“There is a game which children play in which they creep up to one who is hiding his eyes; step by step, frozen still with innocence at each quick gla“There is a game which children play in which they creep up to one who is hiding his eyes; step by step, frozen still with innocence at each quick glance they go tentatively forward, until at last they grow close, close to the point of touching.�
I think this might be my second favorite Taylor novel so far, right after Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont. They are similar in a way, as they deal with regret, about adjusting to what life has brought us, something not what we expected.
In this story, we meet Harriet, who is infatuated with the aloof and troubled Vesey. Their connection is her mother Lilian and his Aunt Caroline, old friends from their days as suffragettes. Harriet and Vesey are eighteen, and spending a last of many summers together at Caroline’s, where Harriet is paid to help to care for her children, and Vesey is sent to escape his own unreliable mother. They meet again many years later, after Harriet has married and has a teenaged daughter of her own.
Around Harriet and Vesey Taylor gives us a diverse set of characters who are experiencing their own very different regrets, with unexpected layers revealed about each of them. There is a comically real group of ladies Harriet works with in a dress shop, her sadly dull husband Charles, the couples� closest friends Kitty and Tiny, Charles� overly-dramatic mother, and their daughter Betsy who is going through obsessions of her own. Each of these characters feels whole and unique, and each provides us ambiguity and surprises.
I think what Taylor is so good at is showing us something we often forget about ourselves and our fellow humans. Her characters are often average and not always likable, just like us. What she uncovers, what we forget sometimes, is the uniqueness, the beauty in the ordinary. These surprises, along with the open-endedness of her characters� stories, make the reading experience authentic but strangely magical at the same time.
�'There is no one else like me,� she told herself. ‘I represent no one. I am typical of no one. No one else thinks my thoughts or understands my hopes or shares my guilt. I am both better and worse than I would admit to other people.’�
An odd but curiously moving story from a remarkably talented writer....more
“A pity beyond all telling is hid in the heart of love.� William Butler Yeats
Ah, first love. O’Brien was so in tune with the feelings of many a young “A pity beyond all telling is hid in the heart of love.� William Butler Yeats
Ah, first love. O’Brien was so in tune with the feelings of many a young girl.
“All the perfume, and sighs, and purple brassieres, and curling pins in bed, and gin-and-it, and necklaces had all been for this.�
This is possibly the best story about first love that I can recall right now. The idiocy of it. How self-centered it is, how much it is tied up with our own self-esteem. How heart-breaking, how life-changing, and how much we rely on our friends to help us through it.
Caithleen, the green-eyed girl, has Baba as a friend (who makes me grateful for the friends I had when I went through that time). I don’t much care for Baba, but she is funny and makes a great partner for Kate--one brash, the other shy. For Kate, this whole experience was mixed up with her feelings about her family and religion, which was a really interesting enhancement of the story for me.
“He had the rough voice which most people down there have. It is a voice bred in wind and hardship, and it is accustomed to shouting at things.�
Kate and Baba have moved away from home to Dublin, where they share a room in a boarding house and go out as often as possible for a “gas,� as Baba says. Kate works in a grocery shop and reads Tender Is the Night on the sly. There are men in their lives, but they’re on the disappointing side, until Kate meets an older man, Eugene Gaillard.
I knew there was something special about Edna O’Brien’s writing after I read The Country Girls. Why did I wait so long to read this second in the trilogy? She reminds me a little of Françoise Sagan, and I think I’ll find her equally reliable for enjoyment and much better for depth.
This was a very fast read, and not just because it’s relatively short, but more because my interest never waned, not even for a paragraph. I don’t know what O’Brien’s secret sauce was, but it works and made for a lovely reading experience. I now want to be an O’Brien completist, but that’s probably impossible, since she was very prolific. I promise myself to get to Girls in Their Married Bliss soon, and then maybe have a go at a short story collection. ...more
One of the main reasons I read is to be placed in the shoes of someone different from myself, and I can’t think of a writer who is better at putting mOne of the main reasons I read is to be placed in the shoes of someone different from myself, and I can’t think of a writer who is better at putting me there than James Baldwin. His deep understanding of human nature, his skill at finding just the right detail to convey an emotion or experience, and his ever-present empathy makes every Baldwin reading a deep growth experience. In this collection, he gives us eight stories, and eight very different points of view.
