Tag: war

“Hospital”

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Shapiro, Karl. “Hospital.” Poems 1940 – 1953. New York: Random House, 1953.

Maybe it’s because I have been watching HBO’s miniseries, “The Pacific.” Whatever the reason I have become more in tune with World War II literature. Both fiction and nonfiction. Written about vets. Written by vets. When I first picked up Karl Shapiro’s Poems 1940 – 1953 I had a feeling these poems would center around war, specifically World War II and the Pacific Theater. I wasn’t that far off. For the Book Lust Challenge I had to read “Hospital.” Scanning the table of contents I passed poetry with such titles as “Elegy for a Dead Soldier”, “The Gun”, Homecoming”, “V-Letter”, and “Troop Train” so it didn’t surprise me that “Hospital” had a wounded military feel to it. After a little more research I discovered that yes, Shapiro did serve in World War II, specifically in the Pacific.

There is nothing obvious in “Hospital” that screams war, and yet there is a frantic need to answer the questions of death. Where does one go after life has ended? Who deserves to die? And what is to become of the soul? Pain is addressed early. Nurses controlling and caring.

Favorite line, “These reached to heaven and inclined their heads
While starchy angels reached them into beds…” (p 78).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter, “Good Things Come in Small Packages” (p 103). Here’s the funny thing – Shapiro’s poem, “Hospital” is only mentioned to explain the title of the small package: Fabulous Small Jews by Joseph Epstein (which I will read in May).

March ’10 was…

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When I sat down to first write “March ’10 was…” I suddenly became exhausted by the very idea of it. Not sure why. Could it be that 300+ books later and I am finally losing steam? Am I becoming weary of the process? I wasn’t not sure. This recap was designed to keep myself accountable to the “Fill-in-the-blank Is…” post. Something to check back in with, designed to ask myself, “How does what I really read by the end of the month compare to what I set out to accomplish at the beginning of the month?” Truth be known, it has been fun to see how far off the map my reading has taken me. Titles that were so far off my radar are a joy to remember at month’s end. So, in answer to my own questions – no I don’t think I’m burnt out, losing steam, becoming weary of the process. I think I needed to put it back into perspective…kind of like hiking up that bra strap that has slipped out of place…

  • Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban ~ turtles and strange relationships. What’s not to love?
  • Goodnight, Nebraska by Tom McNeal ~ this should have been a movie
  • Jennifer Government by ~ this will be a movie, I swear
  • Making of a Quagmire by David Halberstam ~ one reporter’s take on the political firestorm and other events that led up to the Vietnam war and beyond…
  • An Armful of Warm Girl by William M. Spackman~this was so bizarre…
  • King Lear by William Shakespeare ~ classic.
  • The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings ~ in honor of Florida becoming a state in the month of March

Here’s something really cool. I started reading Affliction by Russell Banks because it was on my March list (Russell Banks’s birth month) but it’s also on my April list. That means I can continue reading  Affliction in April…That doesn’t happen that often.

For LibraryThing and the Early Review Program I was able to finish two books:

  • No Instructions Needed: An American Boyhood in the 1950s by Robert Hewitt, and
  • The Man From Saigon by Marti Leimbach.

Just a note on The Man From Saigon ~ It was very interesting to read this at the same time as reading a nonfiction about the same topic.

March was also a month of healing, getting sick again, seeing good, good drums, the weather getting warmer…and lots of training walks!

Making of a Quagmire

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Halberstam, David. The Making of a Quagmire. New York: Random House, 1964.

The only way American citizens were in touch with the Vietnam War, at all, was through the eyes of reporters. They were responsible for bringing the fighting as well as the politics of South Vietnam into the forefront of public awareness. They were credited for keeping the public more informed than in the dark. It has been said that not many could cite what we were fighting for “in the jungle.” Not many more could find Vietnam on a map. Yet, with the publishing of the Making of a Quagmire David Halberstam sets up to explain just how involved the U.S. was before the conflict erupted. In a comprehensive manner he explains our country’s commitment to the political struggle in South Vietnam. Despite pressure on all political sides Halberstam never compromised his view of the crisis. He refused to publish propaganda to support either side. The Making of a Quagmire is simply unflinching and honest.

