> Arts & Lecture Author, 5/11
> Short Stories
> LibraryThing Review: This is a really unusual collection of short stories. Lydia Davis plays with structure in a manner I have not seen before. I saw her speak as part of the Rochester Arts & Lecture Series 2010-2011, and was powerfully struck by her intellect and very dry wit. These qualities come through in her stories. She is a master of minutiae, able to make a pwerful statement in as little as 2-3 sentences. This is a great collection to pick up and put down in order to savor the material over time.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
"The Weed That Strings The Hangman's Bag" by Alan Bradley ***
As was true of the first in this series, it was an enjoyable read. It is fun. Frankly, I really like the narrator of the audiobook. I think she makes Flavia de Luce really come to life.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
"Herzog" by Saul Bellow *****
> Nobel Prize winning author
>Setting: 1950s, Chicago, New York, and Boston
>Characters: Moses Herzog, recently divorced, Jewish, neurotic, grieving
>Opening Line: "If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog."
> Vocabulary: 1) coracoid: (also coracoid process) A short projection from the shoulder blade in mammals, to which part of the biceps is attached.
> p.3..."Grief, Sir, is a species of idleness."
> p.10..."A person of irregular tendencies, he practiced the art of circling among random facts to swoop down on the essentials."
> p.38..."I am sure you were sincere. Not insincere. True insincerity is had to find."
> p.39...."Yes, I was stupid---a blockhead. But that was one of the problems I was working on, you see, that people can be free now but the freedom doesn't have any content. It's like a howling emptiness."
> p.40...."No man can satisfy a woman who doesn't want him"....profound? not!
> p.47..."If there were a beautiful poverty, a moral poverty in America, that would be subversive. Therefore it has to be ugly."
> p.51..."We are bound to be the slaves of those who have pwer to destroy us."
> p.53..."...depressives tended to form frantic dependencies and to become hysterical when cut off, when threatened with loss."
> p.56..."Charity , as if it didn't have enough trouble in this day and age, will always be suspected of morbidity - sadomasochism, perversity of some sort. All higher or moral tendencies lie under suspicion of being rackets. Things we simply honor with old words, but betray or deny in our very nerves."
> p.75..."We are survivors in this age, so theories of progress ill become us, because we are intimately acquainted with the costs. To realize that you are a survivor is a shock. At the realization of such election, you feel like bursting into tears. As the dead go their way, you want to call to them, but they depart in a black cloud of faces, souls."
> p.81..."Somewhere in every intellectual is a dumb prick."
> p.86..."Opposition is true friendship."
> p.91...."He loved to think about the power of the sun, about light, about the ocean. The purity of the air moved him. There was no stain in the water, where schools of minnows swam.......His heart was greatly stirred by the open horizon; the deep colors; the faint iodine pungency of the Atlantic rising from weeds and mollusks; the white, fine, heavy sand; but principally by the green transparency as he looked down to the stony bottom webbed with golden lines. Never still. If his soul could cast a reflection so brilliant, and so intensely sweet, he might beg God to make such use of him. But that would be too simple. But that would be too childish. The actual sphere is not clear like this, but turbulent, angry. A vast human action is going on. Death watches. So if you have some happiness, conceal it. And when your heart is full, keep your mouth shut also."
> p.93..."But this was becoming the up-to-date and almost conventional way of looking at any single life. In this wview the body itself, with its two arms and vertical length, was compared to the Cross, on which you knew the agony of consciousness and separate being. "
> p. 93..."...you must sacrifice your poor, squawking, niggardly individuality......to hstorical necessity. And to truth. And truth is true only as it brings down more disgrace anbd dreariness upon human beings, so that if it shows anything except evil it is illusion, and not truth."
> p. 96..."Now: the first requirement of stbility in a human being was that the said human being should really desire to exist. This is what Spinoza says."
> p. 105..."If existence is nausea then faith is an uncertain relief."
> P. 107..."But modern character is inconstant, divided, vacillating, lacking the stone-like certitude of archaic man, also deprived of the firm ideas of the seventeenth century, clear, hard theorems."
> p. 340....."But what do you want, Herzog? But that's just it--not a solitary thing. I am pretty well satisfied to be, to be just as it is willed, and for as long as I may remain in occupancy."
LibraryThing Review: I believe this novel is considered something of a classic. "Herzog" is the protagonist......a middle aged man, twice divorced, going through an existential crisis. The entire book consists of his internal monologue, his intellectual ponderings, his correspondence, and his struggle to find some peace. Very reminiscent of Sartre and Camus. I enjoyed his philosophical musings and was annoyed by his neurotic self-absorption. Reading this book is a project.....worthwhile if the reader is in the right frame of mind.
>Setting: 1950s, Chicago, New York, and Boston
>Characters: Moses Herzog, recently divorced, Jewish, neurotic, grieving
>Opening Line: "If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog."
> Vocabulary: 1) coracoid: (also coracoid process) A short projection from the shoulder blade in mammals, to which part of the biceps is attached.
