I have learned a valuable lesson. When I say This. Stays. Between. Us. the words strung together to form a directive don’t matter. It’s almost as if you take the words as a euphemism for something else. What I say doesn’t mean sh!t. It’s almost as if you don’t trust what I’m telling you; so you do the exact opposite of what I ask. I feel like I am speaking a foreign language. But, here’s the thing: I get it. You want to be in the know. Knowing it all is your power. It’s your vice. You hate to be wrong, you love to be perfect. You need to run to those less knowing and share your information – holding the Guess What! over their heads. I get it. You can’t help it. Not in the least. This is a turning point. At least for me. I know what I need to do. It’s my turn to be didactic towards myself and moi. Shut the door, shut the mouth. Be more military. Have that attitude. What you don’t know can’t hurt you. Or me.
Terms of Endearment
McMurtry, Larry. Terms of Endearment. New York: Signet, 1975.
I really should have a “on a whim” category because this was not on my list to read this month. In fact, this was not on my list to read until May 2010. Here’s what happened. I was home, had no desire to slog through Herzog, saw Terms of Endearment on my mother’s bookshelf (saw it there for years and years), knew it was on The List somewhere, and in a split second decided to read it. I don’t regret the decision. I was able to read it, start to finish, within two days.
Terms of Endearment is the kind of book that makes you feel things. Larry McMurtry has the ability to make you change your mind about the people you meet…several times over. In the beginning I saw Terms as a story about a bunch of miserable people. I was shocked by the hatred these people carried around (see ‘shocking quotes’ below). I didn’t think I would like a single character. I saw Aurora as nasty and Emma as just plain pathetic. By the end of the book I had completely changed my mind about everything and everyone.
The premise for Terms of Endearment is really quite simple. It’s the story of a mother and daughter and the relationships that orbit around them. Aurora is a Boston widow transplanted to Houston, Texas. She has five different “suitors” who tolerate her abrasive tongue and haughty manner and despite all that, continuously vie for her hand in marriage. At first she appears caustic and self-centered. Selfish and conniving, she bends situations to suite her ever-changing needs. Her story takes up the first 324 pages and by the end of it you realize she is a woman of conviction who simply tells it like it is. Emma, her daughter, at first appears to be one of Aurora’s victims – always manipulated and belittled. The strength of their relationship and the depth of their love for one another isn’t readily apparent until life gets complicated for Emma. Emma hasn’t married well. She hasn’t been educated and she has bad hair. On the surface she is poor and pathetic. But, true to McMurtry form, by the end Emma is a strong, defiant woman.
My only disappointment about Terms of Endearment is the inclusion of Book II, Emma’s story. 324 pages are dedicated to Aurora while Emma gets the last 47. I don’t really understand the need for separate “books” when Emma’s story – her bad marriage to Flap, her pregnancy, her lifestyle and relationship with her mother – are all woven seamlessly into Aurora’s story. Emma’s portion of the book seems weak and it’s inclusion, an afterthought.
Shocking quotes: “She was convinced that she could have stood in the driveway dripping blood, both arms amputated at the elbow, and Cecil would still have driven up, said “Hi Toots,” smiled broadly, and squeezed her stump” (p 16).
“She would have liked to have a heavy chain in her hand, and if she had had one she would have hit him with it, right across the lower part of his spine. If it broke his back, so much the better” (p 32).
BookLust Twist: In Book Lust in the chapter called, “Three-Hanky Reads” (p236).
Left a Little Smaller
I don’t know how to take this new feeling. I’m not jealous. Just feeling misplaced a little. He didn’t ask if I wanted to see Virginia, the place for lovers. I wasn’t invited to drink bad mountain beer in a mile high town – either time. Fenway was phishy without fanfare from me. Is it my fault? Has it been my bad? Have I said no so many times that I’m no longer considered interested or, or more sobering thought: it is that I’m no longer interesting? Did I say what I was thinking out loud? Did I admit to what I was struggling with all long?
