The New Well-Tempered Sentence

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Gordon, Karen Elizabeth. The New Well-Tempered Sentence: a Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed.NewYork: Ticknor & Fields, 1993.

This is the kind of book the coolest of cool professors would use in a writing class. The language is hip and humorous, the illustrations funny and fabulous. While Gordon lays down the law about when and where to use an exclamation point, a period, a comma, or semi colon, I don’t feel obligated to follow her to the letter (or period). I read The New Well-Tempered Sentence as merely suggestion; here’s what you can do, if you so chose (and obviously I don’t). Think Edward Estlin Cummings. Gordon is careful to use witty examples and whimsical illustrations to prove her points to go along with that hip and cool vibe. This is the essential reference book you have on your shelf and because it is so funky you are not ashamed to have it in plain sight.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Words to the Wise” (p 249). For this particular inclusion the chapter would have been more appropriate if called, “Words to the Wise About Writing Words” because Gordon’s book is all about punctuation.

Perma Red

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Earling, Debra Magpie. Perma Red. New York: BlueHen Books, 2002.

Perma Red takes place in the 1940s on a Wyoming Indian Reservation where ancient customs prevail and old secrets hang heavy. Louise White Elk is a contradictory girl. Independent yet needy. Brave yet frightened. An orphan with family. Louise is also has attention of many men. The list of attendees is long: trouble maker Baptiste Yellow Knife; cousin Charlie Kicking Woman (Perma’s Tribal police officer); rich man Harvey Stoner; and mystery man Jules Bart. They all want something from her whether it be under the guise to own her or protect her. They all end up using her or abusing her. At one time or another they all get their way. It is a ruthless existence. Yet, Louise welcomes it in her own strange way. She perpetuates the vicious cycle of running away at the same time as being drawn to violent and needy men. What keeps Perma Red magical is its descriptive language. The landscape is as wild and as beautiful as untamed Louise White Elk.
Ages are vague. Charlie is at least seven or eight years older than Louise and Bapstiste is older by three years or so. The reader never gets a sense of how old Louise is supposed to be when her experiences are described as coming of age and womanly all at once.

Favorite sentences, “Louise sat down at the bar long enough so no one would recognize her broken heart” (p 43), “together their thinness made them appear stingy and dangerous” (p 64), and “I felt heavy with marriage” (p 114).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “American Indian Literature” (p 23).

Strange observation – the author’s name is a footnote on every even page. I’ve never seen that before so it seems a little hubris to me.

Nov ’10 is…

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October was a simply fantastic month for reading. Being on vacation and a few days to myself certainly helped. I’m not sure what November will be like, but here are the books I hope to get through:

  • The Harmless People by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas~ in honor of November being the best time to visit Africa
  • Perma Red by Debra Magpie Earling~ in honor of Native American month
  • The New Well-Tempered Sentence: a Punctuation Handbook by Karen Elizabeth Gordon~ in honor of National Writing Month
  • The Healing by Gayle Jones~ in honor of Gayle Jones’s birth month
  • On the Road by (Hey) Jack Kerouac~ in honor of November being the best time to travel

In other news November is the very last Natalie show until who knows when. I’m looking forward to this one because it promises to be different from any of the others I went to this year. I really don’t know what else to expect from the month and maybe that is a good thing.

October ’10 was…

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Our nightly view

I spent the first eight days of October “stranded” on a remote, windblown island off the coast of Maine. Every morning was spent leisurely reading in bed, half listening to the sounds of surf and squabbling gulls. Cloudy afternoons were spent either hiking along rocky shores and overlooking cliff high vistas or combing seaweed strewn beaches for sea glass and shells. Quiet evenings were whiled away in front of a snapping orange glow fire with a good book in hand. It was a delicious way to end the day – just as I had started it, behind the pages of a book. Because of this simple routine it was easy to finish three books in eight days:

  • Messiah by Gore Vidal ~ in honor of Vidal’s birth month. This stayed with me as prophetic as it was.
  • The Poison Oracle by Peter Dickinson ~ in honor of October being special child month. Another futuristic story about a different kind of greed.
  • The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve ~ in honor of Halloween. Probably my favorite book of the month.

