Currently physically on my bedtable: J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's
Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
The Cherry Creek TC had what its LoDo sister had not, and I began this on the
bus home yesterday and just finished it. Three thumbs up.
990617
At the LoDo Tattered Cover disappointed in my search for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, I plucked this off a remaindered stack festering on the stairs, an automatic reflex. I read it on the shuttle back from the LoDo and on the bus to the Cherry Creek Tattered Covers, and it too waits behind Harry Potter and Penelope Fitzgerald.
Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
As well as a long book not requiring focus, I decided to bring a long book that does require focus. It has taken a back seat to Harry Potter, and after him will remain there for Kundera and Dillard. Deal with it.
I just found this on a papperback trading shelf and snatched it up. I like
not having to pay for such stuff. I brought it home
because I figured I'd need a long book that didn't require concentration while
I was in that house. When Granny spotted and clearly wanted it, I didn't remind
her that I had already given it to her. If she can experience that book anew,
at 900 pages or so, that's a good chunk of reading I am pleased to have regiven
her.
(150 pages reread, anyway, 990613)
Penelope Fitzgerald, The Gate
of Angels
Not as dense as The Blue Flower but it also left me with the feeling
that I am too dense to get it. Which is quite possible.
990612
Roald Dahl, The Umbrella Man (short
stories)
I already had read all but two of these stories before in a volume called Tales of the Unexpected, which because of its cover I think came out after the television series of the same name. They're nifty stories, satisfyingly gorey and unsettling with good O. Henryish twists. "Taste" and "The Way Up to Heaven" are my current favorites.
Annie Dillard, For the Time Being
Now I don't trust her at all, although I want to. Not just the naturalism but the hospital delivery room and the fantastic description of the archeological dig near Xi'an, too, I distrust. Is the archeology fantasy, or is the description merely fantastically evocative? I know the find is real: I visited its exhibition at the Denver Museum of Natural History. But did she see it, did she go? This is creative non-fiction, I tell myself--except it might be fiction posing. I get mad at Laura Ingalls Wilder for lying in her fiction. I'm ready to be madder at Dillard for lying in her nonfiction.
Spinelli is a new name in children's books for me, contemporary dialogue and themes and overall a draw for the reluctant reader.
Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Velvet
Room and The Truth about Stone Hollow
I liked the former a lot, the usual Snyder: northern California, good sense
of history, likable protagonist, good story, facile and happy ending-ish but
none the worse for wear. The latter sucked. A lot of sound and fury signifying
nothing. Tension building up to an unresolved ending. Lack of resolution I can
handle in The Crying of Lot 49 or the damn "Lady and the Tiger,"
but this book just fell apart after repetition meant to build tension that built
little but tedium.
990530 and 990601
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The
Little Prince
Another rereading, also just because I finally bought it. Unlike the Ransome,
though, I haven't read this since either maybe high school French or college
sometime.
990529
Patricia MacLachlan, Skylark, Journey,
Seven Kisses in a Row, and Tomorrow's Wizard
Nothing quite as perfect as Sarah, Plain and Tall, but all very good. I have forgotten the name of the other book of hers I particularly like besides Sarah. Its characters are connected to the Sarah ones somehow, but I think it's more contemporary or at least a generation closer to now, and there's a girl who calls her grandfather Morever or a similar word because that's his constant refrain. But I can't find it on the list at Amazon.
Arthur Ransome, Winter Holiday
A rereading, just because I picked it up. I love the whole Swallows and
Amazons series, with which I procrastinated throughout grad school.
990528
Gail Carson Levine, Ella Enchanted
I was enchanted. This is a super retelling of Cinderella, and not obviously
Cinderella until two-thirds in. Ella is funny, capable, and not the sort of
girl who'd go into the basement even though she's pretty sure there's a serial
killer down there just because she's in her underwear and she doesn't want to
call the police and let the town know her immoral plans for the evening. The
prince is delightful rather than a flat handsome fool with no appeal--she has
a reason to marry him besides his crown.
990528
Francine Prose, The Peaceable Kingdom:
Stories
A couple has consulted a therapist, Doug, who counsels with suspect anthropology.
Wife: Doug's thinking of giving up his practice and going to grad school in
anthropology.
Husband: He'll quit when he can't find a tribe to pay him $100 an hour.
(p. 176)
One story has a character who tried to exit the plane when the movie ended. Another had a girl who idolized Gandhi, so all her parents could think was that she was anorexic.
The stories were episodic rather than plot-oriented, which tends to disturb
Aristotilean little moi. But I liked them, liked Prose's characterization
and the credible situations the people stumbled through.
