> Audiobook
> English author, orig. published 2003
> Characters: Joseph & Harriet and his mother, Lillian (emigrate to New Zealand from England), Dorothy and her son Edwin (was blown off the porch by a powerful wind as an infant), the Maori Paree who was Edwin's nanny, Will (boy who sold himself to Joseph for sexual favors), Chin Pao Yi (Chinese vegetable merchant who had left family back in China
> Start a farm in New Zealand.....Joseph discovers a small amount of gold in their stream and becomes infected by the need for "the colour".....the couple drift apart
> Beautiful prose, poetic
> Chin Li....found gold in his vegetable patch
> Edwin has a deep spiritual connection to Paree....when she disappears, he believes he is dying......
> LibraryThing Review: Read this novel and become engrossed in the hearts and minds of Harriet & Joseph, Dorothy & Edwin, Chin Pao Yi and more. Follow the harsh details of survival in New Zealand, where so many try to find "the colour" of gold in the mountains. This story is harsh, the prose is lyrical, spiritual, and terrible. I could hardly stop until I finished. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Sunday, November 20, 2011
"The Inheritance of Loss" by Kiran Desai *****
> Indian author, orig. published 2006
> Booker Prize winner, and National Book Award Winner
> Book Club Selection, January 2012
> Set in the Himalayas
> Characters: The Judge, Sai (his granddaughter), Biju (son of the judge's cook)
> Sai goes to jungle to live. With her uncle, the judge, when her parents are run over by a bus on Moscow
> Epigraph: "Writings of light assault the darkness, more prodigious than meteors.
The tall unknowable city takes over the countryside.
Sure of my life and my death, I observe the ambitious and would like to understand them.
Their day is greedy as a lariat in the air.
Their night is a rest from the rage within steel, quick to attack.
They speak of homeland.
My homeland is the rhythm of a guitar, a few portraits, an old sword, the willow grove's visible prayer as evening falls.
Time is living me.
More silent than my shadow, I pass through the loftily covetous multitude.
They are indispensable, singular, worthy of tomorrow.
My name is someone and anyone.
I walk slowly, like one who comes from so far away he doesn't expect to arrive"
- Jorge Luis Borges
> Opening line - "All day, the colors had been those of dusk, mist moving like a water creature across the great flanks of mountains possessed of ocean shadows and depths."....lovely
> p.4..."They sipped and ate, all of existence passed over by nonexistence,, the gate leading nowhere, and they watched the tea spill copious, ribbony curls of vapor, watched their breath join the mist slowly twisting and turning, twisting and turning."...love the prose
> In India, personal records included caste
> p. 29..."The system might be obsessed with purity, but it excelled in defining the flavor of guilt. There was a titillation to unearthing the forces of guilt and desire, needling and prodding the results." - The Catholic Church
> p.33..."Like other elderly people, he seemed not to have traveled forward in time but far back. Harking to the prehistoric, in attendance upon infinity, he resembled a creature of the Galapagos staring over the ocean."...about the judge
> p.33..."...they were four shadow puppets from a fairytale flickering on the lumpy plaster wall--a lizard man (the judge), the hunchbacked cook, a lush-lashed maiden (Sai) and a long-tailed wolf dog...". The household in the Himalayas."
> Vocabulary:
1)borborygmus: a rumbling sound made by the movement of gas in the intestine
2) pisciculture: fish culture
3) eructation: the act of belching gas from the stomach
4) maund: a hand basket
5) cupules: a small cup-shaped depression
6) gompa:
7) purdah: a practice inaugurated by Muslims and later adopted by various Hindus and found especially in India that involves the seclusion of women from public observation by means of concealing clothing including the veil and by the use of high-walled enclosures, screens, and curtains within the home
8) pangolin: any of several Asiatic and African edentate mammals of Manis or related genera of the order Pholidota having the body covered with large flattened reddish brown imbricated horny scales, feeding chiefly on ants, and somewhat resembling in habit and structure the American anteaters
9) carom:a game played by two or four persons with round wooden counters on a large square board having corner pockets
10) cuprous: of, relating to, or containing copper in the univalent state
11) chitinuous: of a white or colorless amorphous horny substance that forms part of the hard outer integument of insects, crustaceans, and some other invertebrates and occurs also in fungi, being a polysaccharide structurally similar to cellulose except that the repeating unit is derived from acetylglucosamine instead of glucose
> p.39..."He retreated into a solitude that grew in weight day by day. The solitude became a habit, the habit became the man, and it crushed him into a shadow."
> p.49..."...taxi drivers direct from Punjab--a man is not a caged thing, a man is wild wild and he must drive as such, in a bucking yodeling taxi."---In NYC where Buji delivers Chinese food on bicycle
> p.79`..."Saeed, he relished the whole game, the way the country flexed his wits and rewarded him; he charmed it, cajoled it, cheated it, felt great tenderness and loyalty toward it. When it came time, he who had jigged open every back door, he who had, with photocopier, Wite-Out, and paper cutter, spectacularly sabotaged the system (one skilled person at the photocopy machine, he assured Biju, could bring America to its knees), he would pledge emotional allegiance to the flag with tears in his eyes and conviction in his voice. The country recognized something in Saeed, he in it, and it was a mutual love affair. Ups and downs, sometimes more sour than sweet, maybe, but nonetheless, beyond anything the INS could imagine, it was an old-fashioned romance." ---illegal entry to USA
> p.93..."Don't go in for a life where time doesn't pass.....".
> p.99..." the Triumphant After The Green Card Return Home"
> p.102..."This was what happened he had learned by now. You lived intensely with others, only to have them disappear overnight, since the shadow class was condemned to movement. The men left for other jobs, towns, got deported, returned home, changed names. Sometimes someone came popping around a corner again, or on the subway, then they vanished again....The emptiness Biju felt returned to him over and over, until eventually he made sure not to let friendships sink deep anymore."
