Briefly Noted, Fiction

Jan26

First Impressions by Charlie Lovett. The main character’s attitude toward casual sex (“bliss because she didn’t care what it meant”) was sad and made the entire book feel tawdry and cheap, in contrast to Jane Austen’s more elevated, intellectual, and thoughtful prose and her insightful approach to even flawed characters. Also some dropped plot points and discontinuities marred the otherwise serviceable story.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2014. Everyone and their dog recommends it. I found it fascinating, but mostly because I kept hoping that the protagonist, Theo, would learn something, or grow up, over the course of the novel. He sort of did? But not really. The book should come with a warning label: lots of drugs, lots of illicit (and boring) sex, and then lots more drugs and violence. Theo actually finds “somewhere safe with somebody good” after a traumatic and neglected childhood, but he’s too traumatized to enjoy and appreciate the one person who actually loves and cares for him, Hobie, the antique dealer and friend to the friendless. Theo is a mess, and the “happy ending” seems forced in light of Theo’s choices throughout the novel. I was reading Careless People about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s writing of The Great Gatsby after this one, and Gatsby and Fitzgerald both ended up about the way I would imagine someone who made the choices they did would end up. Theo, in contrast, gets to travel the world and make restitution on his own timetable. Lucky for him.

Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good by Jan Karon. Father Tim Kavanagh and his lovely wife Cynthia, not to mention Dooley and Sammy and Lace Turner and all the other inhabitants of Mitford, return in a safe but enjoyable novel that reads just like cozy, warm cup of tea with the reader curled up in a homey old quilt on a cold winter day. The questions in the novel—Will Father Tim come out of retirement in an emergency? Does Mitford still take care of its own? Will Sammy grow up and forgive and overcome his past?—were intriguing enough to keep me reading and comfortable enough make me smile as I did. It’s well worth your time if you’re a Mitford fan, and if you’re not, you should be. Start with At Home in Mitford, and you’ll be hooked.

I’ve been focusing on nonfiction this month, and I plan to continue to do so. However, I can’t resist slipping in a few novels, now and then. I’m especially interested in reading a really good historical fiction book set in the “roaring twenties” since I just finished the book about Scott and Zelda and the Great Gatsby, and I’m now reading a biography of Florence Harding aka “the Duchess”, wife of Warren G. Harding, who became president in 1920 and presided over the beginning at least of the Jazz Age. Suggestions, anyone?

March by Geraldine Brooks

Mar9

March, Ms. Brooks’ take-off on Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2006. I found it to be an odd little novel. Ms. Brooks takes a fictional character, Mr. March, father to the “little women”, and places him and his family in a real world with people who actually lived in Concord near the Alcott family, namely the Emersons and the Thoreaus. Then, the author sends March off to war, just as he is off “where the fighting is” in Little Women, and she tells most of the story from his point of view. It’s an odd point of view, that of a vegetarian, abolitionist, peace-loving philosopher-soldier-chaplain caught in the midst of horror and insoluble moral dilemmas.

The tone and voice of the novel matched the rather stilted nineteenth century style of Louisa May Alcott’s original novel, and while this style of writing was a little disconcerting at first, I soon began to like it and to feel transported to the Civil War era when men wrote flowery, loquacious letters to their loved ones.

“I have now traveled so far south that I find myself come to a place where our common expression ‘white as snow’ has no useful meaning. Here, one who wishes his words to make plain sense had better say ‘white as cotton.’ I will not say that I find the landscape lovely. We go on through Nature to God, and my Northern eye misses the grandeur that eases that ascent. I yearn for mountains, or at least for the gentle ridges of Massachusetts; the sweet folds and furrows that offer the refreshment of a new vista as each gap or summit is obtained. Here all is obvious, a song upon a single note. One wakes and falls asleep to a green sameness, the sun like a pale egg yolk, peering down from a white sky.”

March is an adult novel, and in it, the “perfect” Marmee and the idealized Father March become real flesh and blood people with faults and passions and uncertainties and doubts about their own choices and abilities. March, in particular, is a man who finds himself in a place and time where his ideals and moral philosophy are tested and found wanting. And still he and his wife, the Marmee of Little Women, come through the fires of war and suffering with admirable character and fortitude. There is much to respect in Geraldine Brooks’ March, even though Bronson Alcott and I would find much to disagree about in real life. (I’m not a transcendentalist nor a utopian nor a vegetarian nor a pacifist nor a Unitarian/free thinker.)

