Tag: Fiction

May 2011 was…

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May was a month of deja vu. The Just Cause walk. Wanting to go home. Same old, same old. Nearly everything I read this month reminded me of something else I have already read. Out of Control by Suzanne Brockmann reminded me of The Defiant Hero by the same author was the most obvious because the plot and characters were very similar. Almost too similar. To Sir, With Love by E.R. Braithwaite reminded me of Educating Esme by Esme Raji Codell. They had similar plot lines: taking on a difficult classroom of students as a new teacher. Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham reminded me of Where the Pavement Ends by Erika Warmbrunn. Two stories about traveling through difficult, foreign terrain by bicycle.

So, here’s the list:

  • To Sir, With Love by E.R. Braithwaite ~ in honor of National Education Month. This was a really quick (but good) read. Read in one day.
  • Catfish and Mandala: a Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam by Andrew X. Pham ~ in honor of May’s Memorial Day. This was probably my favorite book on the list.
  • Out of Control by Suzanne Brockmann ~ in honor of Brockmann’s birth month. I have mixed feelings about this book (as my review pointed out). Read in one day.
  • A Child’s Life and Other Stories by Phoebe Gloeckner ~ in honor of May being Graphic Novel month. This was super hard to “read.” Read in one day.
  • Antigone the play by Sophocles ~ in honor of May being the best time to visit Greece. I keep forgetting this plot so it was good to read it again. Read in one day.
  • Fifth Chinese Daughter by Jade Snow Wong ~ in honor of Asian-American Heritage month. Read over a weekend. This was one of my favorites.
  • Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery ~ in honor of Eeyore’s birth month. This was an audio book and very different than everything else I have listened to so far.
  • Seabiscuit: an American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand ~ in honor of the Kentucky Derby.
  • The Dean’s List by Jon Hassler ~ in honor of Minnesota becoming a state in May. This reminded me a little too much of my own work place!
  • A Bintel Brief: Sixty Years of Letters From the Lower East Side to the Jewish Daily Forward edited by Isaac Metzker. Read in two days.
  • City of Light by Lauren Belfer ~ in honor of history month. Interesting story about Niagara Falls and the advancement of electricity at the turn of the century.
  • Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi ~ in honor of May being the best time to visit Iran. This was amazing. Can’t wait for part II. 
  • Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman ~ in honor of Prayer Day being the first Thursday in May. This was a fun murder mystery. Read in one car ride home.

I didn’t get to three books on my orginal list: China, To Me, House on the Lagoon, and, Art and Madness. I forgot to pack them and ended up finding Persepolis and Friday the Rabbi Slept Late at home.

May was also the month for crazy travel. I slept no more than two nights at a time in Bolton, Concord, Boston, Chicopee, Peaks Island, Rockland and Monhegan all in eleven days time. I took two boats, one bus and three different cars. Walked over 75 miles. Saw family. Saw friends. Breathed in the woods. Inhaled the ocean. I enjoyed every second of it.

Anne of the Island

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Montgomery, L.M. Anne of the Island.Performed by Barbara Caruso. Maryland: Recorded Books, LLC, 1996.

This was my third audio book. My first fiction in audio form. I have mixed feelings (as I always do) about listening to a book instead of reading it. As far as a walking companion, Anne of the Island wasn’t that bad.

Anne of the Island is the third “Anne Shirley” book by Lucy Maud Montgomery (L.M. for short). The first two books, Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea cover Anne Shirley’s childhood from ages 11-18 but Anne of the Island takes over when Anne leaves Avonlea for Redmond College in Novia Scotia. The title comes from Anne’s distinct connection to Prince Edward Island while away at the landlocked college. This leaving is a pivotal phase of Anne’s life and the title is supposed to reflect that. While at college Anne is making new friends, rediscovering her past (she lost both of her parents and was adopted by Miss Marilla as a baby), and has the unfortunate task of warding off many suitors asking for her hand (she has no less than four marriage proposals during her time at Redmond). It’s these proposals that I found frustrating. Anne is perfect in every way. She is beautiful, smart, funny, popular and oh, so romantic. When several different men propose to her the proposals are not how she pictured them to be. Each proposal is different but Anne considers the moment “ruined.” When her childhood friend, Gilbert Blythe, proposes I wanted to strangle Anne. She’s as innocent as the day is long about her feelings for Gilbert and tosses his proposal aside like a discarded toy. I wanted Gilbert to rebound and marry someone else just to spite Anne! Of course, their love for one another cannot be denied and, in the end, Anne chooses Gilbert.

