Tag: april

“Road and the End”

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Sandburg, Carl. Complete Poems. “The Road and the End.” New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. 1950. p 43.

I see a solitary traveler planning to face whatever comes his way on his journey. He has anticipation of the road ahead and the hours spent going down it. I say anticipation…for he hasn’t left yet. “I SHALL” indicates a plan to do so. The capitalization indicates a determination; a desire to convince someone (maybe himself?) he will eventually leave. It’s a nod to nature. Perfect timing for the changing seasons and hopefully, the warmer weather.

I took this poem personally as I have been slow to start training for my 60 mile cancer walk at the end of May. The apathy I was feeling spread into neglecting my favorite charity event. For the first time in five years I haven’t walked down my road of training the way that I should be by now…to say nothing of the fund raising (which sucks, by the way).

Favorite line, “in the silence of the morning.” Can anyone guess why?

Reason read: April is National Poetry Month…as I’ve said before.

Author fact: Carl Sandburg died two years before my birth. He is the second Chicago poet I’ve read this month.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Travelers Tales in Verse” (p 237).

Gentlemen Prefer Blonds

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Loos, Anita. “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: the Illuminating Diary of a Professional Lady.” Grosset & Dunlap, 1925.

This was a positively silly book and it almost embarrassed me to be reading it. Luckily, it was incredibly short (less than 200 pages) so I was able to get through it in one weekend. It is the journal of Lorelei Lee, a Midwest girl making her way in the New York City with gal pal Dorothy. Lorelei’s idea of making her way is to see how many men she can charm into “educating” her with their wallets. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is Lorelei’s diary from March 16th to July 10th and chronicles (complete with spelling and grammatical errors) her trip to Paris, France and Europe beyond all the while juggling many different male suitors. She starts nearly every sentence with “So” to the point where it got on my nerves the way someone says “like” all the time (and not the “like” on FaceBook, although that can get annoying as well). Lorelei uses shopping as her weapon and is quite good at it. I had a few laugh out loud moments. My recommendation is to find the 195 version. The illustrations are priceless.

The line that made me know I was in trouble, “I mean I seem to be thinking practically all the time” (p 11). That’s on the first page of the book.

Reason read: Anita Loos was born on April 26th so I am reading Gentlemen Prefer Blondes as a Happy birthday to Loos.

Author fact: Anita Loos was also an actress. Too cool.

Book trivia: Every one knows of the movie version starring Marilyn Monroe, but did you know there was an earlier version from 1928? Obviously, it didn’t do as well.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “100 Good Reads: Decade By Decade (1920s)” (p 176)

“Winter”

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Ponsot, Marie. “Winter.” Springing.New york: Alfred A Knopf, 2002. p 225.

Such a short poem and oh so seemingly uncomplicated! Don’t be fooled by its length or lack of veiled meaning. It is a snapshot of two neighbors, living side by side. Two mothers, their sons had grown up as friends. Only now the reader finds out one mother has lost her son to suicide. The other doesn’t know what to say. Isn’t that always the way? There is pain in this surviving-son’s mother’s voice as she struggles with words and sentiments. It’s elegant and emotional.

And to think I read it thinking it was going to be about winter (because I can’t wait for it to be over). That will teach me to judge a poem by its title!

Favorite line, “Both boys hated school, dropped out feral, dropped in to separate troubles” (p 225).

Reason read: April is National Poetry Month. So. There. This is the first poem of the month!

Author fact: Ponsot’s book The Bird Catcher won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry in 1998.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Poetry Pleasers” (p 189).

Hawaii’s Story

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Liliuokalani. Hawaii’s Story: By Hawaii’s Queen. Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc., 1964.

If you read the Tuttle (1964) edition of Hawaii’s Story you are treated to many black and white photographs. Two in particular really stand out to me – the very first ones. One of a woman and on the opposite page one of a man, both in royal garb. Your eyes are instantly drawn to the one of the woman, Liliuokalani. She is striking, posed in an amazing dress and sash. I couldn’t get over how tiny her waist looked!
But, about the book – I have to start off by saying Liliuokalani’s story opened my eyes to a completely different culture. For starters, I thought it strange that immediately after birth Liliuokalani would be adopted by another chief and that adoption was political as well as strategic, “…alliance by adoption cemented the ties of friendship between the chiefs…” (p 4). Go figure. It was eye opening to realize each island had its own chief which allowed for multiple adoptions.
Liliuokalani’s story is not without its soap opera moments either. Her brother was to be married until the bride decided she wanted to marry a cousin…until the cousin lays eyes on Liliuokalani…In all actuality Lilioukalani’s story is political to the bone. It is a detailed account of the decline of a kingdom that had existed for hundreds of years. Lilioukalani uses her ability to write as a vehicle for pleading with President Cleveland to preserve the monarchy. You can hear Lilioukalani’s pride, defiance, and even anger as she carefully tells the story of her people.

