Category: Fiction

“Blue Garden”

gr4c5Leave a comment

Young, Dean. “Blue Garden.” Skid. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002. pp 18-19.

At first reading, “Blue Garden” seemed nothing more than an admonishment to the reader about what a poem should and shouldn’t be. Upon closer evaluation the interpretation falls away and the potential for something completely different is revealed. It all seems up to you. And yet. Yet, it comes back to words and seems to be about the words. What works for a word and what doesn’t. Imagery follows the lines like a movie, linked to the psyche. Powerful stuff. My favorite part was, “Never put an eclair in a suitcase or a poem” (p 19). It made me laugh and feel a certain sense of sadness all at once.What can’t you put an eclair into a poem, I’d like to know!

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen-Sink Poetry (p 139).

“At Marlborough House”

gr4c5Leave a comment

Swift, Michael. “At Marlborough House.” The New Yorker June 18th, 1990: 40.

This poem is loaded with details; details easily visualized into a short story. There are little shockers peppered throughout the entire poem told from the point of view of a patient at Marlborough House. Imagine: it is early afternoon and the patients of a psychiatric hospital are languishing in their rooms awaiting nurses with medication. There are a host of characters besides the patients – Jake the gardener and Dr. Levitz, the man in charge, but it’s the speaker of the poem you want to know more about. You snatch details, more like hints, in the things he says. He is male, old enough to still have parents who visit. He likes to read, knows pop cultural references and has homosexual tendencies. He is smart and funny and sarcastic. You want to ignore his suicidal thoughts.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Poetry Pleasers” (p 188). Incidentally, Pearl called this poem “mysterious.”

Postscript ~ Every April I think the same thing. It is really unfair of Nancy Pearl to list poems she recommends for reading without proper citations. From what I can tell “At Marlborough House” was never published in a book. I found it tucked away in a 1990 New Yorker magazine. It might well have been the only place it was published. Here are the tags I would have used on LibraryThing: mental illness, hospital, first person, homosexuality, poetry, librarian, doctor, sex, paranoia, alcohol, suicidal, sarcastic”

House of Blue Light

gr4c52 Comments

Kirby, David. The House of Blue Light. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000.

It’s really hard to call this book a book of poetry. Each poem reads like a short story full of interesting characters and plots. In one 77 page book the reader is transported across countries and cultures. It has been said that House of Blue Light is autobiographical. For example Kirby’s characters mention a Barbara and Kirby is indeed married to a woman named Barbara Hamby. I do not know if she is the same Barbara of House of Blue Light’s poetry. Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. Regardless, Kirby’s poetry is funny, situationally (my word) real, and intensely soulful. In a word, substantial; this was poetry I could sink my teeth into and actually taste something.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen Sink Poetry” (p 138).

“The Bells Are Ringing…”

gr4c5Leave a comment

Winch, Terence. “The Bells are Ringing for Me and Chagall.” The Great Indoors. Brownsville: Story Line Press, 1995. pp 41.

Sexy. That’s the first thing I think when I read “The Bells are Ringing for Me and Chagall.” I want to know who is Chagall? and I want to know more about those bells that are ringing. Do they signify great sex and is Chagall the reason? The entire poem comes off (in the end) as a sage on the stage admonishment about relationships. There is a hint of warning and more than a little advice and it all boils down to this: if your sex life is over-the-top the relationship is doomed to fail. But, if the sex you are having is pleasant, and, in a word, satisfying, you are in a stronger commitment. Interesting.

I think the title of the poem is a play on words. Judy Garland once sang a song with the lyrics, “the bells are ringing for me and my gal” and it was all about getting married (or so I thought whenever I heard it). Marriage defines a level of commitment so it makes some sense to compare the two.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Poetry Pleasers” (p 188).

Miss Timmins’ School for Girls

gr4c5Leave a comment

Currimbhoy, Nayana. Miss Timmins’ School for Girls: a Novel. New York: Harper, 2011.

Disclaimer: When I first saw this was a Harper publication I balked. Not because I personally have a problem with the “26 e-book renewal” drama, but rather because, as a librarian, I should be standing with my fellow librarians and sharing in their boycott efforts. I’m not because this isn’t an e-book, I didn’t borrow it, and as far as I know, it won’t self destruct after 26 reads. But, I digress. Onto the review:

Miss Timmins’ School for Girls is intense! It’s a complicated romance ensnared with a murder (suicide?) scandal. Churu a new teacher at Miss Timmins’ School. Outwardly, she tries to fit in with the other missionaries. She wears her clothes properly and has civilized tea. After dark Charu finds drugs and friendship with a troubled, misfit teacher named Moira Prince. When Moira is murdered the school community is a whirlwind of chaos. After some time witnesses put Charu with Moira right before her death. Did she do it? When a shocking love affair is revealed the story becomes more complicated. When a birth mother is revealed the story takes another twist. It keeps twisting until the very end.