My favorite characters in Anne of the Island are Phillipa Gordon and Davy Keith. Phillipa is a college classmate and roommate of Anne’s. I consider her the most realistic of all the characters. Davy is especially humorous with all of his questions (all ending in “I wanna know!”).

Book Trivia: Anne Shirley is so popular that there are websites and message boards dedicated to the character. While there are no film or theater adaptations specifically of Anne of the Island, Anne of Green Gables had plenty.

Author fact: Montgomery’s life mirrors Anne’s. Having lost her parents early in life she lived with grandparents and was often lonely.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Three-Hanky Reads” (p 237). The saddest scene in the whole book is when a childhood friend of Anne’s (Ruby Gillis) dies.

Dean’s List

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Hassler, Jon. The Dean’s List. New York: Ballantine Books, 1997.

One of the dangers I have with reading books based in academia is making comparisons to my own employment. The Dean’s List was no exception. Scarily so. Right down to the weird chick who pretends to be a professor…

Leland J. Edwards, Ph.D, Dean of Rookery State College and senior member of faculty is 58 years old. From the moment you meet Leland you get the sense he has never really experienced the world; never really grown up. Rookery State College runs in the family as his father chaired the History Department. He still lives with his 81 year old mother and caters to her every need as she has advanced lung disease. He is, in his own words, “excessively attached” to her. With his marriage failed, Leland pours himself into boosting Rookery’s flagging fund-raising efforts. In the hopes of bringing national exposure to the college he works to bring a renowned poet to the college for a reading. It is from this moment that Leland starts to stand up to his mother, quell the memory demons, and make peace with the problems of his past.

Favorite zingers (and there were a few): “We still had high academic standards in those days; near-illiterates had a hard time graduating” (p 2), “If all of his students had brains, who would Kahlstrom feel superior to?” (p 46), and “If I’m ever to become as enlightened as I’ve always secretly wished to be…” (p 150).

Author Fact: Hassler died in 2008 just ten days shy of his 75th birthday. He suffered from Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. It’s related to Parkinson’s. One of Hassler’s characters, Richard Falcon, suffers from Parkinson’s…Which made me wonder if Hassler was trying to disguise a little of himself in Falcon.
Another interesting fact – on Hassler’s website his final resting place is given, complete with plot location in the cemetery. I thought that was a great idea. Fans of Hassler can pay their respects anytime they want.

Confessional: I didn’t read Pearl’s description of Hassler’s work closely enough. If I had, I would have caught on that Rookery Blues should have been read before The Dean’s List. Oh well.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Big Ten Country: The Literary Midwest (Minnesota)” (p 28). This was read in honor of Minnesota becoming a state in the month of May but I easily could have read it in honor of college graduation month since this took place on a college campus.

Antigone

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Sophocles. Antigone. Translated by Elizabeth Wycoff. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954.

The Cliff/Spark version of Antigone is this: Two sisters want to bury their dead brother. One wants to bury him admirably and the other doesn’t want to break the law. The brother in question cannot be buried because he was executed for a crime and must be left to rot in the courtyard as an example for the community. Defiant sister must go against the king alone as everyone who is anybody refuses to help her. True to Greek tragedy nearly everyone, including the king’s wife ends up committing suicide. The end.

Of course there is much, much more to the story and, depending on which version you read, you get it. In my version of Antigone translated by Elizabeth Wyckoff the language is watered down and somewhat pedestrian. It’s not as lyrical as other translations. A small example: from a 1906 Oxford Clarendon Press version (translated by Robert Whitelaw): “Ismene: There’s trouble in thy looks, thy tidings tell” compared with the 1954 University of Chicago Press version (translated by Elizabeth Wycoff): “Ismene: What is it? Clearly some news has clouded you” (p 159). Ismene is basically saying the same thing in each line, but the Whitelaw version has more animation, more movement. In the end Antigone is a simple story about the man against The Man, no matter how you read it.

