Tag: book lust i

Tula Station

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Toscana, David. Tula Station. St. Martin’s Press, 2001.

Reason read: I needed a book by an author from Mexico for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge. As for the Book Lust Reading Challenge, I have no idea why I picked it.

Tula Station opens with the tragic aftermath of a hurricane that took the lives of hundreds of people. Within the pages of Tula Station there are three narratives: First, Froylan Gomez’s biography for Juan Capistran, his alleged great-great-grandfather. Froylan is declared dead after the devastating hurricane, but his wife doesn’t believe it. After finding a journal, she thinks he has faked his demise to be with another woman. She wants Toscana to rewrite the journal, which tells of Foylan meeting Juan Capistran, as fiction to lure Froylan home. Second, a historical portrait of Tula and her station. Third, Froylan’s own obsession with the woman, Carmen, for whom Capistran supposedly gave up his life.
Toscana’s writing is sly. There are two Juans, two Carmens, two writers, and two disappearances. I found hints of impropriety riddled throughout Tula Station. An uncle glancing at his niece’s calf muscles, for example. Never enough to cause outright outrage. And speaking of outrage, reading this book was a lesson in patience. There were times when I wanted to create massive flowcharts to track everyone, but I refrained.

A quote to quote, “I am falling because I let you go” (p 250).

Author fact: Toscana, born in Monterey, Nuevo Leon in the north of Mexico, has been compared to Carlos Fuentes.

Book trivia: this book was extremely hard to get. No local library had it and an interlibrary loan would have taken months. Luckily, it was available through Internet Archive. This is the first book (and hopefully the last) that I read solely through IA.

Nancy said: Pearl was one hundred percent correct when she said Tula Station demands much of the reader.

Playlist: Bach, Beethoven, and Liszt.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Mexican Fiction” (p 153).

Walking After Midnight

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McCoy, Maureen. Walking After Midnight. Poseidon Press, 1985.

Reason read: Elvis was born in January. Read in his honor.

Lottie Jay is supposed to be this tough, sarcastic, wannabe country songwriter. Obsessed with Elvis Presley, Time magazine, and painting her nails, Lottie leaves her husband, goes on an alcoholic bender, crashes her 57 Chevy, and survives a stint in rehab. The premise is good. Sounds exciting. I like tough as nails women as protagonists. The only problem there was nothing else to endear me to Lottie. She leaves her farmer husband after he ridicules her songwriting abilities but not before she tapes her diaphragm to the bathroom mirror as some kind of perverse voodoo warning. Weird.
the plot mostly centers on Lottie’s bad choices in men. While she is not technically divorced from her alcoholic husband, Owen won Lottie over by taking her to see an Elvis impersonator concert, but Georgie won her over by looking like Elvis. Everyone is deeply flawed so you don’t know who to root for.
I did, however, love the character of tough-as-nails wheelchair bound Matilda. “Matt” was the best character in the book. McCoy paints her as a pathetic, fat and unhealthy lesbian, but I thought she was the most believable character in the whole book.
Confessional: there were sentences that I simply did not understand. For example, “I ran out the door just as a pack of redheaded woodpeckers tumbled from the sky and spun, doing mad things all over the yard (p 85), or “They had to envy Owen and wish they would look as fun, but turning the art of Cedar Rapids into oatmeal perfume was serious business” (p 98). What? But then there the sentences that were utterly visceral that I adored, “The hyena laughing broke into sobs” (p 25), and “The train formed a big loop of experience” (p 223). I don’t know what that last line means either, but I loved it.

Author fact: Walking After Midnight was McCoy’s first novel. It is the only one I am reading for the Challenge.

Book trivia: Walking After Midnight is a super short book. It can be read in a single day if you can stand putting up with Lottie for that long. I took her in small doses.

