Tag: book lust ii

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.

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).

“At Marlborough House”

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Swift, Michael. “At Marlborough House.” The New Yorker June 18th, 1990: 40.

This poem is loaded with details; details easily visualized into a short story. There are little shockers peppered throughout the entire poem told from the point of view of a patient at Marlborough House. Imagine: it is early afternoon and the patients of a psychiatric hospital are languishing in their rooms awaiting nurses with medication. There are a host of characters besides the patients – Jake the gardener and Dr. Levitz, the man in charge, but it’s the speaker of the poem you want to know more about. You snatch details, more like hints, in the things he says. He is male, old enough to still have parents who visit. He likes to read, knows pop cultural references and has homosexual tendencies. He is smart and funny and sarcastic. You want to ignore his suicidal thoughts.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Poetry Pleasers” (p 188). Incidentally, Pearl called this poem “mysterious.”

Postscript ~ Every April I think the same thing. It is really unfair of Nancy Pearl to list poems she recommends for reading without proper citations. From what I can tell “At Marlborough House” was never published in a book. I found it tucked away in a 1990 New Yorker magazine. It might well have been the only place it was published. Here are the tags I would have used on LibraryThing: mental illness, hospital, first person, homosexuality, poetry, librarian, doctor, sex, paranoia, alcohol, suicidal, sarcastic”

Cosi Fan Tutti

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Dibdin, Michael. Cosi Fan Tutti. New York: Pantheon Books, 1996.

You know those books that are described as romps? This is one of those books. Not uproariously funny, but definitely entertaining through and through. Do I dare call this a murderous and mysterious comedy or a comedic murder mystery? To me, Cosi Fan Tutti is one and the same. It’s a twist on Mozart’s opera of the same name. Everything has been twisted – the plot, the characters, the outcome.

Aurelio Zen himself is a man of mystery. I found myself asking, “is this guy for real?” more than once. For starters, he works for the Ministry in Rome but asked for a transfer to Naples to avoid doing any real police work. In addition, in his private life he goes by the name Alfonso Zembla only because a deaf widow misheard his introduction at a party and he never bothered to correct her. He takes advantage of the alias because it’s fun. When this same widow asks Zen/Zembla to help dissuade her daughters from marrying beneath their status (to believed Mafia associates) he is more than happy to help…except his real job needs him. Several VIPs have gone missing and there is a havoc being wreaked by a couple of garbage truck crews. It only gets more bizarre from there.

Book Trivia: Cosi Fan Tutti isn’t a series per se, but Aurelio Zen is a reoccurring character. He’s considered an antihero. Makes sense.

Author Fact: Dibdin died in 2007 but one last ‘Zen’ book was published after his death in 2007. Interesting.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Ciao Italia” (p).

Cross Creek

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Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan. Cross Creek. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1942.

Cross Creek is an examination of place, first and foremost. The early pages remind me of conversations tourists have had with us Islanders; as natives who have stubbornly defended our “inconvenient” and “curious” ways of life. Cross Creek is a rural parse of Florida where alligator, snake and toad hunting is the norm. The bugs bite more than the snakes and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is in the thick of it all. Set in the early 1940s when racial inequality was at an all-time low Rawlings’s story is cringe inducing and belly splitting. Her employees are one step away from slaves and she views them as such. Poverty is a way of life in Cross Creek and yet Rawlings embraces it. Her humor outweighs the poor and the prejudice. If you need proof, read the chapter called “A Pig is Paid For” (p 97). How Rawlings blithely explains the pleasure of shooting her neighbor’s pig is funny.
Cross Creek is full of one-liners. Here are a few to illustrate what I mean. “Madness is only a variety of mental nonconformity and we are all individuals here” (p 2), “It is always bewildering to change one’s complete way of life” (p 18), and “I do not understand how any one can live without some small place of enchantment to turn to” (p 37). My favorite line comes after Rawlings conquers her fear or snakes, “I had done battle with a great fear, and the victory was mine” (p 174).