> p.3..."Grief, Sir, is a species of idleness."
> p.10..."A person of irregular tendencies, he practiced the art of circling among random facts to swoop down on the essentials."
> p.38..."I am sure you were sincere. Not insincere. True insincerity is had to find."
> p.39...."Yes, I was stupid---a blockhead. But that was one of the problems I was working on, you see, that people can be free now but the freedom doesn't have any content. It's like a howling emptiness."
> p.40...."No man can satisfy a woman who doesn't want him"....profound? not!
> p.47..."If there were a beautiful poverty, a moral poverty in America, that would be subversive. Therefore it has to be ugly."
> p.51..."We are bound to be the slaves of those who have pwer to destroy us."
> p.53..."...depressives tended to form frantic dependencies and to become hysterical when cut off, when threatened with loss."
> p.56..."Charity , as if it didn't have enough trouble in this day and age, will always be suspected of morbidity - sadomasochism, perversity of some sort. All higher or moral tendencies lie under suspicion of being rackets. Things we simply honor with old words, but betray or deny in our very nerves."
> p.75..."We are survivors in this age, so theories of progress ill become us, because we are intimately acquainted with the costs. To realize that you are a survivor is a shock. At the realization of such election, you feel like bursting into tears. As the dead go their way, you want to call to them, but they depart in a black cloud of faces, souls."
> p.81..."Somewhere in every intellectual is a dumb prick."
> p.86..."Opposition is true friendship."
> p.91...."He loved to think about the power of the sun, about light, about the ocean. The purity of the air moved him. There was no stain in the water, where schools of minnows swam.......His heart was greatly stirred by the open horizon; the deep colors; the faint iodine pungency of the Atlantic rising from weeds and mollusks; the white, fine, heavy sand; but principally by the green transparency as he looked down to the stony bottom webbed with golden lines. Never still. If his soul could cast a reflection so brilliant, and so intensely sweet, he might beg God to make such use of him. But that would be too simple. But that would be too childish. The actual sphere is not clear like this, but turbulent, angry. A vast human action is going on. Death watches. So if you have some happiness, conceal it. And when your heart is full, keep your mouth shut also."
> p.93..."But this was becoming the up-to-date and almost conventional way of looking at any single life. In this wview the body itself, with its two arms and vertical length, was compared to the Cross, on which you knew the agony of consciousness and separate being. "
> p. 93..."...you must sacrifice your poor, squawking, niggardly individuality......to hstorical necessity. And to truth. And truth is true only as it brings down more disgrace anbd dreariness upon human beings, so that if it shows anything except evil it is illusion, and not truth."
> p. 96..."Now: the first requirement of stbility in a human being was that the said human being should really desire to exist. This is what Spinoza says."
> p. 105..."If existence is nausea then faith is an uncertain relief."
> P. 107..."But modern character is inconstant, divided, vacillating, lacking the stone-like certitude of archaic man, also deprived of the firm ideas of the seventeenth century, clear, hard theorems."
> p. 340....."But what do you want, Herzog? But that's just it--not a solitary thing. I am pretty well satisfied to be, to be just as it is willed, and for as long as I may remain in occupancy."
LibraryThing Review: I believe this novel is considered something of a classic. "Herzog" is the protagonist......a middle aged man, twice divorced, going through an existential crisis. The entire book consists of his internal monologue, his intellectual ponderings, his correspondence, and his struggle to find some peace. Very reminiscent of Sartre and Camus. I enjoyed his philosophical musings and was annoyed by his neurotic self-absorption. Reading this book is a project.....worthwhile if the reader is in the right frame of mind.
"Lodgings: Selected Poems" by Andrzej Sosnowski ****
> Open Letter Series
> Polish poet
>Vocab: 1) epithalamia: a song or poem in honor of a bride and bridegroom
2) dromomania: an exaggerated desire to wander
3) asyndeton: omission of the conjunctions that ordinarily join coordinate words or clauses (as in “I came, I saw, I conquered”)
4) oneiric: of or relating to dreams : dreamy
LibraryThing Review: Collection of poetry.....I must admit that much of this poetry was over my head, which, for me, means that the poem did not evoke anything emotionally or intellectually other than some frustration. It was translated from the original Polish, and I still did not understand some of the vocabulary! However, the poems to which I did respond were absolutely beautiful! My favorite was one entitled, "The Oceans". Its verses tossed and turned, crested the waves, and slid into the abyss.....very satisfying! Tough read!
> Polish poet
>Vocab: 1) epithalamia: a song or poem in honor of a bride and bridegroom
2) dromomania: an exaggerated desire to wander
3) asyndeton: omission of the conjunctions that ordinarily join coordinate words or clauses (as in “I came, I saw, I conquered”)
4) oneiric: of or relating to dreams : dreamy
LibraryThing Review: Collection of poetry.....I must admit that much of this poetry was over my head, which, for me, means that the poem did not evoke anything emotionally or intellectually other than some frustration. It was translated from the original Polish, and I still did not understand some of the vocabulary! However, the poems to which I did respond were absolutely beautiful! My favorite was one entitled, "The Oceans". Its verses tossed and turned, crested the waves, and slid into the abyss.....very satisfying! Tough read!