Playlist: Marty Robbins’s “El Paso”, Patsy Cline’s “Walking After Midnight”, Glen Campbell, Mick Jagger, Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man”, Judy Garland, Ernest Tubbs, the Rolling Stones, Loretta Lynn, Carole King’s “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?”, Kitty Wells, Hank Williams, the Osmonds, the Beatles, the Doors, Johnny Cash, Kenny Rogers, Chuck Berry, Conway Twitty, and a whole bunch of Elvis: “RockaHula”, “Girls, Girls, Girls”, “Love Me Tender”, “Return to Sender”, “C. C. Rider”, “I Was the One Who Taught Her to Kiss”, “Don’t Be Cruel”, “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You”, “Blue Suede Shoes”, “Heartbreak Hotel”, and “Hound Dog”.

Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say anything specific about Walking After Midnight.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Elvis On My Mind” (p 79).

Book of Nothing

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Barrow, John D. The Book of Nothing: Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas about the Origins of the Universe. Pantheon Books, 2000.

Reason read: January is supposed to be the month you clean the slate. A fresh start with nothing remaining from the previous year.

If you want to fill your head with trivia to use as a neat party trick, read and retain interesting facts from The Book of Nothing. There is a plethora to chose from. You can start with knowing that a guy named Al-Kharizmi came up with the practice of grouping numerals in threes, separated by commas. Sound familiar? William Shakespeare, if you read his works carefully, explores the concept of nothing in Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear. The study of nothing helped scientists to understand barometric pressure. I could go on and on.
In short, The Book of Nothing is the exploration of the concept of nothing from every angle, but with a subtle sense of humor. Don’t believe me? Read the notes section of The Book of Nothing and you’ll see. Barrow’s comments are great.
The deepest pleasure I gleaned from reading The Book of Nothing was the myriad of quotations Barrow used from every walk of life. To illustrate his points Barrow quoted philosophers, educators, historians, musicians, artists, playwrights, mathematicians, the BBC, activists, scientists, psychologists, physicists, astronomers, comedians, even a Canadian naval radio conversation (which was my favorite, in case you were wondering).

Confessional: I had a hard time slogging my way through The Book of Nothing. Even the structure of modern mathematics was mind-boggling to me. Math and science were my least favorite subjects ibn school. The only word I really felt comfortable with was Boolean.

Author fact: Barrow wrote a ton of science and mathematics books. I am only reading the Book of Nothing for the Challenge.

Book trivia: The Book of Nothing is chock full of interesting illustrations and quotations, ancient and current.

Play list: Al Jolson, the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever”, Cole Porter’s “Heaven Knows”, Queen, and Kris Kristofferson.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything specific about The Book of Nothing.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Zero: This Will Mean Nothing To You” (p 256).

Japanese By Spring

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Reed, Ishmael. Japanese By Spring. Athenaeum, 1993.

Reason read: Traditionally, December is the end of a term. Since Japanese By Spring is set in academia I thought I would read it in honor of the end of a trying term.

An ad promises Benjamin “Chappie” Puttbutt III that he will learn the language of Japanese by spring. He had started taking lessons to learn Japanese in the Air Force Academy in the mid 1960s. Only the lessons ended after he had been expelled from the Academy. In the beginning the reader has no idea why Puttbutt has been expelled, but hang on! That story is coming and it’s a doozy. In present day, Puttbutt teaches English at the Jack London College. His only ambition in life is to make tenure, but he is a miserable failure. [As an aside, I can tell you that tenure is not all that it is cracked up to be.] But anyway, Puttbutt is so desperate for this recognition that he jumps on the latest support bandwagon that will further his cause, even if it means derogatory talk about his own race and culture.
Reed’s tongue in cheek commentary on institutional endowments was pretty funny. A student can get away with murder because his father practically funds the entire college. Where have we seen that before? Be prepared for other snarky commentary on political hotbed topics like the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill scandal, LA riots and the beating of Rodney King, nationalism, racism, any ism you can think of. Speaking of racism, here is a snarky scene to ponder: a professor is exclaiming that racism has never existed on the Jack London College campus while a fraternity is having its annual “Slave Day.” I was tempted to play a drinking game with the words nationalism and Yoruba.