In The Rockpile, using characters from his autobiographical novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, he conveys a relatively simple childhood experience, but which reveals complex family issues that are likely to have lasting impacts.
The Outing is another story from a young boy’s viewpoint. The feelings that come up on a church outing are so delicately and subtly expressed: powerlessness in the awareness of attraction and jealousy; longing in the idea of salvation; dread in the reality of sin. Such beautiful, human stuff.
The Man Child involves Eric, an eight year-old boy whose overly-confident father has his life all planned out for him. He is the prince, the heir, as his father’s friend Jamie says. Unlike the unlucky Jamie, Eric doesn’t have to do anything to get all of his father’s land, and be able to earn a living. Eric’s mother, a tragic figure here, mostly in the shadows, deserves her own story, which Baldwin surely could have written. Very disturbing. I can’t get this one out of my mind.
Previous Condition is about a young Black man who has come to New York from the South, and the racism he experiences. It’s about assimilation, but also the comfort only available from your own people.
Sonny’s Blues is a gorgeous story about brothers and racism and music and love--a work of art that I reviewed separately here: /review/show...
I was thrilled to read This Morning, This Evening, So Soon, which I’ve heard about for years. It comes from the viewpoint of an American who has moved to Europe as Baldwin did, and his mixed feelings about his original and adopted homes. He’s a successful actor and singer, a Black man with a Swedish wife and mixed race child. So many profound ideas in this one. One example I found particularly timely was when he and his latest film’s (French) director are out enjoying Paris nightlife, they meet a group of young Black American tourists, and the director says to the tourists, �'� the only people from your country with whom I have ever made contact are black people--like my good friend, my discovery here,� and he slaps me on the shoulder. ‘Perhaps it is because we, in Europe, whatever else we do not know, or have forgotten, know about suffering. We have suffered here. You have suffered, too. But most Americans do not yet know what anguish is. It is too bad, because the life of the West is in their hands.’�
Come Out of the Wilderness was another insightful story. This time it is a woman who has moved north from Alabama, with some similar themes to Previous Condition.
In Going to Meet the Man, a white, racist sheriff reflects back on a pivotal experience of his childhood. As I said above, Baldwin can put you thoroughly in someone else’s shoes, and these are shoes you do not want to be in. Horrific, and difficult to read.
I watched a documentary about Baldwin recently, in which he emphasized more than once the things that frighten him. His ability first to clearly see and admit this fear, and then to use his immense talents to describe it, could be what makes his writing feel so universal....more
“Two little girls who knew what nobody else in the world knew--how not to ask questions. How to believe what had to be believed.�
Recitatif is a musica“Two little girls who knew what nobody else in the world knew--how not to ask questions. How to believe what had to be believed.�
Recitatif is a musical term meaning a vocal style imitating natural speech. Morrison, in her book Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, said this story was “an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial.�
It’s about two girls who meet and live together for four months at a shelter, where they’ve been “dumped� due to each having unreliable mothers, and they create a bond. But when they meet several times later in life, the bond is tested, largely around their different recollections of a cruel event that occurred at the shelter. Though it’s assumed one of the girls is black and one white, their race can’t be deciphered.
It’s a haunting little story, extremely subtle, and the only short story Morrison ever wrote. Zadie Smith, in her Introduction, considers it distinctly American, and important in the way The Lottery and Bartleby the Scrivener are important. I have to agree.
I’ve been to this rodeo enough times to know not to read the Introduction first, so I didn’t and recommend reading it after. Smith’s study does add a great deal. As she explains, Morrison’s experiment is on the reader. Which clues stand out to you? Why do we so badly want to find out who the “other� is? She discusses each of the clues specifically, adding history and depth to the story, expanding it out to global arguments.
