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| 3.76
| 4,913
| 1992
| Sep 02, 2014
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really liked it
| I received a copy of Blanche on the Lam: A Blanche White Mystery through Netgalley, offered by Brash Books, in exchange for an honest review. [image] Bl I received a copy of Blanche on the Lam: A Blanche White Mystery through Netgalley, offered by Brash Books, in exchange for an honest review. [image] Blanche on the Lam, Barbary Neely, First Ed., St. Martin's Press, New York, New York, 1992 [image] Barbara Neely, Social Activist, and Author, born 1941, Lebanon, Pennsylvania Still hoping to find an employer willing to pay for a full service domestic instead of the bunch of so-called genteel Southern white women for whom she currently did day work. Most of them seemed to think she ought to be delighted to swab their toilets and trash cans for a pittance." Blanche White, a savvy and independent black woman finds herself in Farleigh, North Carolina, living with her mother and the two children she had promised her sister, Valerie, dying of breast cancer, she would raise and see to their well being. It's not an easy life. This is not the life Blanche had planned for herself. She never intended on marrying. Children weren't in the picture. A practical woman, she knew her services as a full time domestic were valuable. Up north, in New York, she had earned a good living. But that was before her sister died and she made a promise she was committed to keep. About Farleigh, North Carolina. I didn't find it on the North Carolina map. Perhaps Ms. Neely changed the location to protect the guilty. However, other North Carolina locations are bantered about without concern. For Neely's purposes, the name suffices, establishing Blanche the domestic, a resident of the South, whose importance is of little note to the white citizens of the community, authoritarian, social or otherwise. Farleigh was still a country town, for all its pretensions. The folks who lived here and had money, even the really wealthy ones, thought they were still living slavery days, when a black woman was greateful for the chance to work indoors. Even at the going rate in Farleigh she'd found no black people in town who could afford her--not that working for black people ensured good treatment, sad to say. Things really turn sour for Blanche when she's arrested on warrants for bad checks. Checks she wrote for groceries to support her niece and nephew, counting on her employers making good on her payday. However her employers decided to take a powder, uhm, vacation, to Topsail Beach, or some other likely vacation spot. Blanche ends up before a Judge who got up on the wrong side of the bed, mistakenly reads her record, and becomes indignant to find her before the Court a fourth time. Thirty days in jail, plus restitution. It crosses one's mind how anyone makes restitution while incarcerated. Blanche panics. Away from her children, yes, she's come to look on them as her own, for thirty days? The County's liable to come calling and her children will be in the State Foster Care system. At the first opportunity when a brouhaha breaks out in the courtroom, Blanche goes on the lam. That's when things get interesting. Blanche was scheduled to take a placement through an employment service. What better way to go into hiding working for wealthy white folks. And Blanche only thought she was in trouble. One Cranberry Way. A week long job. Time to figure out how to handle this check problem. Get a lawyer. That's what she should have done. The occupants of One Cranberry Way are the Carter family. Aunt Emmaline is the family matriarch. Who would have thought it? She parlayed a $50,000.00 inheritance from her late husband into a fortune in the stock market. Do we need a reminder that money is the root of many evils? Niece Grace's parents are dead. She's a likely heir upon Emmaline's death. She is married to Everett, a villain from the point of being introduced into the cast of characters. Grace is his second wife. His first was murdered. Having a cast iron alibi, Everett, reaps the benefit of wife One's legacy. But that money is gone. The other likely heir is Mumsfield, cousin to Grace. Mumsfield is the most sympathetic character in the novel. With a diagnosis of Mosaic Mongolism, Mumsfield functions quiet highly. Derided constantly by Everett, Mumsfield is drawn to Blanche who treats him kindly. Blanche intuitively recognizes that Everett and Grace mean to gain Aunt Emmaline's estate. If appointed Mumsfield's guardians, Emmaline's fortune is at their disposal. Blanche and Mumsfield share a kind of invisibility in the Carter household. A black domestic and an adolescent deemed incapable of understanding the manipulations of Aunt Emmaline going on underneath their noses are things that Everett and Grace are confident will not be unraveled before the money is safely in their hands. However, events take a turn toward violence. Everett and the Sheriff apparently are at odds of serious import to one another. Blanche overhears a sharp interchange between the two. The following morning, the radio news carries the story that the Sheriff committed suicide the previous night, driving his car over O'man's bluff. Old Nate, the long time Carter gardener, drops by the kitchen to talk to Blanche over a cup of coffee. "Hear about the Sheriff?" He asked her without a 'Hello' or 'How are you?' He didn't even wait for Blanche to answer. 'Shame, ain't it?' he added. But the huge grin that turned his face intho that of a much younger, more carefree man didn't match his words. It was probably events like the sheriff's death that got her slave ancestors a reputation for being happy, childlike, and able to grin in the face of the worst disaster. She could just see some old slaver trying to find a reason why the slaves did a jig when the overseer died. But Blanche knows there are things better ignored. It would be better to forget about the sheriff's visits, his conversations with Everett, and the limousine rolling silently down the drive that shouldn't be a problem. She had plenty of experience not seeing what went on in her customer's homes, like black eyes, specks of white powder left on silver backed mirrors, cufflinks with the wrong initials under the bed, and prescriptions for herpes. She was particularly good at not seeing anything that might be dangerous or illegal. But as good as she was at being blind, there were certain things she couldn't overlook. However, the sheriff is only the first to go. The body count increases. Will Blanche herself leave her job safely? And what about Mumsfield? Who's to take care of him. Or will she "be murdered over some white people's shit that didn't have a damned thing to do with him?" It would be easier to skip town and head to Boston, lose herself back up North. Send for the kids when it was safe. But things just happen to fast. Neely knows how to spin a yarn. This is not your conventional mystery. Rather, Neely relies on building characterization of the main players in this tale of a family divided by its greed for the family fortune. The dialog is sharp. Blanche is a refreshingly savvy investigator, though a reluctant one. Interwoven into a well plotted story is a starkly honest portrayal of black anger in the face of a heritage of white oppression. It's no spoiler that Blanche survives. This is the beginning of a series. Neely's debut drew the attention it deserved. The Agatha Award for Best First Novel, 1992. The Andrew Award for Best First Novel, 1993. And the Macavity Award for Best First Novel, 1993. The novel's ending may leave some readers conflicted. Be warned. I won't reveal anything more than to quote the old saw, "Two wrongs don't make a right." I leave it to the reader to determine how the conclusion of this novel strikes them.Blanche on the Lam: A Blanche White Mystery To state there is no racial divide in our country would be specious at best. Neely clearly establishes the suspicion with which the races warily eye one another. There's an infinite degree of sadness that this divide seemingly has no end. Kudos to Brash Books for reprinting Blanche on the Lam: A Blanche White Mystery. It's good to see Blanche White back in print. One last thought: [image]...more |
Notes are private!
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Dec 27, 2014
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Dec 29, 2014
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Dec 27, 2014
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Kindle Edition
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| 0385353308
| 9780385353304
| 0385353308
| 4.07
| 545,099
| Aug 26, 2014
| Sep 09, 2014
|
it was amazing
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Station Eleven: Survival is Insufficient For Thine is the KingdomStation Eleven: Survival is Insufficient For Thine is the Kingdom [image] [image] The night civilization collapsed Arthur Leander missed it. He was performing in his final role as King Lear on stage in Toronto, Canada. During the performance he clutched his chest, collapsed, and died. He was only fifty-one. A paramedic in the audience, Jeevan Chaudhary, attempts to perform CPR to no avail. On stage is eight year old Kirsten Raymonde, an actress playing one of Lear's three daughters as a child. Leander had questioned what children were doing in a production of Lear earlier. Kirsten liked Arthur. He had given her two comic books. Chapters One and Two of Station Eleven. She will keep them with her always. The Collapse is just hours away. A flight from the Georgian Republic is scheduled to land at Toronto International. The passengers carry the Georgian Flu strain. The incubation period is incredibly quick. By the time their plane touches ground, all will be taken to a Toronto Emergency Room. An Emergency Room physician calls Jeevan Chaudhary, warning him to get out of the city. The incubation period is two to three hours. Nothing will stop this flu. Already medical staff are falling ill. “Jeevan was crushed by a sudden certainty that this was it, that this illness that Hua was describing was going to be the divide between a before and an after, a line drawn through his life.b> The Georgian Flu is an efficient killer. The mortality rate is 96.6%. Attempts to evacuate are futile. The world as we know it ceases to exist. First the televised news broadcasts end. Sometimes there's a blank station signal. At others, static. No radio stations can be received. Cell phones no longer operate. The internet is gone. It's the truly inconsequential things that are noticed first. “No more Internet. No more social media, no more scrolling through litanies of dreams and nervous hopes and photographs of lunches, cries for help and expressions of contentment and relationship-status updates with heart icons whole or broken, plans to meet up later, pleas, complaints, desires, pictures of babies dressed as bears or peppers for Halloween. No more reading and commenting on the lives of others, and in so doing, feeling slightly less alone in the room. No more avatars.” But the longer the collapse the more tenuous life becomes. A young girl runs screaming through an airport terminal asking anyone for Effexor. She is in withdrawal. “No more pharmaceuticals. No more certainty of surviving a scratch on one’s hand, a cut on a finger while chopping vegetables for dinner, a dog bite.” After three years, any fuel not used has become stale. No engine will crank. Lines of empty useless vehicles line the highways. There is no Canada, no United States. There are no borders, no boundaries. In places there are no laws. No mercy. It is difficult to determine whether people are human or feral beasts. Civilization exists in isolated pockets. Little conclaves of people along the shores of the great lakes. Along these shores travels three caravans of musicians and actors. They comprise "The Traveling Symphony." Their personal identities are not so important as their positions in the symphony. They are known as the Conductor, the Clarinet, the Tuba, the Second Guitar. It is twenty years after the collapse. Among the players is Kirsten Raymonde, on stage when Arthur Leander collapsed and died of a heart attack. She still carries the Station Eleven Comic Books. “All three caravans of the Traveling Symphony are labeled as such, THE TRAVELING SYMPHONY lettered in white on both sides, but the lead caravan carries an additional line of text: Because survival is insufficient.” The Symphony toured those little pockets of civilization performing Shakespeare one evening and musical concerts on the next. It was those things the survivors of the collapse appreciated. The towns' reception of the Symphony was good for its members, too. “SOMETIMES THE TRAVELING SYMPHONY thought that what they were doing was noble. There were moments around campfires when someone would say something invigorating about