunctional foibles had been typeset in lead and scenes from that point forward were only going to be repetitious variations of what had gone on before.  After halfway through the book, disillusionment set in as the reader realized that there would be no steamy sex scenes, no great moments in baseball history, actually nothing interesting at all.  Maybe we’ve become too jaded or inured living around Guerneville, but all of the sex lives of these characters were pitifully abysmal.  All this, “Will he, won’t she, will she, won’t he, will they join the dance?”

A tortuous read – 1 out of 10 for this elitist, wannabe author, whose only praise comes from the NY Times {see below}.

 

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

n+1 began in the Fall of 2004, the project of Keith Gessen, Benjamin Kunkel, Mark Greif, Chad Harbach, and Marco Roth. The magazine, described by Gessen as "like Partisan Review, except not dead," was launched out of a feeling of dissatisfaction with the current intellectual scene in the United States, with the editors often citing Lingua Franca and the early years of Partisan Review as models for their magazine. Both of those magazines embodied the age where the little magazine was a veritable institution and a major centre of innovation in arts and politics.

Their outlook is most frequently summed up by the last lines of their first issue where Gessen proclaimed, "it is time to say what you mean.  " Yet in the Third Issue, critic James Wood responded to criticism of his negative criticism and, singling out this quote by Gessen, stated, "The Editors had unwittingly proved the gravamen of their own critique: that it is easier to criticize than to propose."

The magazine has received mixed criticism to date. Generally, n+1's detractors are irked by the editors' youth and perceived elitism. As the magazine is purportedly an effort to engage a generation in a struggle against the current literary landscape, such seeming elitism seems counterintuitive to the ideals upon which the magazine was founded. The New Criterion critically asked, "is your journal really necessary?" and accused them of exaggerating their own importance. The Times Literary Supplement wryly satirized Kunkel's quote, "We're angrier than Dave Eggers and his crowd," and compared that quote against their Third Issue's unsigned article about and titled Dating.

Others have appreciated these very qualities, writing favorably of the boldness of the project itself and the sincerity and enthusiasm of its contributors. New York Times critic A.O. Scott commented on this in a feature article on the new wave of young, intellectual publications in a September 2005 issue of the New York Times Magazine, saying that n+1 was trying to "organize a generational struggle against laziness and cynicism, to raise once again the banners of creative enthusiasm and intellectual engagement" and that it had a feel that was "decidedly youthful, not only in [its] characteristic generational concerns — the habit of nonchalantly blending pop culture, literary esoterica and academic theory, for instance, or the unnerving ability to appear at once mocking and sincere — but also in the sense of bravado and grievance that ripples through their pages."

 

A Most Wanted Man by John Le Carré

I guess the library restocked this, and put it on the “new books” shelf because there is a movie adaptation being filmed as I type.  I am happy all this occurred.  The book came out in 2008 and I was wrapped up that time almost exclusively with the radio station, KGGV. 

Le Carré is one of my favorites; my taste for him taken to an extreme when I found myself working in England for close to a decade.  Now it is nostalgia for me, those OxBridge men with their funny quirks who populate the management of British corporations and other positions of power. 

For a lover of Carré, this is an exquisite book, a spell-binding read that will make a great movie.  The author is aging, as I am.  The author pulls into the story lots of characters, and scenes that have been his trademark stable of ideas over half a century of writing.  There are bits of stories retold, like the Russia House escape from the inescapable grasp of the spook community; the interview methodology of George Smiley along with his deeply thought out strategies to entrap his enemies.  As always the spies are conflicted: conflicting with other spies, some home team, some visitors. 

Le Carré is a masterful story-teller.  The best.  This tale is riveting.  It’s freshly updated with Chechens, Turks, and Arabs, but with generational back-looks to Russians, Germans, and Brits.  Interestingly, the Americans are still a powerful force, but only introduced at the last minute, despised by all, and really not that relevant to the entire story other than as an ultimate bad guy to take on a lot of the blame for a situation gone wrong.

The characterizations are compelling.  I’m sorry that the BBC didn’t get the rights to do this film.  “Tinker Tailor” and “Smiley’s People” each were 6-hour adaptations of Le Carré’s works and show-cased the author’s ability at personality characterization.  That will be missing in the American movie.  Culture and ethnicity are such important factors in these sorts of novel’s dramatizations.  American film-makers tend to blend all foreigners into the “all Asians look alike to me” mindset.  In the smallish world of the EuroZone, French, Italian, Greek, and German national and cultural traits are extremely important and subtly recognized by other members of the European community. 