When you read this, you’re forced to judge these girls by “the content of their character.� A good one to read today as we celebrate the MLK holiday....more
“She sat in the library, among the carefully-tended books and portraits; and it seemed to her that she had been walled alive into a tomb hung with the“She sat in the library, among the carefully-tended books and portraits; and it seemed to her that she had been walled alive into a tomb hung with the effigies of dead ideas.�
I love Edith Wharton. But her earlier work (and I understand this was written in 1901) is more difficult, more like her friend Henry James. Interestingly, I read their friendship started in 1900, so it’s not surprising I found this story too Jamesian at first: annoyingly hard to understand, the way she seemed to choose phrases with the particular intent to obfuscate, and use words I had to look up, like “induration� and “centripetal.�
But all this forced me to read slowly, and likely because of that, I enjoyed it more as I read on.
The angel of the story devotes her life to the preservation of her famous grandfather’s legacy, and lives to wonder whether this was a wise choice. The author herself, who came from a wealthy and prominent family and had an early love of writing but didn’t publish her first novel until she was 40, may have understood the feeling of regret.
An interesting story to linger over, to grasp the full feeling of sacrifice, and to appreciate for its subtlety and details....more
What games they must play, those who have power in the world!
Gaius Octavius (Augustus), Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Mark Antony, Cleopatra � these were What games they must play, those who have power in the world!
Gaius Octavius (Augustus), Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Mark Antony, Cleopatra � these were mostly names I’d heard before reading this book, as my education about ancient Rome has been non-existent. For the first time, this historical novel made me want to learn more. Such is the power of a good story, of the complex character John Williams has created here.
Williams used an unusual structure: letters written about Augustus, to his friends and to his enemies. They are compiled in a way, shifting back and forth through time, with such a variety of tones and viewpoints illuminating different aspects of his life, that you come away from reading feeling you know the man intimately.
And not just Augustus. A secondary emphasis in the novel is on the women in his life, particularly his daughter Julia. This part is so revealing. The power of women of that time is extremely limited, but Augustus ensures his daughter has an excellent education. Although she is required to marry and produce children as needed for political reasons, we follow her attempts to pursue her desires.
What I enjoyed most were two things. By sort of walking around Augustus to study him, by hearing from those around him and in the end the man himself, we get a subtle unfolding of what it means to be a leader--the weight, the toll, and the way certain personality characteristics can make such a big difference.
“I am a man, and as foolish and weak as most men. If I’ve had an advantage over my fellows it is that I’ve known this of myself and have therefore known their weaknesses and never presumed to find much more strength and wisdom in myself than I’ve found in another. It was one of the sources of my power, that knowledge.�
And there was for me a joyful thread throughout the story, touching on the lives of Virgil and Ovid, and showing an appreciation of poetry and the joy of learning.
I read this on audio, which is never the best way for me. Fortunately, I was able to be part of an excellent conversation about the book expertly led by my Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ friend Sara, which was so helpful and a wonderful experience. I look forward to reading the book in print at some point. I can’t recommend John Williams highly enough, from my experience so far with this and Stoner. He didn’t get the praise he deserved while he was alive, but we can certainly try to make up for that now....more
“Such is hope, Heaven’s own gift to struggling mortals; pervading, like some subtle essence from the skies, all things, both good and bad; as universa“Such is hope, Heaven’s own gift to struggling mortals; pervading, like some subtle essence from the skies, all things, both good and bad; as universal as death, and more infectious than disease!�
Another wonderful experience reading slowly through this with the Dickensians! group. Thanks to Jean and all the participating members, I learned a great deal, and the slow pace gave me time to fully appreciate Dickens� developing style and his dramatic accomplishments.
I also read A Tale of Two Cities this year, and it is interesting to compare the feel of these two. A Tale felt very mature, whereas Nicholas feels younger, each accurately reflecting the age and mindset of the writer. But it astounds me to think he was only in his mid-twenties when he completed this one.
When we meet Nicholas, he is a young man who has lost his father and finds himself in London with his mother and sister, appealing to his Uncle Ralph for assistance. It turns out Ralph is a scoundrel, and sends him to Yorkshire to be an assistant to a tyrannical schoolmaster by the very Dickens-y name of Wackford Squeers. In addition to these two devils, Nicholas also meets with some angels, who endeavor to rescue him, and, as in the Pretty Woman line, Nicholas eventually rescues them right back.