After the vacation home I returned to the daily grind and was able to finish the following books:

  • Ways of Seeing by John Berger ~ in honor of Art Appreciation month. This took me a lunch break to read so I read it several times.
  • Bonobo: the Forgotten Ape by Frans de Waal ~ in honor of de Waal’s birth month and October being animal month. At first I was bothered by the graphic Bonobo photography but I got over it.
  • Woman: An Intimate Geography by Natalie Angier ~ in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month. I have to admit – the cover of this book cracked me up (simple, yet says so much).
  • Nothing Remains the Same: Rereading and Remembering by Wendy Lesser ~ in honor of National Book Month. This was okay.
  • Bird Brains: the Intelligence of Crows, Ravens, Magpies and Jays by Candace Savage ~ in honor of Bird Watching month. A big, bold, beautiful book (loved the photography).

For LibraryThing and the Early Review program, two books:

  • Yes You Can! : Your Guide to Becoming an Activist by Jane Drake and Ann Love was waiting for me when I returned from vacation. Since it is only 133 pages long and written for young adults it took me just a few hours to read it cover to cover.
  • Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin was really, really good.

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Confession: Autumn has always been my private hell. People think I’m kidding when I say bad things always happen to me between September and December…until I start recounting the black clouds. This year while I had a few bad things roll in my direction it was nothing like what happened with friends and family. Losing fathers, losing jobs, losing lives. The walls came tumbling down. As one friend put it, “I’m having a hard enough time recovering as is and now this?” And now this. I bury my head in books to avert my heart.

Woman: an intimate geography

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Angier, Natalie. Woman: an Intimate Geography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999.

Angier’s style of writing is a cross between know-it-all scientist and folksy I’m-Going-To-Explain-It-All-To-You girlfriend. I happened to like the science with sass approach. It made reading about my personal landscape a great deal more interesting. It’s informative AND funny – my kind of read. Because let’s face it, who wants to pick up something that reads like a gross anatomy textbook? I want (and got) something with spunk and humor; for example, who knew ‘piglet’ was a vocal range? You wouldn’t think describing the physical attributes of the vagina could be interesting but when Angier describes it as, “a Rorschach with legs” you have to sit up and take notice. Amid education and explanation Angier periodically debunks myth and dispels rumor concerning the female form. The vagina is not dirty! She is on a one woman rampage to bring honor to her sex. While her sassy sexy tone dissuades some readers from thinking of Woman as a reference tool I, for one, am sorry it wasn’t written 30 years ago.

Confession: I skipped the chapter on breast feeding called, “Holy Water.”

Favorite lines, “The world needs more girl drummers” (p 206), and “We know it when we feel it [aggression]…and sometimes it feel nasty and sometimes it feels good” (p 262).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Dewey Deconstructed: 600s” (p 72).

ps~ I love it when reading comes full circle. I started the month with Bonobo: the Forgotten Ape by Frans de Waal. In Woman: an Intimate Geography Angier cites de Waal and thanks him in her acknowledgments. Guess why – sex.

Bird Brains

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Savage, Candace. Bird Brains: the Intelligence of Crows, Ravens, Magpies, and Jays. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1997.

This over-sized, beautiful and bold book on birds is entertaining on a multitude of levels. You don’t have to be an avid birder to appreciate Bird Brains for its witty, informative text and drop dead gorgeous photography. The premise for Bird Brains is the intelligence of the crow family. The argument for how smart they are is illustrated in the bird’s ability to adapt to changing conditions, ingenious nesting techniques, strategic enticing of a mate, uncanny voice recognition of their young, social nature such as showing off and much, much more. I was intrigued to learn of corvid “societies.” These birds congregate in avian clans. For example, the Jackdaws live in society regardless of the season and participate in communal activities such as feeding and roosting.

Here are a few other things I learned from reading Bird Brains. The green jay is absolutely gorgeous. Nutcrackers belong to the Crow family, as do Jays such as blue, green and pinyon.