> p.121..."Sweet flake. Heart like a cake. She went to city hall with Saeed--rented tuxedo, flowery dress--said 'I do,' under the red white and blue. Now they were practicing for the INS interview." -- marriage to get a green card
> p.147..."That support for a cow shelter was in case the Hindu version of the afterlife turned out to be true and that, when he died, he was put through the Hindu machinations of the beyond. What, though, if other gods sat upon the throne? He tried to keep onb the right side of power, tried to be loyal to so many things that he himself couldn't tell which one of his selves was the authentic, if any."......Doubts common for many
> p.157..."Then he shouted along with the crowd, and the very mingling of his voice with largeness and lustiness seemed to create a relevancy, an affirmation he'd never felt before, and he was pulled back into the making of history.".....the power of a crowd...
> p.167..."...old hatreds are endlessly retrievable."
> the judge was absolutely horrible to his wife Nimi
> p.175..."He remembered the center of the Buddhist wheel of life clasped in a demon's fangs and talons to indicate the hell that traps us: rooster-snake-pig; lust-anger-foolishness; each chasing, each feeding on each consumed by the other
> p.177..."But so fluid a things was love. It wasn't firm, he was learning it wasn't a scripture; it was a wobbliness that lent itself to betrayal, taking the mold of whatever he poured it into. And in fact, it was difficult to keep from pouring it into numerous vessels. It could be used for all kinds of purposes...He wished it were a constraint. It was truly beginning to frighten him."
> p.182..."You have to swear at a creature to be able to destroy it."
> p.184..."In this room it was a fact accepted by all that Indians were willing to undergo any kind of humiliation to get into the States. You could heap rubbish on their heads and yet they would e begging to come crawling in...".
> p.199..."The Indian gentleman, with all self-respect to himself, should not enter into a compartment reserved for Europeans, any more than he should enter a carriage set apart for ladies. Although you may have acquired the habits and manners of the European, have the courage to show that you are not ashamed of being an Indian and in all such cases, identify yourself with the race to which you belong." - H.Hardless, "The Indian Gentleman's Guide to Etiquette
> p.205..."But profit could only be harvested in the gap between nations working one against the other. They were damning the third world to being the third world."
> p.208..."All those pathetic Indians who glorified a friendship that was later proclaimed by the other [white] party to be nonexistent"
>p.209..."Why is the Chinaman yellow? He pees against the wind, HA HA. Why is the Indian brown? He shits upside down, HA HA HA." childhood taunts
> p.220..."He knew he was a foreigner but had lost the notion that he was anything but an 'Indian' foreigner."
> p.222..."...God was just wilderness and space, said the husky voice, careless with the loss of love. It took you to the edge of all you could ber the--it let go, let go...". song lyrics
> p.244..."He knew the way to coax strength was to pretend it existed, so that it might grow to fit its reputation."
> p.250..."But she smiled, he saw, only out of politeness, and he felt a flash of jealousy as do friends when they lose another to love, especially those who have understood that friendship is enough, steadier, healthier, easier on the heart."....perhaps the moral of the entire book
> p.252..."There was grace in forgetting and giving up, she reminded it; it was childish not to--everyone had to accept imperfection and lss in life."......another moral of the story
> p.254..."The missionaries always left in dangerous times to enjoy chocolate chip cookies and increase funds at home, until it was peaceful enough to venture forth again, that they might launch attack, renewed and fortified, against a weakened and desperate populace."....commentary on usefuness of religion
> p.256..."Every singe thing his family had was going into him and it took ten of them to live like this to produce a boy, combed, educated, their best bet in the big world. Sisters' marriages, younger brother's studies, grandmother's teeth--all on hold, silenced, until he left, strove, sent something back."....the pressure of the immigrant
> p.267..."How many lived in the fake versions of their countries, in fake versions of other people's countries? Did their lives feel as unreal to them as his own did to him?" Biju thinking to himself before returning home
> p.268..."Year by year, his life wasn't amounting to anything at all; in a space that should have included family, friends, he was the only one displacing air. .......Shouldn't he return to a life where he might slice his own importance, to where he might relinquich this overrated control over his own destiny and perhaps be subtracted from its determination altogether? He might even experience that greatest of all luxury of not noticing himself at all"
> p.269..."You are maaking a big mistake. Still a world, my friend, where one side traves to be a servant, and the other side travels to be treated like a king. You want your son to be on this side or that."
> p.292..."A man wasn't equl to an animal, not one particle of him. Human life was stinking, corrupt, and meanwhile there were beautiful creatures who lived with delicacy on the earth without doing anyone harm."...the judge, whose precius dog, Mutt, was missing
> p. 295..."There they were, the most commonplace of them, those quite mismatched with the larger-than-life questions, caught up in the mythic battles of past vs. present, justice vs. injustice--the most ordinary swept up in extraordinary hatred, because extraordinary hatred was, after all, a commonplace event."
> p.299..."He knew what his father thought: that immigration, so often presentd as a heroic act, could just as easily be the opposite; that it was cowardice that ld many to America fear marked the journey, not bravery; a cockroachy desire to scuttle to where you never saw poverty, not really, never had to suffer a tug to your conscience: where you never heard the demands of servnts, beggars, bankrupt relatives, and where your generosity would never be openly claimed; where by merely lookinh after your own wife-child-dog-yard you could feel virtuous. Experience the relief of being an unknown transplant to the locals and hide the perspective granted by journey."
> p.300..."Sweet drabness of home---slowly shrink back to size, the enormous anxiety of being a foreigner ebbing--that unbearable arrogance and shame of the immigrant."