Friday, April 15, 2011
"The Uncommon Reader" by Alan Bennett ****
> Setting, the residence of Queen Elizabeth of England\
>Characters: 1) Queen Elizabeth 2) Norman, young boy in kitchen whom the Queen meets in the mobile library behind the palace while chasing her corgis
> p.6....It was a hobby and it was in the nature of her job that she didn't have hobbies.....Hobbies involved preferences; and preferences had to be avoided...."
> p.21...."...but briefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting."
> p.30..."All readers were equal, herself included. Literature, she thought, is a commonwealth; letters a republic."
> p.31..."As a girl, one of her greatest thrills had been on VE night when she and her sister had slipped out of the gates and mingled unrecognised with the crowds. There was something of that, she felt, to reading. It was anonymous; it was shared; it was common."
> her corgis "hated her books"....Bella nudges mine out of my hand occasionally when she wants my attention
> Vocab: 1) invigilate: to keep watch; especially British : to supervise students at an examination 2) opsimath: one who learns only late in life
> p.47..."I think of literature...as a vast country to the far borders of which I am journeying but will never reach."
> p.49..."Am I alone....in wanting to give Henry James a good talking-to?"....love that line
> p.52..."Authors, she soon decided, were probably best met with in the pages of their novels, and as much creatures of the reader's imagination as the characters in their books
> p.72..."One recipe for happiness is to have no sense of entitlement."
> p.101....You don't put your life into your books. You find it there."
> p.110..."At eighty things do no occur; they recur."
> p.115..." 'I would have thought,' said the prime minister, 'that Your Majesty was above literature.' 'Above literature?' said the Queen. 'Who is above literature? You might as well say one was above humanity."
> p.116..."Sometimes one has felt like a scented candle, sent in to perfume a regime or aerate a policy, monarchy these days just a government-issue deodorant."
> p.120..." 'Yes, ma'am, I agree, but the difference, surely, is that His Royal Highness wrote the book as Duke of Windsor. He could only write it because he had abdicated.' 'Oh, did I not say that?' said the Queen. 'But...why do you think you're all here?"...Great closing line!
> LibraryThing Review: This is my first Alan Bennett experience....what a novel concept! The Queen discovers reading for pleasure as an elderly woman and causes much disruption to routine and becomes the subject of manipulation and deceit in order to restore order. At every turn, she seems naively distressed at the concern over her new hobby. Bennett is creative, witty, and lets the reader have some fun while injecting some insight into royal life, lest one judge a book by its cover.
P.S. - I was appalled to hear that her corgis are so universally disliked!
>Characters: 1) Queen Elizabeth 2) Norman, young boy in kitchen whom the Queen meets in the mobile library behind the palace while chasing her corgis
> p.6....It was a hobby and it was in the nature of her job that she didn't have hobbies.....Hobbies involved preferences; and preferences had to be avoided...."
> p.21...."...but briefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting."
> p.30..."All readers were equal, herself included. Literature, she thought, is a commonwealth; letters a republic."
> p.31..."As a girl, one of her greatest thrills had been on VE night when she and her sister had slipped out of the gates and mingled unrecognised with the crowds. There was something of that, she felt, to reading. It was anonymous; it was shared; it was common."
> her corgis "hated her books"....Bella nudges mine out of my hand occasionally when she wants my attention
> Vocab: 1) invigilate: to keep watch; especially British : to supervise students at an examination 2) opsimath: one who learns only late in life
> p.47..."I think of literature...as a vast country to the far borders of which I am journeying but will never reach."
> p.49..."Am I alone....in wanting to give Henry James a good talking-to?"....love that line
> p.52..."Authors, she soon decided, were probably best met with in the pages of their novels, and as much creatures of the reader's imagination as the characters in their books
> p.72..."One recipe for happiness is to have no sense of entitlement."
> p.101....You don't put your life into your books. You find it there."
> p.110..."At eighty things do no occur; they recur."
> p.115..." 'I would have thought,' said the prime minister, 'that Your Majesty was above literature.' 'Above literature?' said the Queen. 'Who is above literature? You might as well say one was above humanity."
> p.116..."Sometimes one has felt like a scented candle, sent in to perfume a regime or aerate a policy, monarchy these days just a government-issue deodorant."
> p.120..." 'Yes, ma'am, I agree, but the difference, surely, is that His Royal Highness wrote the book as Duke of Windsor. He could only write it because he had abdicated.' 'Oh, did I not say that?' said the Queen. 'But...why do you think you're all here?"...Great closing line!
> LibraryThing Review: This is my first Alan Bennett experience....what a novel concept! The Queen discovers reading for pleasure as an elderly woman and causes much disruption to routine and becomes the subject of manipulation and deceit in order to restore order. At every turn, she seems naively distressed at the concern over her new hobby. Bennett is creative, witty, and lets the reader have some fun while injecting some insight into royal life, lest one judge a book by its cover.