Favorite line, “Prevented by its own prejudices and taboos from asking the most interesting questions, science was left with the most boring of answers” (p 19).

Favorite photograph: the crow “facing off” (the author’s description not mine) with a bald eagle on page 73. The eagle looks as though he is asking, “Seriously? You wanna mess with me? Really?!” and the crow is responding, “bring it on!” (to the cheers of his less brave comrades).

One thing I have always loved about ravens and crows is that they are seen as ominous creatures through literature (think Edgar Allan Poe), art (The Wyeth family’s Wondrous Strange collection), and song (Fairport Convention’s “Crazy Man Michael”). The shiny black birds are the perfect emblem of Halloween.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Nature Writing” (p 174).

Nothing Remains the Same

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Lesser, Wendy. Nothing Remains the Same: Rereading and Remembering. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002.

The title, Nothing Remains the Same comes from a letter Mark Twain wrote to William Dean Howells in 1887. What he is referring to is also the premise of Lesser’s book – rereading a book at a different stage of life shouldn’t be the same experience as the first time. Twain argues that “nothing remains the same.” I am in agreement. When I was in high school I read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne for an English class. As a 14 year old I was guided through the pages like a blind girl. Six years later I reread The Scarlet Letter for a Women in Literature class. I was forced fed the ideals of a feminist faculty; seeing the story through her sense of self while struggling with my own. Finally, I reread Scarlet for me and myself last year. This time I read it without bias or guidance, without ulterior motive. No grade rested on my comprehension of text. It was like reading it for the very first time and oh so self indulgent. Lesser offers a literary criticism of a handful of books she has reread throughout her life. Each chapter of Nothing Remains the Same takes on a different well known book starting with Henry James’s Portrait of a Lady. Sprinkled throughout each chapter are details of Lesser’s life, some seemingly unrelated to the book in question, others all about the reading (using it in graduate school, for example).

Lessing spends a great deal of time quoting from the books she is remembering which can be nice if you have never read them yourself but slightly irritating if you know them well. (I was somewhere in the middle.)

Favorite lines, “I had constructed a life in which I could be energetic but also lazy; I could rush but I would never be rushed” (p 3), and “In the meantime, as is always the case, the process of winning the batle has slightly cheapened the prize for me” (p 208).

Small gripe – say what you mean, mean what you say. Why write, “I decided to leave Anna Karenina out of my book” when you go on to mention it five times and dedicate an entire section to it? Complete with a quote, the section was at least a full page. This decision to discuss a book you originally wanted to leave out seems self indulgent, contradictory and rambling.

Overall I enjoyed Nothing Remains the Same. I think I would have enjoyed it more had it not been for the initial tone Lesser took. Example – early on (page 9) Lesser makes the comment, “Twelve seems young for a first reading…” (of Don Quixote) but in the next sentence she adds, “…when I first read Don Quixote I was eleven.” I felt like Lesser could have added, “so there!” punctuated with a tongue sticking out. It felt condescending and made me very aware of how many times she mentioned her age. I half expected her to say something about reading War and Peace in kindergarten.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Books About Books” (p 43).

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

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Franklin, Tom. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter. New York: William Morrow, 2010.

Confession: I couldn’t put this down. A friend from Germany was in town, someone I hadn’t seen in almost three years and all I wanted to do was read Crooked Letter. I don’t normally want to ignore friends!

Crooked Letter takes place in rural Mississippi bouncing between the early 1970s and the late 2000s. From the very first sentence you are pulled into something sinister. Hints of evil lurk between the lines. Larry Ott has always been strange. A social outcast since grade school Larry pulls outrageous stunts, desperate to be noticed; bringing snakes to school, scaring girls with a grotesque Halloween mask. When a pretty high school classmate disappears Larry is suspected of murder. Unbelievably, he is the last person to be seen with her. While her body was never found and Larry’s guilt couldn’t be proven, he remained the town’s only suspect. Fast forward 25 years and another pretty young girl has gone missing. When she is found, raped and murdered, on Larry’s property it seems like an open and shut case. Except, Larry has a silent almost forgotten ally – Silas “32” Jones, a former classmate and one-time secret friend. Secret because in 1970s deep south Mississippi pockets of racism were more than alive and well. It wasn’t acceptable for white Larry to be seen with black Silas. As Chabot, Mississippi’s only constable Silas sets out to learn the truth, even if it means digging up the ugly past. Tom Franklin is very thorough with descriptions of each character’s personal life . You are pulled into Larry Ott’s mechanic shop and can smell the grease just as easily as riding along with Constable Silas Jones as he works his investigation. This is a story first and foremost about friendship and guilt and forgiveness. It is also a story about the harsh realities of racism and poverty and the scars that run deep.