An example that some things never change: “As she felt that no one should step between her and her child, naturally I, as her son’s wife, was considered an intruder, and I was forced to realize this from the beginning” (p 23).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Hawaii: memoirs” (p 94).

Six Months in Hawaii

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Bird, Isabella. Six Months in Hawaii. London: KPI, 1986.

This book has several different titles. The one I was supposed to read is called Six Months in the Sandwich Islands: Among Hawaii’s Palm Groves, Coral Reefs and Volcanoes. I couldn’t find that edition so I had to settle on the one simply called Six Months in Hawaii. They appear to be one in the same. There’s another called Hawaiian Archipelago. I couldn’t find that one either. Granted, I didn’t look that hard either.

The thing I love about Isabella Bird’s writing is that she is humorous as well as descriptively thorough in her observations. She has a certain playfulness to her otherwise didactic travelogue. The thing I love about Isabella Bird the person is that she is adventurous to the core. To read about her crossing a swollen river like it was a walk in the park is astounding. Her horse nearly drowns but she keeps her cool. According to the introduction to Six Months in Hawaii by Pat Barr Isabella Bird was 41 years old when she first visited the islands of Hawaii. Around my age. Traveling by herself at a time when women were not supposed to be unaccompanied at any age. Fearless.

Examples of her humor: “Miss Karpe, my travelling companion, and two agreeable ladies, were already in their berths very sick, but I did not get into mine because a cockroach, looking as large as a mouse, occupied the pillow, and a companion not much smaller was roaming over the quilt without any definite purpose” (p 45), and “…my beast stopped without consulting my wishes, only a desperate grasp of mane and tethering rope saved me from going over his head” (p 70).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Lady Travelers” (p 142). Also from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Hawaii: memoirs” (p 94).

Volcano

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Hongo, Garrett. Volcano: a Memoir of Hawaii. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.

I didn’t know what to expect when I first picked up Volcano. For starters I thought it would be about a volcano. You know, the thing that spouts out molten hot lava; the thing that ultimately created the islands of Hawaii? I had no idea there is a tiny town called Volcano just below the summit of Kilauea.
Like West of Then by Tara Bray Smith, Volcano is about the author’s search for something. Interestingly enough, both authors suffer from abandonment issues and both return to Hawaii for resolution. While Smith’s search is more tangible (she is looking for her actual mother), Hongo’s is more spiritual. He has ghosts in the form of memories he must confront in the mists of Hilo. Like Smith’s story, Hongo’s is meandering and seemingly without plot or purpose. However, one of the magical elements to Hongo’s book is it is obvious he is a poet. His writing is lyrical and fairly dances off the page. He doesn’t have to have character, drama or even plot for his writing to be beautiful and entertaining.

Lines that were poetic enough to move me: “I walked, vaguely supplicant, through the aisles and from shelf to shelf, weighing memory against need…” (p 46), and “I wanted an encounter, an embrace or a showdown with the past” (p 83).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Hawaii: memoirs” (p 94).

West of Then

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Smith, Tara Bray. West of Then: a Mother, a Daughter, and a Journey Past Paradise. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004.

Tara Bray Smith’s story is haunting. Her childhood and subsequent adult relationship with her mother is tragic. What unfolds before you is a young woman’s story about an almost always drug-addicted and sometimes homeless mother who was constantly abandoning her children. Karen had four children with four different men. Luckily for her second oldest, Tara grew up with some sort of stability with her pot-smoking father and his second wife, Debbie. Tara spends most of the book looking and finding and looking again for her mother. What is especially hard to take is that after you have gotten through the 319 pages you realize nothing has really changed. I am not ruining the end of the story by saying nothing gets resolved. There is no ending. Interspersed are stories of Hawaii, past and present, cultural and historical. It’s this writing that makes the entire book come alive.

As an aside – I don’t know if this was intentional or not but Bray does a good job of making her mother out to be an absolute whore and not in the literal sense but in the derogatory sense. She subtly names no less than 14 different men Karen was having some sort of revolving door romantic relationship with throughout the book. Neil, Ron, Owen, Kirk, Eric, Stan, Terry, Ray…and so on. I found it distracting.
The drawbacks to reading a book with no set chronological order or apparent plot is it is really easy to lose your place. I don’t use bookmarks because usually, I can remember what’s going on in the story enough to pick up where I left off. With the chronology as jumbled as it was I found the search for her mother disorientating. Maybe that was the point.