Fair warning: the details are a bit dated and unbelievable. Chappie is powerful enough to have a plane brought back to the gate when he misses his flight. These days, a plane can still be at the date, but if the door is closed, you will not gain access no matter who you say you are. Not for anything.
Chappie’s mother had been kidnapped three years earlier by Arabs? Supposedly, she helped plan a bombing raid on Libya. This would make sense as Chappie’s father has been tapping his phone and his grandfather, who has been in hiding, had to kidnap him.
The satire drips thick in Japanese By Spring. Chappie’s main rival is a woman by the name of April Jokujoku and all I could think was April Fools. The president of the college is President Stool. The Berserkley left, I could go on and on.

Author fact: Ishmael Reed inserts himself into Japanese By Spring with real facts, like he was born in Tennessee and

Book trivia: Satire is even hidden in the Japanese words Reed peppers throughout Japanese By Spring, like bakamono.

Lines I liked: According to the copyright of Japanese By Spring , one cannot quote any part of this book for any reason. So. No favorite lines will be mentioned. Ugh! there was a line about pacifism that is so hilarious.

Setlist: “You Will Never Walk Alone”, Little Milton, Max Roach, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, John Coltrane’s “Blue Trane”, Beatles, Michael Jackson, Prince, Hank Williams, Matata, Ice Cube, Sister Soulijah, George Clinton’s “Do Fries Go with That Shake”, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and “Onward Christian Soldiers”.

Nancy said: Pearl called Puttbutt’s story “hilariously sad” (Book Lust p 3).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Academia: the Joke” (p 3).

On Grief and Reason

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Brodsky, Joseph. On Grief and Reason. Farrar Straus, Giroux, 1995.

Reason read: November is National Writing Month. I am reading On Grief and Reason in honor of the art of essaying.

Brodsky’s compilation of essays, speeches, lectures, and letters cover a variety of topics. Here are my most memorable aspects of Brodsky’s On Grief and Reason: I loved the list of poets that should be read in their native tongue (German, Spanish, Polish, French, Greek, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Swedish, and Russian. Interestingly, he does not include Italian.). Poetry should be right next to the Bible in hotel nightstands. The joke is the Bible won’t mind as it “doesn’t object to the proximity of the phonebook” (p 203). Brodsky stresses the importance of poetry on a nation. He later includes a seminar given to people “ignorant or poorly acquainted with Robert Frost (p 223). He pulls apart the poetry of Thomas Hardy. “The Convergence of the Twain” was fascinating. The letter to Horace was surprisingly sexual. Despite all this, I found that one of the most fascinating points Brodsky makes is that if he had been a publisher, he would have insisted on putting the “exact age” at which an author composed his or her work on the cover of their book.

As an aside, I know I have griped about how wrong it is to a take collection of old essays previously published elsewhere and packaged them as new, but I feel Brodsky’s On Grief and Reason is different. He is a poet who delivered speeches and wrote essays on various topics. To compile what wasn’t previously sold somewhere else is completely different.

Lines I liked, “This awful bear hug is no mistake” (p 111). I have no idea what this means. “So flip the channel: you can’t put this network out of circulation, but at least you can reduce its ratings” (p 147). I thought that was pretty funny considering that is exactly my Kisa’s line of work.

Author fact: Brodsky won the Novel Prize in Literature in 1987. Second author fact: Brodsky chose to pose with his cat for the author photograph. It is fantastic.

Book trivia: On Grief and Reason is the second volume of Brodsky’s essay collection, but I am only reading this one for the Challenge.

Playlist: Zarah Leander’s “Die Rose von Nowgorod”, Ella Fitzgerald’s “Tisket a Tasket”, “La Comparsita”, “El Choclo”, “The Artgentine Tango”, “Colonel Bogey”, Willis Conover, Louis Armstrong, Haydn, Clifford Brown, Sidney Bechet, Django Reinhardt, Charlie Parker, Enrico Caruso, Tito Schipa, Schubert. “Ave Maria”, Marian Anderson, Chopin, Liszt, Paganini, Wagner, and Mozart.