Author Fact: Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is a big deal to the people of northeast Florida. In 1983 Universal Pictures released a movie of her life. In 2007 her home at Cross Creek was declared National Historic Landmark (for $6 you can enter the national park named after her and have a guided tour of her house). In 2008 the United States Postal Services released a Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings commemorative stamp.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “100 Good Reads: Decade By Decade (1940s)” (p 177), and also in More Book Lust in the chapter called “Florida Fiction” (p 89), which is misleading because Pearl is including Rawlings in the chapter because of The Yearling, which is fiction and mentions Cross Creek which is not.

Bold Vegetarian

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Kirchner, Bharti. The Bold Vegetarian: 150 Inspired International Recipes. New York: HarperPerennial, 1995.

A cookbook chock full of information beyond ho hum vegetarian recipes. Eggplant is listed in the index but you won’t find a recipe for Eggplant Parmesan. Special recognition must be made to the word “international” in the subtitle because The Bold Vegetarian takes you on a culinary adventure around the world. Oh, the places you will go! In no particular order:

  • China
  • Spain
  • Italy
  • India (this is a given because Kirchner is a renowned author of Indian cookbooks).
  • Korea
  • France
  • Japan
  • Caribbean
  • Africa
  • Thailand
  • Greece
  • Middle East
  • Germany
  • Mexico
  • United States, and because food is subject to the literal and cultural melting pot,
  • International (in other words, who knows where it originated!)

In addition to great recipes that sound different and exciting, Kirchner adds serving suggestions to create entire menus. She offers variations to make a dish vegan instead of vegetarian. She includes anecdotes, illustrations, and trivia to spice up the pages (pun intended). There are even a few notes for the Grow It At Home gardener. All recipes are simple to follow. Cooking directions are aided by a glossary of terms (just in case someone doesn’t know how to blanch, grill or simmer) and a “pantry” list although the term pantry is misleading because I would never consider storing ghee or feta in a traditional pantry. To say these are ingredients to have on hand would be a better way to phrase it. One other small detractor – no nutritional information. In this health-aware age knowing what you eat is all the rage, especially when it comes to foreign foods made from scratch.

Meals I am most looking forward to making:

  • Curry Gyozas (p 38),
  • Chipotle Chickpeas (p 150),
  • Plum Kuchen (p 254)

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Fiction for Foodies” (p 88). Even though this is a straight up cookbook Pearl mentioned it because the author, Bharti Kirchner, also wrote a fiction called Pastries: a Novel of Desserts and Discoveries (to be read later).

Jane Eyre

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Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. New York: Signet Classic, 1982.

Who hasn’t read Jane Eyre? Who hasn’t fallen in love with plucky, adventurous, moral, Jane? It’s a story everyone knows. When we first meet Jane she is ten years old and living with her deceased uncle’s family. She is despised by her aunt and cousins and considered lower than a servant (at least a servant earns her wages). As a result of Janes’s disharmonious and sometimes violent relationship with the Reed family Jane is sent away to a boarding school. From there Jane is trained as a governess and sent to the employ of Mr. Rochester. Because this is a romance it is obvious Jane and Mr. Rochester will fall deeply in love. Because this is a classic romance it is obvious there will be conflict. The conflict is Mr. Rochester is already married to a mentally ill and violent woman he keeps locked in an attic. Ever virtuous Jane leaves Mr. Rochester until telepathy steps in and Jane feels the need to rush back to Mr. Rochester. She arrives in time to see that Bertha has set the Thornfield mansion on fire and committed suicide. Mr. Rochester is blinded and loses a hand in the blaze. Jane promises to never leave Mr. Rochester again. Their love is triumphant and they live happily ever after. Of course, this is the much-condensed version!
The story of Jane Eyre has been widely criticized for its unrealistic episodes of ghosts and moments of 6th sense. Critics find it unbelievable that Jane is able to travel from one place to another as quickly and as efficiently as she does and it is downright miraculous that she finds a cousin who coincidentally has family wealth to bestow on her. Despite these criticisms Jane Eyre remains a lasting favorite. Obviously, there is a fan base willing to see the value of the suspension of belief.

Author Fact: Charlotte Bronte was one of six children born in the Bronte family. She tried her hand at being a governess (for ten years) before giving it up to write. She died at age 39 in pregnancy. Bummer.

