Tag: april

These Happy Golden Years

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Wilder, Laura Ingalls. These Happy Golden Years. New York: HarperTrophy, 1971.

When we meet up with Laura again she is fifteen years old and off to teach school at the Brewster settlement, twelve miles away. This is a period of great confusion for her. On the one hand, she is still a child, wanting to go to school to learn and to be with friends. On the other hand, she is a young adult, wanting to teach school to earn money for her family. Mary is away at a school for the blind and needs help with tuition. As she says, “only yesterday she was a schoolgirl; now she was a schoolteacher” (p 1). During this time Laura’s fashion sense is becoming more adult with floor-length dresses and fancy hats. She takes up sewing on Saturdays to earn money for new clothes. She is starting the receive the attention of Almanzo Wilder as well. While this attention is, at first, unsettling to Laura she begins to look forward to his cutter (winter) and buggy (summer) rides. Soon they are courting under the guise of taming wild horses, but I don’t think I will be spoiling anything to admit their inevitable engagement seemed sudden and uneventful to me.
Probably the most interesting part of the story was when Laura was negotiating her wedding vows with Almanzo. She doesn’t want the ceremony to include the word “obey” in it. Almanzo is fine with that but when Laura learns the reverend also feels strongly about not including the vow of “obey” she is shocked. Yet she is not a feminist. She doesn’t want the privileged of voting. Interesting.

This is the last book in the “Little House” series for my challenge. It has been a pleasure to reread these classics and I thank Nancy Pearl for bringing them back to me.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Great Plains: the Dakotas” (p 107).

Unfinished Odyssey of Robert Kennedy

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Halberstam, David. The Unfinished Odyssey of Robert Kennedy. New York: Random House, 1968.

In a nutshell, Unfinished Odyssey is the campaign story of Robert Kennedy. Halberstam follows Kennedy’s entire campaign from his beginning reluctance to run to his fateful ending assassination. Along the way Halberstam paints an interesting picture of the attitudes towards the U.S.’s involvement with the Vietnam war. Those in power who felt the U.S. needed to become more involved were the hawks while those in favor of pulling out were the doves. Kennedy was a dove. He delves into the lives of the supporters and the detractors starting with Lyndon Johnson and ending with Herbert Humphrey.

Some issues with Unfinished Odyssey: the chronology is scattered and hard to follow from time to time. Then again, I often find flashbacks in nonfiction are often clunky. Also, I disagreed with Halberstam’s ending. Everyone (myself included) expects a story about Robert Kennedy to include his murder. The Unfinished Odyssey of Robert Kennedy is no different. Everyone expects it to include the bitter end. Even if the funeral and country’s reaction to Kennedy’s death isn’t part of the story surely the murder would be. Maybe Halberstam was thinking everyone knows the end of the story, so why include it? It is, after all, called the unfinished odyssey.

Favorite line (partial): “…a few eggheads here and there…” (p 10) and “Kennedy was still playing Hamlet on whether or not to run” (p 18).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “David Halberstam: Too Good To Miss.” (p 113).

“America To Me”

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Van Dyke, Henry. “America To Me. ” The Poems of Henry Van Dyke. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1911. p 167 – 168.

“America To Me” is begging to be set to music. In my mind it has all the makings of a really great patriotic song, complete with cheerful verse and enthusiastic chorus. It is the perfect post-9/11 anthem; a rally of sorts. It’s simple in its message: a traveling individual has grown tired of the Old Country. He (or she) has seen enough of France, Italy and England. It is simply time to go home, back to young America. After all, as Van Dyke has quoted Frank Baum, “there is no place like home.”

Favorite line, “I want a ship that’s westward bound to plough the rolling sea…” (p 168).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Travelers Tales in Verse” (p 237). Read in April for poetry month.

John Barleycorn

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London, Jack. John Barleycorn. New York: Greenwood Press, 1968.