Nancy said: Pearl explains that within the pages of On Grief and Reason Brodsky analyses some of his favorite poems. That hardly scratches the surface of the content of On Grief and Reason.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Essaying Essays” (p 80).

Hound of the Baskervilles

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Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles. Doubleday & Company, 1930.

Reason read: Yup. I am still slogging through this. I feel a break coming on…

This is probably my favorite Sherlock Holmes mystery. I loved the way Doyle described the moor as having a grim charm. The thought of an escaped convict, someone dubbed the Nottinghill Murderer, living out on the fog-filled moor was eerie. Whole ponies have been swallowed up by this deadly bog and yet, supposedly, this murderer was out there with an evil creature, something with “diabolical agency” and supernatural powers. Something that looked like a dog, but twice its size with glowing eyes and a mouth teeth and flames. this is another tale of deception and greed, but with a welcomed unusual twist.

Line I liked, “To act the spy upon a friend was a hateful task” (p 718).

Author fact: I have lost track of what I have said about Sir Conan Arthur Doyle.

Book trivia: The Hound of the Baskervilles was made into a movie in 1959.

Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say anything specific about The Hound of the Baskervilles because she only mentions The Complete Sherlock Holmes.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery” on page 117 (although not really because it is contained in The Complete Sherlock Holmes). I said that already. A few times.

Oscar and Lucinda

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Carey, Peter. Oscar and Lucinda. Harper and Row, 1988.

Reason read: in honor of National Writing Month, I chose a Booker Prize winner. In truth, the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge also had the category of Booker Prize.

Confessional: I felt no affinity for the timid boy with flaming red hair who was afraid of everything. I felt no affinity for the wealthy heiress with the gambling problem. To be honest, I felt no affinity for Oscar and Lucinda the couple or the novel. It dragged on and on. For the most part, I found it was a tirade about the human condition.
As an aside, there are strange details all throughout Oscar and Lucinda. Even though I was bored most of the time, I still am curious about the significance and role of cauliflower to Lucinda when she was on the boat.

Quotes to quote, “The smile did what the Irish accent never could have” (p 121) and “She could marry this man, she knew, and she would still be captain of her soul” (p 329

Author fact: At the time of publication (1988) Carey lived in Australia.

Book trivia: Oscar and Lucinda won the Booker Prize. I have mentioned that before.

Playlist: “The Wearing of the Green”.

Nancy said: Pearl called Oscar and Lucinda “notable” and “Victorian”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust twice. First, in “A Dickens of a Tale”. I don’t agree. Yes, Oscar and Lucinda is Victorian (19th century Australia), but it is Jack Maggs that is a Dickens reinterpretation. Oscar and Lucinda is also in the chapter called “Australian Fiction” (p 29). No argument there as the story takes place in Australia.

Cat’s Eye

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Atwood, Margaret. Cat’s Eye. Read by Kimberly Far. Random House Audio, 2011.
Atwood, Margaret. Cat’s Eye. Anchor Books, 1998.

Reason read: Atwood was born in the month of November. Read in her honor.

Atwood is clever in describing typical friendships between girls with the simple line, “we think we are all friends”. Young Elaine Risley has all the angst of a young girl growing up in the bullseye of bullying; something that haunts the adult Elaine when she returns back to her childhood city of Toronto to put on an art show. Elaine confronts the painful memories of the various traumas of her childhood with every passing landmark. Most prominent from her childhood are three girls who at turns tormented and loved Elaine with equal parts malice and warmth. As with all young friendships, Elaine was an easy target. She was desperate to please; bullied into thinking she was never good enough for the friendships she begged to have. One of the saddest moments for me was when Elaine contemplated suicide, not because she wanted to end her life, but because she knew how much her death would please an enemy.
As a teenager, Elaine discovered she had a sharp tongue which becomes her best defense and her most valuable weapon. Her enemies fall away not because they leave her, but because she lets them go.
As an adult, Elaine learns that the monsters of our youth can shrink to the harmless size of dust balls under the bed; their teeth and claws can dull upon adult scrutiny. But not all of them go away, especially when you do not want them to.