I ran across a face I didn’t recognize right away. I had to stare. Still couldn’t believe it. Had to close my eyes to reconcile the difference in order to make the connection. Recognition came easier when I turned away completely. Was I really a person of interest to this person? Did I really capture the mind if not the heart? I can’t imagine what we talked about. What would we say now? I’m left a little smaller not even knowing who I was then or what I’ve become now.
I drank a whole bottle of wine and hung up the phone giddy and drunk. I was a mess but I didn’t care. No one noticed I didn’t brush my teeth. Left my contacts in. Passed out without a passing thought. No one cared. I woke up ready to run away. Run for miles and miles. No one noticed my energy. Maybe this whine is a good thing. Maybe there’s something to the bottle being your best friend. I’m left a little smaller for considering the thought. I made blueberry muffins instead.
“Did I drive you away? I know what you’ll say.” ~Coldplay
Where the Pavement Ends
Warmbrunn, Erika. Where the Pavement Ends: One Woman’s Bicycle Trip Through Mongolia, China & Vietnam. Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 2001.
Reading books such as Where the Pavement Ends has a confusing effect on me. On the one hand, I start to think of my personal landscape as being too small, too confining. The need for movement and travel start to stir within me. On the other hand, I realize I am coddled, comfortable – too careful to conquer the great unknown. The idea of going where I don’t speak the language has always intimidated me. Okay. Scares the pants off me.
Where the Pavement Endsis not only a memoir about one woman’s eight month trek across Mongolia, China and Vietnam. It is also a compassionate commentary on Erika Warmbrunn’s five (and sometimes sixth) senses. She relates everything she sees (sharing some gorgeous photographs throughout the book), everything she hears, touches, smells and tastes. From learning to enjoy Mongolian tea to ignoring sheep’s tail and demanding to eat like the natives rather than a coddled Western tourist. From the spanning the vast landscapes and bustling cities mostly by bicycle (accepting rides every so often). Every leg of Warmbrunn’s journey reflects the culture she encounters. She relies on the kindness of strangers to have decent meal, a roof over her head and to expand her social awareness. She is eager to learn the language, drink in the customs, and learn something from everyone she meets.
A small sampling of the favorite lines: “…to make things new, you have to keep going further and further away from what you know” (p 11). This is the perfect definition of bravery, “I was completely intimidated, and I was absolutely at peace” (p 13). Another one, “In the absence of language, ritual becomes a way of communication, of making yourself a little less foreign” (p 42).
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called simply, “Bicycling” (p 35).
June (2009) is…
June promises to be a quiet month. Another charity walk (20 times smaller than the last walk). We opened the pool so I’m hoping to take my first dip (Kisa’s already been in). For music it is an amazing, totally kickazz cd release party from Rebecca Correia at the Bennett Farm! I’d like to try to get to Peaks for a weekend, too. Here are the books:
- Slow Dancing on Dinosaur Bones by Lana Witt ~ in honor of small town month, if there is such a thing!
- And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts ~ in honor of gay pride month (although my former stomping grounds holds its parade in May)
- Don’t Look Back by Karin Fossum ~ in honor of the best time to visit Norway (supposedly)
- Before the Deluge by Deidre Chetham ~ in honor of National River Cleanup month
- Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance by Richard Powers ~ in honor of Richard’s birth month
If there is time I will add Living High by June Burn ~ in honor of Cascadia.
For LibraryThing and the Early Review Program it’s a nonfiction about how to get along with your son’s wife. Yeah, yeah – doesn’t fit the profile, I know. That’s what makes this reviewing stuff so interesting (and fun)!
May (2009) was…
May was a combination of heaven and hell. May was a Mother’s Day without my mother. May was walking 60 miles and having my mother at the finish line. May was a trip homehome and almost too much time with my mother. The good and the bad. As much as we love each other there is only so much mother-daughter time we can bestow on one another.
My favorite moments of the month were learning gardening tips from mom (hello! I’m brand new to everything about it), and talking to strangers about the Just ‘Cause walk. Here’s what I managed to read:
- Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson ~ a touching, tragic story about one teenager’s horrible secret.