This was a hard book to read. How can I explain this? I am not in the midst of turmoil caused by someone who can’t put down the bottle. But rather, I am on the periphery of the damage that the drink is causing. Yes. I know alcoholics and at one time in my life I could have been part of the problem and yet…now it’s none of my business. Now I can walk away guilt and Scott B. free. How convenient. It’s someone I used to know. How odd. At one point in our lives he wrote the line “I never want to not know you” as he was breaking up with me. Now he’s drinking himself to death. It’s not only not my fault but it’s also none of my business. April is alcohol awareness month. I always think of Natalie’s song “Don’t Talk” when she says, “we’ll discuss this in the morning when your head is clear” but for me, morning never came. Clarity is a myth.

Jack London is the master of denial in John Barleycorn. His drinking takes him on adventures he cannot fully remember. He wakes up with his shoes, jacket, and of course, his money stolen with no memory of how he ended up where he is and yet, it is not his problem. It’s John Barleycorn’s problem. London calls alcohol John Barleycorn as if to personify the alcoholism; allowing Barleycorn to take the blame and London to be absolved of it. Early in the narrative London illustrates his confusion with John Barleycorn, “I am. I was. I am not. I never am. I am never less his friend than when he is with me and when I seem most his friend” (p 4). Sure. In addition to denial London is obsessive. Everything he does is to the extreme. Shoveling coal, studying books, drinking, writing. Whatever he does he attacks it, spending 15 hours a day at it.

One of my favorite lines, “But it is ever the way of John Barleycorn to loosen the tongue and babble the secret thought” (p 52). Here’s another, “Gratitude is inherently human” (p 207).

Author fact: some think London committed suicide. Interesting because John Barleycorn touches on suicide several times.

Book Trivia: Librarians don’t be shocked when I say this, but according to Wikipedia the first reference to being extremely drunk as “seeing pink elephants” came from John Barleycorn. Interesting, if true.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Lost Weekends” (p147).

“Happiness”

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Kenyon, Jane. “Happiness.” Otherwise New & Selected Poems. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 1997.

I have been listening to Natalie Merchant a lot lately. No. I take that back. I have been watching her more. Every night while I walk the training miles and miles on my treadmill I watch old video clips; those Quick!NatalieMerchantIsOnTelevision moments. Anytime she was on VH1 or Mtv promoting a song someone pressed the record button and I benefited from their fast fingers. Last night I watched Natalie explain the meaning behind her song “Kind and Generous.” (Some people call it the Thank You Song.) She explained it as “simple and to the point. Everyone knows what I am talking about.”
I feel that way about Jane Kenyon’s poetry. Kenyon has a way of expressing herself through her poetry in the most natural of ways. Her language is simple, to the point, and everyone knows what she is talking about.
In “Happiness” the message is just as clear. Happiness can find you whether you expect it to or want it to. Happiness can startle you out of an otherwise typical moment. Happiness should not be taken for granted or ignored.

Author Fact: When I first found out Jane Kenyon died before her 50th birthday I instantly thought it must have been cancer. Indeed, she died of leukemia in April 1995 at the age of 47.

Book Trivia: Jane Kenyon was in the process of editing Otherwise New and Selected Poems when she passed away. It was published a few months after her death.

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

Egg and I

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MacDonald, Betty. The Egg and I. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1945.

April is humor month so I chose The Egg and Ias the next book to make me laugh. I have to admit I was a little surprised this was even something my library had on its shelves. Go figure.

Betty MacDonald is by all accounts just a housewife. A housewife with a wicked sense of humor and the ability to transfer that humor to paper. In The Egg and I she tells of the time in her life when soon after getting married she follows her new husband from Butte Montana to the Olympia mountains to start up, of all things, an egg farm. From a young age her mother had always drilled it into her head to support her husband’s chosen vocation and while chickens and their subsequent eggs weren’t Betty’s thing she dutifully packs her bags and with great determination tries to become a chicken-farming, egg-picking, hard-working housewife. Hilarity ensues.

I had a hard time limiting my favorite quotes because almost everything Betty blathers on about is hysterical. I could have quoted the whole damn book if I wasn’t careful. When she wasn’t funny she was thought provoking, “I expected to look up some day and see a mountain bare shouldered and grabbing frantically for her trees” (p 101). Can’t you just picture that? Or, “Coffee so strong it snarled…” (p 115). Can’t you just taste that?

Author Fact: Betty MacDonald was born Anne Elizabeth Campbell Bard and died of uterine cancer.