Book Trivia: Jane Eyre has been transformed into movies, plays, operas, symphonies, ballets, and operas no less than 35 times. It has inspired countless retellings, spin-offs and songs. Its popularity resonates with young and old, men and women making it one of the best-loved classics ever.

BookLust Twist: Jane is very popular with Ms. Pearl. It is mentioned four different times between Book Lust and More Book Lust.. From Book Lust it is mentioned in the chapter called “Companion Reads” (p 64). I was to read Jane with Wide Sargasso Sea (of course) by Jean Rhys and The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. Also in the chapter called “Romance Novels: “Our Love is Here To Stay” (p 204). From More Book Lust in two different chapters. First, in the chapter called “Brontes Forever” (p 34) and then again in the chapter called “Fractured Fairy Tales” (p 94).

Big Year

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Obmascik, Mark. Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession. New York: Free Press, 2004.

Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a birder when he or she can see, and be distracted by, the outside world? I have and in my experience it’s a lot like having a conversation with a new mother when she has one eye (and her full attention) on her runaway, get-into-everything toddler. It’s nearly impossible. Here’s an example – I was hiking with such a friend, a big time birder. He was explaining and detailing renovations on his house when all of a sudden he stopped in mid-sentence to listen to something my ears could not detect. Impulsively, he grabbed my arm and his eyes bugged out. “Did you hear that? That was a yellow-billed something-er-rather! Female!” Up whipped his binoculars while I stood there unsure of what I was missing out on. Awhile later he stopped again to whistle, listen intently, whistle again and smile, obviously forgetting he was interrupting himself. Again. To me it was like listening for a snowflake to land.
Even strangers try to rub their enthusiasm for all things feathered on our uninterested minds. My husband and I were hiking along the rocky coast of Monhegan. It was the day after a terrific storm had blown away so the waves were breathtaking. We met a pair of birders on the trail and paused to let them pass when suddenly a particularly large wave crashed upon the rocks behind them. The sound was thunderous and both Kisa and I gasped. “What?! what did you see?!” the birders eagerly asked scanning the tree lines, “did you spot a black-legged kittiwake? A great-tailed grackle?” Errrr, no. When we explained it was a rogue wave capable of dragging a tank out to sea the birders just stared at us. Luckily, they were soon distracted by the mating call of some brown spotted something-er-rather and we went on our way. This line from the introduction of Big Year illustrates this obsession perfectly, “There even were twitters about a new species of grouse…having sex in the sagebrush somewhere in the Utah high country” (p xi). Exactly.

Mark Obmascik likes birds, but he likes birders even better. In Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession Obmascik chronicles a year of birding with several different hardcore birders and their quest for “the big year.” The Big Year, as explained by Obmascik, is a birder’s attempt to chronicle as many birds as possible within a solitary calendar year. There are many different strategies for obtaining the biggest “birds seen” list and competitors will stop at nothing to hone their strategies while sabotaging those of others. It’s cutthroat, surprisingly so. All for the sake of something so small. Competing birders will spend thousands of dollars, millions of minutes, and countless miles to trek across North America looking for elusive, rare, and unusual birds. To see one is an accomplishment, but to photograph one is triumph. To be known as the biggest list is the best of all. Obmascik delivers humor and respect when sharing these birding tales. You will never look at a common sparrow the same way again.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Living Your Dream” (p 157).

Night Soldiers

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Furst, Alan. Night Soldiers. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988

I have to admit this took me a little time to get into. The story starts off in 1934 with a violent bang. Khristo Stoianev is a Bulgarian teenager who witnesses the brutal beating and subsequent killing of his younger brother, Nikko. Nikko, only 15 years old, was used as an example of a growing power. Using this tragedy as a vehicle for change, Khristo is drawn into the NKVD, the Soviet intelligence service. From there he is sent to serve in the Spanish Civil war (although it is curious to note during his training he was taught English and French, not Spanish). Meanwhile,the political arena is heating up. Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia are arm wrestling over real estate in Eastern Europe. Stalin is starting to purge the undesirables and this is to include Khristo so he flees to France.
Furst paints a stunning picture of eleven years of Eastern European history complete with French underground guerrilla operations, lavish love affairs, the never ending quest for power and multidimensional aspects of war.

