> Audiobook
> Orig published in 2005
> Set on the island of Houart off the coast of France, early 1900s
> Scottish portrait painter is painting a portrait while telling his own story which led him to the island, 1st person narration
> monologue.....painter isolates self on obscure island
>. Impressionism...safe, made to hang on the wall next to Granny's needlework...interesting
>. Notoriety v. Fame
> role of critic in the art world and in the life of the artist
> Henry McAlpine, the artist
> make yourself great by denigrating others.....
> learned to impose himself on others, assaulting them with opinions
> revenge or resoklution?
> LibraryThing Review: Let me introduce you to Henry McAlpine, a self-imposed exile from England, who currently resides on an island of the coast of France in the early 1920s. In this unusually constructed novel, the entire book is a monologue by Henry, as he paints the portrait of a former friend, an English art critic. Sounds innocuous enough, but the plot thickens as both the protrait and the story progress. What follows is a harsh examination of the art world, notoriety v. fame, the manipulations of art critics in general and of Henry's friend in particular, and the disastrous outcome of the critic's choices. A dark, yet enlightening story. Very good read!
Monday, December 19, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
"Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern ****
> Audiobook
> Orig published 2011....rave reviews by LT members
> Narrator is the same man who did the Harry Potter books...fabulous
> London, 1874
>. Celia, Hector (daughter/father), Alexander/Marko
> wager
>. Les reveurs, led by the clockmaker
> grounding...making the unbelievable look believable?..Mr. Barris.....pushes each other to the bounds of what is possible...keeps both their secrets
> competion v. Collaboration
> LibraryThing Review: Audiobook....Well....Wrap yourself up in a red scarf, become one of the many "reveurs" (dreamers)who follow the "Night Circus" around the world and settle in for a mystical, charming, luscious, and definitely dreamy read! Contortionists, tarot readers, illusionists and many more populate this story, this dream of two students pitted against one another in a challenge which will only end in the destruction of one them. In a Harry Potterish world of those who practice magic and those who are magic, Erin Morgenstern has captured my imagination. A real pleasure! (And I must put in a plug for the audio version with Jim Dale as narrator!)
>. Poppet & Widget......seers...twins..... Secrets lose their power when shared
> Orig published 2011....rave reviews by LT members
> Narrator is the same man who did the Harry Potter books...fabulous
> London, 1874
>. Celia, Hector (daughter/father), Alexander/Marko
> wager
>. Les reveurs, led by the clockmaker
> grounding...making the unbelievable look believable?..Mr. Barris.....pushes each other to the bounds of what is possible...keeps both their secrets
> competion v. Collaboration
> LibraryThing Review: Audiobook....Well....Wrap yourself up in a red scarf, become one of the many "reveurs" (dreamers)who follow the "Night Circus" around the world and settle in for a mystical, charming, luscious, and definitely dreamy read! Contortionists, tarot readers, illusionists and many more populate this story, this dream of two students pitted against one another in a challenge which will only end in the destruction of one them. In a Harry Potterish world of those who practice magic and those who are magic, Erin Morgenstern has captured my imagination. A real pleasure! (And I must put in a plug for the audio version with Jim Dale as narrator!)
>. Poppet & Widget......seers...twins..... Secrets lose their power when shared
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
"Sea of Poppies" by Amitav Ghosh *****
> Group Read on LibraryThing
> This may sound a bit odd, but I knew as I opened the book to the first page that I would enjoy this read. The paper felt so good to the touch...it is a longtime thing for me that part of the pleasure of reading an actual book is the feel of it, the type used, the paper. You know how nowadays you can pick up a book of 300 or more pages, but the weight of the book is very light? This hardcover edition has heft! And the glossary....it is so much more than a glossary...it is a conversation about the love of language. I have never seen that before. And all of that is before even starting to actually read the book.......
> p.3...Opening line is lovely...."The vision of a tall-masted ship, at sail on the ocean, came to Deeti on an otherwise ordinary day, but she knew instantly that the apparition was a sign of destiny, for she had never seen such a vessel before, not even in a dream; how could she have, living as she did in norther Bihar, four hundred miles from the coast?"