As an aside, Atwood seems to have an affinity for the nail polish color, “Fire and Ice”. Several different characters wear it.

Simple yet devastating lines, “She thinks I am happy” (p 161), “Murder ought to be a more ceremonial occasion” (p 266), and “There’s too much old time here” (p 453).

Author fact: Margaret Atwood has long been one of my favorite authors.

Book trivia: Cat’s Eye is a type of marble design. Back in the day everyone had marbles. Elaine carried one as a talisman.

Setlist: “Skye Boat Song”, “Scots Wha’ Hae”, Frank Sinatra, Betty Hutton, “Hearts Made of Stone”, “Moonlight Sonata”, and “There Will Always Be an England”.

Nancy said: Pearl describes the plot of Cat’s Eye.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Women’s Friendships” (p 247).

Unsuitable for Ladies

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Robinson, Jane. Unsuitable for Ladies: an Anthology of Women Travellers Selected by Jane Robinson. Oxford University Press, 1994.

Reason read: I needed an anthology for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge.

What a difference one hundred years makes. The idea of not being able to travel as a woman by oneself is unfathomable to me. This made Robinson’s Unsuitable for Ladies even more of a joy to read. Her comments after some of the entries were appreciated and sometimes very much needed, even though I didn’t always agree with her.
All in all, I loved the writings of smart, courageous, and independent women. While most traveled with a purpose, (serving in the war was a popular excuse to go abroad), it was the women who traveled out of curiosity and leisure that fascinated me the most. Wealth was the great commodity and motivator in the days of opium pills and ether treatments.
Notable women included one woman who dreamed of riding an ostrich; another who felt that plain boiled locusts were the most palatable. Another woman was funny about bugs like fleas while another desired to be immune to scorpion venom. One woman worried about being seen as a woman while she traveled dressed as man. Another woman had a more pressing concern as she watched her horse fall over a cliff. Still another survived a bear attack. Yet another willingly joined her husband on a funeral pyre.
These were very different times. Imagine a time when it was acceptable for ladies to view battlefields of Waterloo and Crimea, with all of their bloodshed and death. Imagine wearing the elaborate and heavy diving equipment of 1910. Imagine watching a native receive a tattoo by rat or shark tooth.
In truth I think Robinson missed an opportunity to publish a really robust book. It would have been great to see maps of the time period these ladies traveled, illustrations of the fashions, and maybe some photographs or illustrated portraits of the more notable lady travelers.
Favorite women: Florence Nightingale saying her mind was out of breath; Myrtle Simpson trying to figure out how to travel with a newborn; the alias Honourable Impulsia Gushington; Barbara Toy naming her Landrover “Polyanna”; Robyn Davidson bringing her camels to the beach for the first time.
Questions I have: is it still true you could lose your shoes outside a temple in Cairo? Can you really cure hiccups (hiccoughs) by holding your right ear with you left forefinger and thumb and bringing your left elbow as far as possible across your chest?

Lines of Robinson’s I liked, “This broken link in memory’s chain…” (p 3), “There is a fine line to be drawn between the urge to travel and the search for freedom, and for many of these women no line at all” (p 4).
Other quotes to quote, “I particularly hate snakes, and the incident upset me a good deal, but not for long. I had too much to do” (p 197), “Eighty days of siege life does wonders” (p 258), .

Author fact: Robinson wrote more than what I am reading for the Challenge.

Book trivia: Unsuitable for Ladies in a companion volume to Wayward Women. I only have Unsuitable on my Challenge list.

Playlist: “Greensleeves”, “Ballad of the Fox”, and the waltzes of Strauss.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything specific about Unsuitable for Ladies.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the very obvious chapter called “Lady Travelers” (p 142).

False Years

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Vicens, Josefina. The False Years. Translated by Peter G. Earle. Latin American Literary Review Press, 1989.