The novel does a good job of bringing out the impracticality and impracticability of March’s/Alcott’s beliefs and still making him admirable as a man who tried, at least in the fictional version of his story, to remain true to his principles. I think all of us, as we age, feel the tension between the youthful ideals that we still believe to be right and good and true and the imperfection and fallenness of the world we actually inhabit, including the impossibility of remaining pure in our own execution and implementation of those ideals and principles to which we bear allegiance.

“You are not God. You do not determine the outcome. The outcome is not the point. . . The point is the effort. That you, believing what you believed—what you sincerely believed, including the commandment ‘thou shalt not kill’–acted upon it. To believe, to act, and to have events confound you–I grant you, that is hard to bear. But to believe, and not to act, or to act in a way that every fiber of your soul held was wrong–how can you not see? That is what would have been reprehensible.”

“[T]here is only one thing to do when we fall, and that is to get up, and go on with the life that is set in front of us, and try and do the good of which our hands are capable for all the people who come in our way.”

1925: Books and Literature

Oct16

Among the bestsellers and critically acclaimed books of 1925:
Gene Stratton Porter, The Keeper of the Bees
Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith
Anne Parrish, The Perennial Bachelor I assume this is the same Anne Parrish who had a Newbery Honor book in 1925 (see below). Her books won Newbery Honors twice more, in 1930 and in 1950. Yet, I’ve never seen anything by Ms. Parrish.

In the 1920s, Anne and her husband were browsing in a bookstore in Paris when she came upon a special children’s book. It was a well-worn edition of Jack Frost and Other Stories. She immediately showed it to her husband, remarking that the story had been one of her favorites as a little girl. Her husband opened the book and was stunned to read the inscription inside: “Anne Parrish, 209 N. Weber Street, Colorado Springs, Colorado.”

Fannie Farmer, ed., The Boston Cooking School Cook Book. First published in 1896, Fannie Farmer’s Cookbook became an American classic. It eventually contained 1,849 recipes.

“It is my wish that it may not only be looked upon as a compilation of tried and tested recipes, but that it may awaken an interest through its condensed scientific knowledge which will lead to deeper thought and broader study of what to eat.”

A. A. Milne, When We Were Very Young
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby My history and literature students are finishing up Mr. Fitzgerald’s story of the enigmatic Mr. Gatsby this week. Here’s a rather indicative conversation from the book:

Nick: “You’re a rotten driver. Either you ought to be more careful, or you oughtn’t to drive at all.”
Jordan: “I am careful.”
Nick: “No, you’re not.”
Jordan: “Well, other people are.”
Nick: “What’s that got to do with it?”
Jordan:”They’ll keep out of my way. It takes two to make an accident.”
Nick: “Suppose you meet someone just as careless as yourself?”
Jordan: “I hope I never will. I hate careless people. That’s why I like you.”

I wrote more about the deeply spiritual carelessness of Daisy and Tom and Jordan here.

Prosper Buranelli et al., The Cross Word Puzzle Books
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

The Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925 went to playwright George Bernard Shaw.

Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: So Big by Edna Ferber.
I’ve read So Big, and it’s a decent story. But I’m not sure it’s Pulitzer Prize material, anymore than Ferber’s fun, but highly inaccurate, novel of Texas, Giant. Giant was made into a 1956 movie starring Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean, and Rock Hudson.

1925 Newbery Medal Winner:
Tales from Silver Lands by Charles Finger. (Doubleday, 1925) I’ve tried to read this book, but honestly the “tales” from South America are rather dry and not too exciting.
Honor Books: (I wish I could find copies of these two. It would be fun to see what librarians in 1925 thought were “honor books.”)
Nicholas: A Manhattan Christmas Story by Annie Carroll Moore (Putnam)
The Dream Coach by Anne Parrish (Macmillan)

Nonfiction set in 1925:
The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic by Gay Salisbury & Laney Salisbury. Recommended by Heather J. at Age 30+ A Lifetime of Books.

Fiction set in 1925:
Greenery Street by Denis Mckail. Re-published in 2002 by Persephone Books. Recommended by Dani Torres at A Work in Progress.

Sunday Salon: Twelve Projects for 2010

Jan3

For the last couple of years, instead of resolutions, I’ve been thinking in terms of projects, lots of projects that I wanted to complete during the year. I wouldn’t say I was any more or less successful with my projects than most people are with resolutions, but I like the tradition anyway and plan to to continue it this year. So here are my twelve projects for 2010, with evaluations of how I did on some of the same projects in 2009.