Most telling line, “But these were political times, and it was very important to think before you spoke. Nikko Stoianev spoke without thinking, and so he died” (p 3).
Favorite line, “The nasty scene at the Finnish embassy refused to leave his mind, and he and Andres had decided to drawn their war in a bottle of Spanish gin” (p 161).

Author fact: Alan Furst was born on February 20th, 1941. He has an ongoing love affair with Paris.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called  “World War II Fiction” (p 253) even though WWII isn’t the focal point of the the story.

Carry Me Home

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McWhorter, Diane. Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: the Climatic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.

There is no doubt Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution is testimony to McWhorter’s nineteen year mission. Her conviction to expose the truth is on every page. What makes Carry Me Home so compelling in the unflinching examination of McWhorter’s own family’s beliefs and involvements in the tumultuous time of civil unrest. Interjecting personal biography give the book a unique drama. The detail with which McWhorter writes allows readers to not just walk in the footsteps of history but experience as if they are walking side by side in real time.

Interesting lines: “One did not need to know what was wrong in order to know something was wrong” (p 27), and “Over the two decades of solitary toil, my driving aim had been to “solve” the church bombing, to bring the murderers if not to justice then at least to truth” (p 589).

I have to point out that a friend didn’t like the title of this book. He felt that the use of the word “climatic” was incorrect. Climatic for the era, maybe, but certainly not climatic for all time.

Book Trivia: Carry Me Home was compared to Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch by author David Herbert Donald, and by writers for the Boston Globe and The Nation. Also, Carry Me Home won a Pulitzer.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Civil Rights and Wrongs” (p 49).

Flaubert’s Parrot

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Barnes, Julian. Flaubert’s Parrot. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.

I chose Flaubert’s Parrot in honor of February being Bird Feeding Month but really, Flaubert’s Parrot doesn’t have a whole lot to do with parrots, per se. Goeffrey Braithwait is a retired doctor looking to solve a mystery. Two different museums claim to have Flaubert’s muse, a stuffed parrot that sat on Flaubert’s desk while he wrote ‘Un Coeur simple.’ Dr. Braithwait calls himself an amateur scholar of Flaubert and yet he knows the smallest of details about the writer’s life which indicate a growing obsession. While the mystery of the two parrots is the token premise of the tale it takes on much more than that. First, it is revealed Dr. Braithwait would like to be an author. He wonders what it would be like to publish. This is a theme that runs concurrent with the search for the correct parrot. In time Dr. Braithwait’s wife suicide is revealed. He searches for meaning to her demise. There are multiple personalities of writing styles at play in the telling of Flaubert’s Parrot. First, an most obviously, is the fictional/factual biography of Flaubert. Then there is a “Dear Diary” approach to a literacy criticism of Flaubert’s work. The writing is sparse and humorous.

Flaubert’s Parrot had a few zingers that I liked: “Why does the writing make us chase the writer?” (p 12), I warned him of the dangerous tendency in this species to posthumously parthenogenesis” (p 22), and “Some people have a tender heart and a tough mind” (p 34).

Author Fact: Julian Barnes has a FaceBook page. Of course he does.

Book Trivia: Flaubert’s Parrot had two Booker Prize nominations.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Parrots” (p 183). Go figure.

King of the World

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Remnick, David. King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero. New York: Random House, 1998.

I realize David Remnick needed to set the scene, to establish the boxing backdrop in order for Cassius Clay’s story to be fully appreciated, but in my opinion three whole chapters equaling 68 pages was too much pre-story information. There was too much detail about the Floyd Patterson/Sonny Liston rivalry. To be fair, the long introduction established the dangerous culture of the mafia-driven boxing world before Cassius Clay entered it and how lucky he was to escape it. It clearly illustrated the mold Cassius Clay was about to break while simultaneously solidifying Liston and Clay’s animosity towards one another. I just wish it didn’t take three chapters to do it.