The story is delightfully entertaining, complete with romance and intrigue and laughter and even with elaborate theatrical productions. The characters are dazzling, particularly the sweet Smike, the longsuffering Newman Noggs, the dastardly Sir Mulberry Hawk, the warm John Browdie, and the benevolent Cheeryble brothers. I wanted a little more depth from the females in the story, but in this one, the women play more minor but still memorable roles, from the selfishly rambling Mrs. Nickleby of the beginning to the “Infant Phenomenon� of the middle to the decrepit housekeeper Peg Sliderskew near the end.
So the adventures of Nicholas Nickleby were by turns nail-biting and heart-warming, making for a very satisfying read. Again, I’m left shaking my head at this author’s greatness, and happily, I have a few more of his works still to experience for the first time....more
Re-read in honor of James Baldwin’s 100th birthday today. The full title: “Letter to my Nephew on the 100th Anniversary of the Emancipation.�
Contains Re-read in honor of James Baldwin’s 100th birthday today. The full title: “Letter to my Nephew on the 100th Anniversary of the Emancipation.�
Contains one of my favorite Baldwin lines: “If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go.�
Also, this: “For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things here, and will again, and we can make America what America must become.�...more
“It ain’t that big. The whole United States ain’t that big. It ain’t big enough. There ain’t room enough for you an� me, for your kind an� my kind, fo“It ain’t that big. The whole United States ain’t that big. It ain’t big enough. There ain’t room enough for you an� me, for your kind an� my kind, for rich and poor together all in one country, for thieves and honest men. For hunger and fat. Whyn’t you go back where you come from?�
Gosh. Steinbeck. What a truly epic novel, one I waited so many years to read, but could and hope to read again many times.
It’s Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl, and the farm long held by the Joad family is being repossessed. They’re literally driven off their land and forced to sell all but their most necessary possessions for money to buy a car and gas to try to make it to California, where they hear there are jobs picking fruit.
What a compelling family. Grampa wants to stay on the land at all costs. Granma alternates between quoting scripture and scolding her husband. Pa is defeated, so it’s Ma who is relied on for strength, courage and direction. Uncle John is wracked with guilt over the death of his wife. The oldest child Noah was brain-injured at birth, Rose of Sharon (or Rosesharn--I adore this name) is pregnant, her husband Connie is overwhelmed, sixteen-year-old Al is girl and car-crazy, and Ruthie and Winfield are the youngest--just trying to make sense of everything.
And then there’s son Tom, fresh out of jail where he had plenty of time to think, and is now influenced by his friend the equally-thoughtful Jim Casy, a former preacher who joins them on their journey. Tom is out on parole, and if he acts on any of his pent-up anger, runs the risk of getting thrown back in prison.
Their trip is an odyssey, a journey that reflects the (arguably ongoing) history of the United States. It is a familiar story to me, since my parents lived through the Depression, and my father even made a trip from the Midwest to the west coast in the 1930’s, and used to tell us how he set out with something like ten dollars, how he had to do crazy things to keep his rickety car going, and how people on the roads always stopped to help each other.
Also, I come from farming families on both sides, so this story touched something inside me; reminded me of something deep and forgotten.
So it’s a gripping story, with distinct and fascinating characters. But Steinbeck goes one more. Interspersed between chapters that tell this engrossing tale, he adds interludes--short chapters where he steps back from the up-close view of this one family and takes on an omnipotent voice, giving us the big picture. These chapters give a panoramic view that’s visual and poetic.
“And on windy nights the doors banged, and the ragged curtains fluttered in the broken windows.�
The way he does this creates a novel that is both sharply realistic and larger-than-life. You could say it’s mythical in its truth. It’s not just the Joad’s buying a car or selling their belongings. It’s you, it’s me, it’s any of us, it’s all of us.
This is the powerful impact than can be had when you combine empathy with imagination.
“The story tellers, gathering attention into their tales, spoke in great rhythms, spoke in great words because the tales were great, and the listeners became great through them.�...more
“Someone always has to look after Flora, and let her think she’s looking after them.�
With each book of hers I read, Elizabeth Taylor climbs up my list“Someone always has to look after Flora, and let her think she’s looking after them.�
With each book of hers I read, Elizabeth Taylor climbs up my list of favorite authors. With realism and a biting sarcasm (that’s hilarious, but warm and knowing rather than cruel), she explores distinct and fascinating characters who come to life in their believability, yet never quite do what I expect them to do. They’re a diverse set, and we see their creativity, their deceptiveness, and their disappointments, but mostly their humanity. Their problems aren’t simple, and defy quick fixes. I leave her stories strangely satisfied, even though I usually have no sure idea how things will come out down the road for these people she has created.