990527
Sue Hubbell, Waiting for Aphrodite
I know I recently reminded myself not to take fiction as fact. But this is literary non-fiction, or creative essay, or whatever you want to call it, by a well-read, articulate, curious person who can make anything interesting because she is so interested in it. I really liked A Country Year but then I can see myself living in the country keeping bees and farming honey, too. Sea cucumbers, the critter to which the title refers, I had thought beyond the pale of my interest. Thanks to Hubbell, not so.
I marked this passage as a favorite; the second paragraph resonated off my funny bone and has continued to. (My apologies for not getting the page number or other citation information.)
But in addition, the bits and pieces of life are so numerous that we need to order and classify them before we can think about them. Our sort of brain cannot handle the world in the raw. We have to arrange all the bits into piles, and if there are too many piles we arrange those into clusters. Without ordering systems, which is what taxonomies are, we can't think, live or work with our world. We would find it hard to make our way through a shopping list at the grocery store if we didn't have mental categories. Without, say, the category "orange," we would have to remember each time we shopped that we wanted those orange-colored things with sweet pulp inside and not the yellow-colored things with tart pulp inside. What is more, we want the oranges and lemons grouped together so we can think of them as "citrus." And please put all the fruits and vegetables together in one big section and call it produce, rather than mixing them with the coffee and kitty litter. ThatÍs taxonomy. And the categories, whether they are called oranges, citrus, and produce, or species, genus, family, order, and class, are called taxa. The singular is taxon.
From Aristotle to Foucault, the world's heavy (and sometimes not so heavy) thinkers have seized upon taxonomy and ordering systems as an intellectual and practical joy. It is so much fun to create neat systems! In another part of my life I was a librarian. Librarians make a profession out of arranging things. They put those mysterious letters and numbers on the spines of books so that they can be arranged on shelves in order of the subject of their contents. The usual systems of arrangement in this country are the one used by the Library of Congress, a couple of letters and then a number, and the Dewey decimal system, numbers only. But other systems have been invented by classificatory minds at work. I remember learning in library school about one particularly stunning system called Faceted Classification, invented by an Indian whose name I no longer remember. In his system, a book was assigned a number that put it in relationship by subject not only to the books on either side of it on the shelf but also to those on the shelves above and below. The only trouble with his system, perhaps considered a minor one to such a systematist, was that books could never be removed from the shelves because that would break the pattern of relationship. In hindsight, many historical attempts to arrange the natural world seem as contrived and bizarre as the Faceted Classification System, but then, two hundred years from now our systems, reflecting as they do the way we look at the world, may seem equally amusing.
Cataloging! My favorite subject,
after myself. And I believe her.
990520
Julian Barnes, England, England
Julian Barnes is making me laugh at loud, at work no less. RDC claims Woody
Allen will write a whole scene to set up one perfect line, and I wonder if Barnes
does the same thing. The line I'm thinking of isn't witty, though, but so vulgar
and unexpected so I was startled into laughter. Or perhaps the word "puffin"
is just funny on its own.
Puffins remind me of Susanna Kaysen's Far
Afield and how the Faroese go out and harvest the babies. They're born
full of oily blubber and are soon tossed out of the nest, whereupon they float
on the sea until they skin down enough to hunt for themselves. Or until a Faroese
comes by with a butterfly net.
So someone saying "Fuck the puffins!" just kind of struck me as funny.
Further belying my puerile sense of humor, this paragraph from one character's
sexual history: "Someone told him that if you did it left-handed, it felt
like someone else doing it to you. Perhaps; except that it felt like someone
else's left hand, and you wondered why they didn't use their right." (p.
103)
Barnes's premise is that the invention of a tourist site so that you can "do"
England in a weekend. Sir Jack buys the Isle of Wight, therefore (since the
site should be on an island, just like England), and fakes a Stonehenge, a Buckingham
Palace, the Tower of London, etc. But first he commissions a list of the quintessences
of England, compiled from the responses of the target market.
Number 1 is the royal family, of course, and fits with the general Murkan
idea of England. Numbers 3 and 6, Manchester United Football Club and A robin
in the snow, though--it could be just me but I'd say those are English
ideas of England.
990513
Marguerite De Angeli, The Door in
the Wall
I thought I had read The Door in the Wall long ago and it did seem vaguely
familiar if not memorable. I considered it of only dubious Newbery material,
medieval though it be. The protagonist is a ten-year-old boy during the reign
of Edward III or so and wakes one midsummer morning inexplicably paralyzed and
crooked. This book won the medal in 1949, and I don't remember when the last
worst polio epidemic struck before Salk saved us all, but I think it was in
the late '40s or early '50s. The novel didn't seem imaginative or well-written
enough to deserve the Medal unless a crippling disease created a need for a
heroic disabled character.
990506
Paula Danziger, Amber Brown Is Not a
Crayon and Amber Brown Goes Fourth
I found these on the shelf over De Angelis. I'd nearly forgotten Paula Danziger:
what a shame.