the importance of art, and everyone would find it easier to sleep that night.” It is at this point that Emily St. John Mandel creates something marvelous by departing from the typical post-apocalyptic milieu. That is precisely what disappoints some readers of this novel. For this is no typical post-apocalyptic novel. Mandel takes us much deeper into questions of human nature and questions of responsibility, the consequences of our acts and our failure to act. Some of what we take for granted as a normal part of today's society is enough to make you squirm. Did I really do that? Maybe I should have? See clearly, Lear. Intertwined with the story of the Collapse Mandel leads us through the life of Arthur Leander from his days in Toronto as a student actor when he became friends with free-spirited Clark, who wore his head half shaved, the other half died in some outrageous color. Clark was openly, happily gay. And Arthur freely danced with him in Toronto bars. We watch Arthur's climb to fame as an actor. He marries Miranda, a girl from his home town in Western Canada. She is involved in an abusive relationship with an artist, Pablo, who has sold paintings for big money. However, the money is gone and so is Pablo's muse. Miranda becomes Arthur's rescue. Miranda, too, is an artist. Their marriage seems the perfect match. Arthur's roles grow more and more prestigious. Miranda is engaged in a graphic arts project, a novel, Station Eleven. Miranda shuns the spotlight in which Arthur is required to shine. Their lives do not belong to them. Arthur is pursued by the paparazzi, one of whom happens to be Jeevan Chaudray. Miranda and Arthur's marriage calls to mind the ancient myth of Hero and Leander. Although Miranda is no Hero, she paints one. And, for this purpose, we shall call Arthur Leander. Leander in the beginning gladly swam the Hellespont to be with Miranda. However, this Leander finds Hero no longer holds her lamp aloft for him and he looks elsewhere. It is a sad commentary on marriage. One repeated all too often these days. Arthur will leave Miranda for Carol, whose beauty as an actress is renowned in Hollywood. They will have a child, Tyler. Arthur's eye will stray to a third wife, with Carol taking son Tyler to Israel, where Arthur seldom sees him. When Arthur takes the stage for his final performance as King Lear, the third marriage has failed and he's involved in a dalliance with the young child wrangler attending to Kirsten and her two child co-stars. During the course of the years Miranda completes the first two chapters of Station Eleven. She gives two sets of her work to Arthur. Arthur has decided he has too many possessions. He's in the process of giving things away. Ironically one set goes to Kirsten, the other to Tyler. Each will cling to those copies. But each will interpret them far differently. Not only does Arthur Leander play Lear, a mad King who needs to see more clearly, he is a modern Leander who attempted to swim the Hellespont once too often. As Christopher Marlowe wrote: Some swore he was a maid in man's attire, Miranda is informed of Leander's death while she is on assignment half way across the world, before the lines go dead. Old friend Clark and second wife Carol end up in an airport in Severn City. We follow Jeevan through his struggle to survive. Tyler is with Mother Carol in that airport. Kirsten and the Symphony are headed to Severn City. Their lives will diverge, converge, and intermingle throughout the course of the novel. Their connection with one another becomes a mystery set in a post-apolyptic background. Who lives? Who dies? Intriguing? Absolutely. Within any post-apocalyptic novel, one expects the strong to overcome the weak. Mandel does not depart from this part of the formula. As the Symphony comes to St. Deborah by the Sea, on the shores of one of the great lakes, they encounter a town overtaken by a religious cult led by "The Prophet." This fanatic believes that he and his followers have been saved for a purpose. Any who do not follow him are a part of darkness, unworthy of being saved. When the Symphony departs the town, they unknowingly carry with them a stowaway, a young girl named Aubrey, underage, whom the Prophet has claimed as another wife. What the Prophet perceives as the Symphony's kidnapping of his bride leads to a climactic chase and confrontation between good and evil. Station Eleven is a must read. Rightly chosen as a finalist for the National Book Award, this novel is the most engaging read I've encountered in 2014. Five Stars. Unquestionably. t - ...more |
Notes are private!
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Dec 17, 2014
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Dec 23, 2014
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Dec 16, 2014
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0684866226
| 9780684866222
| 0684866226
| 3.59
| 5,084
| 2001
| Oct 30, 2001
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really liked it
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Silent Night in No Man's Land: Christmas, 1914 Last night I had the strangest dreamSilent Night in No Man's Land: Christmas, 1914 Last night I had the strangest dream [image] Christmas Day, Flanders, 1914 Where have all the flowers gone? There are no poppies blooming in Flanders' fields. It is winter. The ground has been churned to mud. Perhaps the last time anyone saw the poppies bloom was before the great war began in August, before the leave began to turn. When there were still trees. Where have all the soldiers gone? It is nearing Christmas, 1914. Since the great war began a million soldiers have died. When will they ever learn? The generals, the Field Marshalls. Once again, the deadly efficiency of new weapons has overcome the outmoded tactics of previous wars. The soldiers on the front lines pay the price. Generals and Field Marshalls die in bed. It does not seem they ever learn. They do not pay the price. May, 1970 I am seventeen. About to graduate High School. We have our Senior Banquet. I wear a blue blazer, pink shirt, white trousers, white bucks. I am thin, too thin, perhaps. The class song is "Those were the days." Mary Hopkins voice hauntingly floats over us all. We all sing with her. Once upon a time there was a tavern...more |
Notes are private!
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Dec 14, 2014
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Dec 17, 2014
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Dec 14, 2014
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Paperback
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| 1101608390
| 9781101608395
| B00KWG9L5M
| 3.57
| 3,334
| Jul 02, 2015
| Jan 13, 2015
|
really liked it
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Gatsby Among the Locusts: Stewart O'Nan's Novel of Fitzgerald in Hollywood A copy of this novel was provided by Viking Adult through Netgalley in excha Gatsby Among the Locusts: Stewart O'Nan's Novel of Fitzgerald in Hollywood A copy of this novel was provided by Viking Adult through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This novel will be published January 13, 2015. [image] [image] Stewart O'Nan Stewart O'Nan has written a compelling novel of the last years of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his years in Hollywood. Told in a series of episodes, both in the days of the "Golden Age of Hollywood" and in flashbacks of Fitzgerald's memories of his life during the Jazz Age with his Southern beauty, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, O'nan captures the portrait of a man who recognizes the passage of an era, whose literary works no longer hold the public's interest. Fitzgerald knows he is a man past his days of creativity. His marriage to Zelda is shattered by her madness. Years of hospitalization in the best private hospitals have bankrupted him. Their daughter, Scottie is due a proper education. Only the best prep school will do. The tuition is beyond his financial capability. Fitzgerald is living beyond his financial means, drawing advances on stories unwritten. The novel promised to Max Perkins is a year past due, soon two years past due. Long time agent Harold Ober has not lost faith. He has become Fitzgerald's banker, loaning him money to keep him afloat. It is Ober who finds a slot for Fitzgerald at MGM Studios in Hollywood. It could be Fitzgerald's salvation or his undoing. Fitzgerald knows that everyone is gambling on his staying sober. His alcoholism is at the root of his problems. Gin is at the root of his weakness. Seagram's. That's his brand. Hollywood is at it's peak of creating the American dream. Fitzgerald's old friend Irving Thalberg is dead. L.B. Mayer has taken the helm and Fitzgerald joins a crew of elite writers who have hired on out west beneath the iconic Hollywood sign. Aldous Huxley has amazed with his script for "Pride and Prejudice." And Fitzgerald finds himself among many of the members of the Algonquin Round Table. Dottie Parker wistfully attempts to draw him into a tryst for old time's sake. But Fitzgerald resists, riddled with guilt, thinking of his long lost Zelda, back in Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. [image] Even the Round Table moved west for "Ars Gratia Artis," they thought. Fitzgerald is lured by his Algonquin pals to join them in the Garden of Allah, a hotel surrounded by a number of Villas. Here are Dorothy Parker and her husband of convenience whose sexuality lures him elsewhere than Dorothy's bed. There's S.J. Perelman, a host of others. Humphrey Bogart and girlfriend "Mayo" are intriguing companions. Surprisingly, Bogart finds Fitzgerald a swell fellow. Bogie's a literate man. He especially appreciates "Gatsby." However, the gang at the Garden are a great temptation to Scott. The booze flows freely during the parties around the pool. Sticking to Cokes is tough. Being on the wagon when nobody else is, well--that's a constant challenge. [image] The Garden of Allah, 8152 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, California The studio is generous. Fitzgerald has a six month contract. The weekly checks finally begin to build up a balance in the bank account. Creditable projects come his way. However, Fitzgerald learns that this new Hollywood is a fickle thing. Projects that are spun with initial glowing press releases die quickly on the vine. They won't sell to the public. Fitzgerald draws paychecks for projects never completed. Enter a beautiful young woman, Sheila Graham. Fitzgerald is fascinated. She bears a striking resemblance to the young Zelda. He wonders why no one can see that resemblance but him. [image] Sheila Graham, Fitzgerald's lost Zelda [image] Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, Yes, I can see the resemblance. What ensues is an intense and complex love story. Graham is an enigma. Engaged to the Marquis of Donegal, Fitzgerald is curious why Graham continues to show interest in him. Her true history emerges in bed. Lots of skeletons rattle in Hollywood. She was born Lily Shiel, a child of the London slums, raised as a star of the burlesque stage in London, exhibiting her body to men who paid to see it. She had married an officer, John Graham, returning from the Great War. She said he was unable to consummate the marriage. She broke the engagement to the Marquis, terrified her past would be revealed. She kept Fitzgerald at a distance. Especially as his failures as a screenwriter grew. His attempts at sobriety failed. She insisted on his taking "the Cure," an arduous, painful process. She moved him from "The Garden," first to Malibu, then to Encino, both "West of Sunset" Boulevard, the location of the Garden. Scott's trips to visit Zelda also wore on the relationship. Scott was constantly riddled with guilt. Yet, they always returned to one another. Both had an irresistible carnal appetite for the other. During his romance with Sheila, Scott continued to keep his promises to Zelda to spend vacations with her and to ensure visits to Zelda from their daughter Scottie. The relationship between Zelda and Scottie was a tempestuous one. Zelda, at times, was merciless in her criticism of Scottie, her appearance, lack of grace, and her resemblance to Scott as opposed to Zelda. Naturally, Scottie grew to where she attempted to avoid any visits with her mother. Scott mediated between the two of them, acting as the great appeaser, negotiating with each of them, assuring each of them that both loved one another. Scott introduced Scottie to Sheila. The two got along famously. Nor did Scottie condemn her father for seeking another relationship. Fitzgerald was put on "Three Comrades" drawn from the novel by Erich Maria Remarque. It would be his only screen credit. Ernest Hemingway emerges to encourage Fitzgerald to use the film to warn the world to the growing danger of fascism. Fitzgerald's treatment is masterful, including shots of Hitler's diatribes, marching Nazis, flags and drums bearing swastikas. However, Mayer, has those scenes shot again, removing all overt scenes of Nazism removed from the picture at the insistence of a German cultural attache. Hooray for Hollywood. O'Nan depicts Fitzgerald's spiraling Hollywood decline in unflinching, spare, lean prose. A contract unrenewed. Days as a freelance scriptwriter. Fitzgerald moved from project to project. Fitzgerald, uncredited, punching up dialogue for Vivien Leigh on Selznick's "Gone With the Wind." It is the last hurrah. Yet, perhaps, Fitzgerald, banished from the Hollywood lot, is finally Fitzgerald's redemption as a writer. These are the days of the Pat Hobby stories, the stories of a drunk screenwriter in Hollywood. The days of the essays that become "The Crackup." And, finally, "The Love of the Last Tycoon." True. Bernice was long past bobbing her hair. Fitzgerald finally recognized that. He was a writer on the return, recognizing, finally, the Jazz Age was over. As always, one wonders what might have been. O'Nan helps us explore that question. O'Nan captures not only the decline of an iconic American writer, but the decline of world civilization into the conflagration of the Second World War. As with O'Nan's other novels I have read, this is the work of an accomplished writer who immerses the reader in the lives and times of another era with the skill of a master. O'Nan is an author whose each work should be anticipated with the sense of excitement and new discovery. He never disappoints. West of Sunset is O'Nan's fifteenth novel. Highly recommended. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Nov 28, 2014