- Off Keck Road by Mona Simpson ~ not my favorite – very bland.
- Bordeaux by Soledad Puertolas ~ a really lonesome story based in Bordeaux, France.
- Where the Pavement Ends: One Woman’s Bicycle Trip Through Mongolia, China and Vietnam by Erika Warmbrunn~ this was probably my favorite out of everything I read this month.
- Quartered Safe Out Here by George MacDonald Fraser ~ Fraser’s recollections of the war in Burma as a 19 year old.
- Terms of Endearment by Larry McMurty ~ something I picked up completely by accident, a year early!
For LibraryThing and the Early Review Program:
- Lucky Girl by Mei-Ling Hopgood ~ this was such a pleasure to read I plan to reread it once it has been published.
I didn’t get to The Victorians by A.N. Wilson. It sat on the desk in my office for the entire month. I think I looked at the pictures.
Quartered Safe Out Here
Fraser, George MacDonald. Quartered Safe Out Here: a Recollection of the War in Burma. New York: Akadine Press, 2001.
I was hoping to take this on my 60 mile cancer walk – thinking I would have quiet nights to read and recuperate. No such thing. I never opened a page. Instead, I took it home to Monhegan and on the second to last day got it read. Confession: no small feat because I found it dull, dull, dull.
Quartered Safe Out Here is George MacDonald Fraser’s “memoir” about being in Burma as a 19 year old soldier in World War II. While it’s a vivid and honest first hand account about being in the thick of battle, I found it slow moving and tiring. Fraser takes great pains to get every accent phonetically spelled out – so much so that the written page looks like a foreign language at times. But, it wasn’t the accents that I found the most tiresome. It was the fact that nearly every every other page contained a footnote containing a special explanation or definition. Fraser could have added another 50 pages if the footnotes were included in the body of the text. Probably the scene that held my attention the best was when Fraser was looking in bunkers for ‘Japs.’ His innocence to the danger is touching.
BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter ” Living Through War” (p 154).
Off Keck Road
Simpson, Mona. Off Keck Road. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.
I didn’t realize this book is a novella. 167 pages long. A piece of cake to read on a quiet Sunday. The sad thing is I didn’t really get into it, despite it being a quick read. The story starts off being about Bea Maxwell but then veers away to take in other members on and off Keck Road. The character placement seems jumbled. New characters appear without clear introduction or connection to Bea. I felt I needed a chart to keep characters straight. However, character development was brilliant, intimate even. When we first meet Bea, she is a college girl, home on vacation in the 1950s. She has certain definable traits that stay with her throughout the rest of the novella, ending in the 1980s. It’s a portrait of a woman who never leaves her small town. Her life never really takes her beyond Green Bay, Wisconsin’s city limits without reeling her back in.
Favorite lines, “He was the kind of man who ceded his place in traffic. He never asserted himself in conflicts over lanes or parking spaces” (p 80).
BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter, “Big Ten Country: The Literary Midwest (Wisconsin).
Also in the chapter, “Two, or Three, Are Better Than One” (p 226). Note: in this chapter Pearl suggests reading Off Keck Road together with Our Kind: a Novel in Stories by Kate Walbert; two stories about the lives of women.
Speak
Anderson, Laurie Halse. Speak. New York: Scholastic, 2003.
You have to admire Melinda. From day one of school she is harrassed and hated. She storms through the first marking period of high school, gnashing her teeth and muttering to herself. She has no friends and is openly tormented by everyone from peers to parents. Melinda has a secret that not only eats away at her little at a time, but by the end of the third marking period, steals away her voice until she is practically mute. While she puts on a good act of wit and sarcastic humor on the outside, inside she is a girl trapped by confusion and fear. As her grades plummet and her family life slowly falls apart, Melinda struggles to keep her sanity. Speak took me only a few hours to read. Anderson does an amazing job capturing the voice of a tormented teen. She portrays the relationships every young adult has to endure: teachers, principals, parents, ex-best friends…with such honesty I found myself cringing…
Favorite funny parts: “Our boys are unbeatable as long as they are the only team on the floor” (p 76). “We are reading The Scarlet Letter one sentence at a time, tearing it up and chewing on its bones” (p 100). And one sad line: “I stuff my mouth with old fabric and scream until there are no soulds left under my skin” (p 162).