Lines I liked: “He has his studies; I have my missing mother” (p 117) and “The desire for something sweet makes you stupid” (p 243).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Hawaii: memoirs” (p 94).

“Unexplorer”

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Millay, Edna St. Vincent. “The Unexplorer.” Collected Poems.New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1960. p 138.

I don’t know how to take this poem. Okay. So it explains why one doesn’t explore; why someone is an UN-explorer. Someone wants to know where a road goes. The answer is to the milk-man’s door. Interesting enough. Blame it all on childhood and your mother, as the therapist would say. Mom tells you something scary and it scars you for life. That would make sense if mother replied with something hideous, something deep and dark and scary. But the milk-man? Why is the milk-man someone to fear? Unless he’s daddy? I don’t get it.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Travelers’ Tale in Verse” (p 237).

“True Love”

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Szymborska, Wislawa. “True Love.” Poems New and Collected 1957 – 1997. 1998. Trans. Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. San Diego: Harcourt, Inc., 2000.

I couldn’t help but think of Natalie Merchant singing “Jealousy” when I read this poem for the first time. It sounds spiteful and catty. It could have been written by someone sitting alone on prom night or someone with no one to kiss on New Year’s Eve. That wallflower with the mad-enough-to-spit-nails attitude. It’s sad and snarly. The echo of longing for a relationship is loud and resonating and clear and yet, the poem speaks of true love being a farce, a joke, something he or she cannot possibly believe in.

As an aside…I have been struggling with what to say at my cousin’s burial. Don’t get me wrong. I loved the guy. It’s the love that has me livid. I’m thinking if I had been a little less loving while he was alive this wouldn’t hurt so much NOW. There is truth to not believing in love.

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

Longitude

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Sobel, Dava. Longitude: the True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time. New York: Penguin, 1995.

This book interested me on several levels. I was born in the sign of water. I grew up with the Atlantic surrounding me on all possible sides. My father started his career on the ocean in the Coast Guard. I learned about longitude and latitude before I could multiply or divide. The ocean is as essential as air in my life.

In less than 200 pages Sobel answers the “longitude problem” of the eighteenth century. Back in the day, for an ocean bound vessel to lose sight of land was the equivalent of shutting off the solitary light in an otherwise pitch black room. Sailors were literally directionally blind without land. Thousands of lives were lost and millions of dollars of precious cargo were destroyed when ships lost their way and ran aground. It was imperative that a solution for the “longitude problem” be found and quickly. For many scientists they felt the solution lay in the stars above. Astronomy was their answer to the problem. One man, John Harrison, dared to argue that the real answer was a mechanical one in the form of a clock that could keep precise time at sea. In answer to a competition Harrison obsessed for most of his life creating several different versions of his seafaring clock until one in particular proved successful.

Best quote: “The placement of the prime meridian is a purely political decision” 9p 4).

Book Trivia: Longitude was made into a movie starring Jeremy Irons.

Author Fact: Sobel has continued her “longitude” fame with another book on the subject called Illustrated Longitude.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Dewey Deconstructed: 400s” (p 70).

“Tortures”

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Szymborska, Wislawa. “Tortures.” Poems New and Collected 1957 – 1997. 1998. Trans. Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. San Diego: Harcourt, Inc., 2000.

This was a difficult poem to read because the first few times I read it literally, I imagined feeling specific tortures inflicted on a body: whippings, bones being broken, knuckles being popped…To me it was an admonishment – society changes but our methods of torture remain the same. It’s the mantra “nothing has changed” that haunts the entire tone of the poem. There is a sense of violence behind every word.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Polish Poems and Prose” (p 188).

Small Fortune

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Dastgir, Rosie. A Small Fortune. New York: Riverhead Books, 2012.

On the surface A Small Fortune is about a lonely man who obtains an inheritance from a recent divorce. The dilemma is not what Harris should do with the money; there are plenty of family members who all feel entitled to at least a portion of it. First, there is the family back home in Harris’s native Pakistan. Then there is his struggling nephew who can’t find happiness with any employment venture. While she hasn’t asked there is also his fiercely independent and completely Westernized eighteen year old daughter four hours away in London. The real struggle arises when Harris impulsively hands over a majority of the inheritance to the least deserving yet most conniving cousin. When Harris realizes his mistake and then wants the money back he cannot summon the authority to demand its return. Amidst all this turmoil Harris wrangles with starting over as a single parent to a secretive daughter while trying to juggle a new relationship with a woman equally as independent as his daughter. Harris’s entire personality has to undergo a transformation in order for him to cope.