> p.35..."...how frail a creature was a human being, to be tamed by such tiny doses of this substance! She saw now why the factory in Ghazipur was so diligently patrolled by the sahibs and their sepoys--for if a little bit of this gum could give her such power over the life, the character, the very soul of this elderly woman, then with more of it at her disposal, why should she not be able to seize kingdoms and control multitudes?".....Deeti begins to see the power of opium
> p. 87...absolutely horrifying imagery of men squashing opium with their fee while totally wasted by its opiate power
>. As I began reading the first 100 pages or so, I am reminded of the way I felt when I started reading Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie.....overwhelmed. However, taking the same leap of literary faith now as I did then, i had confidence that it would all start to make sense......and it does. So many interesting characters and themes.....opium, castes, India as the place Europe hides its shame and greed, life amidst innumerable languages and beliefs.....Ghosh has tackled a mammoth story.....enjoying it thoroughly!
> p.159..."...it was as if the uncovering of her face had stripped the veil from his own masnhood, leaving him naked and exposed to the gloating pity of the world, to a shame that could never be overcome."....Neel seeing his wife's veil dropping as the police take him away....also a metaphor for the stripping of the dignity of millions
>. Kalua's rescue of Deeti from the funeral pyre.......love it and their wedding! I also loved Neel's grand meal....complete with chamber pot for a vase!
> p.163..."Even then she did not feel herself to be living in the same sense as before: a curious feeling, of joy mixed with resignation, crept into her heart, for it was as if she really had died and been delivered betimes in rebirth, to her next life; she had shed the body of the old Deeti, with the burden of its karma; she had paid the price her stars had demanded of her, and was free now to create a new destiny as she willed, with whom she chose--and she knew that it was with Kalua that this life would be lived, until another death claimed the body that he had torn from the flames"
> p.169..."...or having discovered that life ashore was far more attractive when you were at sea than when your feet were a-trip on the slick turf of lubber-land."....like that
> p.219..."Would it not be the duty of this court to deal with such a man in exemplary fashion, not just in strict observance of the law, but also to discharge that sacred trust that charges us to instruct the natives of this land in the laws and usages that govern the conduct of civilized nations?"...First, who entrusted the English, Second....who entrusted the English?
> p.221..."In the course of his trial it had become almost laughably obvious to Neel that in this system of justice, it was the English themselves...who were exempt from the law as it applied to others: it was they who had become the world's new Brahmins."
> p.223..."Each woman had always practised her own method in the belief that none other could possibly exist: it was bewildering at first, then funny, then exciting...."....budding awareness of variation within their own culture, which is exciting to them but threatening to others
>p.232..."The table's centrepiece.....a stuffed roast peacock, mounted upon a silver stand, with its tail outspread as if for an imminent mating." How appetizing!
> I love the "Thermantidote"....the antidote to overheating which backfired! Like most of the government's antidotes in this book!
> p. 242..."We are no different from the Pharaohs or the Mongols: the difference is only that when we kill people we feel compelled to pretend that it is for some higher cause. It is this pretense of virtue, I promise you, that will never be forgiven by history." Chilling words from Captain Chillingworth
> The story plays to opposites: kindness/cruelty, acceptance/rejection, loyalty/disloyalty
> Humor is delightfully dark
> So, I looked up the definition of "ibis" in case it had anything interesting to add to the understanding of the novel......
any of several wading birds related to the herons and constituting the family Threskiornithidae that inhabit warm regions in both hemispheres and feed on aquatic and amphibious animals and are distinguished by a long slender downwardly curved bill resembling a curlew's bill
Do you think the ship is feeding on the amphibious humans who come in contact with it?
> absolutely love the playfulness with the languages blending.....
> p.253..."There's nothing more annoying than to be puckrowed just when you're looking forward to a sip of laudanum and a nice long sleep."...LOL...I agree
> p.300...."...was it possible that the mere fact of using one's hands and investing one's attention in someone other than oneself, created a pride and tenderness that had nothing to do with the response of the object of one's care--just as a craftsman's love for his handiwork is in no way diminished by the fact of it being unreciprocated?"....Neel's exoerience with his cellmate ......parenthood
> p.325..."...:for when a moment arrives that is so much feared and so long awaited, it perforates the veil of everyday expectation in such a way as tio reveakl the prodigious darkness of the unknown."....Deeti boards the Ibis
> p.328..."On a boat of pilgrims, no one can lose caste and everyone is the same; it's like taking a boat to the temple of Jagannath, in Puri. From now on, and forever afterwards, we will all be ship-siblings....". Paulette with the women on the Ibis....I love the "ship-sibling" concept, seems true of sharing any important experience with another person.
> p.328..."It was now Deeti understood why the image of the vessel had been revealed to her that day, when she stood immersed in the Ganga (rebirth imagery); it was because her new self, her new life, had been gestating all this while in the belly of this creature, this vessel that was the Mother-Father of her new family....an adoptive ancestor and parent of dynasties yet to come....".