I think the entire story of Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali can be summed up by one sentence late in the prologue, “He hit people for a living, and yet by middle age he would be a symbol not merely of courage, but of love, of decency, even a kind of wisdom” (p xvi). It is true Ali started out as a loud-mouthed, egotistical, “pretty” kid who could back up his bravado with a mean left hook. He hid his emotions under constant chatter. But, by the time the heart of Remnick’s biography leaves the story of Cassius Clay, Clay had barely become Muhammad Ali, had just beaten Sonny Liston in a November 22, 1965 fight to defend his heavyweight title, and was on the cusp of being a cultural icon. He had yet to sway the country as a force to be reckoned with. He would not become the beloved everyone thinks of today. It’s as if Remnick needs to write a King of the World: Part II and tell the rest of the story.

Line I liked: “The doctors of Maine may have been accustomed to a relatively low level of fitness” (p 250).

One of the coolest things about King of the World was learning that Ali trained in Chicopee Falls, MA and that his second bout with Liston happened in Lewiston, Maine. I had fun researching the Schine family and the different hotels they owned (including one in Northampton that is still in operation today). An inside joke – Robert Goulet sang the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ before the Ali/Liston fight. He couldn’t remember the words nor could he hear the orchestra! Glouleeeet!

Author Fact: David Remnick is a member of the New York Public Library Board of Trustees. He was born in Hackensack, New Jersey (one of my old stomping grounds), is fluent in Russian and has won a Pulitzer Prize,

Book Trivia: One of the best things about King of the World is the photo layout. Instead of having the traditional group of photographs clumped in the middle of the book Remnick’s photos are spread throughout the book, making each section a little present.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Dewey Deconstruction: 700s” (p 74).

Cruddy

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Barry, Lynda. Cruddy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999.

From the very first pages you want to know what this Cruddy book is all about. First, you are introduced to sixteen year old Roberta Rohbeson via her bizarre suicide note. Then, hoping to shed some light on the situation, you read chapter one which is only seven sentences long which says nothing about anything. Then you encounter chapter two and read the word “Cruddy” nineteen times in the first paragraph. Funky, funky, funky was all I could say. I was not prepared for what happened next. Little did I know I would end up saying sick, sick, sick by the end of the book.

Cruddy is told from the perspective of Roberta Rohbeson at two different times in her life; as an eleven year old troubled little girl and as a sixteen year old angry teenager. Her story is tough and tragic and tinged with terrible humor. As an eleven year old she is thrust into the raging, alcohol-blurred world of her father who refuses to see her as his daughter. Instead, Roberta is not only his son, called Clyde, but his accomplice. When he discovers her in the backseat of his getaway car he takes her on a murderous journey across the desert fueled by hatred for his suicide-dead father who left him nothing.
As a sixteen year old Roberta is strung out on drugs and driven by abandonment. She befriends a group of outcast suicidal drug dealers who do nothing but fuel her craziness. One boy in particular, Turtle, gets Roberta to tell her sad tale.

This was a book I found myself wondering about long after I put it down. Was Roberta modeled after anyone Lynda knew? Where did she come up with such a violent, messed up plot? What was the acceptable age range for this book? Would parents cringe if they knew their kid was reading this under the covers late at night?

Lines that got me: Roberta’s father’s motto: “Expect the Unexpected and whenever possible BE the Unexpected!” (p 142), “He was explaining how perfect it would be because he could kill me right in the concrete ditch itself and when the water came it would gush me and all the evidence away” (p 163), and my personal favorite, “There is a certain spreading blankness that covers the mind after you kill someone” (p 273).

Author Fact: Lynda Barry was born on January 2nd, 1956 and is a cartoonist (among many other things).

Book Trivia: This was called a novel in illustration but only the start of each chapter has an illustration (creepy illustration).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lustand More Book Lust . From Book Lust in the chapter called “Graphic Novels” (p 104), even though Cruddy isn’t a graphic novel. Also in More Book Lust in the chapter called “Teenage Times” (p 217). What Pearl should have called the category for this book was “Fukced up Teenage Times.”
Book Lust trivia – Lynda Barry and Cruddy were not mentioned in the index to Book Lust. In fact, only One! Hundred! Demons! made it into Book Lust’s index.

Breath, Eyes, Memory

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Danticat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1994.