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Dec 10, 2014
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Nov 28, 2014
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Kindle Edition
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| 1592640729
| 9781592640720
| 1592640729
| 4.10
| 268
| 1989
| Mar 01, 2004
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it was amazing
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Cockroaches of Staymore: A Place in the Choir Cockroaches of Staymore by Donald Harington was chosen as a group read by On the Southern Literary Tra Cockroaches of Staymore: A Place in the Choir Cockroaches of Staymore by Donald Harington was chosen as a group read by On the Southern Literary Trail for December, 2014. Special thanks to Trail Member William who nominated this novel. [image] The Cockroaches of Staymore, First Ed., Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, New York, 1989 [image] Donald Harington, December 22, 1935-November 7, 2009 All God's critters got a place in the choir Cockroaches of Staymore is my third visit to Staymore, Arkansas. With each visit, I have been sad to leave it. I have wished that I could Stay More, as its inhabitants are known to implore you to do. not that they genuinely mean it. It's a recognized courtesy in that little community, a compliment you pay to the value you attach to the members of your community and your guests to it. If you stop and think about it, not many of us have that attitude towards our company these days. We don't say it, but our silent thought is, "When the Hell, ya'll gonna get home? Time's a wastin'. The wife's not too sleepy. The supper's done. I might just get lucky tonight. Too bad, buddy, if it's not in your stars tonight. Well, ever dog has his day. Too damn bad if this ain't yours." But we keep that to ourselves. Humans have a way of reading our unsent signals though. The way we cut our eyes, look at our watch. Cut the volume up a little on the TV. Mutter a little something about needing to get an early start on tomorrow's day. And before you know it, the party's over. But in Staymore, well, in Staymore, things just move at a little slower pace. It's nice. Folks just never make you feel like you're being hurried along. That's nice. Don't you think? I discovered Staymore, Arkansas, and its creator Donald Harington as a result of reading an issue of Oxford American Magazine, the Journal of Fine Southern Writing. Harington was recognized as the winner of the Oxford American's first Lifetime Achievement Award for Southern Literature in 2006. Oxford American and its fine staff have frequently put remarkable works in my hands. I owe it to them for connecting me to Donald Harington. My first visit was what I believed to be the first Staymore novel, Lightning Bug. I knew immediately I had fallen into the hands of a master author who held me spellbound, the creator of a world in which I longed for, to live in, to escape to, to never leave. My review is here. Lightning Bug. I quickly realized that it was easy to establish the order in which the "Staymore" novels were published. Almost simultaneously I discovered that the plots of the dozen or so tales do not flow chronologically from a historical perspective. If you've not ventured into Harington Country before, I'd actually recommend you start with The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks. For here are the origins of the very founding of the town, its early history, and its earliest residents. For background on Staymore, here's my review. Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks. When William nominated Cockroaches of Staymore, my immediate reaction was Trail Members visiting Staymore for the first time would possibly think Mr. Harington had taken a trip with Carlos Castaneda or Timothy Leary. In the most benevolent light, first time Harington readers would view him as a man whose cheese had slid from his biscuit. I am ever indebted to my good friend Jeffrey Keeten who acquainted me with this expression. It has frequent application. I appropriate it with proper attribution--of course. After all, this is a book about cockroaches. Or, as these critters are referred to--roosterroaches. "Cock" has such negative connotations in polite society, roach society, that is. Though, sex is a very naturally received fact of life among them, both male and female. And the intricacies of the courtship are quite...intricate, shall we say? Ah, pheromones do make things much less complicated. Much more natural. Shall we say spontaneous? Among us human kind, spontaneity can be such a squelching factor in these days and times. How does your calendar look tonight? Not good. Is tomorrow good for you? Uhm...We have dinner with the .... then. OH. Of course, I lived through what I'm told was a sexual revolution completely oblivious of one having taken place. Late bloomer. Well, you can't go home again. So it goes. And we silly humans. Has anyone figured out why Man and Woman are in separate bath tubs in those Cialis ads? Oh. And those little blue, purple, and yellow pills that the ads tell all us guys over forty that we probably need? The average act of roosterroach coitus takes three hours. Uhm...and males roosterroaches have three, uhm...you know. And they don't have to go to the emergency room if those thingies are uhm...inflated in excess of three hours. Don't anybody get titillated out there. But this is what we're talking about people! Would you read a book about these? [image] Be honest. You have a flyswatter in your home. Right? There's that can of RAID under the kitchen sink. You've laughed at the RAID commercials. You like your Orkin Man. You are not an organic gardener. Bugs make your tomatoes ugly. You believe in better living through chemistry. Down at the lawn and garden center you are known as "Ortho Man." You know that's you. You think Donald Harington's a Nutcase! But, my friends, for you are all my friends, I must disabuse you of your preconceived notions, your biases, your prejudices. You are wrong. This is something, I know, not easily accepted. So, we will take this in little steps. Consider it an exercise in gentle desensitization. First, think of that little photograph above and think of those two insects being in love. Betrothed to one another. They're singing a little song. Oh, we don't know what's coming tomorrow There now. Think about it. Now, we're going to take a little break to let all of you think about this. Actually, I'm being threatened with my life by the Queen and Cousin Kathleen, who is much like the Queen. Together they are they who must be obeyed. And we shall continue this upon my return to FREEDOM! Having sung, "Let my people go" numerous times, only to be ignored or given baleful stares, I am free. Cousin Kathleen is busily packing. Her flight out leaves this afternoon. I do hate to see her go. Really, I wish she would stay more. I have told her so. She has replied in kind that the Queen and I should just fly back to Dallas with her and stay there a spell. We finally wound the discussion down with the general agreement that we would do this again real soon. That's true Staymoron style. So, back to Harington's highly original and inventive Cockroaches of Staymore. These critters, you will discover, are quite like us humans. Actually, Harington probably used them as an example to us, pointing out just how foolish we men and women can be. The world of the roosterroaches in inexorably intertwined with that of the humans of Staymore. And the roosterroaches have taken on the class structure of Staymoron society. Each of the little critters is a familiar of the former human residents of Staymore. At the high end of roosterroach world are the Ingledews, just as it was in the human society of Staymore. It was the Ingledews that founded the town after all. And all the other former residents of Staymore have their roosterroach doppelgangers. However, things are not as they once were in Staymore. The town, once teeming with its citizens is now abandoned except for the presence of two humans. One is a man, an outsider, Larry Brace, living in "Holy House" as it is known to roosterroach society as encouraged by Brother Chid Tichborne, the Reverend Frockroach who preaches the Gospel of Joshua H. Chrustus, Son of Man. Man is no less than Larry Brace. It's only natural that the roosterroaches worship Man. For it is on the refuse of Man on which the roosterroaches survive. Religion can get right complicated. Brace's house is Holy house because he, uhm...drinks alcohol. A lot of it. And when he is far gone in his liquor, when he sees a roosterroach skittling across the floor to what they call the cooking room, he pulls out a revolver and lets off a round or two. So, Man's House is Holey because Larry has shot it full of holes. In the process, Larry's wild stray rounds may blast away an unfortunate roosterroach. Tichbourne explains that the departed has "gone West," been "Raptured," and gone to live at the Right Hand of Man. Frankly, Brace has become a rather undependable "Lord." Tichbourne thinks of changing worship from that of Man to that of Woman. The other human residing in Staymore is Sharon, the granddaughter of Latha, former Postmistress of Staymore, owner and operator of the town's General Store, and the heroine of Lightning Bug. Sharon lives in Latha's former residence which she shares unknowingly with the Ingledew roosterroaches. The Old Squire has a cabinet in the kitchen, where the best victuals in Staymore are to be found. His son, Sam, has taken up quarters in an eight day clock overlooking Sharon's bed. Sharon's home is known to the roosterroaches as "Parthenon." Sam Ingledew is an exceptional roosterroach. Consider him as a non-Chrustian, an Existentialist. Sam refers to himself as Gregor Samsa. Ring a bell? For all his self perceptions, Sam has managed to fall in love with Sharon and wonders what it might be like to make love with her. That would be quite a metamorphosis. To linger over Sharon's face as she sleeps, he has lived in the clock too long. The chimes of the clock have made him deaf. Once again, Harington inserts a bit of himself into his own novel. Harington lost his hearing almost completely at the age of twelve. He has previously appeared as such characters as "Dawny" in Lightning Bug where he was hopelessy in love with Latha. [image] Leda and the Swan, Giovanni Rapiti: Stranger Metamorphoses have happened. Right? The pickings for roosterroaches in Holey House are becoming slim. Man has become an unpredictable provider. Frockroach Tichbourne develops a scheme to convince lowly Jake Dingletoon that he is in fact an Ingledew, entitled to claim kin to the Old Squire and Sam Ingledew. If Tichborne can insert Dingletoon into Parthenon, generous, but slow witted Jake will open Parthenon to all the roosterroaches of Staymore. Harington artfully interweaves the roosterroaches' lives with those of Larry and Sharon. Roosterroach society is divided when Frockroach Tichborne decides to worship Woman instead of Man. And Tichborne will stop nothing short of "INSECTICIDE" to put his plans to take over Parthenon in place. Two worlds, insect and human, begin to swirl out of control. When Larry shoots himself in his gitalong-er-leg, can the roosterroaches save him? Can they get word to Sharon? Did you ever think an IBM Selectric Typewriter could be a thing of value? What's a white mouse doing in Staymore? Oh...and for all you doubters in Joshua Crust--read Cockroaches of Staymore to learn about the biggest and baddest of all roosterroaches, the Mockroach. He'll put you in mind of Uncle Screwtape. You know. The Uncle who wrote all those letters to his nephew. While I was quite melancholy at the beginning of this quirky novel to find Staymore abandoned by the human characters I had come to love, I became enchanted by the world Harington created in the society of the roosterroaches. The little critters are more like us than any of us would care to admit. And Harington uses them to point out all the foibles, weaknesses, strengths, and the best of what it is to be human. Cockroaches of Staymore could easily turn out to be my favorite of Harington's Staymore novels. This is a brillianty sharp work of humor and satire that skewers class structure, religion, politics--you name it. However, it's too early to tell this novel will be my favorite visit to Staymore. I have nine more journeys to make to that magical place. Harington has written the most original anthropomorphic work since Aesop's Fables EXTRAS! Biography of and Interview with Donald Harington by Edwin Arnold Donald Harington and his Staymore Novels A Thirty Five Year Celebration, by Bob Rasher SOUNDTRACK The Bug, Dire Straits, 1992 It's a Bug's Life, Randy Newman The Typewriter by Leroy Anderson ...more |