1. Bible Reading Project. Last year’s Bible reading project was a qualified success. I didn’t read every day, and I didn’t study the books and passages I chose as intensely as I wanted, but I did read and study some. This year’s Bible reading plan is the same as last year’s: choose a book or part of a book of the BIble for each month of the year, read it daily, and study it using some good study tools. Take notes in my Bible and maybe this year in a journal, too. The selections for this year:

January: Esther. The women of my church are going on retreat in early March, and we’ll be studying the book of Esther. So I thought I’d get a head start.
February: Revelation 1-11. My pastor is preaching through Revelation this spring, so I thought I should be reading it. Revelation is my least favorite book in the Bible, so I’ll need some major self-discipline and encouragement from the Holy Spirit to finish this project.
March: Exodus 1-12 in preparation for Resurrection Sunday (April 4, 2010) and remembering Jesus, our Passover lamb.
April: Revelation 12-22.
May: Exodus 13-20.
June: I Timothy
July: Exodus 21-30.
August: II Timothy
September: Exodus 31-40.
October: Titus
November: Psalms 11-15.
December: Psalms 16-20.

2. Pulitzer Project. This year for the Pulitzer Project I read Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor and found it very absorbing and thought-provoking, one of the best books I read this past year. This next year I plan to read March by Geraldine Brooks and Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.

3. My Newbery Project for last year was also something of a bust. I think I got stuck because the winners for 1925 and 1926 were both story collections, and I don’t like story collections. I may skip the storybooks and get back on track this year.

4. Homeschooling Project: I need to focus on homeschooling the three remaining students in our homeschool.
Karate Kid (age 12)
Betsy-Bee (age 10)
Z-Baby (age 8)
You’ll see posts about how that project is going, plans for school and reading and science and history and field trips and all manner of educational schemes and visions. Perhaps you’ll also see a few desperate pleas for HELP! Just because I’ve graduated four students doesn’t mean I know how to homeschool the rest of the bunch.

5. Operation Clean House. I thought last year that if I took a room or area of the house and concentrated on that section each month, I might get somewhere with the de-cluttering and cleaning. Maybe. I didn’t. So this project is a repeat.
January: My closet and dressing area.
February: The rest of my bedroom.
March: Front hallway and entryway.
April: Living Room.
May: Kitchen.
June: Laundry room.
July: Half of the gameroom.
August: The other half of the gameroom.
September: Front bathroom.
October: Z-baby’s bedrooom.
November: Karate Kid’s bedroom.
December: Sit back and enjoy my reorganized home?
I might even, if I’m brave enough, post before and after pictures to keep myself motivated.

6. LOST Reading Project. I really want to get back to this project this year. I read Lathe of Heaven by Ursula LeGuin, enjoyed it, and tried a couple of others on the list that I didn’t care for at all (A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess and The Third Policeman by Flann Oâ€™Brien).
This year I think I’d like to read Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabakov and perhaps, Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor. I’m not sure I’m sophisticated enough to “get” Flannery O’Connor, but I’ll give it a try.

7. The U.S. Presidents Reading Project has a list of all of the U.S. presidents and suggested reading selections (non-fiction) for each one. The challenge is to read one biography of each one. Last year I read biographies of George Washington, John Adams, James and Dollie Madison, and Alexander Hamilton (I know, not a president, but closely related). This year I plane to continue with biographies of James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson, not necessarily in that order. I skipped Jefferson because I don’t like him very much.

8. Tournament of Reading Project. Probably the only reading challenge I sign up for this year, The Tournament of Reading is a challenge to read nine medieval books in three categories: history, medieval literature, and historical fiction. Most of these books that I plan to read come from my TBR list anyway:
History:
Byzantium by John Julius Norwich.
Justinianâ€™s Flea: The First Great Plague and The End of the Roman Empire by WIlliam Rosen.

Historical Fiction:
The King’s Daughter by Sandra Worth.
The Last Queen by C.W. Gortner.
The Master of Verona by David Blixt.

As for actual medieval literature, I’ll have to ask Eldest Daughter to suggest something.

9. Poetry Project: I would like to continue having my urchins memorizing and reading poetry. I would like to read and memorize poetry. I would like to have more Poetry Parties. Poetry Friday is the place and time to get an update on the Poetry Project. Plus, I’ll be celebrating Poetry Month again in April.

10. Prayer Project. I need to spend some daily concentrated time in prayer and meditation. My plan is to pray and read my Bible before I get on the computer each day so that I can bathe all these projects and all my children and my husband in prayer.