Breath, Eyes, Memory is the  type of story that sucks you in deep. Like tar pit, quicksand deep. From the moment I started reading I didn’t want to put it down. It was the first book I picked up in the morning and the last book I put down at night for three days straight. I stood in line at the grocery store, pumping gas, and waiting in my doctor’s waiting room with Breath, Eyes, Memory in hand.
Edwidge Danticat does an amazing job blending the culture of Haiti with the culture of family with the dynamics of women intertwined. Breath, Eyes, Memory is the story of four generations of Haitian women. Sophie is at the center. As a new mother she is learning from her mother, grandmother and aunt what it means to be protective and watchful of her young daughter while daring to shrug off disturbing traditions that haunt all the women in her family. This is not a story for the faint of heart. While the harsh realities of Haiti’s Tonton Macoute are barely mentioned they are the root of Sophie’s mother’s nightmares. There is murder, cancer, mental illness, bulemia, abuse and even suicide to contend with within the pages of Breath, Eyes, Memory. In the end there is a certain kind of peace that only comes from a letting go.

One of the harder details to discern was Sophie’s age throughout the story. The timeline is a little abstract. She starts out as 12 years old but the reader only learns that after she has turned 18 and says she had been away from Haiti for six years. From there it becomes a little hazy again. Sophie admits it has been two years since she had last seen her mother, but how old she was when she left isn’t entirely clear. By the end of the story one can assume Sophie is 21-22 years old.

Favorite lines: “If I had the power then to shrink myself and slip into the envelope, I would have done it” (p 50), “He looked like the kind o fman who could buy a girl a meal without asking for her bra in return” (p 68), “You do not have to name something to make it yours” (p 136), and probably the most poignant line in the whole entire book, “It was up to me to make sure that my daughter never slept with ghosts, never lived with nightmares, and never had her name burnt in the flames” (203). For what Sophie means by that you will just have to read the book!

Author Fact: Ms. Danticat was born in Port-au-Prince and my birthday is exactly thirteen days later than Ms. Danticat’s.

Book Trivia: Oprah chose Breath, Eyes, Memory for her book club. I wonder just how much that boosted book sales.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “The Contradictory Caribbean: Paradise and Pain” ( p 55).

Goodbye, Columbus

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Roth, Philip. “Goodbye, Columbus.” Novels and Stories. 1959 – 1962. Ed. Ross Miller. New York: The Library of America, 2005. 7 – 108.

Neil Klugman is a 23 year old man living with his self martyred aunt and uncle in Newark, New Jersey while his asthmatic parents convalesce in Arizona. “Goodbye, Columbus” is told from his point of view and could be seen as a Jewish American coming-of-age story about Neil’s summer romance with wealthy, snobbish Brenda Patimkins. It is closer to the truth to say “Goodbye, Columbus” is a commentary on class. Neil and Brenda’s socioeconomic differences create subtle tensions between the couple until they discover their relationship is built on lust rather than love. This is most apparent when Neil says, “Actually we did not have the feelings we said we had until we spoke them – at least I didn’t, to phrase them was to invent them and own them” (p 19). I have to admit it took me a while to figure out where the title of the story came from. Turns out, Brenda’s brother would listen to what Neil referred to as the “Columbus record” before bed – a recording of his Ohio State sports career. Neil could hear a moaning of the words, “Goodbye, Columbus” over and over again.

Favorite lines: “…it was disturbing to Aunt Gladys to think that anything she served might pass through a gullet, stomach, and bowel just for the pleasure of the trip” (p 9)., and “Ther proposed toasts…Brenda smiled at them with her eyeteeth and I brought up a cheery look from some fraudulent auricle of my heart” (p 88).

Author fact: Philip Roth is so popular that in Texas there is an organization called the Philip Roth Society and it for the scholarly study and general appreciation of Roth’s work.

Book Trivia: Goodbye Columbus was made into a movie starring Richard Benjamin and Ali MacGraw. I was stunned by how many different actresses turned down the role of Brenda before Ali came along. Yet again, another movie I haven’t seen.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in two different chapters. First, in the chapter called “Jersey Guys and Dolls” (p 130), then in the chapter called “You Can’t Judge a Book By Its Cover” (p 238). This last admission cracks me up because MY cover of “Goodbye, Columbus” is a photograph of Philip Roth’s face!