> I must admit to feeling genuine apprehension when the cat left the Ibis....
New Vocabulary:
1) elision: the act or an instance of dropping out or omitting something : OMISSION, CUT
> p.348..."...the young man burst into tears, weeping so artfully that the turban wound itself around and around the couple till they were sealed inside a snug cocoon."....wonderful imagery
> p.350..."they were more than plants to her, they were the companions of her earliest childhood and their shoots seemed almost to be her own, plunged deep into this soil; no matter where she went or for how long, she knew that nothing would ever tie her to a place as did these childhood roots."....literally and figuratively, lovely phrasing...Paulette's last views of her childhood home
> Foreshadowing in threes: cat left ship, Baboo Nob Kissin Pander's rumbling bowels, and the ship crossing the path of the drowned bodies when leaving the Ganga for the open sea.....
> p.363..."...it was impossible to think of this as water at all--for water surely needed a boundary, a rim, a shore, to give it shape and hold it in place? This was a firmament, like the night sky, holding the vessel aloft as if it were a planet or a star.".....Deeti's first thoughts upon seeing the open sea ahead of them
> p.365..."No matter how hard the times at home may have been, in the ashes of every past there were a few cinders of memory that glowed with warmth- and now,m those embers of recollection took on a new life, in the light of which their presence her, in the belly of the ship that was about to be cast into an abyss, seemed incomprehensible, a thing that could not be explained except as a lapse from sanity."
> p.367..."How had it happened that when choosing the men and women who were to be torn from this subjugated plain, the hand of destiny had strayed so far inland, away from the busy coastlines, to alight on the people who were, of all, the most stubbornly rooted in the silt of the Ganga, in soil that had to be sown with suffering to yield its crop of story and song? It was as if fate had thrust its fist through the living flesh of the land in order to tear away a piece of its stricken heart."..........I hope it is to take them to a better life?
> This dual personality, channeling thing of Baboo Nob Kissin and Taramony is quite fascinating.....I am wondering where it will lead for him and the passengers?
> p. 415..."She looked at the seed as if she had never seen one before, and suddenly she knew that it was not the planet above that governed her life; it was this minuscule orb--at once bountiful and all-devouring, merciful and destructive , sustaining and vengeful." Deeti looking at a poppy seed
>Title: The Ibis is a vessel named after a bird that wades in the shallows, yet it sets out upon the "Black Water" full of people, many of whose lives have been shaped by the almighty poppy, and who seem to be out of their natural element in one way or another. As a reader, I am left wondering, hoping, and fearing for these characters adrift in their story. Looking forward to seeing where each of them find a place to moor.
> LibraryThing Review: "Sea of Poppies" red like an Indian version of "The Fellowship of the Ring". No coincidence that it is part of a trilogy! Ghosh's story is a daring blend of social classes/castes, languages, religions and more represented in a wonderful array of characters, all of whom dare to begin their journey out into the sea aboard the Ibis, a schooner. This is a love story, an adventure, a metaphor for life and more. The reader meets and either loves or abhors each of the memorable characters, their marvelous names, their multitude of histories, and their multiple aspects. I am definitely looking forward to reading the next installment of the trilogy, "River of Smoke".
> This may sound a bit odd, but I knew as I opened the book to the first page that I would enjoy this read. The paper felt so good to the touch...it is a longtime thing for me that part of the pleasure of reading an actual book is the feel of it, the type used, the paper. You know how nowadays you can pick up a book of 300 or more pages, but the weight of the book is very light? This hardcover edition has heft! And the glossary....it is so much more than a glossary...it is a conversation about the love of language. I have never seen that before. And all of that is before even starting to actually read the book.......
> p.3...Opening line is lovely...."The vision of a tall-masted ship, at sail on the ocean, came to Deeti on an otherwise ordinary day, but she knew instantly that the apparition was a sign of destiny, for she had never seen such a vessel before, not even in a dream; how could she have, living as she did in norther Bihar, four hundred miles from the coast?"
> p.35..."...how frail a creature was a human being, to be tamed by such tiny doses of this substance! She saw now why the factory in Ghazipur was so diligently patrolled by the sahibs and their sepoys--for if a little bit of this gum could give her such power over the life, the character, the very soul of this elderly woman, then with more of it at her disposal, why should she not be able to seize kingdoms and control multitudes?".....Deeti begins to see the power of opium
> p. 87...absolutely horrifying imagery of men squashing opium with their fee while totally wasted by its opiate power
>. As I began reading the first 100 pages or so, I am reminded of the way I felt when I started reading Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie.....overwhelmed. However, taking the same leap of literary faith now as I did then, i had confidence that it would all start to make sense......and it does. So many interesting characters and themes.....opium, castes, India as the place Europe hides its shame and greed, life amidst innumerable languages and beliefs.....Ghosh has tackled a mammoth story.....enjoying it thoroughly!