P.S. - I was appalled to hear that her corgis are so universally disliked!
"The Private Lives of Trees" by Alejandro Zambra *****
> Open Letter Series
> Chilean author
> Setting: somewhere in Chile, story takes place over the course of one night spent wondering if his wife will come home or not
> Characters: 1) Julian, a writer and stepfather 2)Victoria, his wife, for whom he spends one very long night waiting 3) Daniela, his stepdaughter, for whom he creates stories about the private lives of trees until she sleeps each night 4)Karla, Julian's former girlfriend
> Epigraphs: 1) "I have no childhood memories.", Georges Perec 2) "...like the private lives of trees or of castaways.", Andres Anwandter
> p.24...."What do you do?" "I have dandruff.".....funny imagining
> p.24..."No one can live without exaggerating a little. If there are in fact stages in Julian's life, they would have to be expressed according to an index of exaggeration. Until he was ten years old he exaggerated very little, almost never. From ten to sixteen his pretension steadily increased. From eighteen onward he became an expert in the most varied forms of hyperbole."
> p.25....He has just finished a very short book; nevertheless, it took several years to write. At first he gathered materials; he accumulated almost three hundred pages; but he gradually reversed course, throwing more and more away, as if instead of adding stories he wanted to subtract them or erase them."
> p.28..."But instead of being content with the stories that destiny put at his disposal, Julian remained fixated on his bonsai."..........parallel between bonsai and his life....also, Zambra has written a novella, entitled, "Bonsai".
> Very funny bit when Julian's friends tell him that he has been reading too much Paul Auster, one of my all-time favorite authors.
> p.33......"It would be undoubtedly better to fall to the floor laughing, or construct an elegant and disdainful sneer. It would be better to close the book, close the books, and to face, all at once, not life, which is very big, but the fragile armor of the present."
> p.38..."In the artificial light of the present, his life with Karla appears to him like a cloud, like a lagoon. He thinks of her as a stopping-place, countryside contemplated from the window of a slow-moving train."
> p.39...."He had stopped loving her one second before he began loving her. It sounds strange, but that's how he feels; instead of loving Karla, he had loved the possibility of love, and then the imminence of love. He had loved the idea of a form moving beneath dirty white sheets."
> p.42...."At the end of a cold night of writing, Julian decided to stop filling pages with diffuse and indecipherable stories; he would write, instead, the diary of a bonsai, a painstaking registry of the tree's growth. It seemed simple. Each afternoon, when he got home, he would record every change, no matter how tiny, that the tree may have undergone while he was out....."
> p.67..."heart of lemon balm for when my sorrows grow, the flowers of my garden must be my caretakers."...lyric from a song Julian's mother used to sing
> p.68...."Shoulder our portion of the night, bear our part of the night, carry our portion of the night, endure the darkness"...verse from Emily Dickinson which comes to Julian as he tries to weather the long night
> p.75...."She knows that very soon Ernesto won't come back. She imagines herself disconcerted, then furious, and finally invaded by a decisive calm.. It's all right, there was no commitment, as it should be: one loves in order to stop loving, and one stops loving in order to start loving others, or to end up alone, for a while or forever. That is the law. The only law.".....Julian is imagining Daniela's future if Victoria does not return.
> p.76..."Focus your gaze on the current: the bridge moves forward, we move forward, the water is still, it comes to a halt."....Julian on a bridge with Daniela, metaphor for transition?
> p.82..."How can those places they have decided to leave in darkness be lit? After a difficult time, they've reached a non-aggression pact, achieving the indirect complicity of those whose lives are connected only by a thread. Now they talk, of course they talk, and not in a question-and-answer style. It is not an interrogation. it is, properly, a conversation. The surface feels good to them. They like to play at the sport of spending time together."...Julian imagines Daniela as a young adult speaking with her natural father, with whom she only lived for six months of her first year of life......reminiscent of many relationships in life, I think.
> p.83...."But then she thinks that this is the book her father should write: the book of stories it would be better not to tell anyone, not to air, to carry to the grave; a book of confessions that wouldn't say anything to anyone, which no one would consider valuable. The important thing would be to have saved the breath he uses to tell them.".....Daniela's imagined thoughts after Julian imagines her natural father telling her inappropriate stories
> p.95..."He never wanted to be a doctor, much less a gym teacher. He didn't even want to be a literature professor, not ever. He wanted - wants- to be a writer, but being a writer is not exactly being someone.".....interesting
> p.95..."It is 7:50 in the morning. Less than an hour ago, Julian decided that the future must begin. 'This is the next day,' he thought, and he made the coffee.....".