Note: I’m note sure how many other versions have this, but I appreciated the biography of Socrates in my version.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Alpha, Beta Gammas of Greece” (p 9).

A Child’s Life

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Gloeckner. Phoebe. A Child’s Life and Other Stories. Berkeley: Frog, ltd., 2000.

Nothing could have prepared me for Gloeckner’s A Child’s Life. I don’t know what I was expecting – maybe something along the lines of Robert Louis Stevenson or Kate Greenaway. Something really benign and cute, perhaps. I was prepared to be bored. but sweetly so.

Not so. To put it bluntly, A Child’s Life is a visual assault that needs to happen. When there are news reports of sexual abuse, rape, incest, drugs either on television or the radio we viewers are shielded from what that really means. We allow our imaginations to blunt the sharp edges of reality. We cringe, but we don’t go there with the truth. Gloeckner doesn’t allow for this numbing of truth. With Gloeckner you don’t have permission to soften this horrific reality. As a graphic novel the pictures tell the stories of an abused childhood better than any words in a novel. In a word, it was painful. When I finished I had words of my own; words like harsh, gritty, shocking, tragic yet truthful rang in my ears.

Author Fact: If you pick up the 1583940286 version of A Child’s Life you will find hints that this is semi-autobiographical. Gloeckner denies it.

Book Trivia: In addition to being called semi-autobiographical, A Child’s Life was also once called “a how-to for pedophiles.”

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Graphic Novels” (p 103).

Out of Control

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Brockmann, Suzanne. Out of Control. New York: Ivy Books, 2002.

Here is the quick and dirty plot: Couple #1: Savannah von Hopf needs Navy SEAL Ken “WildCard” Karmody to help her save her kidnapped uncle somewhere in Indonesia. Couple #2: In Jakarta, missionary Molly Anderson is inexplicably drawn to silent, brooding “David Jones” who reminds me a little too much of the famed Indiana Jones. Couple #3: Back at FBI headquarters Alyssa Locke is trying to walk away from ex-lover Sam Starrett while avoiding walking into the arms of her boss, Max Bhagat. All three relationships will come together when Savannah’s rescue attempt goes horribly wrong.

The best part of Out of Control was the clever placement of Double Agent, a book written by Savannah’s grandmother, Rose. It’s on the best seller list so even missionary Molly is reading it.

The worst part about Out of Control was the corny sexiness of it all. If the three couples weren’t having sex they were imagining it at the most unrealistic moments. A helicopter just blew up and there are no survivors. That sucks, but boy would I like to lick that hard chiseled body of yours…
My favorite eye rolling line: “And as for getting a strenuous workout, his heart was not the primary organ he wanted to exercise” (p 23).

Also, when I started reading Out of Control I had this weird sense of deja vu. Something sounded really familiar about not only the characters but the plot as well. As if I had read it before. So, I did a little digging and back in 2008 I reviewed an earlier book by Brockmann called The Defiant Hero. Here are the similarities between the two books:

  1. Both plots involve a kidnapping of some sort.
  2. Both plots involve Navy SEALS and by default, both plots involve the FBI
  3. Both plots include a grandmother
  4. Both plots have a terrorist element to them
  5. In both books all lead characters are impossibly good looking
  6. Both books involve three sets of couples in sexual turmoil
  7. The same characters are in each book

There is a philosophy about writing – write what you know. I’d like to think authors take that with a grain of salt. If my third Brockmann book has Navy SEALS, sexy bodies, kidnapping, terrorism and a random grandmother thrown in for good measure I’ve figured out her formula.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Romance Novels: Our Love is Here to Stay” (p 260).

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.