990506
Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
The BBC version was pretty faithful to the novel, but even the occasional, alluring narrated bits by Jeremy Irons fail to convey the force of the novel, the despair and prejudice and lovely language.
Better than I remember it in ninth grade, which was pretty good. I understand more of his point and the dramatic devices. A superb story.
Niloufer Harben, Twentieth Century
English History Plays
Andrew Weil, Eight Weeks to Optimum
Health
I will follow some but not
all of his advice.
990425
Franz Kafka, "In the Penal Colony"
Is this where Norfolk got his idea for the writing automaton in Lempriere's
Dictionary?
Starting this, all I could hear was Patty lisping "The Penal Colony by Franz
Kafka."
Afterward, I really want to find an old New Yorker cartoon captioned "Great
Literature on Prozac" or something. It has Edgar Allen Poe walking by a raven
and saying "Hello, little bird," and perhaps Nietzsche not being a misanthrope
and I think Kafka, not stepping on a cockroach.
990425
Margaret Douglas, The Autobiography
of Henry VIII, With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers
Douglas attributes this poem to Henry VIII, which is a nice touch: possibly an anachronism but since it's anonymous, not too much of a stretch:
O Western wind
When wilt thou blow
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, that my love were in my arms
And I in my love again
I loved this book. Someone at Amazon said that Douglas erred by not knowing
that "thou/thee" is the singular or informal you. The book is told
in contemporary English, with contemporary English spelling. The only affectation
was the British spellings ("-our" instead of "-or") by an
American author. The thou/you bit didn't strike me as wrong: it was used in
prayer when Henry would address his god as Thou. I suppose it'd would be more
respectful to say You, but isn't prayer supposed to be personal and invidual?
I dunno. The contrivance that Will Somers took a journal he'd known about from
Henry's room at his death I accepted as a narrative device. It had to be written
so Will could comment upon it throughout, rather than a remembrance by Henry
at the end of life, but the likelihood of Henry writing such a thing is so low
that that was difficult to accept. The likelihood of Henry VIII being
able to write so well is quite high, anyway. He was an artist in many ways.
Overall, a wholly enjoyable romp, well researched, with believable lapses as
Henry's conscience battled with his monomania. I loved it. Henry's last few
paragraphs, particularly, would stir sympathy in the most skeptical of antiroyalist
hearts.
990423
Gore Vidal, The Judgment of Paris
I expected this to be the sort of book that strains my lazy reading habits: too
much effort to be worth the effort. I made it through Lempriere's Dictionary
and The Unconsoled through admiration and sheer determinedness. Kangaroo
Notebook didn't use difficult language but surreal geography, an effect
of its twisted theme. Anyway, I expected Gore Vidal to be the sort of author
I ought to read but who bores or mocks me. Not so, not here.
The Judgment of Paris opens with a precise and lovely character sketch,
written by the protagonist; thence Vidal flows from simple third-person omniscience
to a self-aware authorial intrusion and I found myself captivated. He has a
gift for character and dialogue and for articulating concisely vague emotions
and situations undefinable in lesser hands: "They both
laughed loudly and Philip looked from one to the other, puzzled as one always
is by the private references of acquaintances newly met, the jokes which suggest
vast unexplored areas of vice and virtue unrevealed to the outsider."
It is about the judgment of Paris; Philip is Paris and will judge in Paris. Themes of mythology (with the plagiarized Roman names, unfortunately) appear throughout. The first contestant to arrive is Hera, called Regina:her role is obvious from the first introduction. The second is Athena, called Sophia. Equally obvious. The latter does not costar with Philip for as long as Regina did, and she was not the main character during her chapters in any event. I have just (p. 162 of 237) met Aphrodite, but unlike the others her name didn't give her away:
"'[Here] is Anna Morris. . . . '
"Philip bowed to the newcomer, a dark-haired girl, of his own age, with large hazel eyes and a husband who joined them a moment later, a burly, rough-voiced man with a limp. An industrialist, Philip gathered. In steel. "
I've been waiting for the third contestant, of course, but the name didn't alert me. A burly husband, but I didn't notice that until limp. Steel was the giveaway, of course. Just in case the reader doesn't know Aphrodite was wed to Hephaestas, Vidal drops a further hint as Philip "looked not at her serious, shining eyes but at her mouth instead, wondering at its Botticelli shapeÉ"
Anyway, I wonder upon which Philip will bestow whatever the apple is; will Vidal obey precedent or be daring?Right now, I know more about Regina than the other two, but it's hardly fair to guess since Anna only arrived on the previous page.
This novel got me thinking of what the Greek gods meant to me as a child.
990414
Laurie Joffe Numeroff, If You Give
A Mouse A Cookie
A delightful circle of logic with super illustrations.