> LibraryThing Review: How can an author pack so much into a novella? That is the question I am left with after reading "The Private Lives of Trees". The author takes us through one long night suffered by Julian, a writer and stepfather, who is waiting for his wife to come home. I won't tell if she does or not, and frankly, it is almost irrelevant. The reader is allowed access to the stream of thoughts, feelings, imaginings, hopes, history, and fears of one man for one night. His ponderings are the stuff of being human, vulnerable, angry, sad, and hopeful. Oh yes......the private lives of trees is what Julian calls the stories he tells his beloved stepdaughter at bedtime every night until she sleeps.....
> Chilean author
> Setting: somewhere in Chile, story takes place over the course of one night spent wondering if his wife will come home or not
> Characters: 1) Julian, a writer and stepfather 2)Victoria, his wife, for whom he spends one very long night waiting 3) Daniela, his stepdaughter, for whom he creates stories about the private lives of trees until she sleeps each night 4)Karla, Julian's former girlfriend
> Epigraphs: 1) "I have no childhood memories.", Georges Perec 2) "...like the private lives of trees or of castaways.", Andres Anwandter
> p.24...."What do you do?" "I have dandruff.".....funny imagining
> p.24..."No one can live without exaggerating a little. If there are in fact stages in Julian's life, they would have to be expressed according to an index of exaggeration. Until he was ten years old he exaggerated very little, almost never. From ten to sixteen his pretension steadily increased. From eighteen onward he became an expert in the most varied forms of hyperbole."
> p.25....He has just finished a very short book; nevertheless, it took several years to write. At first he gathered materials; he accumulated almost three hundred pages; but he gradually reversed course, throwing more and more away, as if instead of adding stories he wanted to subtract them or erase them."
> p.28..."But instead of being content with the stories that destiny put at his disposal, Julian remained fixated on his bonsai."..........parallel between bonsai and his life....also, Zambra has written a novella, entitled, "Bonsai".
> Very funny bit when Julian's friends tell him that he has been reading too much Paul Auster, one of my all-time favorite authors.
> p.33......"It would be undoubtedly better to fall to the floor laughing, or construct an elegant and disdainful sneer. It would be better to close the book, close the books, and to face, all at once, not life, which is very big, but the fragile armor of the present."
> p.38..."In the artificial light of the present, his life with Karla appears to him like a cloud, like a lagoon. He thinks of her as a stopping-place, countryside contemplated from the window of a slow-moving train."
> p.39...."He had stopped loving her one second before he began loving her. It sounds strange, but that's how he feels; instead of loving Karla, he had loved the possibility of love, and then the imminence of love. He had loved the idea of a form moving beneath dirty white sheets."
> p.42...."At the end of a cold night of writing, Julian decided to stop filling pages with diffuse and indecipherable stories; he would write, instead, the diary of a bonsai, a painstaking registry of the tree's growth. It seemed simple. Each afternoon, when he got home, he would record every change, no matter how tiny, that the tree may have undergone while he was out....."
> p.67..."heart of lemon balm for when my sorrows grow, the flowers of my garden must be my caretakers."...lyric from a song Julian's mother used to sing
> p.68...."Shoulder our portion of the night, bear our part of the night, carry our portion of the night, endure the darkness"...verse from Emily Dickinson which comes to Julian as he tries to weather the long night
> p.75...."She knows that very soon Ernesto won't come back. She imagines herself disconcerted, then furious, and finally invaded by a decisive calm.. It's all right, there was no commitment, as it should be: one loves in order to stop loving, and one stops loving in order to start loving others, or to end up alone, for a while or forever. That is the law. The only law.".....Julian is imagining Daniela's future if Victoria does not return.
> p.76..."Focus your gaze on the current: the bridge moves forward, we move forward, the water is still, it comes to a halt."....Julian on a bridge with Daniela, metaphor for transition?
> p.82..."How can those places they have decided to leave in darkness be lit? After a difficult time, they've reached a non-aggression pact, achieving the indirect complicity of those whose lives are connected only by a thread. Now they talk, of course they talk, and not in a question-and-answer style. It is not an interrogation. it is, properly, a conversation. The surface feels good to them. They like to play at the sport of spending time together."...Julian imagines Daniela as a young adult speaking with her natural father, with whom she only lived for six months of her first year of life......reminiscent of many relationships in life, I think.
> p.83...."But then she thinks that this is the book her father should write: the book of stories it would be better not to tell anyone, not to air, to carry to the grave; a book of confessions that wouldn't say anything to anyone, which no one would consider valuable. The important thing would be to have saved the breath he uses to tell them.".....Daniela's imagined thoughts after Julian imagines her natural father telling her inappropriate stories
> p.95..."He never wanted to be a doctor, much less a gym teacher. He didn't even want to be a literature professor, not ever. He wanted - wants- to be a writer, but being a writer is not exactly being someone.".....interesting
> p.95..."It is 7:50 in the morning. Less than an hour ago, Julian decided that the future must begin. 'This is the next day,' he thought, and he made the coffee.....".