May 2011 is…

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THE LIST:

  • To Sir with Love by Edward Ricardo Braithwaite ~ in honor of National Teacher Day (May 3rd)
  • Out of Control by Suzanne Brockmann ~ in honor of Brockmann’s birth month
  • A Child’s Life and Other Stories by Phoebe Gloeckner ~ in honor of graphic novel month
  • Antigone the play by Sophocles ~ in honor of May being the best time to visit Greece.
  • Fifth Chinese Daughter by Jade Snow Wong ~ in honor Asian-American Heritage month
  • Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham ~ in honor of Memorial Day
  • Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery ~ in honor of Eeyore’s birth month (I’ll explain that connection within the review). I’m listening to this as a training book.
  • House on the Lagoon by Rosario Ferre ~ in honor of May 5th being Cinco de Mayo
  • City of Light ~ by Lauren Belfer ~ in honor of May being History Month

Lastly, for the Early Review program for LibraryThing – Art and Madness by Anne Roiphe.

I put so many books on my list because a) a few of them are really, really short so I know I can read I can read them in 1-2 days time and b) I don’t have plans to travel anywhere until May 20th so I should have more time to curl up with several good books, and c) AFTER the walk I have ten days of NOTHING to do. I am picturing myself on the back deck, a glass of wine in one hand and a good book in another.

Confession – Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham looked so good I started reading it on April 28th. Sue me.
May is also (finally) the Just ‘Cause walk. I am not confident I did everything to train (but then again, there is only so much walking one can do), and I know I didn’t fund raise as hard as I should/could have. I am $100 off from the amount I raised last year. I am guessing not asking aunts, uncles, cousins, (mother), grandparents….anyone from my mother’s side to donate played a big part. C’est la vie. Or, to quote mom, “whatever.”

April ’11 was…

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April was a gentle thaw in more ways than one. My grandfather finally passed away. I have to admit, the event was bittersweet. Saying goodbye was easier than I expected, if only because I knew, for him, life on this earth had ceased to be everything it could be. It was time. April was also the end of snow (although Maine still had giant piles of dirty, dripping snow in places). For books it was alot of really good stuff:

  • Flint’s Law by Paul Eddy ~ read in April to finish the series started last month (although there is a third Flint book that is NOT on the challenge list that I want to read…
  • “Two Tramps at Mud Time” by Robert Frost ~ in honor of April being poetry month and Monhegan’s mud season.
  • A Drinking Life: a Memoir by Peter Hamill ~ in honor of April being Alcohol Awareness Month. This was my first audio book for the BL Challenge and here’s the cool thing – I didn’t feel like I was cheating! Yay!
  • “The Exorcist of Notre-Dame” by David Kirby ~ in honor of Poetry month.
  • Alice Springs by Nikki Gemmell ~ in honor of Australia and April being the best time to visit. This was lyrical and brassy. Just the way I like ’em.
  • “The Bells are Ringing for Me and Chagall” by Terence Winch ~ in honor of poetry month. Sexy poem by the way!
  • Great Fortune: the Epic of Rockefeller Center by Daniel Okrent ~ in honor of April being Architecture Month. This was fun to read because it ended up being about more than a building.
  • “At Marlborough House” by Michael Swift ~ in honor of Poetry month.
  • Journey Beyond Selene: Remarkable Expeditions Past Our Moon and to the Ends of the Solar System by Jeffrey Kluger ~ in honor of April being the anniversary month of Apollo.
  • “Blue Garden” by Dean Young~ in honor of Poetry month.
  • Bear Went over the Mountain by William Kotzwinkle ~ in honor of April Fool’s Day and something silly.
  • “Goodbye, Place I Lived Nearly 23 Years” by Dean Young ~ in honor of Poetry month
  • “Skin of Our Teeth” a play by Thornton Wilder ~ in honor of April being National Brothers Month.
  • “By a Swimming Pool Outside Siracusa” by Billy Collins ~ in honor of Poetry month
  • “Dear Derrida” and “Strip Poker” by David Kirby ~ in honor of Poetry Month

For the Early Review Program (LibraryThing) it was The Good Daughter: a Memoir of My Mother’s Hidden Life by Jasmin Darznik.

“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).