In The Soul of Kindness, Taylor gives us an unusual main character: Flora Quartermaine. She’s at the center of the story, but it’s her impact on those around her that makes up the plot, and they make an interesting group. Flora’s husband Richard works long hours running the business he inherited from his father. Her mother is a widow, and at a loss since her only daughter married and moved from the country to London. Meg is Flora’s best friend and in love with the unattainable Patrick, a friend of both Flora and Meg. Meg’s brother, infatuated with Flora since he was young, is her pet project--she wants to help him become an actor.
Flora has been over-protected all her life, by her mother and by her friends. She has a kind manner and pretty face, and they can’t bear to hurt her feelings, so she gets away with “helping� them (actually trying to “fix� them by molding them into who she thinks they should be).
You may know someone like this, someone who is certain they know what’s right for you. It reminded me of something, and bear with me because this may sound like a crazy analogy, but I think it fits. Lately I’ve noticed a trend: people going WAY out of their way to open doors for me. I mean to a crazy extreme. I don’t walk any different (yet) than I always have, and don’t believe I appear to need help. It’s one thing to not slam a door in my face as we’re walking into the bank or the post office or the gift shop. It’s quite another to stand there holding the door open, staring at me when I am fifty feet away in the parking lot! They make me feel like I have to run across the parking lot so I don’t leave them standing there too long. Good grief--please stop it.
It’s like people are out there looking to help you with things you don’t need or want help with. I think it’s not so much that they want to be nice, more that they desperately want to see themselves as a nice people. I want to tell them, if you really want to be nice, just open your eyes and look out for needs that really do exist. And that’s what I wanted to say to Flora in this story. Open your eyes! It’s not about you! People have their own lives to live, and they likely will not be doing it your way, nor should they.
But what an intriguing little quirk of human nature to write a novel about! I just love Elizabeth Taylor. She is a master at exposing us to ourselves....more
This is a photographic history of Black and white children’s experiences with school integration, before, during and after the 1954 U.S. Supreme CourtThis is a photographic history of Black and white children’s experiences with school integration, before, during and after the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared school segregation unconstitutional. It is a children’s book, but inspirational for everyone.
Photographs are powerful. It’s stunning to be able to gaze at both the fear and the hope in these children’s eyes. And it’s notable that when you look at the nine members of the Supreme Court who ruled 9-0 on the Brown vs Board of Education decision, you see nine old, white, male faces staring back at you.
Morrison gives words to the children in the pictures. “Walking through a crowd of people who hate what we are--not what we do--can make us hate them back for what they are and what they do. A lot of courage and determination are needed not to. We try …�
In her introduction, Morrison says, “This book is about you. Even though the main event in the story took place many years ago, what happened before it and after it is now part of all of our lives.� She says the book will “take you on a journey through a time in American life when there was as much hate as there was love; as much anger as there was hope; as many heroes as cowards.�
We are experiencing a similar time of hate and divisiveness in America, and I found this book a helpful way to see “As with any journey, there is often a narrow path to walk before you can see the wide road ahead.�...more
“For there are two possible reactions to social ostracism--either a man emerges determined to be better, purer, and kindlier or he goes bad, challenge“For there are two possible reactions to social ostracism--either a man emerges determined to be better, purer, and kindlier or he goes bad, challenges the world and does even worse things. This last is by far the commonest reaction to stigma.�
[image] “Monterey is a city with a long and brilliant literary tradition,� Steinbeck writes, which sounds so funny to our ears now coming from him, its most revered resident, and with a whole chunk of central California from the coast of Monterey to the Salinas Valley known as Steinbeck country.
I love Steinbeck. His writing has a cadence that works for me. It’s kind of slow, allowing you to absorb things. I never feel like I have to make a note about a character so I don’t forget. He makes me remember them.
