A book to avoid...

It is a rare day when I decide to stop reading a book; one of those days happened this week.  Usually I do not pick up a book unless I am fairly certain I want to read it.  Uppity Women of Shakespearean Times by Vicki Leon was a gift from someone.  I knew it was meant to be humorous and started reading it with the idea that I would have a laugh and pass it on.  I read about 37 pages and stopped.  The tone of this book was too flippant for me.  I cannot read about these women being treated as if they were simply amusing anecdotes.

A chapter entitled “The Better to Eat Chocolate With” discusses the Hapsburg family:

But the true family curse was The Lip (in point of fact, the entire jaw).  Populations of good-sized cities could have taken shelter under a Hapsburg chin.  Wobbly and red as cherry Jell-O, The Lip made many males of the family look moronic.  So you can just imagine how Princess Anna of Austria and all the other Hapsburg Annas, Marys, Elizabeths, and Christines felt when they looked in a mirror. 

Among other thankless tasks, Anna married King Louis XIII, produced a Louie heir, and ran France as queen regent from 1643 to 1661.  Spanish-born Anna brought new ideas to the French court.  Naturally they all tittered when she first lifted a cup of some dirty brown substance to those Austria-sized lips.  But Anna persisted, jutting out a chin that would stun Jay Leno into silence.  (34)

This description of hot chocolate is mild in its offense.  Imagine the chapters that make light of abuse including but not limited to women accused of witchcraft and used as brood bitches.

            I love satire and could accept well-written examples, but to show a reproduction of an ancient woodcarving with a man holding a leash attached to a metal cage over a woman’s face accompanied with the caption, “Hmm—is this what they mean by humanism?” is beyond acceptable (2).

            The book cover credits Ms. Leon with 26 books including Uppity Women of Ancient Times and Uppity Women of Medieval Times.  I will not be looking for or even at any other books by Vicki Leon.  “She enjoys giving workshops and speeches on the unsung women of history.”  No, thank you.  I do NOT want to hear what she has to say.

Leon, Vicki.  Uppity Women of Shakespearean Times. New York: MJF Books, 1999. Print.

Pagan Babies by Elmore Leonard

This review will be short and sweet because Elmore Leonard is not an author who requires note taking and analysis.  Do not take this as an insult.  Sometimes I read a book just to be entertained, and this one fits that description.

I originally purchased this novel for three reasons: the title, if you were educated in a Catholic school during the 1950s or 60s, you understand; the author, I had heard about Elmore Leonard but never read anything by him, and it was recommended by an employee of the late great Borders Books on Hylan Drive in Henrietta, New York.  It has waited patiently on my bookshelf.

What a fun read with quirky characters!  From the book jacket: 

Father Terry Dunn hears a lot of strange confessions.  After all, he’s the only priest for miles in the lingering aftermath of the worst massacre Rwanda has ever seen.  And Fr. Terry, who has forty-seven bodies in his church that need burying, has just heard one confession too many.  After exacting from them a chilling penance, Fr. Terry has to get out of Africa – pronto.  Now Terry is coming home to Detroit, where a five-year-old tax-fraud indictment is hanging over him.  Is Terry Dunn really a priest?

And that is the entire teaser I will give.  Throw in some hoodlums, a female stand-up comic recently released from prison, a not so powerful mob boss, and several people good at looking the other way, and together with Leonard's superb realistic writing, you have a hell of a good story.  And the best thing about it is…it is the only book I have read by this prolific writer.

Leonard, Elmore.  Pagan Babies. New York: Delacorte Press, 2000. Print

Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith

Back in September I read a book in one day, enjoyed it, did not take notes, or write a review.  When I started playing catch up with my writing, I realized I could not remember much about this little gem on my shelf.  Exactly six months later, I read it for the second time, took some notes, and now am able to tell you about a wonderful first novel: Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith.

This novel was one of those selected for World Book Night 2013, and when I went to pick up the books I was distributing, this one caught my eye.  This second time around, having just finished reading two novels written on a grand scope of time, I was mesmerized by a limited omniscient third person point of view telling the story of one day in the life of Isabel, a 22-year old woman residing in Portland, Oregon.  Isabel repairs books at the library and is fascinated by the past.  We travel through her day while learning about her past through a series of flashbacks.  Seamlessly written, the world of Isabel is poignant, thoughtful, exquisitely precise, and visceral.

Isabel loves vintage clothes – vintage everything.  Growing up in a small town in Alaska, she has dreamed of traveling to other cities since her first visit, as a child, to Seattle.  She has not visited them but collects postcards and dreams. She finds a postcard from Amsterdam in her favorite junk store:  

The postmark is dated 14 Sept 1965 and there is a message, carefully inscribed:  Dear L---  Fell asleep in a park.  Started to rain.  Woke up with my hat full of leaves.  You are all I see when I open or close a book.  Yours, M...She imagines the young woman (Miss L. Bertram, 2580 N. Ivanhoe St., Portland, Ore) who received the postcard, and how much she must have read between those few lines, how much she must have longed for him to say more. (11-12)

And thus begins our 24 hours with Isabel.  Her imagination is always at work.  She has a crush on a co-worker with whom she silently shares morning coffee on a daily basis, “It pleases her to see him like this, sitting at the kitchenette table first thing in the morning, his black glasses fogged with coffee steam.  It is as close as she has been to waking up with him” (42-43).  But her life lived in the imagination does not disappoint or keep her from experiencing life.