Reason read: Vicens died on November 22nd, 1988. Read in her memory. I also need a book that is under 150 pages for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge. The False Years is only 76 pages long. The is also my “cheat” for Central American author. Mexico is technically not part of Central America.

Luis Alfonso Fernandez is only fifteen years old when his beloved father, “Poncho”, accidentally commits suicide while showing off with a gun. Now, at age nineteen Luis has become his father. At first father and son are interchangeable by name only, both born Luis Alfonso Fernandez. Life and death are balanced precariously; a father’s memory is more alive than the living and breathing son could ever be. Luis does not share his father’s personality. Poncho was generous, extravagant, manly, charming, extroverted, gregarious, influential, brash, ebullient, narcistic, a dreamer, and popular with everyone. He is gone but definitely not forgotten. Luis the son must make sense of his father’s life and is constantly overshadowed by the reputation that refuses to die. It does not help that culture deems him the man of the house now. Soon, his mother treats him like a grown man to be feared. The lines become blurred when Luis inherits the gun that killed his father and his father’s mistress. His life has followed so closely in his father’s footsteps, Luis might as well been the one to make the initial impressions. He develops a god complex when his father’s friends want to make him into another Poncho. Luis finds that instead of wanting to take over his father’s life, he wants to be an innocent child again. He mourns a time when his life was unburdened by adulthood. He oscillates between love and hate for his father.
Fair warning: the misogynism is not hard to miss. In this story there are dozens of comments alluding to the belief that women are of little value.

As an aside, I loved Josefina’s two-word phrasings. Here are a few: “involuntary suicide”, “influential irresponsibility”, “dedicated enemies”, and “prearranged agony”.
Here is a full-sentence quote to quote, “Maybe to be dying is a murmur that might be missed; but death is a silence that must be listened to” (p 33).

Author fact: Vicens only published two novels.

Book trivia: The entire story takes place at Poncho’s fourth anniversary memorial service.

Nancy said: Pearl only described the plot of The False Years.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Mexican Fiction” (p 153).

Return of Sherlock Holmes

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Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes: The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Doubleday & Company, 1930.

Reason read: I am still working my way through Sherlock Holmes. I obviously took a little break, but now I am back.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes is comprised of thirteen adventures. There is a certain formula to Doyle’s writing. Someone is always trying to scam, blackmail, or extort something from someone else. Clients come to Holmes when Scotland Yard thinks the case is out of their league. Scandal, public embarrassment, or out and out trickery is usually the name of the game. Sherlock is always the master of disguises; a chameleon of identity. He is always seeing details others commonly miss. Confessional: I got a little tired of his smug attitude. I love love Watson, though.

  • “Adventures of the Empty House”
  • “Adventure of the Norwood Builder”
  • “Adventure of the Dancing Men”
  • “Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist”
  • “Adventure of the Priory School”
  • “Adventure of Black Peter”
  • “Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton”
  • “Adventure of the Six Napoleons”
  • “Adventure of the Three Students”
  • “Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez”
  • “Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter”
  • “Adventure of the Abbey Grange”
  • “Adventure of the Second Stain”

Author fact: Doyle tried to kill off Sherlock but his fans wouldn’t let him.

Book trivia: The Return of Sherlock Holmes was published in 1905 as a collection. The stories came out individually from 1903 – 1904.

Nancy said: Pearl never mentions The Return of Sherlock Holmes because it is within The Complete Sherlock Holmes.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery” (p 117).

Childhood’s End

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Clarke, Arthur C. Childhood’s End. Random House, 1981.

Reason read: October is Science Fiction Month for some people. I also needed a book set in the future for the Portland Public Library 2023 Reading Challenge.