Because of the thoughtful interweaving of old plotlines with new, older generation characters with younger ones, I think this story will survive as one of Le Carré’s best.  It captures the hint of what our elders told us was the evil, bad old days of the cold war, with the reality of today’s jihad.

A captivating read – 10 out of 10 for this, still interesting author.

This Cold Heaven by Gretel Ehrlich

This was an interesting read, for a text that might be periodically referred to, as one would, to any 19^th century explorer’s text.

In that style, it is clearly an amateur scientific diary with the common trait, from a century ago, of being overly, almost didactically profuse in the descriptions, to the minutest detail and profundity.  The audience in mind is a fellow quasi-scientist/explorer captivated obsessively with a guide book to continued exploration of this fascinating country and peoples.  I have several such books in my library.

I would draw the line however, at this being a book of general interest to a broad community of adult library readers. 

The author has an amazing ability to capture scenes of nature {and culture} with wonderful simile and metaphor, such that the reader is left mesmerizingly drained with the beauty captured in her scenic words, and awed by her insight into the meaning of civilization’s encroachment into this stone-age culture. 

Unfortunately, the scenes and the insights are not enough to carry this book beyond a reference text book.  All too often, our book club selections are left to the extremely east coast PC white wine sippers{ecwwsps}, who in this case are sending the message, “You must empathize with these beleaguered Inuits and their disappearing land – read this book and then support their cause.”  Of course, the truth is that, for those having read the book {not the ecwwsps}, this is the way of the Earth – things may change, or be made to stay the same; doesn’t matter the world goes on – species go extinct by the dozens each year.

There is no lacking in Ehrlich’s passion for the subject matter, or her thorough recording of events, nor her wonderfully comprehensive historical recap of the last centuries (& more) events.  The problem is – she is not a mass media author, certainly not a fictional author, although, with her flights of fancy, she has possibilities there.  Alas, she violates so many “rules” of writing {aptly codified}, that her antiquated style quickly becomes droll, and encourages the reader to skip on forward to the next “activity”.

I am reminded of my next-door neighbor when she and I were in graduate school together in Tucson.  We had lengthy discussions about the plight of the western Indians.  I, of course, proposed monumental sieges, battles to the death: honorable; but with great loss of life.  She spoke of love and of oneness with nature – of nature’s ultimate victory over strife.  Our focal point in these discussions was the movie “Easy Rider”, 1969 - Dennis Hopper, Jack Nickolson, Peter Fonda.  What was the message you got from this movie.?

Padma's Comments on History of Love

In many ways I found this book quite lovely and in many ways quite confusing. I felt I need to read it again and hoped that would help me understand it better. I read it again (skimmed, I admit) and I did understand the “plot” better; but still not very interesting.

The writing was nice, humorous, and at times poetic. I liked the children but could never figure out the significance of the religious fanaticism of the brother, Bird. I did like that he was called “Bird” that was original.

I enjoyed Leo’s reflections on his life, his sense of humor, his relationship with Bruno. Although I could not figure out when Bruno, or Leopold, for that matter, actually died. I thought the scene of Leo posing for the art class was truly funny, and realistic.

I did not understand the idea of pages with one or two sentences on the whole page. Did someone think the book should be longer? Perhaps this also was the point of a few characters for whom I could not figure out a purpose.

For example what was the point of the old professor Alma meets who is a paleontologist? Or the scene with the rich man who is locked out of his home and pays Leo with a $100 bill?

Some of these things just felt thrown in with no particular purpose. As if the author had a clever idea that she could not resist writing about, so she put it in this story. I think perhaps she should have resisted, maybe saved her ideas for another book where they might be more relevant.

I also did not get the purpose of the photos of her grandparents. Were they supposed to be characters in the novel? Did she want us to be certain that she actually had grandparents? Is there something special about having grandparents that I missed?

All in all I could have passed on this one.

 

Just finished “Dearie,” the Julia Child biography and cried at the end. I was even inspired to get her first book, The Art of French Cooking, and have enjoyed cooking from it.

Engrossed in “A State of Wonder,” by Ann Patchett. Only about 1/3 into it; but so far very good, mysterious with good character and plot development.

Sorry to miss the group. I’m at a craft fair at the Airport Club to benefit their Cancer Wellness program. Curious to hear news of how others liked this book.

padma