In all honesty, every time I put Miss Timmins’ School for Girls down I found it difficult to pick it back up. The story dragged on and on. In places I felt certain scenes weren’t necessary and I questioned why they were included. None of the scenes were overkill, they just added more to the story that really wasn’t necessary. Charu’s own personal conflict with her mother could have been a book in and of itself. Her relationships with Merch and Prince could have been another book. Combining this with the murder at Miss Timmins’ School for Girls made the book tedious.

“Two Tramps in Mud Time”

gr4c5Leave a comment

Frost, Robert. “Two Tramps in Mud Time.” Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays. New York: Library of America, 1984. pp 251-252.

Too many people have tried to analyze Frost’s poem, “Two Tramps in Mud Time,” giving me license to not even try.  Long, rambling, didactic essays have been written explaining Frost’s position on charity, society, and the psychological differences between need versus want. I will refrain. Instead I will look at the poem for what it meant to me. At first blush I took the poem personally. The words “mud time” in the title made me think of Monhegan. We have a whole season dedicated to muck and mire and mud – early spring when everything is thawing more quickly than the sun can dry up. This runoff of excessive, exuberant water creates deep, thick, oozing traps of mud. The kind of mud you sink 4-5″ inches in; strong enough to suck a man’s Bean boot right off his foot.
Then, there is Frost’s description of a fickle spring. I can relate. Here it is, a week into spring and we have a snow storm on our doorstep. April Fools we are for living in New England. If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute – as they say.

Another aspect of “Two Tramps in Mud Time” that I took to heart is the concept of loving your work so much that work is not the operative word to describe your actions. The narrator is chopping wood. Not because it is a necessity – winter is over. It is April and presumably he wouldn’t need to light another fire again until fall. No. He enjoys the physical labor of chopping wood. Love what you do. Do what you love. It’s something my father has (countless times) drummed into my head. But, along come two unemployed tramps, looking to take the narrator’s work away from him. They need the work whereas the narrator wants the work. Herein lies the psychological babble about questioning obligation, confronting humanity with charity.

BookLust Twist: Book Lust in the introduction (p xi).

Bear Went Over the Mountain

gr4c5Leave a comment

Kotzwinkle, William. The Bear Went Over the Mountain. New York: Doubleday, 1996.

If you remembered I had already tried a Kotzwinkle book and failed, kudos to you. Because I didn’t. At first glance I thought The Bear Went Over the Mountain was a book for kids. The cover sure looked that way and the plot definitely looked that way. I should have known this was something I wasn’t going to be able to wrap my brain around. Call me rigid. Call me StickIntheMud, but I really, really couldn’t enjoy The Bear Went Over the Mountain because I have no ability to half suspend belief.

Here’s the premise: Miserable University of Maine professor, Arthur Bramhall, has written a book he hopes will save him from teaching ever again. He thinks the manuscript is a winner and will make him millions. Unfortunately, the story goes up in flames when his secluded farmhouse goes up in flames. Never mind. He rewrites it practically word for word only this time it’s better. In order to avoid another book ablaze he hides it in a briefcase under a tree…only to have a bear steal it. The bear reads the manuscript and knows a good story when he sees it. He travels to New York to hawk the book and ends up making movie deals and having sex with humans. While the bear (Hal Jam) becomes more human, the professor (Arthur Bramhall) becomes more animal after the loss of his manuscript.

I will admit The Bear Went Over the Mountain solicited a giggle here and there but for the most part I found myself scolding the stupid humans for not being able to recognize a bear wearing pants and a clip-on tie.

Author Fact: William Kotzwinkle lives on a island off the coast of Maine, according to the inside flap of The Bear Went Over the Mountain. All I know is that island isn’t Monhegan.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter simply called “Humor” (p 116) and again, in “My Own Private Dui” (p 165) another chapter in Book Lust.

“Exorcist of Notre-Dame”

gr4c52 Comments

Kirby, David. “The Exorcist of Notre-Dame.” The House of Blue Light. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000. pp 75-77.

This poem made me sad. Maybe it’s because the narrator wants to talk to an exorcist about seeing someone who reminded him of his dead dad. Maybe it’s because the narrator doesn’t speak French so even if he wanted to he wouldn’t be able to communicate effectively with the exorcist. So, technically, there are two different disappointments at play here – missing one’s father and the inability to communicate. I can relate to both but connect on a deeper level with the loss of a father. There is a little reprieve from the sadness when the narrator imagines the exorcist trying to describe him: “a stuttering sort of spastic hillbilly zombie hayseed type person” (p 77).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen Sink Poetry” (p 138).