> LibraryThing Review: How can an author pack so much into a novella? That is the question I am left with after reading "The Private Lives of Trees". The author takes us through one long night suffered by Julian, a writer and stepfather, who is waiting for his wife to come home. I won't tell if she does or not, and frankly, it is almost irrelevant. The reader is allowed access to the stream of thoughts, feelings, imaginings, hopes, history, and fears of one man for one night. His ponderings are the stuff of being human, vulnerable, angry, sad, and hopeful. Oh yes......the private lives of trees is what Julian calls the stories he tells his beloved stepdaughter at bedtime every night until she sleeps.....
Sunday, April 10, 2011
"The Tiger's Wife" by Tea Obreht ***** - Book Club
> wonderful opening line: "In my earliest memory, my grandfather is bald as a stone and he takes me to see the tigers."
> book club selection
> Debut novel, author born in Belgrade, has lived in USA since age 12
> Setting: in the Balkans, "after the war"
> Natalia, young doctor, on mission to take inoculations to orphans, finds out her grandfather has died while on a journey no one was told about
> p.7 - "The forty days of the soul begin on the morning after death."
> p.9 - Grandfather, on finding cancer...."Fuck. You go looking for a gnat and you find a donkey."
> love the poetry reciting parrot
> p.25 - hospitality: "She had made a massive effort, arranged everything carefully on blue china that was chipped, but lovingly wiped down after probably spending years in a basement, hidden from looters."
> two stories needed to understand grandfather: the tiger's wife and the deathless man
> p.36...."Those first sixteen months of wartime held almost no reality, and this made them incredible, irresistible, because the fact that something terrible was happening elsewhere, and at the same time to us, gave us room to get away with anarchy. Never mind that, three hundred miles away girls sitting in bomb shelters were getting their periods at the age of seven."
> p.42 ..."The years I spent immersing myself in the mild lawlessness of the war my grandfather spent believing it would end soon, pretending that nothing had changes."
> Such elegant prose from such a young writer.....and life wisdom, as well
> p.49....:Despite the insistent pull of his instinct to protect use, my grandfather still suffered from that national characteristic of our people that is often mistaken for stupidity but is more like self-righteous indignation."....grandfather's resistance to government man who came to the house
> p. 51......This was, perhaps, a kind of punishment, and back then I thought it was for allowing myself to slip, or for letting the "hat" into our apartment. Now I realize that it was punishment for giving up so easily on the tigers."
> "One of those moments you keep to yourself."...the night they followed the elephant through empty streets
. the deathless man's tale....told to Natalia as an example of a prior moment to be kept to oneself in her grandfather's life.............the man who would not or could not die
>flash to present in story...the diggers..."We've got a cousin in this vineyard, Doctor...Buried twelve years. During the war.......Doesn't like it here, and he's making us sic. When we find him we'll be on our way."
>tiger's wife...tiger got away from zoo after bombing, before Natalia was born, and wandered, ending up in Galina, where the grandfather had lived
> p.98...."The fact that you are in a hurry is of no particular interest to them; in their opinion, if you are making your journey in a hurry, you are making it poorly."
>p.101...."The monastery was the project of an architect whose mapping skills and artful design were undermined by his inability to consider that the seclusion of the monks would be regularly interrupted by the movement of armies over the eastern mountains and into the river valley."
> p.104..."....my grandfather would look up at the shelves and shelves of jars, the swollen-bottomed bottles of remedies, and revel in their calm, controlled promise of wellness."
> "The Jungle Book" was a gift from the apothecary to grandfather
> p.105...."I knew "tiger" because my grandfather took me to the citadel every week and pointed to show me, "tiger"; because the labels in........"
>To grandfather, the devil was "Lesi, the hobgoblin you met in the pasture.....Crnobogh, the horned god, who summoned darkness.....the devbil was Night, Baba Roga's second son.....the devil was Death waiting for you at the Crossroads"
> loved the history of the musket....see p.120
> p.153...."...I had been inspired largely by guilt that was manifesting itself among members of my generation as a desire to help the people we kept hearing about on the news, people whose suffering we had used to explain our struggles, frame our debates, and justify our small rebellions."
> p.154..."When men die, they die in fear....They take everything they need from you, and as a doctor it is your job to give it, to comfort them, to hold their hand. But children die how they have been living..in hope. They don't know what's happening, so they expect nothing, they don't ask you to hold their hand....but you end up needing them to hold yours. With children, you're on you own."
> Enjoyed the story of pleasing Mica the cadaver procurer....the skull adventure
> p.161..."In my grandfather's life, the rituals that followed the war were rituals of renegotiation." a divided country meant loss of certain rights to claim historical figures as one's own.
> Vocab: 1) gusla: a one stringed fiddle-like instrument 2) fare: to travel, get along
> Lifting of the veil....long history from the Bible, still part of Jewish pre-wedding ceremony
>p.219..."The tiger saw the girl as she had seen him: without judgment, fear, foolishness, and somehow the two of them understood each other without exchanging a single sound."
> the tiger's wife gave grandfather some tiger hairs as a token of gratitude
> Why did the tiger begin eating his own legs?