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| B003OUX58W
| 3.93
| 4,625
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really liked it
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Nathan Coulter: Wendell Berry's Creation of the Port William Community This novel was chosen as the Moderator's Choice by Laura Webber, "The Tall Woman Nathan Coulter: Wendell Berry's Creation of the Port William Community This novel was chosen as the Moderator's Choice by Laura Webber, "The Tall Woman", for On the Southern Literary Trail for December, 2014. 1To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: [image] Wendell Berry: Poet, Novelist, Essayist. Born August 5, 1934,Henry County, Kentucky [image] Nathan Coulter, First Edition, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, Ma., 1960. I have long loved the poetry of Wendell Berry. His The Peace of Wild Things is among my favorite poems. The man has a way with words that reveals his love of the land, the ways of nature, and his desire to preserve it. Here is his poem. When despair for the world grows in me Those are fine words. But for all the poems I've read by this man, I have never read his fiction. Until now. I have discovered something else to love about Wendell Berry. Those are his stories of his fictional place, the Port William Community. The sheer joy of this is I have seven novels, thirty-eight short stories and seventeen poems telling the story of this wondrous place and the people who live there. It is a community. Or, as some of its residents refer to it, a membership. It is a place that one belongs to. You and all the others that live there are part of something, helping one another along the way from birth to crossing over. Nathan Coulter: A Novel is the first Port William novel. It is the story of the Coulter family told through the eyes of young Nathan. This is Berry's developing theme of man's connection to the land, its sustenance of him, and his responsibility to preserve the land. “Grandpa’s farm had belonged to our people ever since there had been a farm in that place, or people to own a farm. Grandpa’s father had left it to Grandpa and his other sons and daughters. But Grandpa had borrowed money and bought their shares. He had to have it whole hog or none, root hog or die, or he wouldn’t have it at all.” Nathan's father is no different than his grandfather. He, too must have his land, even though he must pay for it, over time. A long time. “He said that when we finally did get the farm paid for we could tell everybody to go to hell. That was what he lived for, to own his farm without having to say please or thank you to a living soul.” Then there is Nathan's Uncle Burley, no farmer. Far from it. But he is no less tied to the land, hunting and fishing, captivated by the beauty of it all. “Uncle Burley said hills always looked blue when you were far away from them. That was a pretty color for hills; the little houses and barns and fields looked so neat and quiet tucked against them. It made you want to be close to them. But he said that when you got close they were like the hills you’d left, and when you looked back your own hills were blue and you wanted to go back again. He said he reckoned a man could wear himself out going back and forth.” I identify with Berry's rendering of the Port William Membership. I am a mixture of town and country. More town than country, as I was born in a middling size southern city, the product of a will of the wisp father who abandoned my mother and me when I was an infant. My mother thought eloping to Columbus, Mississippi, where the age for marriage without parental consent was younger than in Alabama, was a good idea at the time. So I came to be raised in the home of my grandparents, just as young Nathan Coulter and his sibling Brother were. However I was and remained an only child. My mother chose never to remarry. Once burned, twice shy. My grandfather was Robert Haywood McConnell, born in 1908 in Union Hill, Alabama. My grandmother was Mason Ovilea Beasley McConnell, born in 1909, in Salem, Alabama. Both communities, not even townships, were in the outskirts of Limestone County. The County Seat was Athens, Alabama. A high and mighty name for a small town. As the Coulters were one of the principal families of the Port William area, so were the McConnells and the Beasleys in that upstate region of Alabama. Between those two burgeoning clans, who began tied to the land as farmers, they branched out into other professions over the successive years. The McConnells produced preachers, storekeepers, morticians, a judge here and there and physicians. The Beasleys produced storekeepers, business men, bankers, a sensitive florist who kept a huge portrait of Elvis over his bed. Everyone acknowledged he was sweet but a little bit funny. There was a circuit court clerk, too. She was married to a man named Homer Price. They had twins they named Sheila and Shaniqua. I was in love with both of them, though they did not give me the time of day. Rather they stared solemnly into one another's eyes. It was easier than looking into the mirror. And there was the Beasley who made it big in chicken farming. Canned whole chickens. It's called Sweet Sue Chicken. The stuff's sold everywhere. He ended up raising race horses. We hit one of them that got loose on a Sunday morning. That horse ignored the stop sign at the intersection. Papa was flying our 1967 Buick Wildcat as he was wont to do. Stood up on the brake. The Wildcat nosed down and just lifted that horse right up on the hood. I was in the passenger's seat. Nothing looks bigger than a horse's ass sliding into your face straight up the sleek hood of a 1967 Buick Wildcat. The horse did not come through the windshield. But slid off. Disappeared for a bit. Then the steed raised his head and craned his neck around and looked at Papa and me through the windshield. Puzzled. The point of this is that in Limestone County, between the Beasleys and the McConnells, they birthed you, sold you your groceries, your seed, your farming implements, married you, baptized you, doctored you, judged you, managed your money, buried you if the doctoring didn't take, kept the records of everything on file down at the court house and put the flowers in the funeral home that ended up withering at the burial site. Your neighbors probably brought you a chicken casserole made out of good old Sweet Sue Chicken, too. It was a community and a membership. As a youngster, I was pretty befuddled by all of this. I was especially confused by who was who and how everybody was connected to whom and how. Over time all the pieces began to come together. I had a particular fondness for my Grandfather's mother, Mama Ora. She lived in a simple clapboard sided house with a dogtrot running through the center of it. During my visits there I learned my appreciation for the land in the country, the country life, the independent way Mama Ora lived and how my Grandfather came alive with his stories of growing up in Union Hill. Mama Ora's egg custard pie was smooth as cream. It was rich with butter and eggs pulled from beneath the setting hens. No running water. It came from the well just a few yards from the house. Water was never clearer or colder than that drawn from the well and sipped from the tin dipper hung from a post in the well house. Summers never seemed hot at Mama Ora's. A box fan sat in the bedroom window pulling air through the screen door facing the dogtrot and blowing it out the window. You napped on handmade patchwork crazy quilts of indeterminate design. If the weather turned off stormy, the roll of distant thunder was a lullaby, nothing to be alarmed over. The leaves would whisper, then rustle, then shake as they waved in the stiffening wind. The house was a sanctuary of calm. Throughout it all was the sonorous ticking of a clock, an eight day wonder, with soft but authoritative Westminster chimes. No indoor plumbing. A damned mean rooster that waited for you to sit down in the outhouse. He would wait in ambuscade and peck your jewels or worse. Mama Ora would snatch your slingshot if you took it after her prize rooster. He wasn't going to be Sunday dinner. Perhaps you have concluded I sprang from affluence in Northern Alabama. But my Grandfather was a poor relation. His father, who might have been influential, died young, making my Grandfather the man of the house at a very young age. He made it through high school. Was an excellent student. However, he helped tend the crops that went on the table fresh in season and that were canned for the winter. He hunted for squirrel and rabbits. Those were the main meats. Chicken was a delicacy. Hams were few and far between. The cow was for milk for younger sister Gladys. He was given a job at McConnell Brothers Funeral Home after graduation from high school. It was a family favor. He learned the trade. Never cared for it. The explosion of a road work truck carrying dynamite was the end of it. By the time he finished picking up the pieces of the crew sitting around that dynamite, he was done. Haywood they called him. He was handsome. He met Ovilea at Beasley's Drug Store. She was the baby of the Beasley family. She thought he was silly. But he grew on her. Her Daddy had died. Her mother had died. She lived with her oldest brother, Brother Charley, the Banker in a huge house over on East Pryor Street. They married in a fence corner out in the country. A country preacher officiated. Brother Charley and his wife were not in attendance. Nor were any other Beasleys. And, thus began my Grandfather's long life of professions. Insurance salesman. Storekeeper. Plumber. Steamfitter. Shipbuilder. Union Organizer. Union Business Agent. Politician. An arguer of Labor cases before the National Labor Relations Board against batteries of Attorneys. He never lost. A self educated man. A charitable man. Shot at. Called a Communist because he was labor. Successfully negotiated contracts satisfactory to Union Members and Management alike. Who taught me how to plant pole beans, squash, okra, peas, tomatoes, butter beans. Peppers. Sweet. Hot. Eating thin curling pods of hot peppers until the beads of sweat popped out on your forehead, saying, "Eat it like a man," while the tears streamed down his face, as he laughed. The man I thought would never die, but did. But before he died, the times we had. How he walked me along the bank of Sugar Creek where he used to put drinks to keep them cold. How to bark a squirrel flattened out along the top of a tree limb. Walking along the Elk River where his horse pulled him through the current as he hung to its tail and he learned to swim. The identity of trees. Snakes. The ones to worry about. The ones not to fear at all. All the birds. The smoothness of a Buckeye and how to keep it in your pocket, not for luck, but for the feel of it, the touch of it that took you back into the woods and out of a stressful situation when you'd rather holler. So, yes. I identify with Port William. I know Nathan Coulter. I have been Nathan Coulter. No matter how old I may get, I will not forget Salem, Union Hill, Athens, or any Beasleys or McConnells. Especially Papa. “Grandpa had owned his land and worked on it and taken his pride from it for so long that we knew him, and he knew himself, in the same way that we knew the spring. His life couldn’t be divided from the days he’d spent at work in his fields. Daddy had told us we didn’t know what the country would look like without him at work in the middle of it; and that was as true of Grandpa as it was of Daddy. We wouldn’t recognize the country when he was dead.” No, Nathan, that's not right. You will recognize it. The land remains. It abides. You're just waiting your turn. Just like I am. Someone else will come along by and by. ...more |