Confessional: this review will be very brief. As I have said before, I am not a fan of science fiction. Boo. The first section of Childhood’s End is based on a short story called “Guardian Angel”. Earth is controlled by the Overlords. They provide security, peace and prosperity but their interests lie in human psychology, mysticism, telepathy, the occult, second sight, and psychic phenomena. Fact meets fiction. The Republic of South Africa had racial tensions for over a century. U.S. and Russia did have a race to space. I found those elements to be interesting. The other aspects of Childhood’s End I found curious were the social commentaries Clarke was making about the human race. When we cannot pronounce a name that is unfamiliar to use (like Thanthalteresco) we come up with nicknames (like the Inspector). The Overlords are like parents, banning something (space) because they think their children (humans) are not ready for it. My favorite part was when Jan Rodricks, a Cape Town engineering student, pulled a Trojan Horse stunt and stowed away in a giant whale replica to visit the Overlords on their turf.
The moral of the story could be that without conflict there is no passion. Without passion there is only apathy and with apathy comes boredom. With boredom comes the need to rile things up.

Author fact: Have you seen the list of books Clarke has written, both in fiction and nonfiction? It is impressive. I am only reading Childhood’s End for the Challenge.

Book trivia: Childhood’s End was originally published in 1953 and considered way before its time. It took almost a year to write.

Nancy said: Pearl said Childhood’s End was a great read.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fictions, Fantasy and Horror” (p 213).

Literary Companion to Sex

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Pitt-Kethley, Fiona. The Literary Companion to Sex: an anthology of prose and poetry. Random House, 1992.

Reason read: July is National Parenting Month. Parenting comes about from having unprotected sex (among other ways) so…

I liked Pitt-Kethley’s approach to organizing The Literary Companion to Sex. It made sense to break the book into five sections according to the ages rather than a strict chronology that could be disputed. First we have the Ancient World which includes the Bible, Talmud and writings from such as Homer and Virgil. Next comes the eighteenth century with excerpts from Dafoe, Milton, and Marvell. (I think everyone knows “To His Coy Mistress”.) The nineteenth century features writings from Richard Burton, Honore de Balzac, and Emile Zola, to name a few. “The Magic Ring” from Kryptadia was one of my favorites. The twentieth century surprised me. Yes, I know Philip Roth, Henry Miller, and John Updike would be included, but what about Edmund White?
I also appreciated Pitt-Kethley’s statement that she “inserted the rude words omitted” like a warning to keep your hands inside the moving vehicle at all times. You have a more enjoyable ride if you know what’s coming. Pun totally intended.
Here is what I got out of reading The Literary Companion to Sex. Like all good pornography, the plot is minimal in most stories. Benjamin Franklin believed sex with an older woman was better because the woman they would be so grateful (among other reasons). Women can be harsh about other women’s bodies describing breasts that hang heavy and “navel-low”.
What I really want to know is how Pitt-Kethley found all of these juicy parts of poems, plays, novels, letters, journals, and essays? I cannot begin to imagine the research that went into compiling the contents of The Literary Companion to Sex.

Editor fact: Pitt-Kethley had a blog here where she lists cats and karate as interests.

Book trivia: I had a really hard time finding this in a local library. I couldn’t even borrow Literary Companion to Sex from any library across the state so I ended up reading it on Internet Archive.

Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say anything about The Literary Companion to Sex except to say it is a collection of the really “good” parts of novels.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Sex and the Single Reader” (p 218) as if the married reader couldn’t enjoy a romp between the pages every once in awhile.

Farewell Symphony

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White, Edmund. The Farewell Symphony. Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.

Reason read: I started White’s trilogy in June to celebrate pride month. Farewell Symphony is the last of the three.

We continue the autobiography of an unknown protagonist (okay, okay! It’s White). By now he is a full fledged adult and it is the early 1960s. Whereas the other books in the trilogy spanned a short period of time, Farewell Symphony is much longer and covers nearly thirty years, ending in the early 1990s. By the end of The Farewell Symphony Mr. Nameless has outlived most of his friends. AIDS has infiltrated his love life. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let us start at the beginning. Brice, a former lover, died six months before the story opens. From there, the author experiences a string of sexual encounters barely qualifying as relationships: the heartbreak over Sean, a man who was unobtainable. Lou and Kevin. Fox. I could go on. For the most part, Farewell Symphony seems to be a running commentary on sex within the homosexual community. The nameless protagonist prowls for hookups, threesomes, and orgies all fueled by an insatiable desperation to not go lonely. When he isn’t trying to get laid, he desires to be published. The most poignant and sorrowful portion of The Farewell Symphony is the bitter end. True to the title of the book, the symphony of gay men die off, one by one, leaving one voice to take a final bow.