> p.306..."He had been recruited to bring his countrymen into the modern age, but he could only make it himself by cutting them off entirely, or they would show up reproachful, pointing out to him the lie he had become.".....the judge's experience.....the judgement?
> LibraryThing Review: Fantastic writing, memorable characters, and a gripping combination of plots! It is no wonder that Desai won multiple awards for this novel The story is set in the Indian Himalayas and in New York City. It is the tale of the battle for identity in a new culture, in an old culture, and in a culture containing both. It is about the simplicity of life and love and its complexity. This is the story, as noted on the flyleaf, of big and small. Identity of self and country, love of a dog, betrayal to a lover, betrayer of a culture, hiding from truths and lies, and disillusionment everywhere. I know, sounds depressing, and thank goodness the author injects a wonderful wit to break it up. However, I will remember Sai, the Judge, Biju, Lola and Noni, Father Booty and many others for a long time. This is the type of powerful novel I thoroughly enjoy reading because it challenges my life assumptions about meaning.
> Booker Prize winner, and National Book Award Winner
> Book Club Selection, January 2012
> Set in the Himalayas
> Characters: The Judge, Sai (his granddaughter), Biju (son of the judge's cook)
> Sai goes to jungle to live. With her uncle, the judge, when her parents are run over by a bus on Moscow
> Epigraph: "Writings of light assault the darkness, more prodigious than meteors.
The tall unknowable city takes over the countryside.
Sure of my life and my death, I observe the ambitious and would like to understand them.
Their day is greedy as a lariat in the air.
Their night is a rest from the rage within steel, quick to attack.
They speak of homeland.
My homeland is the rhythm of a guitar, a few portraits, an old sword, the willow grove's visible prayer as evening falls.
Time is living me.
More silent than my shadow, I pass through the loftily covetous multitude.
They are indispensable, singular, worthy of tomorrow.
My name is someone and anyone.
I walk slowly, like one who comes from so far away he doesn't expect to arrive"
- Jorge Luis Borges
> Opening line - "All day, the colors had been those of dusk, mist moving like a water creature across the great flanks of mountains possessed of ocean shadows and depths."....lovely
> p.4..."They sipped and ate, all of existence passed over by nonexistence,, the gate leading nowhere, and they watched the tea spill copious, ribbony curls of vapor, watched their breath join the mist slowly twisting and turning, twisting and turning."...love the prose
> In India, personal records included caste
> p. 29..."The system might be obsessed with purity, but it excelled in defining the flavor of guilt. There was a titillation to unearthing the forces of guilt and desire, needling and prodding the results." - The Catholic Church
> p.33..."Like other elderly people, he seemed not to have traveled forward in time but far back. Harking to the prehistoric, in attendance upon infinity, he resembled a creature of the Galapagos staring over the ocean."...about the judge
> p.33..."...they were four shadow puppets from a fairytale flickering on the lumpy plaster wall--a lizard man (the judge), the hunchbacked cook, a lush-lashed maiden (Sai) and a long-tailed wolf dog...". The household in the Himalayas."
> Vocabulary:
1)borborygmus: a rumbling sound made by the movement of gas in the intestine
2) pisciculture: fish culture
3) eructation: the act of belching gas from the stomach
4) maund: a hand basket
5) cupules: a small cup-shaped depression
6) gompa:
7) purdah: a practice inaugurated by Muslims and later adopted by various Hindus and found especially in India that involves the seclusion of women from public observation by means of concealing clothing including the veil and by the use of high-walled enclosures, screens, and curtains within the home
8) pangolin: any of several Asiatic and African edentate mammals of Manis or related genera of the order Pholidota having the body covered with large flattened reddish brown imbricated horny scales, feeding chiefly on ants, and somewhat resembling in habit and structure the American anteaters
9) carom:a game played by two or four persons with round wooden counters on a large square board having corner pockets
10) cuprous: of, relating to, or containing copper in the univalent state
11) chitinuous: of a white or colorless amorphous horny substance that forms part of the hard outer integument of insects, crustaceans, and some other invertebrates and occurs also in fungi, being a polysaccharide structurally similar to cellulose except that the repeating unit is derived from acetylglucosamine instead of glucose
> p.39..."He retreated into a solitude that grew in weight day by day. The solitude became a habit, the habit became the man, and it crushed him into a shadow."
> p.49..."...taxi drivers direct from Punjab--a man is not a caged thing, a man is wild wild and he must drive as such, in a bucking yodeling taxi."---In NYC where Buji delivers Chinese food on bicycle
> p.79`..."Saeed, he relished the whole game, the way the country flexed his wits and rewarded him; he charmed it, cajoled it, cheated it, felt great tenderness and loyalty toward it. When it came time, he who had jigged open every back door, he who had, with photocopier, Wite-Out, and paper cutter, spectacularly sabotaged the system (one skilled person at the photocopy machine, he assured Biju, could bring America to its knees), he would pledge emotional allegiance to the flag with tears in his eyes and conviction in his voice. The country recognized something in Saeed, he in it, and it was a mutual love affair. Ups and downs, sometimes more sour than sweet, maybe, but nonetheless, beyond anything the INS could imagine, it was an old-fashioned romance." ---illegal entry to USA
> p.93..."Don't go in for a life where time doesn't pass.....".
> p.99..." the Triumphant After The Green Card Return Home"
> p.102..."This was what happened he had learned by now. You lived intensely with others, only to have them disappear overnight, since the shadow class was condemned to movement. The men left for other jobs, towns, got deported, returned home, changed names. Sometimes someone came popping around a corner again, or on the subway, then they vanished again....The emptiness Biju felt returned to him over and over, until eventually he made sure not to let friendships sink deep anymore."