> grandfather went to the site of his honeymoon, in his wife's hometown which was Muslim and being bombed during the war
> p.303 "This war never ends...it was there when I was a child and it will be here for my children's children."
> People took animals from the zoo into their homes during the war, until the zoo could re-open.reminds me of "The Zookeeper's Wife".
> grandfather left Nathalia the tiger hairs and the word, Galina, his home town....the "jungle Book" was gone...given in pledge to the deathless man
> p.336...."However expertly he learned to fend for himself, his life as a tiger had been tainted since birth...maybe that great, deadly Shere Khan light my grandfather believed in had already been extinguished. He had been dulled at the edges by circumstances, and it was simply easier for him to succumb to being hand-fed."
> p.337 ..."When you ask the people of Galina today: 'Why don't you let your children out after dark?' their answers are vague and uncomfortable......But the truth is, whether they think about him or not, the tiger is always there, in their movements, in their speech, in the preventive gestures that have become a part of their everyday lives....."....the manner in which our true heritage manifests itself.
> In order to understand these characters, you must first understand.....
1. Grandfather......"the deathless man", "the tiger's wife", killed Darisa to save her
2. Vladisa, the sheperd.....never had heard of a tiger before seeing one
3. the deathless man.....is the nephew of Death
4. Luka the butcher/batterer.....was cheated out of marrying the woman he loved and pursuing the life he dreamed of as a guslar
5. Darisa the bear hunter.......loved life, wanted to be a taxidermist, had an epileptic sister who died, wanted to "preempt" death, or "to find life in Death"
6. The "Diggers".....had to correct an error from the past to heal the family in the present
7. the apothecary...orphaned, forced into a hajduk gang, befriended Blind Orlo and learned to heal from him, hid fact he was Mohammedan to survive
> LibraryThing Review: I really had to consider how to write this review. I am not generally a gushing type of person, yet his book truly invites a bit of gushing. Here are the teasers, at least they would tease me........Do you like great characters? How about "the deathless man", "the tiger's wife", the tiger, the apothecary, the bear hunter, and above all, the grandfather. Oh wait.....the narrator herself, Nathalia, a young physician trying to understand herself through her understanding of her beloved grandfather. Okay....that's it for character teasing. How about being teased by beautiful fables? How about one of the best expressions of what heritage is that I have ever read? How about the author is only 24 years old? Come on, by now you must want to read this book! On a serious level the themes include: heritage, the need to understand one's past to understand oneself, the power of the past, the power of belief, and the power of metaphor.
Prior to reading this novel, I read a collection of essays which were coincidentally written by someone from "the former Yugoslavia". Talk about a one-two punch! Try reading this novel and "Nobody's Home" by Dubravka Ugresic consecutively. Fascinating juxtaposition of perspective on the impact of dissolving a nation and highlighting of the different ways in which we all seek to make meaning of life!
> book club selection
> Debut novel, author born in Belgrade, has lived in USA since age 12
> Setting: in the Balkans, "after the war"
> Natalia, young doctor, on mission to take inoculations to orphans, finds out her grandfather has died while on a journey no one was told about
> p.7 - "The forty days of the soul begin on the morning after death."
> p.9 - Grandfather, on finding cancer...."Fuck. You go looking for a gnat and you find a donkey."
> love the poetry reciting parrot
> p.25 - hospitality: "She had made a massive effort, arranged everything carefully on blue china that was chipped, but lovingly wiped down after probably spending years in a basement, hidden from looters."
> two stories needed to understand grandfather: the tiger's wife and the deathless man
> p.36...."Those first sixteen months of wartime held almost no reality, and this made them incredible, irresistible, because the fact that something terrible was happening elsewhere, and at the same time to us, gave us room to get away with anarchy. Never mind that, three hundred miles away girls sitting in bomb shelters were getting their periods at the age of seven."
> p.42 ..."The years I spent immersing myself in the mild lawlessness of the war my grandfather spent believing it would end soon, pretending that nothing had changes."
> Such elegant prose from such a young writer.....and life wisdom, as well
> p.49....:Despite the insistent pull of his instinct to protect use, my grandfather still suffered from that national characteristic of our people that is often mistaken for stupidity but is more like self-righteous indignation."....grandfather's resistance to government man who came to the house
> p. 51......This was, perhaps, a kind of punishment, and back then I thought it was for allowing myself to slip, or for letting the "hat" into our apartment. Now I realize that it was punishment for giving up so easily on the tigers."
> "One of those moments you keep to yourself."...the night they followed the elephant through empty streets
. the deathless man's tale....told to Natalia as an example of a prior moment to be kept to oneself in her grandfather's life.............the man who would not or could not die
>flash to present in story...the diggers..."We've got a cousin in this vineyard, Doctor...Buried twelve years. During the war.......Doesn't like it here, and he's making us sic. When we find him we'll be on our way."
>tiger's wife...tiger got away from zoo after bombing, before Natalia was born, and wandered, ending up in Galina, where the grandfather had lived
> p.98...."The fact that you are in a hurry is of no particular interest to them; in their opinion, if you are making your journey in a hurry, you are making it poorly."