Flint’s Law

gr4c5Leave a comment

Eddy, Paul. Flint’s Law. New York: G.P. Putnam, 2002.

The first thing one needs to understand about Flint’s Law is that it is a continuation of Paul Eddy’s Flint but, really, it is not necessary to read Flint before Flint’s Law. Eddy does a great job hand-holding the reader through details carried over from Flint. However, I’ll admit, it is my opinion that Flint’s Law is far more enjoyable with the details of Flint already in the memory bank.

Flint is Grace Flint and she is spunky, rebellious, and a little unethical as an undercover agent. Like the opening to Flint, Flint’s Law opens with an undercover sting operation going wrong. Only this time someone else is paying the price for the blunder and to all concerned, it’s Grace’s fault. The failed sting leads everyone to believe there is a leak and somehow Grace is involved. In order to clear her name, keep her job, and seek revenge, Grace must put aside any trust she has for those in her inner circle. Anyone and everyone are now suspect. As usual Eddy takes us on a multi-country journey: Croatia, France, Germany to name a few. As usual the plot is complicated (with over 30 different characters mentioned by name it is hard to keep them all straight). As usual, Grace compels us to keep reading to find out what happens next.

This book produces more questions than it does answers. Consider this: When we leave Grace in Flint’s Law Grace knows she is pregnant, her arch enemy has gotten away (again), and she has left her husband for dead somewhere, floating, in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. What will Grace do about the baby? Her lifestyle hardly allows for motherhood and let’s face it, Grace isn’t all that nurturing. What will become of Grace’s elusive enemy? Will he haunt her for the rest of her life? And, what of that sea-stranded husband? No one saw him drown so did he really die? Finally, the biggest mystery of all, carried over from Flint – who killed Grace’s mom? Guess I’ll have to read Flint’s Code to find out!

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Action Heroines” (p 6).

March ’11 was…

gr4c5Leave a comment

What can I say about March? The snow is (finally, finally) beginning to melt and kisa and I are starting to think spring even though it’s still cold, cold, cold and more snow is expected for tomorrow. We made some pretty sobering decisions. No huge projects for Hilltop and no expensive vacations. We’re taking a year off from spending. It’s a good choice, I think, given all the work drama we both have been through recently. Family life is starting to even out. For awhile I wasn’t feeling the proverbial pressures, but then again I had been shutting my phone off at night! March was also a Natalie night with the best company a girl could ever have.  Here’s the list for March books:

  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte ~ in honor of Book Month. I had forgotten about all the sighing and sobbing! *sigh*
  • Blind Descent by Nevada Barr ~ in honor of Barr’s birth month. I will never look at cave exploring the same way again!
  • Flint by Paul Eddy ~ in honor of Eddy’s birth month.
  • The Bold Vegetarian: 150 Innovative International Recipes by Bharti Kirchner ~ in honor of March being “noodle month.” I kid you not.
  • Cross Creek by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings ~ in honor of Florida becoming a state. This was made into a movie…interesting.
  • God’s Bits of Wood by Sembene Ousmane~ in honor of African American Writers Month.
  • Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks ~ in honor of March being family month. This was a behemoth to read – over 700 pages!
  • Raising Holy Hell by Bruce Olds ~ in honor of family month (read with Cloudsplitter because they were on the same topic).
  • Cosi fan Tutti by Michael Dibdin ~ in honor of March being Dibdin’s birth month.

Confessional: I skipped Famished Road by Ben Okri and added God’s Bits of Wood by Sembene Ousmane instead. Somehow I had forgotten that I had already tried that book a few years ago. It just wasn’t my thing. However, I did write a review for LibraryThing. I just wish I had remembered that before ordering it a second time. I hate making more work for librarians! Here’s what I said for LT:
The Famished Road by Ben Okri is all about spirits. Azaro is a child in Africa struggling between two worlds: that of the spiritual and that of the Earthly. His parents on Earth are well meaning, but poverty driven, people. the basic theme of Famished Road is the definitive difference and ultimate struggle between good and evil. Azaro’s personal struggle is with spirits that can only exist if Azaro is dead. Azaro’s father struggles with abuse and power. Starting as a boxer he soon delves into the world of politics to gain power. Madam Kato is a simple bartender who begins her part of the story by wanting more profit but as a result of greed, sinks lower and lower. Along with the ever-entwining magical realism is the drifting of morality.