> p.159..."...it was as if the uncovering of her face had stripped the veil from his own masnhood, leaving him naked and exposed to the gloating pity of the world, to a shame that could never be overcome."....Neel seeing his wife's veil dropping as the police take him away....also a metaphor for the stripping of the dignity of millions
>. Kalua's rescue of Deeti from the funeral pyre.......love it and their wedding! I also loved Neel's grand meal....complete with chamber pot for a vase!
> p.163..."Even then she did not feel herself to be living in the same sense as before: a curious feeling, of joy mixed with resignation, crept into her heart, for it was as if she really had died and been delivered betimes in rebirth, to her next life; she had shed the body of the old Deeti, with the burden of its karma; she had paid the price her stars had demanded of her, and was free now to create a new destiny as she willed, with whom she chose--and she knew that it was with Kalua that this life would be lived, until another death claimed the body that he had torn from the flames"
> p.169..."...or having discovered that life ashore was far more attractive when you were at sea than when your feet were a-trip on the slick turf of lubber-land."....like that
> p.219..."Would it not be the duty of this court to deal with such a man in exemplary fashion, not just in strict observance of the law, but also to discharge that sacred trust that charges us to instruct the natives of this land in the laws and usages that govern the conduct of civilized nations?"...First, who entrusted the English, Second....who entrusted the English?
> p.221..."In the course of his trial it had become almost laughably obvious to Neel that in this system of justice, it was the English themselves...who were exempt from the law as it applied to others: it was they who had become the world's new Brahmins."
> p.223..."Each woman had always practised her own method in the belief that none other could possibly exist: it was bewildering at first, then funny, then exciting...."....budding awareness of variation within their own culture, which is exciting to them but threatening to others
>p.232..."The table's centrepiece.....a stuffed roast peacock, mounted upon a silver stand, with its tail outspread as if for an imminent mating." How appetizing!
> I love the "Thermantidote"....the antidote to overheating which backfired! Like most of the government's antidotes in this book!
> p. 242..."We are no different from the Pharaohs or the Mongols: the difference is only that when we kill people we feel compelled to pretend that it is for some higher cause. It is this pretense of virtue, I promise you, that will never be forgiven by history." Chilling words from Captain Chillingworth
> The story plays to opposites: kindness/cruelty, acceptance/rejection, loyalty/disloyalty
> Humor is delightfully dark
> So, I looked up the definition of "ibis" in case it had anything interesting to add to the understanding of the novel......
any of several wading birds related to the herons and constituting the family Threskiornithidae that inhabit warm regions in both hemispheres and feed on aquatic and amphibious animals and are distinguished by a long slender downwardly curved bill resembling a curlew's bill
Do you think the ship is feeding on the amphibious humans who come in contact with it?
> absolutely love the playfulness with the languages blending.....
> p.253..."There's nothing more annoying than to be puckrowed just when you're looking forward to a sip of laudanum and a nice long sleep."...LOL...I agree
> p.300...."...was it possible that the mere fact of using one's hands and investing one's attention in someone other than oneself, created a pride and tenderness that had nothing to do with the response of the object of one's care--just as a craftsman's love for his handiwork is in no way diminished by the fact of it being unreciprocated?"....Neel's exoerience with his cellmate ......parenthood
> p.325..."...:for when a moment arrives that is so much feared and so long awaited, it perforates the veil of everyday expectation in such a way as tio reveakl the prodigious darkness of the unknown."....Deeti boards the Ibis
> p.328..."On a boat of pilgrims, no one can lose caste and everyone is the same; it's like taking a boat to the temple of Jagannath, in Puri. From now on, and forever afterwards, we will all be ship-siblings....". Paulette with the women on the Ibis....I love the "ship-sibling" concept, seems true of sharing any important experience with another person.
> p.328..."It was now Deeti understood why the image of the vessel had been revealed to her that day, when she stood immersed in the Ganga (rebirth imagery); it was because her new self, her new life, had been gestating all this while in the belly of this creature, this vessel that was the Mother-Father of her new family....an adoptive ancestor and parent of dynasties yet to come....".