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Best for Teens” (p 23).
Bordeaux
Puertolas, Soledad. Bordeaux. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1998.
Despite being under 200 pages this took me a long, long time to finish. Maybe it’s the fact it was originally written in Spanish (Soledad Puertolas is one of Spain’s most acclaimed writers). I’m thinking maybe something got lost in the translation. That’s always possible. I found the whole storyline to be choppy, disjointed, even abrupt in some places. It was if Puertolas took three short stories and tied them together by location. On the surface all three chapters focus on a single character located in the same city. They all have Bordeaux, France in common. It’s the villa that apparently ties these stories together.
First, there is Pauline Duvivier, an lonely elderly woman asked to do a favor outside her comfort zone – something scandalous involving adultery and blackmail. As the reader you really don’t get the whole picture. Then, there is Rene Dufour. He is unlucky in love, worse in relationships of any kind. You can’t help but feel sorry for him and wondering what’s wrong with him. The last character, Lilly Skalnick, is a young American traveling through Europe. She’s just as lost as the rest of them. As each character is introduced and explored it is hard to ignore the social portrait being drawn. Every character is lost, lonely, searching for something or someone to satisfy an unknown longing.
Favorite lines: “Her father’s death had left her alone with herself, and she lamented then not having known that that life was, perhaps the one she would have chosen” (p 7), and “His blueish-gray eyes didn’t seem to place much trust in the wisdom contained in books” ( 84).
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter, “Latin American Fiction” (p 144).
Rise of David Levinsky
Cahan, Abraham. The Rise of David Levinsky. Glouster: Peter Smith, 1969.
Written in 1917 The Rise of David Levinsky is the story of Russian born immigrant David Levinsky and his rise to riches in the garment industry in New York City. Cahan’s depiction of Levinsky remains one of the best accounts of not only immigrants seeking opportunity and fortune in America at the turn of the century, but also the Jewish experience on New York’s East Side as well. Cahan illustrates social attitudes towards poverty, religion, ethnicity and economic status through David’s character. Using his situation as an orphan, David accepts pity from those with means. He has an uncanny ability to sense the heart of others and use it to his advantage. It is interesting to watch his rise to wealth over the course of David’s lifetime.
Good lines: “I had a notion that a married woman, no matter how young, must have a married face, something quite distinct from the countenance of a maiden, while this married woman did not begin to look married” (p 67), and “Shall I turn my heart out to show you how hard it is to live without you?” (p 301). Both of these quotes evoke so much psychology!
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter, “The Jewish American Experience” (p 132).
May (2009) is…
May is huge. Absolutely huge and positively late. So out of control! A 60 mile walk for Just ‘Cause has had me busy. The end of the school semester has had me frustrated. May also means time with my mom – which I simply cannot wait for. A retirement party for people I barely know. The pool opening. A birthday party with sushi and laughter. My kind of gig.
For books it is:
- Off Keck Road By Mona Simpson ~ in honor of becoming a Wisconsin becoming a state.
- Bordeauxby Soledad Puerolas ~ in honor of Cinco de Mayo
- Rise of David Levinsky by Abraham Cahan ~ in honor of American Jewish heritage month
- Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson ~ in honor of teen pregnancy month. Note: this book is not actually about a teen pregnancy but the book is recommended for teens. I’m stretching this one a little, I know!
- The Victorians by A.N. Wilson ~ in honor of Queen Victoria
- Where the Pavement Ends: One Woman’s Bicycle Trip Through Mongolia, China and Vietnam by Erika Warmbrunn ~ in honor of National Bicycle Month
- Quarter Safe Out Here by George MacDonald Fraser~ in honor of Memorial Day.