> p.121..."Sweet flake. Heart like a cake. She went to city hall with Saeed--rented tuxedo, flowery dress--said 'I do,' under the red white and blue. Now they were practicing for the INS interview." -- marriage to get a green card
> p.147..."That support for a cow shelter was in case the Hindu version of the afterlife turned out to be true and that, when he died, he was put through the Hindu machinations of the beyond. What, though, if other gods sat upon the throne? He tried to keep onb the right side of power, tried to be loyal to so many things that he himself couldn't tell which one of his selves was the authentic, if any."......Doubts common for many
> p.157..."Then he shouted along with the crowd, and the very mingling of his voice with largeness and lustiness seemed to create a relevancy, an affirmation he'd never felt before, and he was pulled back into the making of history.".....the power of a crowd...
> p.167..."...old hatreds are endlessly retrievable."
> the judge was absolutely horrible to his wife Nimi
> p.175..."He remembered the center of the Buddhist wheel of life clasped in a demon's fangs and talons to indicate the hell that traps us: rooster-snake-pig; lust-anger-foolishness; each chasing, each feeding on each consumed by the other
> p.177..."But so fluid a things was love. It wasn't firm, he was learning it wasn't a scripture; it was a wobbliness that lent itself to betrayal, taking the mold of whatever he poured it into. And in fact, it was difficult to keep from pouring it into numerous vessels. It could be used for all kinds of purposes...He wished it were a constraint. It was truly beginning to frighten him."
> p.182..."You have to swear at a creature to be able to destroy it."
> p.184..."In this room it was a fact accepted by all that Indians were willing to undergo any kind of humiliation to get into the States. You could heap rubbish on their heads and yet they would e begging to come crawling in...".
> p.199..."The Indian gentleman, with all self-respect to himself, should not enter into a compartment reserved for Europeans, any more than he should enter a carriage set apart for ladies. Although you may have acquired the habits and manners of the European, have the courage to show that you are not ashamed of being an Indian and in all such cases, identify yourself with the race to which you belong." - H.Hardless, "The Indian Gentleman's Guide to Etiquette
> p.205..."But profit could only be harvested in the gap between nations working one against the other. They were damning the third world to being the third world."
> p.208..."All those pathetic Indians who glorified a friendship that was later proclaimed by the other [white] party to be nonexistent"
>p.209..."Why is the Chinaman yellow? He pees against the wind, HA HA. Why is the Indian brown? He shits upside down, HA HA HA." childhood taunts
> p.220..."He knew he was a foreigner but had lost the notion that he was anything but an 'Indian' foreigner."
> p.222..."...God was just wilderness and space, said the husky voice, careless with the loss of love. It took you to the edge of all you could ber the--it let go, let go...". song lyrics
> p.244..."He knew the way to coax strength was to pretend it existed, so that it might grow to fit its reputation."
> p.250..."But she smiled, he saw, only out of politeness, and he felt a flash of jealousy as do friends when they lose another to love, especially those who have understood that friendship is enough, steadier, healthier, easier on the heart."....perhaps the moral of the entire book
> p.252..."There was grace in forgetting and giving up, she reminded it; it was childish not to--everyone had to accept imperfection and lss in life."......another moral of the story
> p.254..."The missionaries always left in dangerous times to enjoy chocolate chip cookies and increase funds at home, until it was peaceful enough to venture forth again, that they might launch attack, renewed and fortified, against a weakened and desperate populace."....commentary on usefuness of religion
> p.256..."Every singe thing his family had was going into him and it took ten of them to live like this to produce a boy, combed, educated, their best bet in the big world. Sisters' marriages, younger brother's studies, grandmother's teeth--all on hold, silenced, until he left, strove, sent something back."....the pressure of the immigrant
> p.267..."How many lived in the fake versions of their countries, in fake versions of other people's countries? Did their lives feel as unreal to them as his own did to him?" Biju thinking to himself before returning home
> p.268..."Year by year, his life wasn't amounting to anything at all; in a space that should have included family, friends, he was the only one displacing air. .......Shouldn't he return to a life where he might slice his own importance, to where he might relinquich this overrated control over his own destiny and perhaps be subtracted from its determination altogether? He might even experience that greatest of all luxury of not noticing himself at all"
> p.269..."You are maaking a big mistake. Still a world, my friend, where one side traves to be a servant, and the other side travels to be treated like a king. You want your son to be on this side or that."
> p.292..."A man wasn't equl to an animal, not one particle of him. Human life was stinking, corrupt, and meanwhile there were beautiful creatures who lived with delicacy on the earth without doing anyone harm."...the judge, whose precius dog, Mutt, was missing
> p. 295..."There they were, the most commonplace of them, those quite mismatched with the larger-than-life questions, caught up in the mythic battles of past vs. present, justice vs. injustice--the most ordinary swept up in extraordinary hatred, because extraordinary hatred was, after all, a commonplace event."
> p.299..."He knew what his father thought: that immigration, so often presentd as a heroic act, could just as easily be the opposite; that it was cowardice that ld many to America fear marked the journey, not bravery; a cockroachy desire to scuttle to where you never saw poverty, not really, never had to suffer a tug to your conscience: where you never heard the demands of servnts, beggars, bankrupt relatives, and where your generosity would never be openly claimed; where by merely lookinh after your own wife-child-dog-yard you could feel virtuous. Experience the relief of being an unknown transplant to the locals and hide the perspective granted by journey."
> p.300..."Sweet drabness of home---slowly shrink back to size, the enormous anxiety of being a foreigner ebbing--that unbearable arrogance and shame of the immigrant."