I look forward to more novels by Alexis M. Smith and will also be on the lookout for other books published by Tin House Books.

Smith, Alexis M. Glaciers. Portland, Oregon: Tin House Books, 2012. Print.

"One could lose everything in the blink of an eye, the slip of a foot."

While reading The Bridge of San Luis Rey, I was also reading Life After Life by Kate Atkinson.  Ironically, both novels deal with those “if not for this” moments mentioned in my previous blog.  But Atkinson does not explore the lives of five people all taken at the same moment; her exploration is much more complicated.

From the book jacket:

On a cold and snowy night in 1920, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife.  Ursula dies before she can draw her first breath.  On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual.  For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on toward its second cataclysmic world war.

Ursula’s life begins and ends, and begins and ends, over and over, and affects the lives of those around her, including the reader.  I enjoyed the way Atkinson drew the reader into the story.  Ursula and her family are not aware of what is happening, but eventually she understands.  The novel explores the idea of changing history: a person’s history, the immediate world, the world at large.  And what happens if someone has the ability to change history?  Do you take that chance?  For those of us addicted to Star Trek, we know all about the prime directive against changing any single moment in time.  This novel is not science fiction, but the idea is clear from one of Ursula’s first successful moments with her mother:  “Ursula opened her milky eyes and seemed to fix her gaze on the weary snowdrop.  Rock-a-bye baby, Sylvie crooned.  How calm the house was.  How deceptive that could be.  One could lose everything in the blink of an eye, the slip of a foot.  ‘One must avoid dark thoughts at all costs,’ she said to Ursula” (32).

“One could lose everything in the blink of an eye, the slip of a foot.”  There it is staring the reader in the face again; the age old conundrum.  Faced every day by each individual person, this idea takes on a new life in Wilder and Atkinson though eighty six years separate the publication of these two books.  Wilder exploring the idea of who controls our fate, and Atkinson pushing it a bit further, if we have the ability, do we use it?  At what cost?

Looking for a novel with a happy ending: a feel good ending?  Do not read this novel.  But if you are a reader like me, a reader who wants to be disturbed by what is read or at least pushed to think about unanswerable questions, read Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life.  Like The Bridge of San Luis Rey, this is a novel I will read again. 

Atkinson, Kate. Life After Life.  New York: Reagan Arthur Books, 2013. Print.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

We have literature forced on us for inexplicable reasons, but what we take away from the text is lasting.  Revisiting a work at the right moment in our lives is the pivotal key to understanding.

Back in the late 1980s, I was teaching at the high school level.  New to the district, I explored the storage locker in my room for class sets of books to use with my classes.  I was always willing to take a chance with something I had not previously taught; hence, my first experience with The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder.  I do not remember how I convinced myself it would be worth teaching to 10^th graders or if I asked any of the other teachers about it.  Perhaps it was the length that enticed me.  For whatever reason, I gave it a try.  They hated it; I hated dragging them through it; I never taught the book again.

A few years ago while reading the works of Timothy Findley, he discussed his friendship with and admiration for Thornton Wilder.  My respect for Findley sent me back to revisit Our Town and read Wilder’s other plays.  Eventually I decided The Bridge of San Luis Rey deserved another reading.  Ever since then I have wanted to use it in a college course, and this semester has given me my chance.

Reading it for the third time, I savored the language and Wilder’s ability to create a text that has the tone of a moral fable with the occasional playfulness demonstrated in his plays.  The novel begins with this famous line: “On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below” (5).  And thus begins Brother Juniper’s interest in the event.  “Why did this happen to those five? . . . .Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan.  And on that instant Brother Juniper made the resolve to inquire into the secret lives of those five persons, that moment falling through the air, and to surprise the reason of their taking off” (7).  Wilder often writes of those moments; those “if not for this” moments in life.  This novel explores that issue and weaves around it the entanglements of love.

However, there are still those humorous moments, and this description cries to be shared in its entirety:

There is something in Lima that was wrapped up in yards of violet satin from which protruded a great dropsical head and two fat pearly hands; and that was its archbishop.  Between the rolls of flesh that surrounded them looked out two black eyes speaking discomfort, kindliness and wit.  A curious and eager soul was imprisoned in all this lard, by dint of never refusing himself a pheasant or a goose or his daily procession of Roman wines, he was his own bitter jailer.  He loved his cathedral; he loved his duties; he was very devout.  Some days he regarded his bulk ruefully; but the distress of remorse was less poignant than the distress of fasting and he was presently found deliberating over the secret messages that a certain roast sends to the certain salad that will follow it.  And to punish himself he led an exemplary life in every other respect (80-81).

And yet…none of my college students could tell me what they knew about the archbishop when I asked.  Sigh…well, I have again forced a piece of literature on my not so captive audience that they do not find as enthralling as I do.  Some students have shown interest during discussion in class and have even stopped by my office. They did accept the assigned topic of writing a two page paper on what they learned about love from reading this novel as doable.  I am looking forward to reading those papers.

Is this novel about a priest desiring to scientifically prove the power of God? Is the question of why these five answerable?  Is it possible that the reader needs to have lived through one of those powerful “if not for this” moments in life to appreciate this novel?  Is it meant to be another opportunity to explore the mysteries of love?  If you have not yet read this Pulitzer Prize winning novel, I encourage you to do so.

Wilder, Thornton. The Bridge of San Luis Rey. New York: Perennial Classics, 2003. Print.