Other books I read in March not on the BookLust list: Miss Timmins School  for Girls: a novel by Nayana Churrimbhoy ~ an Early Review book for LibraryThing. This was great! Definitely one of my favorite reads of the month. I also started reading Clean Food by Terry Walters and Now Eat This by Rocco Dispirito (reviews coming soon).

Cosi Fan Tutti

gr4c5Leave a comment

Dibdin, Michael. Cosi Fan Tutti. New York: Pantheon Books, 1996.

You know those books that are described as romps? This is one of those books. Not uproariously funny, but definitely entertaining through and through. Do I dare call this a murderous and mysterious comedy or a comedic murder mystery? To me, Cosi Fan Tutti is one and the same. It’s a twist on Mozart’s opera of the same name. Everything has been twisted – the plot, the characters, the outcome.

Aurelio Zen himself is a man of mystery. I found myself asking, “is this guy for real?” more than once. For starters, he works for the Ministry in Rome but asked for a transfer to Naples to avoid doing any real police work. In addition, in his private life he goes by the name Alfonso Zembla only because a deaf widow misheard his introduction at a party and he never bothered to correct her. He takes advantage of the alias because it’s fun. When this same widow asks Zen/Zembla to help dissuade her daughters from marrying beneath their status (to believed Mafia associates) he is more than happy to help…except his real job needs him. Several VIPs have gone missing and there is a havoc being wreaked by a couple of garbage truck crews. It only gets more bizarre from there.

Book Trivia: Cosi Fan Tutti isn’t a series per se, but Aurelio Zen is a reoccurring character. He’s considered an antihero. Makes sense.

Author Fact: Dibdin died in 2007 but one last ‘Zen’ book was published after his death in 2007. Interesting.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Ciao Italia” (p).

Raising Holy Hell

gr4c5Leave a comment

Olds, Bruce. Raising Holy Hell. New York: Harry Holt & Company, 1995.

At first glance this book scared the crap out of me. For starters, the cover. It’s an illustration based on a photograph of John Brown. It’s blurry and staring and Mr. Brown looks like he’s on fire. Maybe he is? I’m not sure. Then there’s a blurb from Robert Olen Butler on the back, “…is a brilliant novel about the complexities of hatred…the hatred of hatred…” The hatred of hatred sounds, well, harsh. But it’s the truth.

Defending Raising Holy Hell: I have to say this upfront. I read this along side Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks so I find myself making comparisons instead of writing a review strictly about Raising Holy Hell. Since I have such a persistent problem I think I should list the comparisons, if only to get them out of my system and move on:

  1. Cloudsplitter is long – well over 700 pages whereas Raising Holy Hell is barely over 300.
  2. Cloudsplitter is long winded – long sentences, long chapters, heavy with words and details. Raising Holy Hell is choppy – pages of lists, pages with 2-3 simple quotes. One page contained less than a dozen words “One year before the Ferry. One year and counting down” (p 196).
  3. Cloudsplitter is told from the point of view of Owen Brown, John Brown’s third son. Raising Holy Hell comes at the reader from every angle. Told from the point of view of wives, sons, interviews, prayers, articles, diaries, etc. It’s this last point I want to focus on the most.

Raising Holy Hell is unique. Bruce Olds tells John Brown’s story from every direction. Quotations, mythology, folk tales, court transcripts, lists, poetry,  diary entries, letters, interviews, Bible quotes, historical data, advice, agreements, and the perspectives of stepmother, father, first wife, second wife, eldest son, younger sons, daughters, neighbors, friends, Frederick Douglass, past Presidents, all piece together to tell not only the tale of Harper’s Ferry, but of the biography of John Brown, the man. Perfect for someone with a short span of attention!

Book Trivia & author fact: Raising Holy Hell is Bruce Olds’s first book but not his last.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Biographical Novels” (p 38).

Cloudsplitter

gr4c5Leave a comment

Banks, Russell. Cloudsplitter. New York: Harper Collins, 1998.

Aside from its daunting size (well over 700 pages) this was fascinating to read. Owen Brown, the third of John Brown’s sons, tells the story of his father’s controversial life, beginning with Owen’s own childhood. Cloudsplitter opens with a written apology to Miss Mayo, a young Columbia University student who had been rebuffed by Owen after she traveled to his remote mountainside home in Altadena, California in hopes of inviting him to a reception. After chasing Miss Mayo away Owen is feeling the pressures of mortality, for he is not a young man anymore, and decides to tell his entire story from start to finish. While he is apparently ambivalent to his father’s tragic path of life he is deeply reflective and apologetic, detailing the process of how his father become of of history’s most complex antislavery agitators and martyrs. Owen desperately wants to appear open and honest by saying, “I will tell all” over and over again. Seeing as how Cloudsplitter is told from the point of view of John Brown’s surviving son it is safe to say the story was not meant to be yet another retelling  of the famous yet failed raid on Harper’s Ferry specifically. It is more accurately an illustration of how one man’s religious beliefs can grow to become the catalyst for one of the most well known events in history, in this case, the anti-slave movement. While Banks’ style of writing is, at times, rambling and contradictory (a reflection of Owen’s ability to tell the story) he is able to seamlessly weave nonfiction into fiction; reality into imagined to create a vivid political and cultural 19th century landscape.