11. Book Club Project. I’m re-starting my book club this year. If any of you are interested in participating (virtually), email me at sherryDOTearlyATgmailDOTcom, and I’ll send you the details. I’ll also be posting the book club selections for each month of 2010 here at Semicolon soon. I’m also leading a middle school girls book club at our homeschool co-op, and I’ll be posting the book list for that club before long.

12. Advanced Reading Survey Project. I decided last year that on Mondays I was going to revisit the books I read for a course in college called Advanced Reading Survey, taught by the eminent scholar and lovable professor, Dr. Huff. I’m not going to re-read all the books and poems I read for that course, probably more than fifty, but I am going to post to Semicolon the entries in the reading journal that I was required to keep for that class because I think that my entries on these works of literature may be of interest to readers here and because I’m afraid that the thirty year old spiral notebook in which I wrote these entries may fall apart ere long. I may offer my more mature perspective on the books, too, if I remember enough about them to do so.
Texas Tuesday Project. I also plan to keep posting about books set in or published in or related to Texas on Tuesdays. Or at least on most Tuesdays.

Bonus Project: I’ll keep blogging, the Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, and I’ll keep you all updated on all my projects for 201-.

Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor

Oct3

The front page of the copy of this Pulitzer prize-winning novel that I got from the library says that MacKinlay Kantor “planned the writing of Andersonville, his masterwork, for twenty-five years.” I can believe it. The novel is 750 pages long and almost unbelievably detailed in its treatment of the Confederate prison of war camp at Andersonville, Georgia. The style of writing is a little odd. The book is mostly made up of short story or novelette length vignettes of the experiences of different people, mostly men, in and around the prison. A few characters persist throughout the entire book–the Claffey family who own a plantation just outside the prison, another family of poor whites who live nearby. The Yankee prisoners themselves and the prison guards and Confederate officers who run the prison move through the book, making appearances, telling their own stories, but mostly they don’t survive. Sometimes we read from the perspective of one of these prisoners, and then the writing becomes almost esoteric, as the reader partakes of the stream of consciousness, muddled thoughts and actions of disease-ridden and psychologically confused, sometimes delirious, men.

What I took away from the book was a reminder that there really is evil in the world, that Auschwitz and the killing fields of Cambodia, are sadly not the only examples of men treating men like animals, and worse. Interestingly, although Kantor seems to have some sympathy for the Confederates caught on the losing end of a war that they saw as a battle for the survival of their way of life, nowhere does the book make the excuse for Andersonville that I have read before: that the Confederates themselves were malnourished and drained of resources and could not adequately feed or house thousands of Yankee prisoners. In the book, at least, there is plenty of food, just outside the prison walls, and the Claffeys and their neighbors even offer to help provide for the prisoners. But the cruelty of a few officers overrides any attempt to alleviate conditions at Andersonville. In this novel the infamous Captain Henry Wirz, commander of the prison, is a stupid, cruel German (reminding me again of Auschwitz) dictator whose wish is for all of the Yankees to die. And Wirz’s supervisor, General Winder, who is in charge of all of the Confederate prisoner of war camps, is even worse, if that is possible. The two of them make no excuses for their behavior; they are fighting their own war, against the Yankees, even those in prison. (No Geneva convention here.)

Andersonville won its Pulitzer Prize in 1956, several years after the horrors of the Holocaust of Hiter’s Germany had been revealed and somewhat assimilated, so I imagine that the echoes of those WW II atrocities are not unintended. The stories of how some of the Yankee prisoners at Andersonville kept some kind of human dignity even under the most degrading circumstances, and of how some became evil predators themselves, parallel stories of Hitler’s concentration camps and the conditions and choices made there. Andersonville is a disturbing book, but worth slogging through for the lessons and reminders it gives: evil can happen here, and good people can become enmeshed in that evil.

Sunday Salon: The Pulitzer Project

Sep20

I’m supposed to be working on reading, or at least trying out, all of the Pulitzer Prize winning novels. I even joined this project to accomplish that very thing, but I haven’t posted there in a long time. Here’s my list of books I had read when I first joined the project in 2007:

2005 – Gilead (Robinson) Semicolon review here.
1986 – Lonesome Dove (McMurtry) Well, sort of, at least I tried. Unappreciative Semicolon review of the part I finished.
1975 – The Killer Angels (Shaara) One of my Best Books Ever.
1967 – The Fixer (Malamud) I read this one a long time ago when my mom was taking a course in Jewish American literature.
1961 – To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee) One of my Best Books Ever.
1953 – The Old Man and the Sea (Hemingway)
1952 – The Caine Mutiny (Wouk)
1947 – All the Kingâ€™s Men (Warren) Semicolon review here.
1937 – Gone with the Wind (Mitchell)
1928 – The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Wilder)
1925 – So Big (Ferber)
1921 – The Age of Innocence (Wharton) One of my Best Books Ever.
1919 – The Magnificent Ambersons (Tarkington) Semicolon review here.