990411
Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's
and "A Christmas Memory"
"Suddenly she was blind. And since gin to artifice bears the same relation
as tears to mascara, her attractions at once dissembled."
Breakfast at Tiffany's was as good as I hoped from The Grass Harp.
"A Christmas Memory" was also excellent, a brief and poignant window
on someone's past and as gut-wrenching as Jude the Obscure, only more
frustratingly because unlike everyone in Jude, these characters were
sympathetic.
990409
Lloyd Alexander, The Iron Ring
I do admire Lloyd Alexander's knowledge of various mythologies and languages,
and I think anyone coming to one of his books for the first time would enjoy
it. As you read a second book, though, and a third, and then lots, as I have,
you realize that however interesting his plots and however appreciative of Indian,
Greek, Welsh, or whatever mythology, the characters never change. I don't
know but suspect the Prydain Cycle are his earliest books--maybe I suspect because
those were my first and my favorite. A lot easier to grasp than The Mabinogion.
Anyway, there's always the young impetuous boy having fits of Bildungsroman,
the young girl whom he falls in love with who speaks her mind and is always
right, the odd parahuman sidekick, the odd human sidekick, the villain, and
the the older wiser man or hero. The boys: Taran, Theo, Lucian, Tamar. The girls:
Eilonwy, Mickle, Joy-in-the-Dance, Mirri, and of course Vesper Holly. The parahuman
sidekicks: Gurgi, a dwarf attendant [excuse me, but that's Alexander's characterization;
I'm only cataloging], Hashkat. The human sidekicks: Fflewdur-Flam, a roguish
doctor, Adi-Kavi, Vesper Holly's guardian. The villains: Arawn, Jaya or Kana
or Nahusha. The guiding men: Coll, Rajaswami; or heros: Gwydion, Ashwara.
If I tracked down The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen or The Marvelous
Misadventures of Sebastian , I'm sure their characters would drop neatly
into place also.
(I know only the Prydain books well and Westmark trilogy not well enough to
remember the characters' names (neither do I know The Arkadians or The
Iron Ring well, but I have them to hand for names), but Amazon says of Westmark
that Theo "falls in with a roguish doctor, his dwarf attendant, and an urchin
girl. " )
Another characteristic that distinguishes Alexander from most other contemporary
fiction is his fondness for paragraph breaks within dialog:
"Without them, the tide may turn either way.
"Let them come in all haste," Ashwara went on.
The Iron Ring, p. 174
This perfectly correct element of grammar is rapidly fading to obscurity, and
myself a stickler for who and whom, comprise and compose, I appreciate his effort;
but I consider most of the constructions forced when not entirely artificial.
990407
I didn't think The Giver as remarkable as the ALA did, and while I know
it's a later book, I read it first and Number the Stars only yesterday.
Number the Stars is for a younger reader than The Diary of Anne Frank
or most other WWII/Holocaust books, which I'm glad of: the subject matter isn't
too disturbing for an eight-year-old but it's not dumbed down, either. It shows
the heroism of gentiles and Jews: too often we see only the craven fear and
ignorance of the German (or other European) gentiles. The Danes as a whole were
an exception to the majority, but this story exaggerates nothing.
990406
Nancy
Willard, A Visit to William Blake's Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced
Travelers
Good poems for reading aloud and even funnier if you know Blake's Songs.
990406
Elizabeth
George Speare, The Bronze Bow
990404
Elizabeth
George Speare, The Witch of Blackbird Pond
I don't think I liked this much the first and only time I read it way back
when. Maybe I resented Kit because she didn't appreciate her first view of Connecticut,
which was Old Saybrook. In 1687, Old Saybrook included Lyme, so it's possible
she didn't like Old Lyme, which is unforgiveable. But only the Saybrook
side has a harbor, so it wasn't my town she found ugly.
990403
Aha, a dog story with a happy ending. I think the best children's authors took
their cue from E. Nesbit. Lots of Es: Elizabeth Enright, Eleanor Estes, Edward
Eager
990403
Russell
Freedman, Lincoln, A Photobiography
A biography of Lincoln that's honest about his views on slavery: very refreshing.
990402
Paul Fleischman, Joyful Noise: Poems
for Two Voices
I hope a parent reads this with a child, or that two schoolchildren perform a poem as a skit, or in any of several more ways these poems are read aloud and in duet--unlike how I read them.
990402
Kobo
Abe, The Kangaroo Notebook
Kafkaesque. Reminiscent in its geography of The Unconsoled. In a word,
surreal. Also reminiscent of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World,
but maybe only because also Japanese (which you can't dismiss comparing
Abe to Ishiguro, either).
It begins with a man noticing his shins have broken out in radish sprouts, which
might be an original idea to in Japan but in the U. S. is well known as the cure
for Never-Want-to-Take-a-Bath in one of the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books.
990401
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