>p.101...."The monastery was the project of an architect whose mapping skills and artful design were undermined by his inability to consider that the seclusion of the monks would be regularly interrupted by the movement of armies over the eastern mountains and into the river valley."
> p.104..."....my grandfather would look up at the shelves and shelves of jars, the swollen-bottomed bottles of remedies, and revel in their calm, controlled promise of wellness."
> "The Jungle Book" was a gift from the apothecary to grandfather
> p.105...."I knew "tiger" because my grandfather took me to the citadel every week and pointed to show me, "tiger"; because the labels in........"
>To grandfather, the devil was "Lesi, the hobgoblin you met in the pasture.....Crnobogh, the horned god, who summoned darkness.....the devbil was Night, Baba Roga's second son.....the devil was Death waiting for you at the Crossroads"
> loved the history of the musket....see p.120
> p.153...."...I had been inspired largely by guilt that was manifesting itself among members of my generation as a desire to help the people we kept hearing about on the news, people whose suffering we had used to explain our struggles, frame our debates, and justify our small rebellions."
> p.154..."When men die, they die in fear....They take everything they need from you, and as a doctor it is your job to give it, to comfort them, to hold their hand. But children die how they have been living..in hope. They don't know what's happening, so they expect nothing, they don't ask you to hold their hand....but you end up needing them to hold yours. With children, you're on you own."
> Enjoyed the story of pleasing Mica the cadaver procurer....the skull adventure
> p.161..."In my grandfather's life, the rituals that followed the war were rituals of renegotiation." a divided country meant loss of certain rights to claim historical figures as one's own.
> Vocab: 1) gusla: a one stringed fiddle-like instrument 2) fare: to travel, get along
> Lifting of the veil....long history from the Bible, still part of Jewish pre-wedding ceremony
>p.219..."The tiger saw the girl as she had seen him: without judgment, fear, foolishness, and somehow the two of them understood each other without exchanging a single sound."
> the tiger's wife gave grandfather some tiger hairs as a token of gratitude
> Why did the tiger begin eating his own legs?
> grandfather went to the site of his honeymoon, in his wife's hometown which was Muslim and being bombed during the war
> p.303 "This war never ends...it was there when I was a child and it will be here for my children's children."
> People took animals from the zoo into their homes during the war, until the zoo could re-open.reminds me of "The Zookeeper's Wife".
> grandfather left Nathalia the tiger hairs and the word, Galina, his home town....the "jungle Book" was gone...given in pledge to the deathless man
> p.336...."However expertly he learned to fend for himself, his life as a tiger had been tainted since birth...maybe that great, deadly Shere Khan light my grandfather believed in had already been extinguished. He had been dulled at the edges by circumstances, and it was simply easier for him to succumb to being hand-fed."
> p.337 ..."When you ask the people of Galina today: 'Why don't you let your children out after dark?' their answers are vague and uncomfortable......But the truth is, whether they think about him or not, the tiger is always there, in their movements, in their speech, in the preventive gestures that have become a part of their everyday lives....."....the manner in which our true heritage manifests itself.
> In order to understand these characters, you must first understand.....
1. Grandfather......"the deathless man", "the tiger's wife", killed Darisa to save her
2. Vladisa, the sheperd.....never had heard of a tiger before seeing one
3. the deathless man.....is the nephew of Death
4. Luka the butcher/batterer.....was cheated out of marrying the woman he loved and pursuing the life he dreamed of as a guslar
5. Darisa the bear hunter.......loved life, wanted to be a taxidermist, had an epileptic sister who died, wanted to "preempt" death, or "to find life in Death"
6. The "Diggers".....had to correct an error from the past to heal the family in the present
7. the apothecary...orphaned, forced into a hajduk gang, befriended Blind Orlo and learned to heal from him, hid fact he was Mohammedan to survive
> LibraryThing Review: I really had to consider how to write this review. I am not generally a gushing type of person, yet his book truly invites a bit of gushing. Here are the teasers, at least they would tease me........Do you like great characters? How about "the deathless man", "the tiger's wife", the tiger, the apothecary, the bear hunter, and above all, the grandfather. Oh wait.....the narrator herself, Nathalia, a young physician trying to understand herself through her understanding of her beloved grandfather. Okay....that's it for character teasing. How about being teased by beautiful fables? How about one of the best expressions of what heritage is that I have ever read? How about the author is only 24 years old? Come on, by now you must want to read this book! On a serious level the themes include: heritage, the need to understand one's past to understand oneself, the power of the past, the power of belief, and the power of metaphor.
Prior to reading this novel, I read a collection of essays which were coincidentally written by someone from "the former Yugoslavia". Talk about a one-two punch! Try reading this novel and "Nobody's Home" by Dubravka Ugresic consecutively. Fascinating juxtaposition of perspective on the impact of dissolving a nation and highlighting of the different ways in which we all seek to make meaning of life!
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