Book Trivia: The Egg and I was a controversial book because Betty, writing about a specific time in her life, based the other characters on the also very real people in her life…like her neighbors. Those very real people decided to sue her for ridicule. Lesson learned. This is yet another reason why I refuse to write a book!

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Tickle Your Funny Bone” (p 217).

Cold Mountain

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Frazier, Charles. Cold Mountain. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1998.

I started the year reading a lot about World War II (Flags of Our Fathers and Band of Brothers) and decided to move onto the Civil War. It was perfect timing for such a move because the start of the Civil War was in April.

Right away I need to make a bold statement. I have mixed feelings about this book. While the writing was amazing I couldn’t reconcile all the sadness. Hopelessness and starvation follow every character and violence is nearly in every chapter that involves main man Inman. As a deserter in the Confederate army I realize his journey back to North Carolina will be fraught with dangers of all kinds, both from nature (animals and the elements) and mankind (by leaving the ear he is officially an enemy of both sides now). The Home Guard is determined to bring every deserter to justice. It’s a harsh book so don’t expect any happy endings (although the epilogue tries an attempt at some semblance of peace if not cheer). I am embarrassed to say I am like every other romantic out there that wished the book ended on page 406.

In the very beginning of Cold Mountain there is a line that sums up the epitome of any war, “Every vile deed he had witnessed lately had been at the hand of a human agent so he had about forgot that there was a whole other order of misfortune” (p 9). Cold Mountain is a war book but it is also a relationship book and a romance. Inman is a confederate soldier recuperating from a serious neck wound. When he is well enough to move he decides to become a deserter and make his way back to North Carolina where there is the memory of a girl he fell in love with. During his long journey home his love, Ada, is struggling to run her deceased father’s farm. Helping her is Ruby, a strong mountain woman running from her father and the memory of a neglectful childhood.
Towards the end of the book not one but two wounded men make their way back to Ada and Ruby. Ruby’s father has murdered his relationship with his daughter but when he is shot and left for dead it is up to her to put aside their differences and nurse him back to health. Inman makes his way back to Ada with more than a broken body. His spirit has been tested. I spotted a lot of symbolism (intentional or not). The reoccurring mention of crows was ominous while the fixation of food represented an emptiness of more than just bellies. There was an absence of comfort and of hope.

Only favorite line (besides the one I previously quoted), “Even my best intentions come to naught and hope itself is but an obstacle” (p 353). See what I mean about hope?

Probably my biggest connection in the book was with the music. If it weren’t for Natalie Merchant I wouldn’t have recognized the lyrics to Wayfaring Stranger or Mary Don’t You Weep and now that I know the movie has a soundtrack I might have to go out and get it.

Author fact: Frazier is from North Carolina and a distant relative was the inspiration for Cold Mountain, Frazier’s first novel.

Book Trivia: Cold Mountain won a National Book Award and was made into a movie.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Civil War Fiction” (p 57).

“House of Blue Light”

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Kirby, David. “The House of Blue Light.” The House of Blue Light. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998. pp 26-29.

“The House of Blue Light” reads like a short story. We’re talking really, really short, but a story with characters and a plot all the same. It starts off with dad at the gym. I’m guessing he’s in his 40s, maybe early 50s. He’s watching Little Richard on tv. Inexplicably he gets emotional about the music he hears. I say inexplicably because personally, I cannot understand Little Richard for the life of me. Anyway, when describing the incident to his wife she tells him, “your just emotional because your son is going off to college.” His emotions make him think about other situations where he has broken down and lost his compusure. He imagines a house of blue light where good times are had. A place where all his memories are kept.

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

Skin of Our Teeth

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Wilder, Thornton. “The Skin of Our Teeth.” Collected Plays and Writings on Theater. McClatchy, J.D., ed. New York: Library of America, 2007.