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| 0300198051
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really liked it
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Patrick Modiano's Novellas of Memory and Things Past
Note: My thanks to Yale University Press which made this translation of Modiano's Suspended Se Patrick Modiano's Novellas of Memory and Things Past Note: My thanks to Yale University Press which made this translation of Modiano's Suspended Sentences: Three Novellas available through Netgalley. This publication, ISBN 9780300198058, became available for purchase on November 11, 2014 and is available for a purchase price of $16.00. The edition is published in paperback. Translation is by Mark Polizotti. “Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.”― Marcel Proust [image] Modiano, the first novel, 1968, age twenty-three I wondered if those members of the Yale University Press involved in the publication of this collection of three novellas by Patrick Modiano had a remarkable sense of prescience. For the Nobel Committee announced on October 9, 2014, that Modiano was awarded the Nobel for Literature... "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation". [image] Modiano, Nobel Winner, 2014, age sixty-nine Peter Englund the permanent Secretary to the Nobel Committee freely admitted that Modiano was not well known outside of France. However, Modiano is the author of nearly thirty books, most of which have been translated into European languages. Before winning the Nobel, Modiano had been recognized by Germany for his first novel "La Place de l'étoile" published in 1968 about a Jewish collaborator during World War II as one of the great Post Holocaust Novels in 2010. He received the Prix Goncourt in 1978, Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française in 1972, the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca from the Institut de France for his lifetime achievement in 2010, and the 2012 Austrian State Prize for European Literature. Yet, few of Modiano's works are available in English. The Nobel Committee's announcement had many Americans and English scratching their heads wondering just who Patrick Modiano was. I certainly was. The name flickered somewhere in my memory, but I could not place it. Over the days following the Nobel announcement, Modiano and his world began to emerge. Then his name and his image clicked with me. The film "Lucien, Lacombe," directed by Louis Malle with the screenplay co-authored by Modiano. Dealing with a young member of the French Gestapo, it was a portrait of Occupied France, a theme to which Modiano returns to time and again. The screenplay is available in English. See: Lucien Lacombe, New York, Viking, 1975. [image] The haunting film from 1974 captures the division of Occupied France, a theme evident in "Suspended Sentences The Novellas The three novellas were written over a five year period. However, in the French Omnibus edition, Modiano wrote in his introduction that these books "form a single work...I thought I'd written them discontinuously, in successive bouts of forgetfulness, but often the same faces, the same names, the same places, the same sentences recur from one to the other." Clearly, these novellas are highly autobiographical in nature. Modiano does not deny this, although, he maintains that the characters are "fictionally autobiographical." By implication, for this reader, Modiano's statement is one on the nature of memory, for memory is internal to the keeper of memory. It is unique to the owner of the memory. And while those people may be remembered by many, each person's perception of the person remembered may be completely different. But what is real? How accurate is memory? Or is perception reality? Afterimage "Chien de printemps," Dog of Spring, (1993) The story of a photographer, Jansen, who had meticulously recorded a Paris that no longer existed, a city changed by new construction, a photographer who had taken portraits of people long gone, some dead. Jansen had been a student of Robert Capa. Capa, the famous war photographer, on the beaches at Normandy, who photographed France's Indochina war, dying May 25, 1954, when he stepped on a Viet Minh landmine. The story is told by an anonymous narrator, easily enough supposed to be Modiano. He tells us he met Jansen in 1964 when he was only nineteen, which would have been Modiano's age. How easily memory is triggered. He is writing this story in 1992, having found a picture Jansen had taken of him and his girl friend in the spring of 1964. But, "[t]he memory of Jansen pursued me all afternoon and would follow me forever: Jansen would remain someone I'd barely had time to know." Curiously, Jansen and, shall we say Modiano, had gone to Jansen's studio after meeting. Modiano perused Jansen's huge collection of photographs. On the walls were portraits of a younger Jansen and a smiling Capa. There was a portrait of a beautiful woman, Colette Laurent, gone now. Jansen had no catalog of his many photographs. The young man took it upon himself to catalog them, because it was a photographic history of a past that must be preserved. Jansen took to calling his young pupil his scribe. He identified each individual in each photograph. Yet, Jansen will disappear leaving the young Scribe with only a catalog of photographs that no longer exist, memories that cannot be grasped, people that cannot be known, for they are Jansen's alone. This is a signature theme of Modiano to introduce us to those whose personalities cannot be grasped. There is a vague detachment, and the uncomfortable fact that life is not as certain as we might like it to be. Suspended Sentences Remise de peine (1988) "After a little I am taken in and put to bed. Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her: and those receive me, who quietly treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but will not ever tell me who I am.”― James Agee, A Death in the Family This novella most strongly represents Modiano's central themes of memory and the Occupation of France, for me. What makes it most intriguing is that Modiano sorts through his childhood memories of living with his brother in the care of Annie and her associates with whom his mother, an actress, has left them while she is on tour in a stage production. The hero of this novella is Patoche, a diminutive of Patrick. His brother is unnamed. Patoche illustrates how the memories of childhood may shine with crystalline brilliance in the knowledge of names, faces, and places. However, the significance of the people that surround a child, and their connections to one another have no meaning to a child without explanation. Memory still leaves questions which can never be answered and may haunt us through our lives. It is tempting to us Modiano's autobiography, Un pedigree, written in 2005, as a reader's guide to these novellas, especially Suspended Sentences. For there are so many things in Modiano's life that emerge in the pages of Patoche's memories that seemingly occurred in real life. The woman, Annie, in whose care Patoche is left, was really Suzanne Bouqueran. Frede, Annie's close friend, is the nickname of Suzanne Baule' who ran a nightclub. Could it be that Annie and her compatriots who come and go, seemingly without reason, are members of the Carlingue, a gang of collaorateurs during the Occupation? Here they are the Rue Lauriston gang. [image] The Carlingue, "French Gestapo," Convicted and Condemned following the Liberation Patoche and his brother are sometimes visited by their father. He is frequently accompanied by a number of business associates. There is an indication that he had once been a dealer in wines and liquors by the truckload. Father speaks of a chateau, now in ruins, to which he takes the boys to tour. The property had been seized by the United States Army as the product of illegal gains. Father tells the boys to keep an eye on the place because the Marquis who had owned the Chateau would return one day, although he and his wife had fled France at the end of the War. Another member of the Carlingue? There is no definite answer. Some questions have no answers. With memory comes mystery. Modiano plays with the reader as a cat does a mouse. Patoche takes us forward in time to his twenties when he meets Jean D., who used to come to Annie's home when Patoche was ten. Jean D. has done time in prison--seven years. Jean and Patoche speak of the old days. Patoche tells him he is writing his first book. Patoche reveals that during the War his father had been arrested as a Jew. However his father was released through the efforts of a man named Eddie Pagnon. Why was his father arrested? His father will not tell him. The answer must lie with Pagnon. But Patoche cannot talk to him. He was a member of the Rue Lauriston Gang, condemned and shot. Only his childhood memories may lead him to a garage he remembers, a garage that Annie drove to when he rode along with her. Why did she give him a cigarette case? Where did she go? Where did everyone go? Where did his brother go? Why was the house where he had lived empty one day? Oh, Annie, how kind you were to me, Patoche. Perhaps I loved you a little bit. I remember how you looked, the smell of your hair, the softness of your shoulder, the blouse you wore with the skirt, the wide belt cinching your waist, I liked you best that way. Not in the tight pants, the boots, the cowboy jacket. [image] Brothers Rudy and Patrick Modiano. Rudy died of Leukemia at the age of ten in 1957. His death is just a whisper in Suspended Sentences Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel Ruined Flowers Fleurs de ruine (1991) The Present "I reached Rue d'Ulm. It was deserted. Though I kept telling myself that there was nothing unusual about that on a Sunday evening in this studious provincial neighborhood, I wondered whether I was still in Paris. In front of me, the dome of the Pantheon It frightened me to be there alone, at the foot of that funereal monument in the moonlight and I veered off into Rue Lhomond." April 24, 1933 A young married couple commits suicide for no apparent reason. It's a strange story that occurred that night in the building at number 26 rue des Fosse's-Saint-Jacques, near the Pantheon, in the home of Mr. and MMe. T. What possible connection can there be here? Ah. Our narrator from the present has acquired a copy of the police report of the 1933 suicide. He is tracing their same route of that evening in 1933. But why? As he follows in the doomed couple's footsteps, our present day narrator thinks back to having lived in the Montparnasse Quarter in 1965 with Jacqueline. Before he went to Vienna. How our memories dart through our minds, a chain reaction of events, but smoothly, a stream of consciousness. Private. Our own. No one else's. No one knows what we are thinking. He recalls his neighbor. A veteran of the Algerian War. Not quite truthful. Something a little false about a textile concern. Back and forth. Back and forth. Following the route of that long dead couple, memories of his former neighbor twirling around inside his mind. Duvelz. That was his name. Insisted that he and Jacqueline come around and meet this woman. The face opening the door. A woman with a scar on her cheek. Things go rather squirrely. Duvelz introduces the woman. Our man can't remember her name. She and Duvelz were even engaged once, but she had to go marry someone else. Oh, her husband's out of town. They can all go out together. Or not. Duvelz strokes the scar on the woman's cheek. He opens her blouse and fondles her breast. Casually, "We were in a serious auto accident a while back." Are you not spellbound? Can you stop reading? I could not. Where do the dots connect? Do they connect? Is this Modiano seeking out mystery for the sake of mystery? Sometimes he looks for it where there is none. He will tell you so. Ruined Flowers is a series of spiraling puzzles that links the Paris of today to a Paris that was, some of which has vanished forever. Those memories which appear to be linked with reality perhaps are those that haunt us the most. This is a solid FOUR star read. Highly recommended. These novellas served me well as an entrance to the world of Patrick Modiano. They should do the same for any reader. EXTRAS! Patrick Modiano: Literary Giant, France Today, November 15, 2011; http://www.francetoday.com/articles/2... Patrick Modiano, a Modern ‘Proust,’ Is Awarded Nobel in Literature, NYTimes Review of Books, October 9, 2014; http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/10/boo... Patrick Modiano’s Postwar World, Alexandra Schwarz, The New Yorker, OCTOBER 9, 2014; http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-t... Why You Haven’t Heard of Patrick Modiano, Winner of the Nobel in Literature, Megan Gibson, Time Magazine, October 9, 2014; http://time.com/3484744/nobel-prize-l... Soundtrack Edith Piaf - Non, je ne regrette rien;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFtGf... Jacques Brel - Ne Me Quitte Pas; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2wmK... Tina Arena - Les moulins de mon cœur/The Windmills of Your Mind (Live);https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdovT... Love theme from "Les parapluies de Cherbourg" (1964);https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7Unn... ...more |