> p.306..."He had been recruited to bring his countrymen into the modern age, but he could only make it himself by cutting them off entirely, or they would show up reproachful, pointing out to him the lie he had become.".....the judge's experience.....the judgement?
> LibraryThing Review: Fantastic writing, memorable characters, and a gripping combination of plots! It is no wonder that Desai won multiple awards for this novel The story is set in the Indian Himalayas and in New York City. It is the tale of the battle for identity in a new culture, in an old culture, and in a culture containing both. It is about the simplicity of life and love and its complexity. This is the story, as noted on the flyleaf, of big and small. Identity of self and country, love of a dog, betrayal to a lover, betrayer of a culture, hiding from truths and lies, and disillusionment everywhere. I know, sounds depressing, and thank goodness the author injects a wonderful wit to break it up. However, I will remember Sai, the Judge, Biju, Lola and Noni, Father Booty and many others for a long time. This is the type of powerful novel I thoroughly enjoy reading because it challenges my life assumptions about meaning.
Monday, November 14, 2011
"The Widow of the South" by Robert Hicks ***
> USA author, orig. published in 2005
> Debut novel
> Based on true events during the Civil War, the battle at Franklin, Tennessee which left 9200 men wounded and 1500+ dead
> Carrie McGavock story based in historical fact, Widow of the South, Keeper of the Book of the Dead...3 of her 5 children sied very young and she had been a fog of depression and grief until the battle forced her to turn her home into a field hospital
> Vocabulary: 1) ambuscade:to place in ambush
> p.27..."But in those moments before the fight, if you were a smart man, you'd figure out a way to convince yourself that it didn't matter to you if you lived or died."
> So strange that people would set up for a battle as if it were a picnic, "...as if he were watching a fabulously intricate play."
> p.136..."I was freer than I'd ever been. I felt obliged to the world, a world much larger than that contained between the four walls of Carnton, and although the burden seemed larger, I was similarly enlarged by the burden of shouldering it."
> p.143..."It is possible to know yourself--every kindness, every urge to violence, every petty resentment--in chaos. I discovered that my mind sharpened as my surroundings grew more uncertain and unfamiliar."
> p.145..."Loneliness was what we feared about death, he said, and to embrace it in life seemed mad."
> LibraryThing Review: This is one of those works of historical fiction in which the historical part was really interesting, but the fiction was just so-so. Carrie mcGavock,aka The Widow of the South and The Keeper of the Book of the Dead, is a fascinating historical figure. She realized her purpose in life after the nightmarish battle in franklin Tennessee during the Civil War. Her purpose? To care for and watch over the dead, numbering 9200! I was not particularly engaged by the fictional part of the story however. It felt as if the author was trying too hard t make each character amazing in some way, and the plot too mystical. For me it just didn't work.
> Debut novel
> Based on true events during the Civil War, the battle at Franklin, Tennessee which left 9200 men wounded and 1500+ dead
> Carrie McGavock story based in historical fact, Widow of the South, Keeper of the Book of the Dead...3 of her 5 children sied very young and she had been a fog of depression and grief until the battle forced her to turn her home into a field hospital
> Vocabulary: 1) ambuscade:to place in ambush
> p.27..."But in those moments before the fight, if you were a smart man, you'd figure out a way to convince yourself that it didn't matter to you if you lived or died."
> So strange that people would set up for a battle as if it were a picnic, "...as if he were watching a fabulously intricate play."
> p.136..."I was freer than I'd ever been. I felt obliged to the world, a world much larger than that contained between the four walls of Carnton, and although the burden seemed larger, I was similarly enlarged by the burden of shouldering it."
> p.143..."It is possible to know yourself--every kindness, every urge to violence, every petty resentment--in chaos. I discovered that my mind sharpened as my surroundings grew more uncertain and unfamiliar."
> p.145..."Loneliness was what we feared about death, he said, and to embrace it in life seemed mad."
> LibraryThing Review: This is one of those works of historical fiction in which the historical part was really interesting, but the fiction was just so-so. Carrie mcGavock,aka The Widow of the South and The Keeper of the Book of the Dead, is a fascinating historical figure. She realized her purpose in life after the nightmarish battle in franklin Tennessee during the Civil War. Her purpose? To care for and watch over the dead, numbering 9200! I was not particularly engaged by the fictional part of the story however. It felt as if the author was trying too hard t make each character amazing in some way, and the plot too mystical. For me it just didn't work.
"The Bookshop" by Penelope Fitzgerald ****
> Orig. published 1978
> British author
> p.1..."She had once seen a heron flying across the estuary and tryng, while it was on the wing, to swallow an eel whch it had caught. The eel, in turn, was struggling to escape from the gullet of the heron and appeared a quarter, a half, or occasionally three-quarters of the way out. The indecision expressed by both creatures was pitiabe. They had taken on too much." ----sums up the entire story
> haunted by a poltergeist, commonly referred to by the locals as a "rapper"
> p.88...."The shop had been transformed into a silent battleground in a nominal state of truce.".....midway through the story
> p.102..."I don't know that men are better judges than women, said Florence, 'but they spend much less time regretting their decisions."...True?
> p.103..."I value most the one virtue which need not therefore be referred to as a virtue. I refer to courage."
> p.108..."A good book is the preciuos life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured upon purpose to a life beyond life, and as such it must surely be a necessary commodity."....Florence
> p.158...Closing line..."As the train drew out of the station she sat with her head bowed in shame, because the town in which she had lived for nearly ten years had not wanted a bookshop."