I’ve having a mental block. I cannot think of the word when several coincidences occur at the same time. I just finished reading Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past and White’s character is also reading the epic story.

A weird moment of deja vu: I came across a passage in The Farewell Symphony where a character defends sex with children. I feel like that exact same passage was either earlier in the book or in a previous volume of the trilogy.

Quotes worth quoting, “I’ve never liked to feel things in the appropriate way at the right moment” (p 3), “I invited him home and found him to be complicated in ways that bored me” (p 23),

Author fact: at the time of publication, White was a professor at Princeton University.

Book trivia: some reviews of The Farewell Symphony called it trashy.

Setlist: George Thill’s “O Soave Fanciulla” from La Boheme, Sgt. Pepper, Haydn #45, Billie Holiday, Helen Morgan, “Chopsticks”, Verdi, Wagner, Aretha Franklin, Gerard Souzay-Dupare, “Why Did You Leave Me?”, “Strangers in the Night”, Muddy Waters, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Paolo Conte, Bartok, “the Magic Flute”, Frank Sinatra, “I’ll Be Seeing You in Apple Blossom Time”, Phoebe Snow, Diana Ross, Joni Mitchell, Bette Midler, Puccini, Schubert’s “Erlkonig”, “Up on the Roof” by the Nylons, and Helen Morgan.

Nancy said: Pearl said nothing specific about The Farewell Symphony.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the obvious chapter called “Gay and Lesbian Fiction: Out of the Closet” (p 93).

Time Regained

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Proust, Marcel. Remembrance of Things Past: Time Regained. Vol. 7. Translated by Stephen Hudson. Illustrated by Philippe Jullian. Chatto & Windus, 1960.

Reason read: to finally, finally, finally, finish the series started in honor of National Writing Month. As an aside, I heard that some people take a decade to read Proust so I don’t feel that bad!

I had to roll my eyes when I saw Gilberte and Albertine’s names as early as page two. Was this going to be another obsessive missive about these women? Had Albertine lived! That is the refrain. Not exactly. Time Regained, as the final installment of Remembrance of Things Past is exactly that – a circling back to remembering people, places, and experiences long since past. It is a mediation on society, aging, relationships, art, beauty, and truth. Proust even goes back to the first moments with his mother detailed in the first volume, Swann’s Way. We all grow old and we all learn things along the way. I am not sure what message Proust is trying to make with the aging of his nameless protagonist. He never really learns anything profound except that relationships are precious. Gilberte and Albertine are two women he never should have taken for granted.

Author fact: Since this is the final time I will be talking about Proust, let’s recap everything I said about him. I said he was compared to James Joyce but that Flaubert was one of his biggest influences. I gave you his full name and explained that he was a recluse. The term romans-fleuves was coined to describe his novels and that he spent a year in the army. He was also an essayist and a literary critic. The end.

Translator fact: Proust’s long-time translator, C. K. Scott Moncrieff past away before he could work on Time Regained. Stephen Hudson was able to make a translator’s dedication to the memory of Moncrieff, saying he was a friend and an incomparable translator. That touched me.

Book trivia: as the final book in the Remembrance of Things Past series, the eighth part was originally published in 1927.
Book trivia II: I was very happy to return to the Chatto & Windus series just so I could enjoy Philippe Jullian’s illustrations. “Berma” is really special, but so is “Madame Verdurin.”
Book trivia III: Time Regained was made into a movie in 2000. Nope. Haven’t seen it.

Nancy said: for the last time, the only thing Pearl said about the entire Remembrance of Things Past is that the term romans-fleuve first came about to describe Proust’s work.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Romans-Fleuves” (p 208).