Since then I’ve read The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty (1973), but I didn’t review it because I couldn’t think of much to say. I started A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, but I found it absurd. I have enough absurd in my life already. And this month, this week dare I say, I’m going to read Andersonville by Mackinlay Kantor, a 750 page novel about the horror that was the Confederate prison of Andersonville during the Civil War. Andersonville is also the Semicolon Book Club selection for this month, so it’s a two-fer. And I’ve been wanting to read it for a while because I like historical fiction. So that’s three reasons.

Twelve Projects for 2009

Dec27

Last year instead of resolutions, I thought in terms of projects, lots of projects that I wanted to complete in 2008. I wouldn’t say I was any more or less successful with my projects than most people are with resolutions, but I like the tradition anyway and plan to to continue it this year. So here are my twelve projects for 2009, with evaluations of how I did on some of the same projects in 2008.

1. BIble Reading Project. Last year’s BIble reading project was a qualified success. I didn’t read every day, and I didn’t study the books and passages I chose as intensely as I wanted, but I did read and study some. This year’s BIble reading plan is the same as last year’s: choose a book or part of a book of the BIble for each month of the year, read it daily, and study it using some good study tools. Take notes in my Bible and maybe this year in a journal, too. The selections for this year:

January: II Samuel 1-8 Last year I read and studied I Samuel, so II Samuel seems to be next.
February: I Thessalonians
March: II Samuel 9-16
April: II Thessalonians
May: II Samuel 17-24
June: I Timothy
July: Joel
August: II TImothy
September: Amos
October: Titus
November: Psalms 1-5
December: Psalms 6-10

2. Pulitzer Project. This one will have to be a repeat from last year since I read only one of the books on my list, The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty. I didn’t review it because I didn’t really care for it much.

3. My Newbery Project for last year was also something of a bust. I think I got stuck because the winners for 1925 and 1926 were both story collections, and I don’t like story collections. I may skip the storybooks and get back on track this year.

4. My Madeleine L’Engle Project also failed to get off the ground last year. I think I just have so many good books to read, and not enough time. Anyway, this is another one I want to try again this year.

5. Operation Clean House. I figure if I take a room or area of the house and concentrate on that section each month, I might get somewhere with the de-cluttering and cleaning. Maybe.
January: My closet and dressing area.
February: The rest of my bedroom.
March: Front hallway and entryway.
April: Living Room.
May: Kitchen.
June: Laundry room.
July: Half of the gameroom.
August: The other half of the gameroom.
September: Front bathroom.
October: Z-baby’s bedrooom.
November: Karate Kid’s bedroom.
December: Sit back and enjoy my reorganized home?
I might even, if I’m brave enough, post before and after pictures to keep myself motivated.

6. LOST Reading Project. I really want to get back to this project this year.

8. American History Project. In conjunction with the U.S. Presidents Reading Project, I’ll be teaching American history at home and at co-op next school year. So I’m working on planning a high school level literature/history class for co-op and condensing the Sonlight third and fourth grade curriculum suggestions for American history into one year for my little girls.

9. Poetry Project: I would like to get my urchins memorizing and reading poetry. I would like to read and memorize poetry. I would like to have more Poetry Parties.

11. Book Club Project. I’m really, really, truly starting my book club this year. We’re having our first meeting to discuss the books for the year this afternoon. If any of you are interested in participating (virtually), email me at sherryDOTearlyATgmailDOTcom, and I’ll send you the details. I’ll also be posting the book club selections for each month of 2009 here at Semicolon soon.

12. VIdeo Project. Engineer Husband and I are s-l-o-w-l-y watching the series Band of Brothers at night after the urchins are asleep. After we finish those videos, we’re planning to watch the HBO adaptation of David McCullough’s biography of John Adams, recommended here.

Bonus Project: I’ll keep blogging, the Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, and I’ll keep you all updated on all my projects for 2009.

Semicolon

Books we must have though we lack bread.

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