> LibraryThing Review: Another charmer by Penelope Fitzgerald! The courageous Florence Green attempts to open a bookshop even though the local odds are against her. Or should I say that the odd locals are against her?! The shop supporters battle valiantly against the social matriarch of the small community....you have to love the local vet, Raven, the 10 year old knuckle rapping Christine, and the recluse who comes out to battle to the death for the bookshop, Mr. Brundish. This is a novella perfect for a long afternoon read in your favorite chair!
> British author
> p.1..."She had once seen a heron flying across the estuary and tryng, while it was on the wing, to swallow an eel whch it had caught. The eel, in turn, was struggling to escape from the gullet of the heron and appeared a quarter, a half, or occasionally three-quarters of the way out. The indecision expressed by both creatures was pitiabe. They had taken on too much." ----sums up the entire story
> haunted by a poltergeist, commonly referred to by the locals as a "rapper"
> p.88...."The shop had been transformed into a silent battleground in a nominal state of truce.".....midway through the story
> p.102..."I don't know that men are better judges than women, said Florence, 'but they spend much less time regretting their decisions."...True?
> p.103..."I value most the one virtue which need not therefore be referred to as a virtue. I refer to courage."
> p.108..."A good book is the preciuos life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured upon purpose to a life beyond life, and as such it must surely be a necessary commodity."....Florence
> p.158...Closing line..."As the train drew out of the station she sat with her head bowed in shame, because the town in which she had lived for nearly ten years had not wanted a bookshop."
> LibraryThing Review: Another charmer by Penelope Fitzgerald! The courageous Florence Green attempts to open a bookshop even though the local odds are against her. Or should I say that the odd locals are against her?! The shop supporters battle valiantly against the social matriarch of the small community....you have to love the local vet, Raven, the 10 year old knuckle rapping Christine, and the recluse who comes out to battle to the death for the bookshop, Mr. Brundish. This is a novella perfect for a long afternoon read in your favorite chair!
"Custom of the Country" by Edith Wharton ****
>. Orig. published 1913
> Audiobook
> Set in New York City
> Undine Spragg- obsessed with being accepted into New York's high society, heartless, egocentric, materialistic
> Title: indictment of America as hugely materialistic....plot focuses on marriage market, compares European priority on ideals to American focus on work..
> Men v. women: women set apart as separate, trained to focus on the material without any understanding of how it comes about
> LibraryThing Review: Edith Wharton's damning portrait of the never satisfied, social climbing, money grubbing American is an excellent read. Follow the marital career of Undine Spragg and cringe throughout the entire story. Undine represents all that is base and ugly about the upstart American women contrasted with the elegant, complex European social system. I particularly love the closing, as Undine ponders her awareness that there is one thing she cannot have. She cannot be the wife of an asmbassador because she has been divorced. How crushing! To me, this is a harsher, clunter Edith Wharton than I am used to, yet still wonderful!
> Audiobook
> Set in New York City
> Undine Spragg- obsessed with being accepted into New York's high society, heartless, egocentric, materialistic
> Title: indictment of America as hugely materialistic....plot focuses on marriage market, compares European priority on ideals to American focus on work..
> Men v. women: women set apart as separate, trained to focus on the material without any understanding of how it comes about
> LibraryThing Review: Edith Wharton's damning portrait of the never satisfied, social climbing, money grubbing American is an excellent read. Follow the marital career of Undine Spragg and cringe throughout the entire story. Undine represents all that is base and ugly about the upstart American women contrasted with the elegant, complex European social system. I particularly love the closing, as Undine ponders her awareness that there is one thing she cannot have. She cannot be the wife of an asmbassador because she has been divorced. How crushing! To me, this is a harsher, clunter Edith Wharton than I am used to, yet still wonderful!
Sunday, November 13, 2011
"Men in the Sun" by Ghassan Kanafani ****
> Palestinian author, died in 1972 when car exploded, evidence pointed towards Israel
> Orig. published 1956, short story collection
> "Men in the Sun":
> "A Hand in the Grave":
> "Letter From Gaza":
> LibraryThing Review: This is a collection of short stories written by a Palestinian author who was assasinated by car bomb in 1972. He himself left palestine as a young child, moved around the Middle East, finally settling in Beirut, Lebanon. This short story collection was well written, moving, and surprisingly devoid of anger. The stories tell tales of loss, courage, danger which although literally set in the Middle East, are really about universal truths of being a human being. The prose is very good, the plots moving and powerful, and I was left with a deep sense of how much a person can endure in order to survive.....loss of life, loss of a homeland, loss of a child, loss of a friend. So, in the end, the stories share the thread of loss and how it impacts the human heart.
> Orig. published 1956, short story collection
> "Men in the Sun":
- Three men try to get to Kuwait with the help of a lorry driver and all die when they must stay in the tank of the lorry longer than expected
- intensity of the sun is metaphor for the intensity of what they are willing to risk and endure to reach their goal
- "Just imagine! In my own mind I compare these hundred and fifty kilometres to the path which God in the Quran promised his creatures they must cross before being directed either to Paradise or to Hell. If anyone falls he goes to Hell, and if anyone crosses safely he reaches Paradise. Here the angels are the frontier guards."
- "....patience is the brother to agreement."
- A family and servants flee after Jews force them from their homes, and a young child's perspective makes the story
- "Pain had begun to undermine the child's simple mind"
- Oranges symbolized the homeland....
- "You were huddled there , as far from your childhod as you were from the land of the oranges - the oranges which, accrding to a peasant who used to cultivate them until he left, would shrivel up if a change occurred and they were watered by a strange hand".......
- A father lives in fear that his son will be the death of him
- Can Fate be interfered with or changed?