One of the reoccurring themes of Cloudsplitter is guilt, guilt driven by religion, guilt driven by family obligation and guilt driven by society. As the child of John Brown, Owen is pulled in many different directions by his guilt and it apparent in every story he tells.

Profound lines: “I was, during those first few weeks…precariously balanced between opposing commitments which were set to create the shape of the rest of my life, and I knew that not to chose between them would lead me inescapably to a resolution that expressed not my will, but my father’s” (p 199), “It was the year that Lyman Epps and I finished our elaborate dance, and I went howling into the wilderness, leaving wreckage and smoldering ruin behind me” (p 536), and “Our specialty would be killing men who wished to own other men” (p 549).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Biographical Novels” (p 38).

ps~ I have read four out of five of the Russell Banks books on my list.

Les bouts de bois de Dieu

gr4c5Leave a comment

Ousmane, Sembene. God’s Bits of Wood. Trans. Francis Price. Botswana: Heinmann, 1960.

God’s Bits of Wood has multiple layers. At face value it is a story of a Western African 1947-8 railroad strike. The story focuses on several key players but the most important individuals are Ibrahima Bakayoko, a locomotive engineer who becomes the union leader during the strike, and on the other side of the conflict, Dejean, the French colonial manager. Because the story takes place in several different areas (Bamako, Thies and Dakar) the overall impact of the strike is generalized to a population. The story reaches past an African railroad strike in order to analyze clashes that go beyond worker/employer relations. The social economic and political contexts are analyzed and illustrated. It is more than a description of the initiatives of the railroad workers versus the initiatives of the colonial administration. Feminists have a field day with re-imagining gender relations as the women of West Africa transform themselves into powerful members of society – the social function to the story as it pertains to Sengal and Africa as a whole.

I have to admit it was driving me nuts that I didn’t understand the title “God’s Bits of Wood.” I needed to know what it meant. I was picturing a forest, a campfire, a dilapidated shack. All things wood…in bits. I was happy to learn, early on, that the wood of  God’s bits of wood are actually people. Gotcha.

Favorite lines: “And the men began to understand that if times were bringing forth a new breed of men, they were also bringing forth a new breed of women” (p 34). I think that sums up the entire book.
Other favorite lines: A line from Hadrame, “This strike is a war if eggs against stones!” (p 42).

Author fact: It was interesting to read that Ousmane has been a fisherman, a plumber, a bricklayer, an apprentice mechanic, a docker, as well as a trade union leader and a filmmaker in addition to be a successful writer.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “African Literature in English” (p 16).

Flint

gr4c5Leave a comment

Eddy, Paul. Flint. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2000.

Flint starts with violence. The plot itself is a little complicated but the writing is superb. Grace Flint is the proverbial Nancy Drew only not as wholesome. Okay, she swears a lot and she has a plastic face. She is the literary answer to silver screen’s Laura Croft. Dark and dangerous. Working as an undercover agent, Grace is exposed during a particularly dangerous sting operation and nearly beaten to death. That’s how Flint begins. The rest of the book fills in the gaps of who Grace really is (tough, beautiful, haunted) and who she isn’t (social, secure, stable). It follows her on her quest for revenge (because, of course, she survives the beating) as the men who framed her nip at her heels. There are many twists and turns to Flint and it gets a little complicated at times, but the writing and character development keep you on the edge of your seat.

Most frightening “movie moment” is on page 64. I can picture the scene perfectly: A man on the the run from the law must flee again. He needs to get on the move again and soon. As he is just about to feed his dogs he wonders who should take care of them when he runs. He wonders if he shouldn’t them instead.

Best conundrum: Grace is having sex with her separated husband who has a child out of wedlock with another woman. “If your husband cheats on the mother of his bastard son…does that mean you are having an affair?” (p 88).

Author Fact: I was shocked to learn Paul Eddy died of an infection after suffering an aneurysm at the age of 64. He was in the process of writing another thriller and had already written over 60,000 words. Bummer.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Action Heroes” (p 5).