Most interesting quote: “In many areas the war had come to a virtual halt because vital units were practicing for the parade” (p 45). I find this interesting because Halberstam goes on to say, “It seemed unbelievable, but it was true; the public was not to be allowed to watch the ceremonies” (p 46).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter simply called, “Vietnam” (p 238). Also in More Book Lust in the chapter called, “David Halberstam: Too Good To Miss” (p 112). Interestingly enough in both chapters Nancy Pearl gives Halberstam’s book the complete title of  The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam During the Kennedy Era yet nowhere on my copy of  Making of a Quagmire is that subtitle printed.

Man From Saigon

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Leimbach, Marti. The Man From Saigon. New York: Doubleday, 2010.

This was an interesting read for me due, in part, to the fact I was reading The Making of a Quagmire by David Halberstam at the same time. Leimbach’s descriptions of Vietnam mirrored Halberstam’s almost perfectly. The rainy, muggy climate, the poverty stricken communities, the brash (trying-to-be-brave) military presence, but above all, the reporters trying to capture the atrocities of politics and war while remaining mentally sound and physically safe. Of course, Leimbach’s story is a bit less intense with the addition of an adulterous romance threaded through the bomb blasts and sniper attacks. Susan Gifford is a green reporter trying her hand at covering the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. When she is taken captive by the Vietnam Communists, the Vietcong, along with her photographer, Hoang Van Son, the plot thickens. Susan is suddenly confronted with a profound and deep relationship that was originally a professional partnership forged out of necessity.

There are, of course, a few lines that became my favorite. The one I hope makes it into the final copy is “It was a feeling of being trapped and desperate, of having been cornered by her own mistakes” (p 6). Been there. Done that.

March ’10 is…

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March is a small stash of books. Small because I want to get back on the training schedule…with a vengeance.

  • Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban is actually a leftover from February. It was one that I was really looking forward to reading so I’m adding it to March
  • Goodnight, Nebraska by Tom McNeal ~ in honor of Nebraska becoming a state in March
  • Jennifer Government by Max Barry ~ in honor of March being Max Barry’s birth month
  • Making of a Quagmire by David Halberstam ~ in honor of March being the month the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam

If there is time I will tackle:

  • Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte ~ in honor of national literature month
  • Armful of Warm Girl by W.M. Spackman ~ in honor of… and this is a stretch…Oscar Month. Here’s the thought process: March is Oscar month which translates into giving award for the best something-er-rather. Nancy Pearl gave Armful of Warm Girl the award for best title. Told you it was a stretch…

For LibraryThing and the Early Review program I promise, promise, promise I will finish No Instructions Needed: an American Boyhood in the 1950s by Robert G. Hewitt.

March is also a concerted effort to get back to training, a little bit of music and hopefully, a whole bunch of fund raising…

November 09 was…

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November was a very up and down, all over the place month. I started the month of November by worrying about breast exams and pap smears and ended it stressing about unanswered tests. I started the month worrying about Thanksgiving and ended it by wishing time with family would never end. In between I gave up my sirsy plate, rewrote an entire assessment plan, made a new friend, walked away from heartache, closed the door on an old chapter, and discovered a guilty pleasure. Speaking of guilty pleasures. For books it was:

  • Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling ~ childrens book. I read the stories about the alphabet and the first letter. Very cute.
  • Dingley Falls by Michael Malone ~ 560 pages of sexy, funny, soap-opera-like, over the top fun!
  • An Invitation to Indian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey ~ a great reference tool for those who like Indian cuisine (yum!)
  • Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill – Visions of Glory 1874 – 1932 by William Manchester ~ 900+ page biography on part of Winston Churchill’s life.
  • The Plague by Albert Camus ~ in honor of Camus’s birth month (& a reread).
  • Last Best Place: a Montana Anthology edited by William Kittredge and Annick Smith ~ just exactly what it sounds like, an anthology about Montana.

For the fun of it I banged out Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink in one night, thanks to a Phish show. If Kipling’s book is for children I would call Brink’s book for grade schoolers…

For LibraryThing & the Early Review program I finished Ostrich Feathers by Miriam Romm. There was a lot of heart and soul poured into the writing of this book! I also read and reviewed Penelope Holt’s The Apple. While both Early Review books covered the Holocaust (one nonfiction, one fiction) their styles were incredibly different. I found The Apple to be more soul-piercing, if that makes sense.

Note: Barbara Kingsolver came out with a new book on November 3rd. It has been torture not to run out and buy a copy for myself!

The Apple

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Holt, Penelope. The Apple. New York: York House Press, 2009.