It seems I love him more with each book. This one is written like a group of individual snapshots, sort of like a travelogue, but instead of a travelogue of places, it’s of characters, and their intertwined stories hold it all together. What it lacks in plot it makes up for many times over in depth.
You come to know all of these Cannery Row misfits, from Doc, the biologist who runs a laboratory and cares for life of all kinds, to Lee who owns the grocery and everything else under the sun store, to Dora the kindly madam, to Mack, who just wants to throw Doc a party to let him know how much his friends appreciate him.
Gosh. Just look at this picture of Ed Ricketts, the Steinbeck friend who inspired the character of Doc. [image] If you’ve read the book, you’re probably saying, yep, that’s how I pictured him, with so much behind those humbly cast-down eyes.
What Steinbeck keeps showing me, over and over in different ways, is sometimes, when you love people, it’s so damn painful. But worth it all the same....more
“We are men of secluded habits, with something of a cloud upon our early fortunes, whose enthusiasm, nevertheless, has not cooled with age, whose spir“We are men of secluded habits, with something of a cloud upon our early fortunes, whose enthusiasm, nevertheless, has not cooled with age, whose spirit of romance is not yet quenched, who are content to ramble through the world in a pleasant dream, rather than ever waken again to its harsh realities.�
An unusual and relatively obscure little Dickens gem.
Written as a weekly periodical, Dickens provides a frame story about Master Humphrey, the Deaf Gentleman, Mr. Pickwick and others, forming an interesting little group of friends who get together and read each other’s stories. In one, the giants Gog and Magog of Guildhall come alive to share yarns of their own. In another, we hear of a witch hunt that doesn’t go quite the way you might expect. And a third story allows us to eavesdrop on a similar group of friends swapping tales in Master Humphrey’s kitchen.
I’m a little confused about the trajectory. I believe Dickens published Master Humphrey including the two novels as a weekly periodical from 1840-1841, and then instead of publishing the book as a whole, decided to publish The Old Curiosity Shop by itself first, later putting out Master Humphrey's Clock as an introduction to Barnaby Rudge, all within a year or two.
So they’re at the same time together and separate, which is confusing but also mind-blowing, how much Dickens was capable of producing in such a short period of time!
This may be my favorite so far of the author’s lesser-known works. Storytelling, friendship, and aging are all given the Dickens touch, and my heart feels a little warmer after reading it. ...more
“He knew by now that men were liars, he knew how extravagant was their vanity; he knew far worse than that about them; but he knew that it was not for“He knew by now that men were liars, he knew how extravagant was their vanity; he knew far worse than that about them; but he knew that it was not for him to judge or to condemn. But year by year as these terrible confidences were imparted to him his face grew a little greyer, its lines a little more marked and his pale eyes more weary.�
A superb psychological tale.
Dr. Audlin has been treating mental health issues ever since he had success with traumatized men during the war. He is patient, persistent, and surprised by his successes. His patient Lord Mountdrago is a cruel snob whose conscience has started to bother him. The story explores the blending of our subconscious world, the world we share with others, and the supernatural.
I adore Maugham. He’s yet to disappoint me....more
“It was a cooling September night with the first sniff of autumn in it. Next week, and the children would be raked in off the fields like so many leav“It was a cooling September night with the first sniff of autumn in it. Next week, and the children would be raked in off the fields like so many leaves and set to burning in the schools, using their fire and energy for more constructive purposes. But they would be here after school, ramming about, making projectiles of themselves, exploding and crashing, leaving a wake of misery behind their miniature wars.�
Was childhood a time of never-ending play and wonder and happiness? Or was it a time of being terrorized by other children who beat and bullied and belittled us? It’s hard to remember accurately, once we’ve grown up.
But there’s someone who does remember, remembers it as clear as a Green Town summer sky. Ray Bradbury, someone I trust unreservedly regarding all things childhood, finds a way to give us the view from our child self and our adult self at the same time, in this atmospheric and unsettling story. What a genius he was....more
This is a strange and unusual collection. Jackson’s children found a box of their mother’s unpublished stories decades after her death. Thirty of themThis is a strange and unusual collection. Jackson’s children found a box of their mother’s unpublished stories decades after her death. Thirty of them are included here, along with 22 additional stories that were only published once. I believe they span almost the whole of her writing career, the last story coming out after her death. This is not a great intro to her work--some of the stories are, well, the kind you’d put away in a box. But to a Jackson fan like me, taken as a whole, this is revelatory and inspiring.