There is also a LibraryThing Early Review book. Forgive me if I can’t plug the name right now.
Jameses
Lewis, R.W.B. The Jameses: a Family Narrative. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1991.
Having read Lewis’s biography of Edith Wharton I knew what to expect when reading about the Jameses. Lewis approaches his subjects with an air of authority and an eye on detail and The Jameses: a Family Narrative was no different. Lewis covers the James family from 18th century Ireland up to the death of novelist Henry James in 1916. It is an impressive cast of characters. At best I could relate to Henry James, Sr., a man who railed against any model of institutionalized or organized religion. He spent a better part of his life on a quest to understand God, spirituality, and redemption. At times I found the rest of the narrative drawn out and too expansive. I have to admit, I did not finish.
Favorite quotes: “With Burnet as his agent, James bought Syracuse for $30,000” (p 12). Imagine that.
BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter, “Literary Lives: The Americans” (p 144).
Flashman
Fraser, George MacDonald. Flashman. New York: Harper Collins, 1993.
This is one of those giggly books. The main character is so awful you can’t help but laugh at him and dare I say, even like him a little for his brazen attitude. The premise is Flashman is the first installment of the “Flashman Papers 1839-1842” a sort of journal of Harry Flashman’s. Readers get a taste of Harry’s storytelling from the very start: British boy Harry Flashman manages to get himself drunk, expelled from school and into his father’s mistress’s bed in less than the first dozen pages. What first appears as a punishment for another indiscretionary roll in the hay ultimately becomes Harry’s greatest triumph. He is sent to be a secret agent in Afghanistan and manages to emerge a brave hero after the Retreat from Kabul. Harry is so shameless he basks in the honor despite the fact his cowardice is the only thing that saved him. But, his story is told with such honest sarcasm you can’t help but enjoy his villainy.
Two of Harry’s lesser laughed at traits are his womanizing and his racial comments. One has to keep in mind the Victorian era in which these events take place. Women and minorities are not seen as equals on any level.
Typical Flashy moment: “She stood glaring at me. Her bosom was what the lady novelists call agitated, but if they had seen Judy agitated in a negligee they would think of some other way of describing feminine distress: (p 29).
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter, “George MacDonald Fraser: Too Good To Miss” (p 94).
Tattoo Machine
Johnson, Jeff. Tattoo Machine: Tall Tales, True Stories, and My Life in Ink. New York: Spiegel and Grau, 2009.
When I first requested this book it was one I felt inadequate to review. In the world of tattoos I have just one. One small, no bigger than a quarter, simple black and white outline of a sleeping cat. It’s not even in a dangerous place of pain. It’s snuggled on the fatty flesh of my hip. No tender skin of an ankle, inner arm or neck was sacrificed to the needle. I am largely unqualified to even begin to understand the culture of a tattoo, let alone the artist behind one. That being said, I wanted to request Tattoo Machine as a place to start. It’s if I’m saying to Jeff Johnson, “Okay. I’m game. Tell me your story and maybe I’ll learn something breathtaking in the process.” For the simple act of getting a tattoo was enough to take my breath away.
Johnson’s style of writing is very tell it like it is. He’s straightforward to the point of unflinching. Drugs, sex, rock and roll are frequent guests to the party but the guest of honor is all about getting and giving tattoos. Johnson reconfirms the stereotype that tattoo artists are seen as dangerous, on the edge kind of people. EMTs are wary of teaching them CPR. But, the unavoidable truth is that there is another side to tattoo artists. Artists such as Johnson can be well-read, intellectual, funny and yes, even sensitive.
My only real complaint? Johnson includes an incredibly helpful lexicon of commonly used words and phrases in the world of tattooing. However, that dictionary comes after he has already written a chapter or two using the secret, somewhat strange language. The dictionary should come first.
ps~ Can I say I am disappointed I didn’t get any temporary tattoos with my advance proof? That would have been so cool!
~*LunaSea*~ 