> I must admit to feeling genuine apprehension when the cat left the Ibis....
New Vocabulary:
1) elision: the act or an instance of dropping out or omitting something : OMISSION, CUT
> p.348..."...the young man burst into tears, weeping so artfully that the turban wound itself around and around the couple till they were sealed inside a snug cocoon."....wonderful imagery
> p.350..."they were more than plants to her, they were the companions of her earliest childhood and their shoots seemed almost to be her own, plunged deep into this soil; no matter where she went or for how long, she knew that nothing would ever tie her to a place as did these childhood roots."....literally and figuratively, lovely phrasing...Paulette's last views of her childhood home
> Foreshadowing in threes: cat left ship, Baboo Nob Kissin Pander's rumbling bowels, and the ship crossing the path of the drowned bodies when leaving the Ganga for the open sea.....
> p.363..."...it was impossible to think of this as water at all--for water surely needed a boundary, a rim, a shore, to give it shape and hold it in place? This was a firmament, like the night sky, holding the vessel aloft as if it were a planet or a star.".....Deeti's first thoughts upon seeing the open sea ahead of them
> p.365..."No matter how hard the times at home may have been, in the ashes of every past there were a few cinders of memory that glowed with warmth- and now,m those embers of recollection took on a new life, in the light of which their presence her, in the belly of the ship that was about to be cast into an abyss, seemed incomprehensible, a thing that could not be explained except as a lapse from sanity."
> p.367..."How had it happened that when choosing the men and women who were to be torn from this subjugated plain, the hand of destiny had strayed so far inland, away from the busy coastlines, to alight on the people who were, of all, the most stubbornly rooted in the silt of the Ganga, in soil that had to be sown with suffering to yield its crop of story and song? It was as if fate had thrust its fist through the living flesh of the land in order to tear away a piece of its stricken heart."..........I hope it is to take them to a better life?
> This dual personality, channeling thing of Baboo Nob Kissin and Taramony is quite fascinating.....I am wondering where it will lead for him and the passengers?
> p. 415..."She looked at the seed as if she had never seen one before, and suddenly she knew that it was not the planet above that governed her life; it was this minuscule orb--at once bountiful and all-devouring, merciful and destructive , sustaining and vengeful." Deeti looking at a poppy seed
>Title: The Ibis is a vessel named after a bird that wades in the shallows, yet it sets out upon the "Black Water" full of people, many of whose lives have been shaped by the almighty poppy, and who seem to be out of their natural element in one way or another. As a reader, I am left wondering, hoping, and fearing for these characters adrift in their story. Looking forward to seeing where each of them find a place to moor.
> LibraryThing Review: "Sea of Poppies" red like an Indian version of "The Fellowship of the Ring". No coincidence that it is part of a trilogy! Ghosh's story is a daring blend of social classes/castes, languages, religions and more represented in a wonderful array of characters, all of whom dare to begin their journey out into the sea aboard the Ibis, a schooner. This is a love story, an adventure, a metaphor for life and more. The reader meets and either loves or abhors each of the memorable characters, their marvelous names, their multitude of histories, and their multiple aspects. I am definitely looking forward to reading the next installment of the trilogy, "River of Smoke".
"The Little Stranger" by Sarah Waters ****
> Audiobook
>. Orig. published 2009
> modern day gothic mystery, slowly unfolding.....as the era of the great familes fades and becomes ghostlike, a spirit? Starts to work on the Ayers family
Engrossing story
> LibraryThing Review: Audiobook........An absolutely marvelous haunting story. Set in post-WWII England, this story follows the demise of an era, a family, and a relationship. Does the demise occur as the result of changing times or does it occur because of dark spirits? Or both? You will have to get to know Dr. Faraday and the Ayers to come to your own conclusion. Well worth the read!
>. Orig. published 2009
> modern day gothic mystery, slowly unfolding.....as the era of the great familes fades and becomes ghostlike, a spirit? Starts to work on the Ayers family
Engrossing story
> LibraryThing Review: Audiobook........An absolutely marvelous haunting story. Set in post-WWII England, this story follows the demise of an era, a family, and a relationship. Does the demise occur as the result of changing times or does it occur because of dark spirits? Or both? You will have to get to know Dr. Faraday and the Ayers to come to your own conclusion. Well worth the read!