Can I call this book righting a wrong? While it doesn’t go that far, I feel like it goes a long way to making a once-ugly story beautiful again.

The Apple is a love story based on “the Herman Rosenblat Holocaust Love Story.” If you don’t know anything about the Herman Rosenblat story The Apple is a sweet tale about how a young Jewish boy survives the Nazi concentration camps at Buchenwald. If you do know Rosenblat’s story The Apple becomes an explanation, a reasoning for the fabrication of a once-true (but not) romance during war; a story of love in hell. It give the lie a little more reason, if you will.

Rosenblat is a Holocaust survivor who claimed to have met his future wife during his imprisonment at Buchenwald. He was 15 and she was 9. He claimed she kept him alive by throwing an apple a day over the barbed wire fence, unbeknownst the to guards and other prisoners. Years later, supposedly reunited by a blind date, they fall in love and have been married ever since. Their story attracted the attention of the media and soon they were the darlings of the talk show circuit, including Oprah. Quickly, a book and movie deal were in the works. This amazing story needed to be told. Imagine everyone’s surprise when historians and holocaust survivors alike started crying foul. Details didn’t add up and soon Rosenblat was admitting he fabricated scenarios and embellished details. But, what of the wife? Surely she needed to corroborate the story in order to make it the romance of the century?

At times I found The Apple difficult to read. The subject matter is sobering, the details are intense. While it is considered a work of fiction, Hitler’s reign of terror really did happen. Concentration camps like Buchenwald and Treblinka existed as communities of torture and slavery. There is no denying the pain that Herman Rosenblat suffered and survived. Holt’s account of that time is raw and unflinching. Her writing is as strong as Rosenblat’s desire to bring a beautiful end to an otherwise painful history.

Ostrich Feathers

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Romm, Miriam. Ostrich Feathers. New York: Gefen Publishing House, 2009.

I had a hard time getting into this book. Maybe it’s from all the head-in-the-sand burying I did about the subject matter in the past.

I have always said reading translations were difficult for me. I cannot help but question situations and details and wonder if they haven’t been distorted by the translation. Miriam Romm’s slightly autobiographical story of the search for her biological father takes her back to Poland where she befriends an elderly man she secretly hopes is her real father. Their conversations and efforts to uncover the truth of the past are mechanical and false sounding. I blame this on the translation.  When Miriam laments that she is an orphan despite having a biological mother and sister I blame the translation for a loose interpretation of the word ‘orphan’. When Miriam contradicts herself about sources or when ages don’t add up I again, blame the translation. Chronological order is confusing as well.
But, probably the biggest obstacle I had to reading Ostrich Feathers was the lack of evidence her biological father even survived the Holocaust. It isn’t clear what detail led her to believe he hadn’t been murdered by the Nazis. What evidence did she have that would make her, an otherwise smart woman, cling to the improbability that this stranger was her father? It bothered me at the end when she suggests she used the old man to fuel a fantasy.
While Ostrich Feathers was written with obvious passion and intensity probably the best and most fascinating part of the story is Romm’s research abilities. The fact she was able to recover so much lost information and family history is really remarkable.

Confession: I was surprised “Carl” wasn’t included in the list of acknowledgements. Was he even a real person? Was his character created as a literary vehicle for telling the story?

September 09 was…

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September 2009 was…Back to school. I spent the first part of the month concentrating on hiring for the library and avoiding tragedy. Kisa and I took a much needed vacation – first to Fenway park (go Red Sox!) and then to Baltimore for a little getaway. September is the month I will always mourn my father, but now I add Mary Barney to the list of tears. As I have always said, everything bad happens in September. This year was no different. As you can tell, I buried myself in books.

The Escape was:

  • The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka ~ I had completely forgotten how disturbing this book was!
  • The Reivers by William Faulkner ~ a southern classic that almost had me beat.
  • A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby ~ funny tale about a first-time expedition
  • Out of the Blue: the Story of September 11, 2001 From Jihad to Ground Zero by Richard Bernstein and the staff of  The New York Times ~ an unsettling journalistic account of what really happened on 9/11/01.
  • The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough ~ a nonfiction about what happens when mother nature meets bad human design.
  • Off Balance: the Real World of Ballet by Suzanne Gordon ~ a nonfiction about the ugly side of dance.
  • Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler ~ magical book about three very broken people (in honor of real character month).
  • A Student of Weather by Elizabeth Hay ~ Hay’s first novel – one I couldn’t put down it was that good! This was on the September list as “the best time to visit Canada.”
  • Native Son by Richard Wright ~incredibly depressing. I’m almost sorry I read it this month.
  • The View From Pompey’s Head by Hamilton Basso ~ a last minute pick-me-up, read in honor of Basso’s birth month (but also doubled as a “southern” read).