“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).

“Goodbye, Place I Lived Nearly 23 Years…”

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Young, Dean. “Goodbye, Place I Lived Nearly 23 Years / Almost Everyone Left Before Me.” Skid. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002. pp 50-51.

Just the title of the poem alone had me scratching my head. Where was this place? This place someone lived for nearly 23 years? At first (logical) thought, childhood home. Many people do not venture from the nest immediately after turning 18. Later, after I read the poem more than once I thought commune. Definitely some sort of hazy, free-love commune where drugs and music are involved. Still later I wondered if I was trying too hard to decipher something that didn’t need such analysis. I mean, how can one respond to the line, “When I told Scoot my father died, he told me he was gay. A trade? Yes but no” (p 50 -51). There is no real flirty funny in this and yet I was amused all the same.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen-Sink Poetry” (p138).

Alice Springs

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Gemmell, Nikki. Alice Springs. New York: Viking, 1999.

If you have ever read The Bean Trees or Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver you might be reminded of Taylor Greer when you read Nikki Gemmell’s Alice Springs. There are definite similarities between Taylor Greer and Phillipa “Snip” Freeman, the heroine of Alice Springs. For starters, both characters are fiercely independent; both have a wanderer spirit and a devil-may-care attitude about what anyone thinks of them. Neither of them can commit to a love interest. But, Snip is older, and takes more risks with relationships and sex than Taylor does. Snip rules her world with her body. She is used to loving and leaving the men she meets.

It is after her grandmother’s death that we first meet Snip. She has been given an inheritance check with the three word  instruction “hunt him down.” Snip knows the him is her father and hunting him down will be the easy part, for he isn’t hiding. It’s the why that has Snip puzzled. What is she supposed to do once the hunted has been successfully hunted? To get to her father, Bud, Snip travels to the Aboriginal  outback. Along the way Snip takes a traveling companion who gets under her skin more than she expects.Then, a surprising thing happens. The longer Snip stays rooted in one place the more she is exposed to the powers of belonging somewhere.

Gemmell writes like the ocean. The words flow with rhythmic intensity, pounding with violence, soothing with consistency. The storyline is liquid and slippery; it washes over you again and again.

Favorite lines (and there were a few): “No-one gets under her skin like her mother does, no-one hits on half-truths like her” (p 70) and “Some kids vanish from their parents’ lives , to rattle them into noticing” (p 120).

Author Fact: Gemmell anonymously wrote the erotic book The Bride Stripped Bare but claimed it as her own right before publication.

Book Trivia: On Gemmell’s website Alice Springs is explained as a novel that was born not with character or plot in mind, but with a place. I like that imagery a lot. In Australia Alice Springs was published under the name Cleve.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Australian Fiction” (p 29). Simple enough.

“Blue Garden”

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Young, Dean. “Blue Garden.” Skid. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002. pp 18-19.

At first reading, “Blue Garden” seemed nothing more than an admonishment to the reader about what a poem should and shouldn’t be. Upon closer evaluation the interpretation falls away and the potential for something completely different is revealed. It all seems up to you. And yet. Yet, it comes back to words and seems to be about the words. What works for a word and what doesn’t. Imagery follows the lines like a movie, linked to the psyche. Powerful stuff. My favorite part was, “Never put an eclair in a suitcase or a poem” (p 19). It made me laugh and feel a certain sense of sadness all at once.What can’t you put an eclair into a poem, I’d like to know!

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen-Sink Poetry (p 139).

House of Blue Light

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Kirby, David. The House of Blue Light. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000.

It’s really hard to call this book a book of poetry. Each poem reads like a short story full of interesting characters and plots. In one 77 page book the reader is transported across countries and cultures. It has been said that House of Blue Light is autobiographical. For example Kirby’s characters mention a Barbara and Kirby is indeed married to a woman named Barbara Hamby. I do not know if she is the same Barbara of House of Blue Light’s poetry. Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. Regardless, Kirby’s poetry is funny, situationally (my word) real, and intensely soulful. In a word, substantial; this was poetry I could sink my teeth into and actually taste something.

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