The fun part was immersing myself in her style. Just like with The Lottery (though not as good, obviously), I noticed she disarms you with her regularness, and then lays something crazy on you. I’m just like you, but look what I see! I love the title for that reason. It’s just an ordinary day, but Shirley sees something different in it. That’s not to say these are supernatural or spooky stories. Only one or two come close to that. But they do explore humanities odd, quirky side. Many are kind of like her Life Among the Savages, only as if she wrote them not caring who would read them, which made them scandalously fun.
The first story was one of my favorites, The Smoking Room, where you learn you can trick the devil with words.
The best spooky one was Summer Afternoon, about two pre-school aged girls and a ghost.
And I loved how Shirley, the 1950’s housewife, wrote a number of stories with mysteriously magical helpers that came into the home and took care of meals and children and kept everything together.
Several stories made me think Shirley was more like Eleanor in The Haunting of Hill House than I may have imagined. She grew up very much an outsider in an affluent suburb of San Francisco that I know well, and I suspect the small towns she included in these stories were inspired by that snobbish enclave.
One of my favorites was a silly one--she is good at silly stuff. In Maybe it was the Car, she is being taken for granted at home, so takes off on an adventure of her own. “I am a writer, I said to myself in the corner of the kitchen. I am a writer and here I sit broiling hamburgers.� �'Listen,� I said, ‘am I a writer or am I a middle-aged housewife?’�
Another favorite was What a Thought. You know how sometimes you let your imagination go and picture some disaster, like a train wreck or hitting someone over the head with a shovel? Yeah, well, Shirley knew about this and wrote a great story around it.
I didn’t like the section of once-published stories as much. Publication dates span from 1943 to 1968, in magazines from Good Housekeeping to Playboy. Here, in contrast to the unpublished ones, I felt she was holding back. Some interesting explorations, but no standouts for me.
Recommended for fans, and for a deep dive into Shirley Jackson’s writing style. A fun journey....more
In this very short story, Atwood reminds me of the uniqueness of the mother-daughter bond, and how it borders on the supernatural. I also loved the waIn this very short story, Atwood reminds me of the uniqueness of the mother-daughter bond, and how it borders on the supernatural. I also loved the way it evoked the 1950’s: tuna noodle casserole and whispering on the hall phone! Perhaps a little glimpse into Atwood’s own alchemy.
You can listen to what I think is a shortened version of the full story here: ...more
Margaret Atwood is brilliant. From what I have seen, heard and read, every time she opens her mouth or sits down to write, this kind of stuff comes ouMargaret Atwood is brilliant. From what I have seen, heard and read, every time she opens her mouth or sits down to write, this kind of stuff comes out.
In this piece, she gives writing advice--with panache. By demonstrating some basic story variations, she ponders the whole idea of happy endings, not just writing them.
My favorite writer. Always perceptive, always wise, always entertaining, always making a deeper point, even when she tells a joke....more
If you haven’t read Lawrence before, go back! Don’t read this novel first! It’s sort of a 500 level course of a novel, not because it’s difficult, butIf you haven’t read Lawrence before, go back! Don’t read this novel first! It’s sort of a 500 level course of a novel, not because it’s difficult, but because it takes more patience and commitment, acquired only from some positive Lawrence experiences.
D.H. Lawrence started writing about the two Brangwen sisters in 1913, pairing them with the males in this book, Gerald and Rupert, but then he developed the sister’s background and family story. It grew into a huge tale, so he split it in two, and published the background story, The Rainbow, in 1915. The negative reaction to that one, including suppression and banning, delayed publication of the second part, Women in Love, until 1920.
These sisters were presented to us as unique and interesting feminist creatures in The Rainbow, but here they have morphed into poor excuses for human beings, something that made me angry through most of the book, but did I stop reading? Of course not! I love Lawrence, and think anything he writes is brimming with significance and poetic value. I was pissed though.