I only found one bothersome discrepancy. Larry Ott is described as 41 years old. Miss Voncille is described as a woman in her “early 50s.”  That would mean at the very minimum there is a ten-year age difference between Larry and Voncille. But because they both attended the same high school Constable Silas asked Voncille if she knew Larry. Here’s the thing –  Larry would have been a toddler when Voncille started high school. If their ages had been reversed it would have allowed for the “legend” of Larry and his weirdness to be played up – Voncille could have heard stories of Larry despite the fact he graduated ten years ahead of Voncille.

In a way I could relate to Larry, especially his obsession with books. His father didn’t want him “wasting” the day by reading either.

Best line I hope is kept, “When he left, Larry lay amid his machines, thinking of Silas, how time packs new years over the old ones but how those old years are still in there, like the earliest, tightest rings centering a tree, the most hidden, enclosed in darkness and shielded from the weather” (p 251).

Bonobo: the Forgotten Ape

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De Waal, Frans. Bonobo: the Forgotten Ape. Berkley: University of California Press, 1997.

Not to be snide or anything but how can you forget the ape when you didn’t know the ape? Everyone lumped Bonobo apes with Chimpanzees because they seemed more similar than different. They weren’t forgotten, just misunderstood. de Waal goes to great lengths to compare and contrast the distinctions between the two primates.

From the very beginning you learn that Bonobo apes are different from any other kind of primate with the description, “female-centered, egalitarian primate species that substitutes sex for aggression” (p 4). The sexuality of this species is very much celebrated and discussed. So much so that the sexuality of Bonobos is argued to be a window to the aspects of human sexuality. But sex is not the only discussion worth having about Bonobos. There is social life, a political life, a family life worth exploring. But, what makes Bonobo: the Forgotten Ape so appealing is its photography. Big, glossy “coffee-table book” pages illustrate the allure of these primates. Their facial expressions, family values and even their sexuality is on display in eight different photo essays.

Favorite quote: isn’t really a quote at all. It’s an illustration of the hands and feet of primates and man (p 27).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Our Primates, Ourselves” (p 180). Bonobo was forgotten in the index yet de Waal’s name wasn’t. Interesting.

Yes You Can!

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Drake, Jane and Ann Love. Yes You Can!: Your Guide to Becoming an Activist. Ontario: Tundra Books, 2010.

Right away I have to say I wouldn’t have classified this as “juvenile” literature. The language might be a little simplistic, definitely geared toward young adults, but the message is something we should all sit up and take notice of no matter what our age: if the world around you makes you sick do something. It’s the age-old promise, “you CAN make a difference!” But first you have to DO something.

Yes You Can is a how-to manual of sorts. Each chapter covers a different step to becoming an activist including an example of someone taking that particular step. The histories of organizations such as Amnesty International and Save the Children illustrate what can happen if the right steps are taken successfully. For every chapter there is a section on the historical time line of that step in action. There is also a section on the accomplishments as well as the challenges called, “Milestones and Setbacks” which put everything into perspective. Almost like a textbook there is a checklist to test what the reader has (or hasn’t learned). My favorite piece of advice was “know your cause inside and out.” The ability to see both sides of any argument can go a long way in the effort to sway opinion or make a change.

My only sticking point? This classification of juvenile literature. Why juvenile? It really should be “for all ages” because the vocabulary used in Yes You Can! is not consistent. There is talk of “family” and “classmates” in one chapter and “colleagues” in another. I don’t know any child who would refer to his or her peer as a colleague.