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Paperback
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| 0743205383
| 9780743205382
| 0743205383
| 3.99
| 2,999
| 2000
| Apr 17, 2001
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really liked it
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Fay:Larry Brown's Look at Love in All the Wrong Places Fay was chosen by members of On the Southern Literary Trail as a group read for November, 2014. Fay:Larry Brown's Look at Love in All the Wrong Places Fay was chosen by members of On the Southern Literary Trail as a group read for November, 2014. [image] Larry Brown, July 9, 1951 – November 24, 2004, Oxford, Mississippi [image] Fay, First Ed., Algonquin Books, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 2000 I have one of those first editions of Fay. But it's not signed. I kept meaning to get over to Oxford, Mississippi, to meet Larry Brown. Actually, I had several first editions by the time Fay came out. I figured I had plenty of time. After all, Brown was a young man. So was I. I was stunned when he died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-three. It was a wake up call of sorts. I was one year behind Brown. I was fifty-two when he checked out. I was still walking the court room floors as if I owned them, trying the hard cases, burning the candle at both ends. While I noted as did Edna St. Vincent Millay that blazing candle indeed made a lovely light, I was also conscious of the fact that all candles eventually burn out. With Larry Brown's death I began to make an effort not to find an excuse to skip a book signing. And now I'm sixty-two. My health could be better. I joke about my key to immortality being a stack of unfinished books. Wouldn't it be pretty to think so. With Larry Brown, I'll have to be content with the writing he left us. The interviews he gave. A wonderful documentary, The Rough South of Larry Brown. I think I would have liked Larry Brown, sitting down and talking with him. He understood people, brought them alive on the page, the good ones and the bad ones. That is so evident in Fay. I got a feelin' called the blues, oh Lord Fay came out of the hills north of Oxford, Mississippi, raised poor. She grew up hard, with a Daddy who led her mother and her other siblings from place to place. She's followed the migrant workers. Lost one brother to death. One was so sick Daddy traded him for a car. There's got to be a better life. Fay's heard there's a beach down on the coast. When Daddy expressed an interest in her no Daddy ought to have it's time to start walking. With two dollars stuffed in her bra, her pack of cigarettes in a purse slung over her shoulder, Fay is looking for that better life. She's a natural beauty with a body that makes men turn and stare. That first night trudging down the road, some boys in a pickup offer her a ride. They seem nice enough. They have beer and they're going to fry catfish. Well, of course, one or more of them's got designs on Fay, but with all the booze, the dope, and an obliging woman on the premises, Fay makes it through the night in a maidenly way, but gets an eyeful of the obliging older woman satisfying two young men at the same time. Fay feels a shudder somewhere deep inside, never knowing that something like that was possible. It's time to keep on walking. Fay meets Sam, a State Trooper, who takes her home with him. Sam lives in a cabin with his wife Amy. It's a loveless marriage. A lot of marriages don't survive the loss of a child. Sam and Amy lost their daughter Karen four years before, killed in a car wreck. Sam had the misfortune to be dispatched to work that wreck, found his daughter dead in a crumpled car, not a mark on her, but with a broken neck. That's hard on a man. It's hard on Amy who has become an alcoholic. Fay becomes their second daughter. She's seventeen. Amy buys her clothes. Fay lives in Karen's room. Sam loves to take her fishing. Fay's good at it. "I wish I had a Daddy like you," Fay tells him. But this fairy tale can't last. Amy is killed in a wreck. Soon after the funeral Fay and Sam become lovers. Bottom line, Fay is a natural at sex. And she enjoys it. Sam is bothered at their age difference, but, DAMN, he can't stop. If only he had the presence of mind to have worn a rubber that first time. But no. Now, Sam and Fay being a couple upsets Alesandra, the beautiful woman Sam was having an affair with before Fay came into the picture. Alesandra has a temper. Alesandra also has a gun. While Sam is away, Alesandra is going to kill Fay. Fay kills Alesandra in self defense and leaves Sam's home, which leaves Sam in a lot of trouble with law enforcement. And Sam has a bad case of the lovesick blues. Hitching rides with truck drivers, Fay ends up in Biloxi, that beach at the coast. She finds herself at a dive called the Love Cage, a strip club where she meets Aaron Forrest the bouncer. She also meets Reena, a down on her luck stripper, who offers her a place to stay. Of course, Fay will end up with Aaron who starts out as a caring and protective man. The Love Cage covers up a lot of ugly secrets. Drugs. Prostitution. Pornography. Aaron is in the thick of all of it. He wants to keep Fay away from the business, out of Biloxi, over at his mother's place in Pass Christian. Fay is a natural at sex. Oh. Had I already mentioned that? Aaron has it bad. Aaron has a jealous streak. If Fay were to leave him, Aaron would have a bad case of the lovesick blues. Fay misses Sam. Things are going to get very complicated. Larry Brown puts the reader through the ringer. This is an outstanding read. The dialogue crackles. The sense of place is so strong you can smell the pines of Northern Mississippi, and the salty breeze of the Gulf. Brown's scenes of violence explode, leaving the reader shuddering and the victims whimpering. This is a country noir thriller with overtones of ironic black comedy. Why not five stars? At five hundred pages, as magic as some of the prose was, the story didn't merit quite the length of the telling. A SOLID 4 STAR READ. Highly recommended. EXTRAS! An excerpt from The Rough South of Larry Brown Another excerpt from The Rough South of Larry Brown Just One More Visit With Larry Brown, Oxford American, June, 2013 SOUNDTRACK Lovesick Blues, Hank Williams Crazy, Patsy Cline What'd I Say?, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley Walking After Midnight, Patsy Cline It's Only Make Believe, Conway Twitty ...more |
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Nov 27, 2014
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Oct 26, 2014
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| 0675093244
| 9780675093248
| 0675093244
| 4.06
| 26,020
| Nov 01, 1930
| Jan 01, 1970
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it was amazing
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William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily: The Town as Narrator and Accomplice This classic Southern gothic story was chosen as a Moderators' Choice for memb William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily: The Town as Narrator and Accomplice This classic Southern gothic story was chosen as a Moderators' Choice for members of On the Southern Literary Trail for October, 2014. WHEN Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old man-servant--a combined gardener and cook--had seen in at least ten years. Those words first appeared in print in Forum: The Magazine of Controversy, in the April edition, 1930. It was fitting. Forum was at its height as a magazine of literary significance and had served as a clarion call on issues of social significance since the 1890s. It ceased publication in 1950. I can only surmise the editorial staff threw up their hands in the face of rising McCarthyism. [image] I KNOW it's not the April issue. I couldn't find one! "A Rose for Emily" is in it!" However, "A Rose for Emily" appeared in These Thirteen, William Faulkner's first anthology of short stories published in 1931. [image] These Thirteen, First ed.,Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, New York, 1931 As always, you can find contradictory opinions by William Faulkner regarding the value of Novels, Short Stories, and Poetry. He has referred to writing short stories as "whoring," especially when he was sending stories off to The Saturday Evening Post, his favorite market for his short fiction. However, consider his remarks while writer in residence at the University of Virginia. Yes sir. You can be more careless, you can put more trash in [a novel] and be excused for it. In a short story that's next to the poem, almost every word has got to be almost exactly right. In the novel you can be careless but in the short story you can't. I mean by that the good short stories like Chekhov wrote. That's why I rate that second – it's because it demands a nearer absolute exactitude. You have less room to be slovenly and careless. There's less room in it for trash. Faulkner in the University,Introduction by Douglas Day,Frederick Landis Gwynn, Joseph Blotner,University Press of Virginia, 1995 I ascribe to that statement by Faulkner where "A Rose for Emily" is concerned. For this story is a remarkable construction of plot, characterization, theme, and the use of a unique narrative technique. It is only through close reading, repeated reading, that the perfection of this story reveals why this story has become the most anthologized American short story. Alas, Andalusia, aka Martha Jo, aka "The Queen" has decreed that I, who has decreed himself Jeeves around this abode WILL squire her to Kentuck, the local festival of Arts. And here, Dear Reader, I will leave you until I have returned, covered in the dust of the trodden paths, bearing objects of art, smelling of funnel cake, deafened by strains of music played too loudly through poor public address systems. Goodbye Faulkner. I will think of your story while I am gone. *poof* Actually in route, I have in mind the ideal photograph for Miss Emily's house. Paint peeling, the grey cypress revealed underneath. And our town's oldest cemetery along the way. Perhaps time well spent. Happy reading. The afternoon has passed as I told you, reader, it would. I have shaken the dust of well trodden paths from my shoes, my beloved is content with purchases made. I am content with photographs taken, downloaded, edited, and shortly to be uploaded and shared. Ah, Mr. Faulkner. There you are. Well, you weren't whoring with this one. Nor were you telling a straight forward ghost story, although you have said so more than once. Your favorite themes are there, rising from the page. The changing South is there. Miss Emily's house itself is a symbol of it. The past is never past. That's there. Once the Grierson mansion was a brilliant white on the finest street in town. Now it is falling into disrepair. No longer on one of the finer streets, it is surrounded by businesses, within the sound of the passing trains, near the cemetery where the rows of Union and Confederate dead lie. Miss Emily herself, dead, is a monument. [image] And we begin the story in the present with Miss Emily taking her place among the eternally peaceful. It is all fairly straight forward. Those first few paragraphs. [image] All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.-Edgar Lee Masters, The Hill, Spoonriver Anthology, 1915 However, Mr. Faulkner tells his story in anything but a conventional manner after the seemingly innocent beginning narrative. Time becomes non-linear. The initial narrator who might have been an omniscient third person observer, a single first person voice, becomes the curiously effective first person plural narrator. The narrator is not I but We. Should you be patient and count, you will find "we" used forty-eight times. It is not a mere whim. Faulkner did nothing by whim. Through multiple sets of eyes, through multiple generations, we learn the story of Emily Grierson's life and her place in the community. Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1894 when Colonel Sartoris, the mayor--he who fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron-remitted her taxes, the dispensation dating from the death of her father on into perpetuity. Not that Miss Emily would have accepted charity. Colonel Sartoris invented an involved tale to the effect that Miss Emily's father had loaned money to the town, which the town, as a matter of business, preferred this way of repaying. Only a man of Colonel Sartoris' generation and thought could have invented it, and only a woman could have believed it. [image] Read carefully. It's like asking Salvador Dali for the time. Emily's father found no suitor acceptable for his daughter. He stood in the doorway, chasing them away with a horse whip. He left her nothing but the house. So the good Old Colonel Sartoris fabricated the scheme to save her the taxes. Notice the narrator(s) observed her to have an angelic appearance. The Griersons always had that superior attitude. The town resented that. However, Emily was to be pitied. Left a spinster at her father's death. No wonder she denied he was dead and the preachers had to talk her into surrendering his body after he had been dead for three days. We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will. Faulkner continues to play with time. He plays with the reader. Unless particularly wary, the reader does not realize he is being played by a master but merciless mouser. That was two years after her father's death and a short time after her sweetheart--the one we believed would marry her --had deserted her. After her father's death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all. A few of the ladies had the temerity to call, but were not received, and the only sign of life about the place was the Negro man--a young man then--going in and out with a market basket. Then there's that peculiar odor that emanates from Miss Emily's house shortly after the missing sweetheart was believed to have married Emily. So the next night, after midnight, four men crossed Miss Emily's lawn and slunk about the house like burglars, sniffing along the base of the brickwork and at the cellar openings while one of them performed a regular sowing motion with his hand out of a sack slung from his shoulder. They broke open the cellar door and sprinkled lime there, and in all the outbuildings. As they recrossed the lawn, a window that had been dark was lighted and Miss Emily sat in it, the light behind her, and her upright torso motionless as that of an idol. They crept quietly across the lawn and into the shadow of the locusts that lined the street. After a week or two the smell went away. [image] An idol is feared as much as it is worshiped. Or did they not want to know the truth? Faulkner spins the hands on the clock again. The sweetheart was Homer Barron, a common laborer and a Yankee at that. A drinker who enjoyed the company of young men whom he told he was not the marrying kind. The Town decided reinforcements were necessary, summoning two Grierson cousins from Alabama. Barron leaves town, but returns when the Grierson cousins leave. The Town decides it's just as well. Those Alabama Griersons were more superior than Mississippi Griersons. Emily buys a man's dressing set with the initials "HB" on each piece. A man's nightshirt completes the ensemble. After Homer enters Emily's home he's never seen again. Emily offers china painting lessons to a generation of Jefferson's children. Until the children stop coming. The hands on the clock spin wildly. She carried her head high enough--even when we believed that she was fallen. It was as if she demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson; as if it had wanted that touch of earthiness to reaffirm her imperviousness. Like when she bought the rat poison, the arsenic. That was over a year after they had begun to say "Poor Emily," and while the two female cousins were visiting her. Time passes inexorably. Miss Emily is thirty when she abandons noblesse oblige and takes up with Homer Barron. She dies at the age of seventy-four. At last in death she can be openly acknowledged as one of the community's own. Her air of superiority is gone. Her peculiarity is gone. There is no trace of madness. She is no longer a burden or a duty. Two generations have passed. It is a new generation that rules Jefferson now. Only a few remain of Emily's own age. And they remember her as they wish to. ...and the very old men --some in their brushed Confederate uniforms--on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs, believing that they had danced with her and courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical progression, as the old do, to whom all the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the most recent decade of years. There is but one thing more for Faulkner to do, the final pronouncement of the omniscient "we" that gives "A Rose for Emily" its indelible shudder up the spine of generations of readers. Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced. They waited until Miss Emily was decently in the ground before they opened it. [image] Just who knew about that closed room? How many knew? (view spoiler)[Behind the door the body of Homer Barron rots inside his night gown into the bed. Beside his grinning face there is an indentation on the pillow. There is a single iron gray hair in the hollow there. (hide spoiler)] It is this knowledge that not only establishes the town as narrator but also accomplice. We act not only affirmatively but also by failure to act, by passivity, indifference, and our own self interest. Rest well Emily, Homer, for all, all, will sleep, sleep, sleep on the hill. Mr. Chekhov,allow me to introduce you to Mr. Faulkner. EXTRAS!EXTRAS! Watch A Rose for Emily, with Anjelica Huston, 1983 ...more |
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Oct 14, 2014
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Oct 12, 2014
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Hardcover
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| 0991649648
| 9780991649648
| 0991649648
| 4.28
| 178
| Jul 18, 2013
| Jun 21, 2014
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really liked it
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Randy Thornhorn's The Kestrel Waters:Gospel Music,Love, Bobnots, Lychs,and Life [image] Randy Thornhorn, a teller of tales of places you do and d Randy Thornhorn's The Kestrel Waters:Gospel Music,Love, Bobnots, Lychs,and Life [image] Randy Thornhorn, a teller of tales of places you do and don't want to be Mama may have, papa may have If you read The Kestrel Waters: A Tale of Love and Devil, and I recommend you do, prepare to set your imagination free. Randy Thornhorn has created a work combining elements of the Appalachian tall tale, Southern folklore, gothic literature, that draws together threads of Celtic and Germanic mythology. Thornhorn strongly believes that Southern literature is one of the true genres of regional story telling that exists in this country today. I happen to agree with him. You'll find many of the markers of that genre in these pages, but much more. There is a strong sense of place and setting here. A strong sense of family, dysfunctional though it may be. There is a definite degree of eccentricity displayed by particular characters. Plot lines meander leisurely. Some of these characteristics drive folks nuts. They don't get it. My wife and I have a saying, "Quirky? We like quirky." Think of one of Robert Altman's later films, "Cookie's Fortune," filmed in Holly Springs, Mississippi in 1999, and you have the lighter side of "The Kestrel Waters." This is the story of the Family Brass. The patriarch is Daddy Malakoff Brass who runs a somewhat shady business down on the Savannah waterfront. Daddy left the family home, inherited by Mother Georgianna Brass from her father, a naval officer. It's down on Officer's row, a magnificent mansion, that requires a tremendous amount of upkeep. [image] Are the Brothers Brass in today? Mama has done her connubial duty producing two sons, Glenn and Kestrel, the title character. And that's enough connubial bliss for Mother Brass. Daddy Brass, a force of nature, larger than life, a man of great appetites, carnal and otherwise, has a peach of a secretary, Miss Plum who attends to his business, personal and private. Turns out Glenn and Kestrel are gifted with voice and instruments. Mother Brass promotes her two sons as gospel singers. They become the Brothers Brass. And they will become hits at gospel jamborees, tent shows, you name it. Picture them as very, very wholesome Everly Brothers who have the natural gospel pitch to their audiences. [image] The Brass Brothers have a surprising resemblance to the Everly Brothers But that tag, the Brothers Brass, has a familiar ring. Think the Brothers Grimm. [image] Because this tale can be rather grim While there's a bright and sunny side of life, there's a very dark and stormy side, too. It's far away from Savannah. Somewhere in the hills of Appalachia. In this dark world there's a place where you don't belong to be. It's Riddle Top, a mountain, where a fellow named Bob Nottingham rules. Think an endless night on Bald Mountain. [image] A place you don't belong to be Now, reader, you have a choice here. You may decide, as I did, that Bob Nottingham is the Devil. Or, you may decide he is a twisted, malevolent god. Frankly the road of Faith has been a rocky one for me. Many times during my long years as a career prosecutor I have often thought it easier to believe in the existence of a Devil than God. Or is it that troublesome question of free will? Does anyone truly know? I don't. Whatever you decide, reader, this much is true. Bob Nottingham wants to get back whatever he loses. And he will stop at nothing to retrieve his lost treasure. Anything or anyone who stands in his way is forfeit. Who, or what is it that Bob Nottingham seeks? It is a young girl named Bettilia, child like, but fortunate enough to have escaped from Riddle Top. She loves to sit among the high limbs of trees. My mind immediately went to Rima of Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson. [image] This is Bettilia to me The only book Bettilia owns is a child's reader. Tiny in stature, she is great in spirit and the power of love. It will come as no surprise that she and Kestrel fall in love and that she is completely accepted by every member of the Brass family. Bettilia is the epitome of the meaning of love and the willingness to do anything to show that love to those whose circle she enters. A Devil has his demons, or, if you prefer another term, his thralls. These are strangely sharp featured creatures, seemingly without will, who serve as Bob Nottingham's messengers and spies. In the world of Riddle Top they are known as Lyches. The leap to the image of leaches is not difficult. When one of them appears, Nottingham is not far behind. It is incredibly difficult to review this novel without revealing too much. However, it should come as no surprise that Kestrel loses Bettilia. The question is will he get her back? Will Kestrel and Bob Nottingham meet on Riddletop? Who will prevail? Love or Devil? There will be a reckoning. I sat down for lunch yesterday with Randy Thornhorn. It was a very interesting conversation. Thornhorn is a native of East Texas. He began writing at the age of fourteen, although he was not writing professionally until his late twenties. The world of Riddle Top is a kingdom that began to take shape in Thornhorn's mind in childhood. Sitting in the dark, in his aunt's living room, as she would be cooking breakfast, the moving shadows became the Lyches that would one day become part of Riddle Top. Yes, Celtic mythology influenced him. As did Germanic. Was he a reader of H.P. Lovecraft? Why, yes. He was. Thornhorn begins writing at 3:15 am. That's the time I was just getting to bed reading this novel. Curse you, Brother Thornhorn! Will there be a sequel to "The Kestrel Waters?" He's not saying. Will there be other Riddle Top stories? Definitely. For a read that is definitely a refreshing break from the norm, allow your imagination to take flight. Settle back, remember the magic and power of the tales that entranced you in your youth and rejoice that such stories still exist. If you can't return to the days a book could do that, don't even try. You won't get it. EXTRAS! Listen to Music Videos from "The Kestrel Waters." ...more |
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Oct 26, 2014
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Oct 30, 2014
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Sep 26, 2014
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Hardcover
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| 0393319814
| 9780393319811
| 0393319814
| 4.29
| 135
| Dec 1992
| Sep 17, 1999
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it was amazing
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Review to follow upon completion of Reynold's multi-volume biography. This is the third of five volumes.