Considering our own impending “end of the world” in 2012 I thought this was a fitting way to end April’s reading. Indeed, the working title of “The Skin of Our Teeth” was “The Ends of the Worlds.” But, the end of Wilder’s world is the threat of an ice age coming down from the chilly Canadian north (at the end of Act I). In fact, the entire play takes on a chronological time warp through Biblical, prehistoric and postwar environments. George and Maggie Antrobus, their children and house maid are the central characters of this play within a play. While the Antrobus characters remain constant, the house maid, Sabina does not. It is interesting to note that for the first and third acts she remains their maid and yet in the second act she is a femme fatale of sorts. Another inconsistent is the time line. Periods in history are jumbled together and stretched apart. Characters like Homer and Moses come to visit. A mammoth and dinosaur are the family pets. In the end the punchline is Mr. Antrobus, turning the fate of life over to us, the audience of this play within a play.

Play Trivia: “Skin of Our Teeth” won a Pulitzer Prize in 1943.

Author Fact: Wilder has a connection to this area. Two of his sisters attended Mount Holyoke College. Okay, so that wasn’t really about Thornton. Here’s something – Thornton Wilder was born on April 17th, 1897. Growing up, Thornton was ridiculed for his intelligence. Sad.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Oh, Brother” (p 180). This is a little deceiving because “Skin of Our Teeth” isn’t really about brothers, per se. The plot is Biblical, with some Adam & Eve and Cain & Esau elements, but not really about two brothers.

“Dear Derrida”

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Kirby, David. “Dear Derrida.” The House of Blue Light. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998. pp 16-20.

When I first read “Dear Derrida” I thought of the word childish. Read it out loud and you get the sense of someone who is hopelessly involved with gossipers, someone who is in a group always looking for the next thing to poke fun of and is never really able to escape. For example, the narrator and his classmates make fun of a professor with a stutter. They drop water balloons on an unsuspecting victim. Even when the narrator has “had it” with present company he finds himself in the company of new roommates; individuals with more swagger and bravado.

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

Great Fortune

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Okrent, Daniel. Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center. New York: Viking, 2003.

There is something to be said about a man with a vision, especially when that vision becomes the great and unparalleled Rockefeller Center in New York City. Great Fortune captures not only the man behind the vision and the epic journey of John D. Rockefeller and his team, but the society and political arena of their era. The 1930s are the beginning of urban sprawl going vertical in the form of skyscrapers. As the buildings start reaching higher and higher they become more grandiose and complicated; as do the people responsible for this growth at such an unlikely time in history. The founders of Rockefeller Center are egotistic, artistic, ambitious visionaries. Despite being mired in the Great Depression luminaries such as architect Raymond Hood believe in the grandeur of the project with unwavering faith.

The first thing I noticed about the copy of Great Fortune that came to the library was the cover. If you aren’t looking closely you would miss it. The cover with the ISBN of 0670031690 has a collage of four photos, all in tinted black and white. A photograph of a couple dancing. Below that, a picture of the Rockettes standing in a circle. Below that, iron workers presumably working on the construction of RCA building. Along side these three photos is a larger one of the RCA building. In my copy of Great Fortune the dancing couple featured in the upper left hand corner are Mary Rae and Naldi doing a waltz in the Rainbow room…except something is different about them. They do not hold the same pose. Mary Rae and Naldi are nose to nose in my cover shot. I’m not even sure they are the same dancers. Why was this one photo swapped out for another? Curious. For an illustration of what I mean click here. Take note of the photo of the two dancers. Look at their gentle pose. Then click on the cover and see how the photo changes. The dancers become more dynamic, more passionate.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Building Blocks” (p 38).

“Strip Poker”

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Kirby, David. “Strip Poker.” The House of Blue Light. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998. pp 3-5.

“Strip Poker” is a story wrapped in a memory. Kirby is donating blood when a picture of Ava Gardiner revives a lost memory. He remembers asking his mother if he would like to play strip poker. He is only eight and yet he knows that the strategy is to begin the game wearing as many articles of clothing possible. He can picture the different layers his mother would don. When she replies, “no, thank you, darling” he is struck by how there was no explanation for this declination. Nothing that would explain what was so wrong with his request. This leads to thoughts of other misrepresentations of the truth, each thought bouncing off another and another until Kirby is brought back to reality by the nurse taking his blood donation. She asks if he is a runner because his pulse is slow.