Last Time They Met

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Shreve, Anita. The Last Time They Met. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2001.

The story, divided into three parts, starts from the perspective of Linda Fallon at 52 years old. Widowed with two adult children Linda is a poet with a complicated past. Her tangled history is confronted when she encounters her former lover, Thomas Janes, at a literary festival. Thomas, also a poet, has gone on to become a legend of sorts after the drowning death of his young daughter drove him into seclusion. What the reader learns in Part I is that Linda and Thomas started a romance in highschool that ended badly.  Part II is from Thomas Janes’s perspective in Africa 25 years earlier than the festival. Linda, then 27, has married and is working for the Peace Corps when Thomas, also married, encounters her in an African marketplace. The fuzzy details of their teenage romance hinted at in Part I become a little more defined in Part II. The reader discovers a terrible accident allowed overly protective adults to separate the young highschool lovers and effectively dismantle their relationship by putting distance (and silence) between them. Part III is ten years prior to Africa. Thomas and Linda are 17 and in highschool. This final section brings the entire sage full circle. In all honesty my favorite way to read The Last Time They Met is front to back and then again, this time back to front. The tiniest of details become glittering and sharp when exposed by more supporting story.

Confession: this is a reread. As a rule, I have tried to read everything by Anita Shreve. She is definitely one of my favorite authors. Here’s the weird thing about rereading The Last Time They Met. I am remembering a scene that should have been in this book or at least I thought was in this book and there is another part to the story that sounds like something I read somewhere else. Confused? I know. I shouldn’t have said anything.

Favorite lines (and there are a few, bear with me), “The spirit sought and found the work, and discontent began when it could not” (p 5), “Thomas watched her walk away, all the blood in his veins following her” (p 125), and, “What’s imagined always worse than what is” (p 308).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Tricky, Tricky” (p 222). Pearl lists a few books that play tricks on you. In honor of Halloween I read The Last Time They Met.

Ways of Seeing

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Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1972.

My copy of Ways of Seeing arrived battered and falling apart. That coupled with the fact it is clearly a product of the 1970s gave the book a tired, worn out appearance. I thought of it as cheap and flimsy as well, given it is only 154 pages long and mostly illustrations and photographs at that. So, my way of seeing the book was definitely influenced by age, condition and size. Interesting. That, in a nutshell, is the premise of Ways of Seeing. Coming from a Marxist way of thinking John Berger provokes thought with the art he has chosen for his book. For example one can either be offended or intrigued by his chapter on women depicted in art. Because the chapter is lacking text the reader is on his/her own to process what the art is (or isn’t) trying to convey.

Another interesting thing to note is this book is the first example of a book made from a television series. In my mind, when questioning the “which came first?” it is always the book before the screen no matter what the size – television or movie.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Art appreciation” (p 25).

Report From Ground Zero

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This should have been posted sometime in September – sorry!

Smith, Dennis. Report From Ground Zero. New York: Viking, 2002.

I chose to squeeze this onto my September reading list because it matched my mood, my New York State of Mind, if you will. When you are embraced by sadness additional tragedies are easier to handle. It’s as if someone wants to throw a bucket of water on a man standing in the pouring rain. What’s a little more precipitation to an already drowning man? Bring it on.

The first thing you notice about Report From Ground Zero is how stark it is. My copy didn’t have publisher or copyright information. It was if my version was a rough draft, a real report from bowels of hell. It disturbed me and I can’t tell you why.

Dennis Smith asks the question everyone can answer even nine years later, “where were you on September 11, 2001?” In Report From Ground Zero Smith asks key rescue personnel to recount the moments directly after seeing, hearing, or learning of the attack on the World Trade Center towers in Lower Manhattan. He calls each story a testimony. Smith starts by giving his own account which amounts to a litany of questions surrounding logistics and survival. As a retired New York City firefighter he anticipates the magnitude of destruction and ponders the challenges surrounding survival with great concern. As each rescue worker recounts that fateful, awful day a pattern starts to emerge. Initial disbelief turns into a sense of determination as the magnitude of destruction is fully realized. Every single response was to roll up the shirts sleeves, harden the jaw and with single minded pure grit get to work. After the dust has literally and figuratively settled other shared memories come to mind – how deathly quiet and dark everything became after the towers fell; how surreal the landscape. Like nothing they had even seen before or since.
While the first half of the book contains the powerful testimony of others around him, the second half of Report From Ground Zero is Smith’s diary of the aftermath of 9/11. It isn’t as emotional as the first half of the book, but sheds critical light on one man’s determination to document just how tireless and faithful those rescue personnel searched to rescue fellow officers and even family.