For LibraryThing and the Early Review program: Day of the Assassins by Johnny O’Brien. Geared towards teenage boys, this was a fun, fast read.

For fun, I read a quick book called Women Who Run by Shanti Sosienski . Since our flight to Baltimore was only 40-some-odd minutes I didn’t want to bring a lengthy read. This was perfect.

Light That Failed

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Kipling, Rudyard. the Light That Failed. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1914.

I have to start off by saying seeing a swastika imprinted in this book gave me a start. This hated image got me thinking. What were Kipling’s political leanings? Was he actually a Nazi sympathizer? Even though the swastika in The Light That Failed was “backwards” or counter clockwise, I still questioned the meaning behind it. After doing a little research I discovered Kipling used the Indian symbol of good luck (typically paired with an elephant and a lotus flower – although my copy did not have either of these images). The Nazis adopted the swastika symbol for themselves in the 1920s, six years after my version of The Light That Failed was published.

This book was hard for me to get into, at first. The story didn’t roll off the pages as easily as other war-time novels. The Light that Failed follows the life of Richard Heldar, a soldier turned painter. The story begins with Dick as a child with his companion, Maisie, shooting a pistol by the ocean. This opening scene lays the foundation for the competitiveness they will share later in life. It also begins Dick’s never ending love for Maisie despite the fact they will have gone their separate ways by adulthood. Dick spends some time as a soldier in Sudan and makes some lifelong friends, but it’s after the war when he returns to London, England that the story really picks up. Dick comes home to be an artisit and to paint. His depictions of war become popular and his talent is exposed. Ironically, it is that same war that brought him fame that also brings his downfall.

Favorite lines, “Dick’s soul is in the bank. He’s working for cash” (p 64), and “I’m not going to belong to anybody except myself” (p 81).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter, “Balkan Specters” (p 31) although Bosnia is but a fraction of the plot.
ps~ Also, I should add – Because this book is out of copyright it’s available on the web.

Three Farmers

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Powers, Richard. Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance. New York: Beech Tree Books, 1985.

Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance centers around a clever theme: a photograph. It begins with a contemporary first person account from a man traveling across the country. Seeking to occupy his time during a five hour layover in Detroit he visits an art museum and discovers a photograph that hijacks his imagination. It is a 1914-1915 photograph of three men identically dressed, identically posed, walking down a muddy road. The story then moves to third person as the narrative crawls inside the photograph and relives the three brothers’s perspective on the brink of war. The final aspect of The Farmers is another contemporary story of a Boston based computer writer who finds the same photograph in his family heirlooms. While the story centers on a photograph, the central theme is technology and it’s contribution to World War I. Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance intertwines fiction with nonfiction, mixing real people and events to a fictional landscape.

Favorite line: “You ride a bicycle instead of an auto, and you tel lies for a living. I cannot think of a worse combination” (p 26).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter, “Richard Powers: Too Good to Miss” (p 192).

Quartered Safe Out Here

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Fraser, George MacDonald. Quartered Safe Out Here: a Recollection of the War in Burma. New York: Akadine Press, 2001. 

I was hoping to take this on my 60 mile cancer walk – thinking I would have quiet nights to read and recuperate. No such thing. I never opened a page. Instead, I took it home to Monhegan and on the second to last day got it read. Confession: no small feat because I found it dull, dull, dull.

Quartered Safe Out Here is George MacDonald Fraser’s “memoir” about being in Burma as a 19 year old soldier in World War II. While it’s a vivid and honest first hand account about being in the thick of battle, I found it slow moving and tiring. Fraser takes great pains to get every accent phonetically spelled out – so much so that the written page looks like a foreign language at times. But, it wasn’t the accents that I found the most tiresome. It was the fact that nearly every every other page contained a footnote containing a special explanation or definition. Fraser could have added another 50 pages if the footnotes were included in the body of the text. Probably the scene that held my attention the best was when Fraser was looking in bunkers for ‘Japs.’ His innocence to the danger is touching.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter ” Living Through War” (p 154).