The story takes place in England around the outbreak of the First World War. There’s no explicit mention of the war, but Lawrence explores themes of life over death; choosing passion (love and art) over being a cog in the military/industrial complex; and when faced with the choice between the peace of an agrarian society and the mechanization of an industrial one, deciding to carve out a brand new option.
Lawrence seems to be channeling his poetry differently in this one. There aren’t pages of descriptions of flora and fauna here--he applies his poetry instead to ideas, and gives us primarily conversations (though there are plenty of flowers metaphorically popping up, and animals with strong symbolic meaning).
I don’t have the literary chops to analyze this properly, but I will say, contrary to the title, this is not about women in love. Women being infuriatingly childish, maybe, but primarily, one man’s need to conquer and another man’s wrestling with the problem of how best to exist with other humans, how to be fulfilled, how to love.
The characters are quite a foursome. Ursula Brangwen: �'I think it’s much better to be really patrician, and to do nothing but just be oneself, like a walking flower.’� Gudrun Brangwen: “She was not satisfied--she was never to be satisfied.� Gerald Crich: “What he wanted was the pure fulfilment of his own will in the struggle with the natural conditions." Rupert Birkin: “She knew all the while, in spite of himself, he would have to be trying to save the world.�
I didn’t believe anybody was really in love with anybody here, with one exception, a relationship that carries the novel and gives what I found a surprisingly beautiful and hopeful ending.
~~~~~ Some of my favorite evocative, provocative, thought-provoking lines: “The two sisters were like a pair of scissors, snipping off everything that came athwart them; or like a knife and a whetstone, the one sharpened against the other.�
“There is a real impersonal me, that is beyond love, beyond any emotional relationship. So it is with you. But we want to delude ourselves that love is the root. It isn’t. It is only the branches. The root is beyond love, a naked kind of isolation, an isolated me, that does not meet and mingle, and never can.�
“Her father was not a coherent human being, he was a roomful of old echoes.�
“You have never worked for hunger, or you would know what god governs us.�
“She was rarely alone, he pressed upon her like a frost, deadening her.�
“Oh God, the wheels within wheels of people, it makes one’s head tick like a clock, with a very madness of dead mechanical monotony and meaninglessness.�...more
“Midnight had come upon the crowded city. The palace, the night-cellar, the jail, the madhouse: the chambers of birth and death, of health and sicknes“Midnight had come upon the crowded city. The palace, the night-cellar, the jail, the madhouse: the chambers of birth and death, of health and sickness, the rigid face of the corpse the calm sleep of the child: midnight was upon them all.�
Charles Dickens was only 25 when he began what would become Oliver Twist, intended as a serial in Bentley’s Miscellany which he was just beginning to edit, and had his hand in a number of other projects at the same time. So he was young, distracted, over-worked, and inexperienced, and yet still, he pulled this off. Amazing. You watch Dickens turn into a novelist as he wrote this, a journey I found particularly fascinating.
The story is a unique combination of gritty realism, sensational melodrama, and thoughtful social commentary. Oliver is born a parish boy, an orphan raised on a “baby farm� to go straight to the work house. He’s used and abused by those within the law and outside of it, and Dickens builds an intricate web of story around him, involving all sorts of characters. Thieves and prostitutes and exploiters are the real grist of this story, a world he knew from his own insecure childhood. But he didn’t make them caricatures. Regardless of their acts, they’re rounded and mostly sympathetic. I love this about Dickens.
And his villainous characters are not the real villains here. The real villains are those in power who do not stop to look and see what is happening in the lives of those they control. So he draws the picture to help show us the reality we’re missing. This makes him more than an entertainer, more than a novelist. He’s a humanitarian of the first order and though we still have so far to go, his work has truly made a difference in this world.
I came to this knowing little about the story. I’d never read it, never seen the play or even a film all the way through. So I feel like I got the full effect, and thanks to the Dickensians! group and our slow read, I got it in a similar way to his original readers. I cannot thank Bionic Jean enough for teasing out and generously sharing the massive amount of detail and background to this story, giving it so much depth and making it another very memorable experience.
My admiration for Dickens continues to grow with every book, and I have many more ahead of me, a fact that fills me with delightful anticipation!...more
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