"The All of It" by Jeannette Haien *****
> Book Club, Dec. 2011
> Foreword by Ann Patchett?...."When well done, a small novel can be even more satisfying than a sweeping epic."......."It is the surest sign of a great book; the overwhelming desire to give it away"
>. Setting: Roonatellin, Ireland
> Characters: Enda & Kevin, Father Declan
> p.9..."No sense of its mysteries or feel for the way, in your spine, you canny to where a salmon is lying, patient, in the river's dark undercurrents, and how your human patience connects to the creature"s patience, the determination in yourself and the steel of your concentration alike to the fish's wait and wiliness.". Statement about life
> p.17..."...a murmurous weeping alike to the run of the hillside rivulet outside the house."...lovely
> p.31..."A far, farr different coin of spending was Enda...."......interesting phrase
> p.35..."For us back then, it was like we weren't known as being alive. "
> Vocabulary: 1) yirrol: slang for a year old ewe 2) bourne:an intermittent stream on chalk downs. 3) skurling: #4) autochthonous:
> p.46..."You've seen a good dog when its master's due home, how it'll sit, all the life of it in its ears, trying to catch a hint of a footfall on the sod a mile away...we were like that."...in fear of their father
> p.52..."Not (he spoke to himself) as lust, or as an act rehearsed and wickedly anticipated in the imagination, but as a grave, countering vitality against the rot of despair."...the quality of the act between Enda and Kevin as imagined by Father Declan
> p.76..."Ladled from the same pot of broth."... Meaning o be alike...love the phrase
> p. 79..."Banshee lamentation...that robs a wake of its true grief and turns it wild."....Father Declan's view of having professional mourners
> Father Declan fins Enda irresistable
> p.84..."...nattering on and on, telling me that what I rememberedas a full day's walk was no more than th length of a daisy petal."...Enda on the concept of a map
> p.90..."I can still see us, the way we just stood by the wall looking at the place, our to gues in our pockets for the woe of it.". First sight of their new home
> p. 95..."One thing I've learned, Father--that in this life it's best to the then and the now and the what's-to-be as close together in your thoughts as you can. It's when you let gaps creep in, when you separate out the intervals and dwell on them, that you can't bear the sorrow."
> p.137..."His thoughts rested, sunning, on her name, but not for long, the thorn to such repose being guilt.". Father Declan thinking of Enda
> LibraryThing Review:
Book Club Selection December 2011.........Foreword by Ann Patchett!?........What a gem of a novella! No wonder Ann Patchett calls it one of her favorites! The Irish tale of right and wrong with a twist. Find yourself swept up in the story of Enda, Kevin, and Father Declan. Solitude, love, salmon fishing, loyalty, and compassion...what more could anyone ask for?
> Foreword by Ann Patchett?...."When well done, a small novel can be even more satisfying than a sweeping epic."......."It is the surest sign of a great book; the overwhelming desire to give it away"
>. Setting: Roonatellin, Ireland
> Characters: Enda & Kevin, Father Declan
> p.9..."No sense of its mysteries or feel for the way, in your spine, you canny to where a salmon is lying, patient, in the river's dark undercurrents, and how your human patience connects to the creature"s patience, the determination in yourself and the steel of your concentration alike to the fish's wait and wiliness.". Statement about life
> p.17..."...a murmurous weeping alike to the run of the hillside rivulet outside the house."...lovely
> p.31..."A far, farr different coin of spending was Enda...."......interesting phrase
> p.35..."For us back then, it was like we weren't known as being alive. "
> Vocabulary: 1) yirrol: slang for a year old ewe 2) bourne:an intermittent stream on chalk downs. 3) skurling: #4) autochthonous:
> p.46..."You've seen a good dog when its master's due home, how it'll sit, all the life of it in its ears, trying to catch a hint of a footfall on the sod a mile away...we were like that."...in fear of their father
> p.52..."Not (he spoke to himself) as lust, or as an act rehearsed and wickedly anticipated in the imagination, but as a grave, countering vitality against the rot of despair."...the quality of the act between Enda and Kevin as imagined by Father Declan
> p.76..."Ladled from the same pot of broth."... Meaning o be alike...love the phrase
> p. 79..."Banshee lamentation...that robs a wake of its true grief and turns it wild."....Father Declan's view of having professional mourners
> Father Declan fins Enda irresistable
> p.84..."...nattering on and on, telling me that what I rememberedas a full day's walk was no more than th length of a daisy petal."...Enda on the concept of a map
> p.90..."I can still see us, the way we just stood by the wall looking at the place, our to gues in our pockets for the woe of it.". First sight of their new home
> p. 95..."One thing I've learned, Father--that in this life it's best to the then and the now and the what's-to-be as close together in your thoughts as you can. It's when you let gaps creep in, when you separate out the intervals and dwell on them, that you can't bear the sorrow."