May (2009) is…

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May is huge. Absolutely huge and positively late. So out of control! A 60 mile walk for Just ‘Cause has had me busy. The end of the school semester has had me frustrated. May also means time with my mom – which I simply cannot wait for. A retirement party for people I barely know. The pool opening. A birthday party with sushi and laughter. My kind of gig.

For books it is:

  • Off Keck Road By Mona Simpson ~ in honor of becoming a Wisconsin becoming a state.
  • Bordeauxby Soledad Puerolas ~ in honor of Cinco de Mayo
  • Rise of David Levinsky by Abraham Cahan ~ in honor of American Jewish heritage month
  • Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson ~ in honor of teen pregnancy month. Note: this book is not actually about a teen pregnancy but the book is recommended for teens. I’m stretching this one a little, I know!
  • The Victorians by A.N. Wilson ~ in honor of Queen Victoria
  • Where the Pavement Ends: One Woman’s Bicycle Trip Through Mongolia, China and Vietnam by Erika Warmbrunn ~ in honor of National Bicycle Month
  • Quarter Safe Out Here by George MacDonald Fraser~ in honor of Memorial Day.

There is also a LibraryThing Early Review book. Forgive me if I can’t plug the name right now.

Flashman

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Fraser, George MacDonald. Flashman. New York: Harper Collins, 1993.

This is one of those giggly books. The main character is so awful you can’t help but laugh at him and dare I say, even like him a little for his brazen attitude. The premise is Flashman is the first installment of the “Flashman Papers 1839-1842” a sort of journal of Harry Flashman’s. Readers get a taste of Harry’s storytelling from the very start: British boy Harry Flashman manages to get himself drunk, expelled from school and into his father’s mistress’s bed in less than the first dozen pages. What first appears as a punishment for another indiscretionary roll in the hay ultimately becomes Harry’s greatest triumph. He is sent to be a secret agent in Afghanistan and manages to emerge a brave hero after the Retreat from Kabul. Harry is so shameless he basks in the honor despite the fact his cowardice is the only thing that saved him. But, his story is told with such honest sarcasm you can’t help but enjoy his villainy.

Two of Harry’s lesser laughed at traits are his womanizing and his racial comments. One has to keep in mind the Victorian era in which these events take place. Women and minorities are not seen as equals on any level.

Typical Flashy moment: “She stood glaring at me. Her bosom was what the lady novelists call agitated, but if they had seen Judy agitated in a negligee they would think of some other way of describing feminine distress: (p 29).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter, “George MacDonald Fraser: Too Good To Miss” (p 94).

April 2009 was…

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I can’t believe how fast the time is flying by. Unbelievable. April flew by me on very windy wings. Thanks to a mini mental health holiday I was able to get through some pretty good books:

  • Astonishing Splashes of Colour by Clare Morrall ~ this was fascinating. I definitely want to read more of Morrall’s work.
  • An Omelette and a Glass of Wine by Elizabeth David ~ witty, and global. This made me hungry for really well designed food.
  • The Punch: by John Feinstein ~ The book that got me obsessed with December 9th, 1977.
  • The Noblest Roman by David Halberstam ~ prohibition, prostitution and politics, southern style.
  • The Jameses: a Family Narrative by R.W.B. Lewis ~ I now know more about Henry James and his ancestors than I ever thought possible and I didn’t even finish the book.
  • Flashman by George Fraser MacDonald ~ the first in the Flashman series. Strange.
  • Ancestral Truths by Sara Maitland ~ really intense book!
  • The Apple That Astonished Pairs by Billy Collins ~ a book of fascinating poetry.

In honor of National Poetry month it was:

  • “Table Talk” by Wallace Stevens
  • “Tract” by William Carlos Williams
  • “I Go Back” by Sharon Olds
  • “Colette” by Edwin
  • “Church Going” and “I Remember, I Remember” by Philip Larkin
  • “Why Do So Few Blacks Study Creative Writing” by Cornelius Eady

For the Early Review program:

  • Fatal Light by Richard Currey. This had me by the heart. It’s the 20th anniversary of its publication and just as relevant today as it was back then. It’s fiction but not. If you know what I mean. I think that it’s important to note that I was supposed to get a February pick but because I moved it got lost in the shuffle (translation: I didn’t get the forwarding thing set up in time and it went back to the publisher). Fatal Light is actually a March pick.