I liked this poem (the very first one in House of Blue Light because of the train of thoughts Kirby has while donating blood. It reminds me of my meandering ponderings and how when my husband asked what I am thinking about, before I can answer him, I have to ask “Do you want the whole train or just the caboose?”

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

A Drinking Life

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Hamill, Pete. A Drinking Life. Narrated by Jonathan Davis. Prince Frederick: Recorded Books, 2003.

As a first-time audio book listener, here are my perceptions: there are pros and cons to listening to an audio book. For the cons, it is less imaginative when someone fills in the voices and sounds effects of the story. You also can’t take note of a favorite line or phrase. Things that make you laugh out loud are between your ears and not on a page you can quote from later. You miss out on illustrations, photographs, the feel of paper between your fingers as you don’t get to turn the pages…
But here is the benefit to an audio book: you can walk for hours and hours on a treadmill and be thoroughly entertained. Such is my life in the middle of April. But, a review:

A Drinking Life is an odyssey. It is an autobiographical examination of alcoholism where the drinking escalates slowly, sip by sip, drink by drink. For me, it dragged on in places. Hamill spends two thirds of the book setting the stage for his lead performance as an alcoholic. Starting with Hamill’s early childhood in the early 1940s he recounts his formative years living with his Irish parents in Brooklyn, New York. His father’s own battle with the bottle is omnipresent, a constant in Hamill’s life. That lays the groundwork for the excuses Hamill will make and his ultimate drinking downfall. Bars and beer are in the background as Hamill describes other obsessions in his life: comics as a child, newspapers, art and fighting as a teen, sex throughout the ages, and later as an adult, traveling, politics and writing.  Alcohol is the one constant through it all.

I am going to sound like a prim, prissy, panties-in-a-wad puss, but I really believe A Drinking Life should have come with a disclaimer. Rap artists have to slap a sticker announcing “explicit” when they swear, mention drugs or sex, on an album and yet Pete Hamill can do all those things, describe sex scenes with detailed wild abandon, he can use every swear word (included the dreaded “c” word), and remember violent beatings he would receive and give…all without some kind of heads up to the reader.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Lost Weekends” (p 147).

“By a Swimming Pool…”

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Collins, Billy. “By a Swimming Pool Outside Siracusa.” Nine Horses: Poems.New York: Random House, 2002.

I have to start off by saying every time I have a Billy Collins poem on my “read list” I know I’m in for a treat. His poetry is not the stuff of stuffy, if that makes sense. His poetry is the jeans and sneakers variety, hanging out just waiting to be approached. Take, for example, “By a Swimming Pool Outside Siracusa.” Here are the tags I jotted down the first time I read it, “first person, communication, language, weather, Italy.” Here are the tags I added the second time I read it, “vacation, alcohol, drunk, humor.” Because, as I read it, the narrator became less stringent about formality of words to the point of funny. You can almost feel the ooze of relaxation seep into the words.

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

Journey Beyond Selene

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Kluger, Jeffrey. Journey Beyond Selene: Remarkable Expeditions Past Our Moon and to the Ends of the Solar System. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999.

If astronauts and spaceships fuel the imaginations of little boys, Journey Past Selene more than ignites the scientific minds of grown men. Kluger takes us back to the early 1960s – just before man walked on the moon. Back to the beginnings of Jet Propulsion Laboratory and its spaceships. These unmanned rockets were going on extraordinary expeditions, traveling to the unthinkable ends of the solar system. Journey Beyond Selene takes us to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn and Neptune and beyond. We get a first class trip to fantastical moons with names like Despina, Titania and my favorite, Ophelia. We get to meet the ambitious scientists and engineers and hopefuls behind the project. We get ensnared in the red tape of government funding. As readers, thanks to Kluger’s straight-forward, no-nonsense approach, we have the luxury of keeping our feet firmly planted on terra firma while our imaginations soar beyond Selene.

Author Fact: Kluger coauthored Lost Moon: the Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13 which was made into a movie starring Tom Hanks. Time Magazine has a bio on Kluger and their slightly outdated picture of Kluger reminds me of Steve Buscemi for some odd reason. Maybe it’s the stare…

Book Trivia: Journey Beyond Selene has some of the coolest pictures of moons.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “The Moon’s My Destination” (p 158).