The majority of the time I was reading A Small Fortune I had this nagging thought that wouldn’t shake loose. The main character, Harris, reminded me of someone else in fiction. Someone epic. It bothered me that I couldn’t put my finger on who that other character could be; I couldn’t pin her/him down. So, I started a list of characteristics for Harris: fatherly, over-protective, slightly unlikeable, scheming, paranoid, eager to please, impetuous…And then it dawned on me. Garp. T.S. Garp from The World According to Garp. Dastir’s Harris could be related to Garp, a half-brother of sorts. Throughout A Small Fortune Harris is so wishy-washy I wanted to slap him several times over. The fact that Dastgir was able to create a character that evoked such emotion in me is a testament to her writing ability. Harris really did annoy me that much.

My favorite character was Harris’s daughter, Alia. She hovers between obligatory concern for her father and resentment because he hinders her freedom to be modern. Her independence as a western girl is compromised by his old world culture.

“Ithaca”

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Cavafy, Constantine. The Complete Poems of Cavafy. “Ithaca.” Translated by Rae Dalven. New York: Harcourt Brace and World, Inc., 1961.

When I first saw the poem name “Ithaca” I thought I would be reading about Ithaca, New York. Silly me.

This was a poem I reread a few times. Not because it was taxing or troublesome, far from it. I just love the admonishment behind the words. It the advice given to someone traveling to Ithaca, Greece. The message is pretty simple and one we have heard before – it’s not the destination, but the journey. The unknown adviser is asking for the journey to be important. “But do not hurry the voyage at all” (p 36). Savor the way as you go.

Author Fact: Cavafy’s full name was Constantine Petrou Photiades Cavafy. How’s that for a nice Alexandrian name? Another interesting fact (according to Wikipedia) is that he was born and died on the same day, April 29th.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Travelers’ Tales in Verse” (p 237).

Fast Food Nation

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Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: the Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2001.

When I first realized Fast Food Nation was on my Lust list I had but one burning question. I wondered if my own personal opinions about fast food establishments would be altered after reading Schlosser’s book. As a rule I don’t eat fast food, so if the answer ending up being yes, how then would my opinions be altered? Was it possible I would turn against my previous dietary sensibilities and try a Big Mac? I will readily admit I am two-faced and biased when it comes to “fast” food. Subway and Chipotles are considered “fast” establishments and yet I don’t put them in the same swamp as McD, BK or Wendy. I guess that’s because you can’t technically drive through Subway or Chipotle. You can’t order and eat without ever getting out of your car the way you can with the clown, the king and the kid.

From the very first chapter of Fast Food Nation I felt as though I had been slapped upside the head with a whole bunch of really disturbing facts about the country in which I reside. Schlosser doesn’t leave a single aspect of the fast food industry untouched or without scrutiny. To use a bad pun, he devours it all and then spits it back out. At us. From the historical humble beginnings of the hot dog cart to the corporate conglomerates of tomorrow Schlosser covers it all. It’s fascinating and yet distracting. Fast food Nation took too long to read because I kept rereading passages out loud to anyone who would listen.

Best thing I learned: Malling is a verb. To mall is to cover this great nation of ours with shopping malls. What’s that Natalie Merchant lyric about sprawling concrete? You get the point.

Wake up moments: “The whole experience if buying fast food has become so routine, so thoroughly unexceptional and mundane, that it is not taken for granted, like brushing your teeth or stopping for a read light” (p 3). Obviously Mr Schlosser hasn’t driven in my neck of the woods. Who stops for a red light?
Another wake up moment from the same page, “A nation’s diet can be more revealing than its art or literature” (p 3).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Guilt Inducing Books” (p 112). Read in April because April is national food month.

“Golden Retrievals”

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Doty, Mark. “Golden Retrievals.” Sweet Machine: Poems. New York: Harper Collins, 1998.

This is such a great poem to read out loud. Read it to a child in a really funny voice and watch him laugh with his imagination running wild. It’s not hard to see the golden retriever waiting for the ball to be thrown, eyes watching his master anxiously. Short attention span: the breeze, another animal, his owner’s distracted mood. Everything captivates and yet, he’s still waiting to play fetch. Love it.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Great Dogs in Fiction” (p 105).