> "A Hand in the Grave":
- Two med students intend to steal a skeleton from a graveyard and are foiled by fear
- Not a particularly good story
- A mother is proud to have her son leave to join the fedayeen
- Acceptance of the difference in the nature of each creature
> "Letter From Gaza":
- An amputated limb is the symbol of how a young man would feel if he were to leave his war torn country to seek personal gain
- "Come back, to learn from Nadia's leg, amputated from the top of the thigh, what life is and what existence is worth."
> LibraryThing Review: This is a collection of short stories written by a Palestinian author who was assasinated by car bomb in 1972. He himself left palestine as a young child, moved around the Middle East, finally settling in Beirut, Lebanon. This short story collection was well written, moving, and surprisingly devoid of anger. The stories tell tales of loss, courage, danger which although literally set in the Middle East, are really about universal truths of being a human being. The prose is very good, the plots moving and powerful, and I was left with a deep sense of how much a person can endure in order to survive.....loss of life, loss of a homeland, loss of a child, loss of a friend. So, in the end, the stories share the thread of loss and how it impacts the human heart.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
"The Clouds" by Aristophanes ****
> Written 423 B.C., Greek playwright
> Vocabulary: 1) casuistry: the study of or the doctrine that deals with cases of conscience b : the reasoning about or resolution of questions of right or wrong in conduct through the application of religious or secular ethical principles and rules 2) empyrean: the earthly perfection of the individual to a height no less empyrean than Luther's ideal of religious salvation
> p.17..."Drat this stinking war anyway! It's ruined Athens. Why, you can't even whip your own slaves any more or they'll desert to the Spartans.".....the more things change the more they stay the same!
> p.28..."Why, the man who has mastered the ass of the gnat could win an acquittal from any court!"...LOL
> p.33..."You see, only by being suspended aloft, by dangling mind in the heavens and mingling my rare thought with the ethereal air, could I ever achieve strict scientific accuracy in my survey of the vast empyrean."...Socrates' response to being called a snob
> clouds are the gods according to Socrates....lovely poetry sung by approaching Clouds on p.37
> p.39..."Those were the Clouds of heaven, goddesses of men of leisure and philosophers. To them we owe our repertoire of verbal talents: our eloquence, intellect, fustian, casuistry, force, wit, prodigious vocabulary, circumlocutory skill...".
> Closing is wonderfully satirical....Strepsiades has lit the "Thinkery" on fire, and stands on the roof looking down at the fleeing Socrates, who queries, "What is thy purpose upon my roof?" to which Strepsiades replies, " Ah, sir. I walk upon the air and look down upon the sun from a superior standpoint."....laughing at sophistry
> LibraryThing Review: What a pleasant surprise this drama was! I picked this ancient Greek play up in anticipation of an intellectual muscle stretcher and ended up laughing out loud. Who knew Aristophanes could be so wonderfully entertaining! That silly old Socrates! This drama was entered into a competition in roughly 423 B.C. as an attempt to regain the playwright's standing as the champion. Excellent choice! He poked fun at the Sophists quite well! Very readable too!
> Vocabulary: 1) casuistry: the study of or the doctrine that deals with cases of conscience b : the reasoning about or resolution of questions of right or wrong in conduct through the application of religious or secular ethical principles and rules 2) empyrean: the earthly perfection of the individual to a height no less empyrean than Luther's ideal of religious salvation
> p.17..."Drat this stinking war anyway! It's ruined Athens. Why, you can't even whip your own slaves any more or they'll desert to the Spartans.".....the more things change the more they stay the same!
> p.28..."Why, the man who has mastered the ass of the gnat could win an acquittal from any court!"...LOL
> p.33..."You see, only by being suspended aloft, by dangling mind in the heavens and mingling my rare thought with the ethereal air, could I ever achieve strict scientific accuracy in my survey of the vast empyrean."...Socrates' response to being called a snob
> clouds are the gods according to Socrates....lovely poetry sung by approaching Clouds on p.37
> p.39..."Those were the Clouds of heaven, goddesses of men of leisure and philosophers. To them we owe our repertoire of verbal talents: our eloquence, intellect, fustian, casuistry, force, wit, prodigious vocabulary, circumlocutory skill...".
> Closing is wonderfully satirical....Strepsiades has lit the "Thinkery" on fire, and stands on the roof looking down at the fleeing Socrates, who queries, "What is thy purpose upon my roof?" to which Strepsiades replies, " Ah, sir. I walk upon the air and look down upon the sun from a superior standpoint."....laughing at sophistry
> LibraryThing Review: What a pleasant surprise this drama was! I picked this ancient Greek play up in anticipation of an intellectual muscle stretcher and ended up laughing out loud. Who knew Aristophanes could be so wonderfully entertaining! That silly old Socrates! This drama was entered into a competition in roughly 423 B.C. as an attempt to regain the playwright's standing as the champion. Excellent choice! He poked fun at the Sophists quite well! Very readable too!
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
"Franklin and Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage" by Hazel Rowley ****
>.Book Club selection, Nov
> State Senator....ass't Secretary of the Navy.......polio....Gov. of NY....
>. Eleanor......smart.....insecure......60 visits a week to make contacts...Earl Miller/bodyguard...Val-Kill cottage with Nan and Marion..love affair with Lorena Hickok...rel w/ Joe Lash
>Franklin......Mama's boy, ambitious, flirtatious, liberal......Lucy Mercer......Missy LeHand...egocentric!
> Sara Roosevelt....FDR's mother...controlled finances right through the presidency until her death
>. Louis Howe.......Franklin's alter-ego
>. Six births, five survived
>. Felt Rowley worked hard to be fair, maybe too hard.....maybe not
> Couldn't help but compare Franklin's fight with polio to my father's...Franklin could afford to go to all the specialists, have servants to take care f his every need.....my father was unemployed, broke, and if a wonderful doctor hadn't offered to enter him in an experimental rehab program being set up for military vets with limb loss, I do not know how things would have turned out
> Interesting comment from another biography of FDR....One "runs" for office, it is a political "race", you can be a "running mate", etc......no wonder they felt FDR had to avoid being seen while being carried, or being photographed in a wheechair
> the ego of men in politics is mythic.....stogies and women
> Their love of communal life was appealing..made me think of Jasmine!