> p.137..."His thoughts rested, sunning, on her name, but not for long, the thorn to such repose being guilt.". Father Declan thinking of Enda
> LibraryThing Review:
Book Club Selection December 2011.........Foreword by Ann Patchett!?........What a gem of a novella! No wonder Ann Patchett calls it one of her favorites! The Irish tale of right and wrong with a twist. Find yourself swept up in the story of Enda, Kevin, and Father Declan. Solitude, love, salmon fishing, loyalty, and compassion...what more could anyone ask for?
Saturday, December 3, 2011
"Innocent" by Scott Turow ****
> Audiobook
> Mystery/Suspense
> Orig published 2010
> LibraryThing Review: Audiobook........I think the reason that I liked this story so much is that I liked the movie, "Presumed Innocent" , and kept picturing Harrison Ford, Bonnie Bedelia, and Raul Julia in the roles, and I also knew the back story. It is a good courtroom drama and I would enjoy seeing the movie. Where is the limit to protecting those we love?
> Mystery/Suspense
> Orig published 2010
> LibraryThing Review: Audiobook........I think the reason that I liked this story so much is that I liked the movie, "Presumed Innocent" , and kept picturing Harrison Ford, Bonnie Bedelia, and Raul Julia in the roles, and I also knew the back story. It is a good courtroom drama and I would enjoy seeing the movie. Where is the limit to protecting those we love?
Thursday, December 1, 2011
"Private Life" by Jane Smiley *****
> Orig. published 2010
> Setting: Moves from Missouri to San Francisco area, around 1905...time of San Francisco Great Earthquake
> Characters: Margaret (daughter of Lavinia, whose husband committed suicide), Andrew Early (Margaret's husband, and astronomer who is brilliant but severely lacking social skills, whose mother perished in the great earthquake), Naoko (servant girl at boarding house in which Margaret gave birth to Alexander, (Dora, Margaret's brother-in-law's sister, a reporter)
> Epigraph..."In those days all stories ended with the wedding." - Rose Wilder Lane, Old Home Town
> p.28..."She didn't know what to make of herself, truly. She might have said that for ten years (and who could remember before that?) she had repeatedly pressed on, doing and thinking what she judged to be right and natural at the time, only to be told afterward that she had done just the wrong thing. It was as if she were plowing a furrow, intent upon the ground in front of her, only to stop and look around and discover that she was in the wrong field, and, indeed, the wrong country entirely."......Margaret's sense of not being right in the world
> Lavinia's primary goal was to get her three daughters married to the right men
> p.57..."Mrs. Bell's attitude was one of grievance against Dora for, in the first place, having no feminine assets and, in the second place, making nothing of those she had."....LOL
> p.58..."It was the death of Lawrence that did him in."...LOL
> p.61..."Even so his presence had an odd effect on her--it was as if something around her, some field or edge, were impinged upon or dented by the same thing, but much more powerful around him. It was a relief he was sitting across the room."...Margaret's impression of Andrew before he proposed
> p.114..."But even the longest book, she now understood, was the merest reduction of any experience, or any life."
> p.125..." It was as if he were a dye and she were white wool. Looking at him and holding him dyed her through and through."...Margaret's love for her first child, Alexander
> p.144..."Their lives were mostly private now, lived side by side as necessary, but whatever there had been for them both--in the earthquake or the moon book or their hopes for Alexander--had dissipated the way certain qualities of light did."
> p.203..."Just then, she saw Andrew as the world saw him, and she did it all at once, as if he had turned into a brick and fallen into her lap--who he was was that solid and permanent for her--he was a fool."
> p.214..."Through the years no one had said what she now thought, which was that marriage was relentless, and terrifying,m and no wonder that when her father died her mother had risen from her bed and gone to work."
> p.233..."She thought of her mother and Mrs. Early. The one so busy, the other so elegant. They had known what marriage was like. They had known what ANDREW was like. That they had colluded in bringing this very moment about made her tremble with something unspeakable."
> p.248..."She could describe this feeling she had,m that her marriage had become an intolerable torture, that the sight of his head ducking slightly as he went through doorways of the new house was repellent to her, that she felt warm, humid air press against her when he entered the room, that his voice made her want to scream, that she thought he was a fool and even a madman, and that she was going mad herself, that, from the outside, every marriage looked as bad to her, because she knew every house she passed was a claustrophobic cell where at least one of the partners never learned anything, but did the same things over and over, like an infernal machine, and the other partner had no recourse of any kind, no way out, no one to talk to about it, not even any way to look at it all that gave any relief."