Review to follow upon completion of Reynold's multi-volume biography. This is the third of five volumes.
...more
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Sep 06, 2014
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Oct 10, 2014
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Sep 06, 2014
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Paperback
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| 0062092898
| 9780062092892
| 0062092898
| 3.76
| 16,430
| Jul 01, 2014
| Sep 02, 2014
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it was amazing
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Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Karen Abbott's History of Four Women in the American Civil War I am always on the women's side.-The Diary of Mary BoyLiar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Karen Abbott's History of Four Women in the American Civil War I am always on the women's side.-The Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut Whoever said history has to be dull? Well, when Newsweek Magazine asked one thousand Americans the same U.S. Citizenship Test questions required for an immigrant to gain United States Citizenship, 38% must have found it pretty dull stuff. They failed. Seventy percent couldn't tell you what the Constitution was. That's a pretty bleak look on Americans' knowledge about their own country. Take The Quiz: What We Don't Know Newsweek Magazine, March 20, 2011. So it is especially refreshing to find a book as skilfully written by an author as talented as Karen Abbott who brings a lesser known area of the American Civil War brilliantly alive. Any reader will find her story of four women and their involvement in the American Civil War anything but dull. With the skill of a novelist, Abbott weaves the lives of four exceptional and independent women into the complex history of the times. Nor does Abbott accomplish her task without the credentials to back up her work. Abbott writes the History column for Smithsonian.com and Disunion, the continuing series on the American Civil War for The New York Times. [image] Karen Abbott is the author of Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul, and American Rose. Writing of strong, independent women, outside traditional roles, I consider her a feminist historian. Oh. Don't be misled by the author's looks. Yes, she's a beautiful woman. Yes, she certainly turned this reader's head. But make no mistake about it. She has a mind as sharp as the finest Toledo steel. This is a history that is fully noted with a bibliography of sources that should satisfy any historian. Writing of women's role in the American Civil War, Abbott said in her introductory note: Some--privately or publicly, with shrewd caution or gleeful abandon --chafed at the limitations society set for them and determined to change the course of the war. In the pages that follow I tell the story of four such women: a rebellious teenager with a dangerous temper; a Canadian expat on the run from her past; a widow and a mother with nothing else to lose; and a wealthy society matron who endured death threats for years, and lost as much as she won. Each, in her own way, was a liar, a temptress, a soldier, and a spy, sometimes all at once."...more |
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Sep 04, 2014
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Oct 25, 2014
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Sep 04, 2014
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Hardcover
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| 1847243576
| 9781847243577
| 1847243576
| 4.19
| 8,331
| Mar 06, 2008
| Jan 01, 2008
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really liked it
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A Quiet Flame: Memories Die Hard [image] First Edition, Quercus, London, UK, 2008 "All Germans carry an image of Adolph Hitler inside them," I saiA Quiet Flame: Memories Die Hard [image] First Edition, Quercus, London, UK, 2008 "All Germans carry an image of Adolph Hitler inside them," I said. "Even ones like me, who hated Hitler and everything he stood for. This face with its tousled hair and postage-stamp mustache haunts us all now and forevermore and, like a quiet flame that can never be extinguished, burns itself into our souls. The Nazis used to talk of a thousand -year empire. But sometimes I think that because of what we did, the name of Germany and the Germans will live in infamy for a thousand years. That it will take the rest of the world a thousand years to forget. Certainly if I live to be a thousand years old, I'll never forget some of the things I saw. And some of the things I did."- Bernie Gunther BREAK/ Will continue. ...more |
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Aug 22, 2014
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Aug 24, 2014
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Aug 22, 2014
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Paperback
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| B00H8RU6UM
| 4.25
| 320,213
| Jan 07, 2014
| Jan 07, 2014
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really liked it
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None
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Aug 19, 2014
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Aug 03, 2014
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Audible Audio
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| 0399152997
| 9780399152993
| 0399152997
| 4.18
| 8,740
| Sep 07, 2006
| Sep 07, 2006
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really liked it
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The One From the Other: Everybody is out to Get Bernie Gunther Lullaby and good night, etc. etc. One of these days I'm gonna finish this review. The Ki The One From the Other: Everybody is out to Get Bernie Gunther Lullaby and good night, etc. etc. One of these days I'm gonna finish this review. The KitKat Club is closed. Gute Nacht meine Damen und Herren. Schlafen Sie gut. Süße Träume. ...more |
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Aug 03, 2014
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Aug 07, 2014
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Aug 03, 2014
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Hardcover
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| 4.04
| 195,291
| Mar 27, 2014
| May 13, 2014
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really liked it
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Bird Box: Living in the Dark "This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimp Bird Box: Living in the Dark "This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper." The Hollow Men, T.S. Eliot, 1925 Construction Zone. Pardon our progress. ...more |
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Jul 29, 2014
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Aug 02, 2014
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Jul 29, 2014
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| 0393318796
| 9780393318791
| 0393318796
| 4.15
| 627
| Oct 1989
| May 17, 1999
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it was amazing
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Jul 29, 2014
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Sep 04, 2014
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Jul 29, 2014
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Paperback
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| 1590177169
| 9781590177167
| 1590177169
| 4.18
| 1,482
| 1930
| May 20, 2014
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it was amazing
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Fear:A Novel of World War I, The one novel you must read about the Great War [image] Gabriel Chevalier in service during World War I Much more to com Fear:A Novel of World War I, The one novel you must read about the Great War [image] Gabriel Chevalier in service during World War I Much more to come. Not to heighten suspense, this novel is superb. Chevallier holds nothing back in his depiction of war. It is a scathing portrait of indifferent leaders mindful of their reputation but not the fate of their men. Discipline is brutal. Armed Gendarmes on horseback are stationed behind the lines to send men moving to the rear back to the front. Gendarmes who do not fight have the authority to execute soldiers who do not obey. Medals are distributed, but to the commanders safely ensconced in fortified dugouts far in the rear of combat. Those at the front whose actions lead to success are not recognized. Newspapers cover up failures at the front. Civilians accustomed to seeing soldiers home on leave are unaware of the massive deaths at the front unless they have received personal notification of their own loss. This is a bold tale of bitterness and black humor. It is not to be missed. This may be THE WWI novel you've not heard of. It's tone is completely different from All Quiet on the Western Front and Grave's Goodbye to all That. Chevallier spares the reader nothing. Because of that this novel carries with it more power than anything else this reader has encountered written as a result of the Great War. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 03, 2014
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Aug 16, 2014
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Jul 28, 2014
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Paperback
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| 0393317765
| 9780393317763
| 0393317765
| 4.03
| 269
| 1986
| Jun 17, 1998
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it was amazing
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 24, 2014
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Jul 29, 2014
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Jul 24, 2014
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Paperback
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| 1478726806
| 9781478726807
| 1478726806
| 4.00
| 11
| Mar 19, 2014
| Mar 19, 2014
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really liked it
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 14, 2014
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Jun 21, 2014
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Jun 14, 2014
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Paperback
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my rating |
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| 3.76
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really liked it
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Dec 29, 2014
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Dec 27, 2014
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| 4.07
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it was amazing
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Dec 23, 2014
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Dec 16, 2014
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| 3.59
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really liked it
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Dec 17, 2014
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Dec 14, 2014
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| 3.57
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really liked it
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Dec 10, 2014
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Nov 28, 2014
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| 4.10
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it was amazing
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Dec 25, 2014
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Nov 28, 2014
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| 3.93
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really liked it
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Nov 29, 2014
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Nov 19, 2014
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| 3.68
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really liked it
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Nov 04, 2014
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Oct 31, 2014
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| 3.99
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really liked it
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Nov 27, 2014
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Oct 26, 2014
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| 4.06
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it was amazing
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Oct 14, 2014
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Oct 12, 2014
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| 4.28
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really liked it
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Oct 30, 2014
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Sep 26, 2014
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| 4.29
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it was amazing
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Oct 10, 2014
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Sep 06, 2014
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| 3.76
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it was amazing
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Oct 25, 2014
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Sep 04, 2014
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| 4.19
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really liked it
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Aug 24, 2014
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Aug 22, 2014
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| 4.25
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really liked it
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Aug 19, 2014
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Aug 03, 2014
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| 4.18
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really liked it
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Aug 07, 2014
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Aug 03, 2014
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| 4.04
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really liked it
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Aug 02, 2014
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Jul 29, 2014
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| 4.15
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it was amazing
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Sep 04, 2014
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Jul 29, 2014
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| 4.18
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it was amazing
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Aug 16, 2014
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Jul 28, 2014
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| 4.03
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it was amazing
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Jul 29, 2014
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Jul 24, 2014
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| 4.00
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really liked it
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Jun 21, 2014
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Jun 14, 2014
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