Favorite lines: “I am attached to the television as if every friend I had is about to cross the screen” (p 6). I think we were all that way, for days to come.
Another one: “There is no reason why I’m alive and anyone else is dead” (p 32). Words remembered by Deputy Chief Pete Hayden.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, simply ” 9/11″ (p 171).

Messiah

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Vidal, Gore. Messiah. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1954.

John Cave, as a professional embalmer, is intimate with death. While working on a client he has an epiphany of sorts. Suddenly he has deemed the act of dying a good thing. Cave is so taken with this revelation that he must share his idea with as many people as possible and without warning a new religion is born. His followers call it “Cave’s Word” or Cavesword. It’s strongest message is death is to be welcomed. As Cavesword spreads Cave establishes a following so large he needs a team to promote and protect him. Closest to him is Iris Mortimer, Paul Himmell, Clarissa Lessing, and Eugene Luther. Each individual has a different purpose for being part of Cave’s inner circle. It’s Eugene Luther who narrates the story of John Cave. With the help of Cave’s inner circle he develops and promotes a product to go with his message. Cavesway is a drug taken to make death even easier to initiate. As the world’s suicide rate rises, thanks to Cavesway, Luther’s perception of Cave and the cult-like message starts to distort and crumble. Messiah is prophetic and mesmerizing. I thought of it as “a hideous evil you can’t tear your eyes from.”

Favorite lines, “Stars fell to earth in a blaze of light, and where they fell, monsters were born, hideous and blind” (p 4). How’s that for a start? Other lines I liked, “The sky that day was like an idiot’s mind, wild with odd clouds, but lovely too, guileless, natural, elusive” (p 13), and, “We’ve finally made dying simply swell” (p 95), and finally, “Any direct statement of personal innocence has always made me feel completely criminal” (p 140). The last quote is probably my favorite.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Gore Vidal’s Historical Novels: Too Good To Miss” (p 237). Obviously, Messiah is not a historical novel like Burr or Lincoln. Pearl threw it in the chapter as a personal favorite.

Poison Oracle

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Dickinson, Peter. The Poison Oracle. New York: Pantheon Books, 1974.

What an easy premise: a murder is committed and only an animal witnessed the crime. The reader knows from the beginning, well in advance there will be murders. At least two of them. There are frequent reminders to these crimes throughout the book if only to keep the upcoming events in place and anticipated. The story centers around Dr. Wesley Naboth Morris. He is a zoo keeper who speaks Japanese; tutors his Oxford classmate’s son, an Arab prince in English and is, by trade, a psycholinguist. His side project is working with Dinah, a chimapanzee, to determine if primates can learn coherent sentences using plastic symbols. It is Dinah who witnesses the promised murders. The story begins with an interesting twist when a Japanese airliner is hijacked and makes an emergency landing at the Sultan’s palace. To further complicate The Poison Oracle the Sultan’s palace is surrounded by the Swampmen. Living in the swamps these tribes are outsiders to the palace. They are different from the community of Arabs that border their swamp – divided by skin color, culture, and most obvious of course, language. Some end up as servants in the palace but most are misunderstood and feared to be evil. The Poison Oracle is a story about language but it is also a story about oil. The Arabs believe there is oil in the marshland. A war with the marshmen would drive their tribes out. Dr. Morris has the thankless task of trying to solve the mystery of the murders, but also acting communicator with the marshmen.

Favorite line, “To connect cause with effect is to drive out fear” (p 117). It is funny how I connected with this line because cause and effect are the last three words of the book.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Animal Love” (p 14).