> LibraryThing Review: I think that Jane Smiley has a true gift in her ability to take a commonly understood concept and weave it into a meaningful story. "Private Life" concerns itself with the private life of a married couple, the private side that no one can see from the outside looking in. It isn't necessarily a pretty picture, but it is very real for many people. What do couples accept about one another, what do they regret, what makes them furious, and most importantly, what makes them stay? These are some of the issues addressed in this story of a brilliant/crazy man and his wife whose mother was relieved to "finally" marry her off at the spinsterly age of 27, around 1900. The couple weathers two world wars and their own relationship.....tough to call on which is more difficult! This is the best Smiley novel I have read since "A Thousand Acres".
> Setting: Moves from Missouri to San Francisco area, around 1905...time of San Francisco Great Earthquake
> Characters: Margaret (daughter of Lavinia, whose husband committed suicide), Andrew Early (Margaret's husband, and astronomer who is brilliant but severely lacking social skills, whose mother perished in the great earthquake), Naoko (servant girl at boarding house in which Margaret gave birth to Alexander, (Dora, Margaret's brother-in-law's sister, a reporter)
> Epigraph..."In those days all stories ended with the wedding." - Rose Wilder Lane, Old Home Town
> p.28..."She didn't know what to make of herself, truly. She might have said that for ten years (and who could remember before that?) she had repeatedly pressed on, doing and thinking what she judged to be right and natural at the time, only to be told afterward that she had done just the wrong thing. It was as if she were plowing a furrow, intent upon the ground in front of her, only to stop and look around and discover that she was in the wrong field, and, indeed, the wrong country entirely."......Margaret's sense of not being right in the world
> Lavinia's primary goal was to get her three daughters married to the right men
> p.57..."Mrs. Bell's attitude was one of grievance against Dora for, in the first place, having no feminine assets and, in the second place, making nothing of those she had."....LOL
> p.58..."It was the death of Lawrence that did him in."...LOL
> p.61..."Even so his presence had an odd effect on her--it was as if something around her, some field or edge, were impinged upon or dented by the same thing, but much more powerful around him. It was a relief he was sitting across the room."...Margaret's impression of Andrew before he proposed
> p.114..."But even the longest book, she now understood, was the merest reduction of any experience, or any life."
> p.125..." It was as if he were a dye and she were white wool. Looking at him and holding him dyed her through and through."...Margaret's love for her first child, Alexander
> p.144..."Their lives were mostly private now, lived side by side as necessary, but whatever there had been for them both--in the earthquake or the moon book or their hopes for Alexander--had dissipated the way certain qualities of light did."
> p.203..."Just then, she saw Andrew as the world saw him, and she did it all at once, as if he had turned into a brick and fallen into her lap--who he was was that solid and permanent for her--he was a fool."
> p.214..."Through the years no one had said what she now thought, which was that marriage was relentless, and terrifying,m and no wonder that when her father died her mother had risen from her bed and gone to work."
> p.233..."She thought of her mother and Mrs. Early. The one so busy, the other so elegant. They had known what marriage was like. They had known what ANDREW was like. That they had colluded in bringing this very moment about made her tremble with something unspeakable."
> p.248..."She could describe this feeling she had,m that her marriage had become an intolerable torture, that the sight of his head ducking slightly as he went through doorways of the new house was repellent to her, that she felt warm, humid air press against her when he entered the room, that his voice made her want to scream, that she thought he was a fool and even a madman, and that she was going mad herself, that, from the outside, every marriage looked as bad to her, because she knew every house she passed was a claustrophobic cell where at least one of the partners never learned anything, but did the same things over and over, like an infernal machine, and the other partner had no recourse of any kind, no way out, no one to talk to about it, not even any way to look at it all that gave any relief."
> LibraryThing Review: I think that Jane Smiley has a true gift in her ability to take a commonly understood concept and weave it into a meaningful story. "Private Life" concerns itself with the private life of a married couple, the private side that no one can see from the outside looking in. It isn't necessarily a pretty picture, but it is very real for many people. What do couples accept about one another, what do they regret, what makes them furious, and most importantly, what makes them stay? These are some of the issues addressed in this story of a brilliant/crazy man and his wife whose mother was relieved to "finally" marry her off at the spinsterly age of 27, around 1900. The couple weathers two world wars and their own relationship.....tough to call on which is more difficult! This is the best Smiley novel I have read since "A Thousand Acres".
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