> Famous Eleanor quotes: http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Eleanor_Roosevelt/
> Parallels with Obama administration: Inheriting economic disaster, Eleanor's effort to remembr returning veterans and their families
> LibraryThing Review: I just devoured this book. I am not an historian, so I cannot debate the veracity of the facts. However, assuming this story sprung from research with integrity, it was a fascinating read. Indeed, a remarkable relationship existd between Franklin & Eleanor. It was based on acceptance of one another which stemmed from them being accepting of people in general. Superficial traits and public opinion had little to do with their loyalties, although they did require secrecy to live as their true selves. I like the idea that they both retained their humanity, the good, the bad, and the ugly, despite their public lives. Who are we to judge? As seems to be true for many memorable leaders, it seemes to me that the children probably suffered more than either parent. In this case, both parents were great leaders, so I would be interested to learn more about the impact their life choices had on their five children. Most interesting to me: their love of communal living combined with their fierce independence and their personal insecurities.
> State Senator....ass't Secretary of the Navy.......polio....Gov. of NY....
>. Eleanor......smart.....insecure......60 visits a week to make contacts...Earl Miller/bodyguard...Val-Kill cottage with Nan and Marion..love affair with Lorena Hickok...rel w/ Joe Lash
>Franklin......Mama's boy, ambitious, flirtatious, liberal......Lucy Mercer......Missy LeHand...egocentric!
> Sara Roosevelt....FDR's mother...controlled finances right through the presidency until her death
>. Louis Howe.......Franklin's alter-ego
>. Six births, five survived
>. Felt Rowley worked hard to be fair, maybe too hard.....maybe not
> Couldn't help but compare Franklin's fight with polio to my father's...Franklin could afford to go to all the specialists, have servants to take care f his every need.....my father was unemployed, broke, and if a wonderful doctor hadn't offered to enter him in an experimental rehab program being set up for military vets with limb loss, I do not know how things would have turned out
> Interesting comment from another biography of FDR....One "runs" for office, it is a political "race", you can be a "running mate", etc......no wonder they felt FDR had to avoid being seen while being carried, or being photographed in a wheechair
> the ego of men in politics is mythic.....stogies and women
> Their love of communal life was appealing..made me think of Jasmine!
> Famous Eleanor quotes: http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Eleanor_Roosevelt/
> Parallels with Obama administration: Inheriting economic disaster, Eleanor's effort to remembr returning veterans and their families
> LibraryThing Review: I just devoured this book. I am not an historian, so I cannot debate the veracity of the facts. However, assuming this story sprung from research with integrity, it was a fascinating read. Indeed, a remarkable relationship existd between Franklin & Eleanor. It was based on acceptance of one another which stemmed from them being accepting of people in general. Superficial traits and public opinion had little to do with their loyalties, although they did require secrecy to live as their true selves. I like the idea that they both retained their humanity, the good, the bad, and the ugly, despite their public lives. Who are we to judge? As seems to be true for many memorable leaders, it seemes to me that the children probably suffered more than either parent. In this case, both parents were great leaders, so I would be interested to learn more about the impact their life choices had on their five children. Most interesting to me: their love of communal living combined with their fierce independence and their personal insecurities.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
"The Mighty Angel" by Jerzy Pilch *****
> Polish author
> Originally published 2000
> Narrator is writer, named Jerzy, writing about his 18 visits to the "alco" unit in a rehab facility
> p.32..."This nightmarish asininity had to be finally brought to a stop, the truth had to be looked manfully in the eye, and the truth was not pouring vodka down the drain or throwing bottles out of the window; the truth was drinking."
> Chapter 13, "Passages" consists solely of passages from other real life authors about drinking ..."And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven clothed with a cloud"...Revelations
>Love of his life...Ala-Alberta asks him "why do you drink?"....p. 60 is a rambling set of excuses.....
> Title references: the name of a pub, the name of a constellation of stars (actually Orion, which he describes as having a raised bottle to its lips), quote from Revelations
> p.78..."...the dream of a deep sleep is the dream of every drunkard."
> Vocabulary: 1) exegetes/one who practices exegesis, an explanation, most often of religious texts 2) farinaceous/containing or made of meal or flour b : containing or rich in starch 3)tumid/formed as if by swelling or inflation
> Characters: Don Juan the Rib (hairdresser & musiccontaining or made of meal or flour b : containing or rich in starch ian), Columbus the Explorer (a social studies teacher), Simon Pure Goodness (law student), Old Kubica (narrator's grandfather, drunkard), she-therapists (therapists on the ward whose platitudes bother narrator)
> p.86..."A person writes a book and he thinks that when the book goes out among people it will change the world--and that, I assure you, is a very great delusion. Yet to write without the faith that writing will change the world--such a thing is impossible,"
> p.86..."...an alcoholic will escape into death more readily than he will admit his powerlessness with regard to booze."
> p.154..."I'm not capable of describing my own liberation as a series of plausible events; I lack the ability to convey the evolutionary history of my own resurrection--I present only these epiphanic stanzas, though my resurrection too was like an epiphany, like a haiku; it wal like a single line of poetry, unerring as lightning."
> LibraryThing Review: I think Jerzy Pilch is a phenomenal writer! In "The Mighty Angel" Pilch bombards the reader with the experience of being a regular on an "alco" ward in a rehab facility. Question.....Are the characters, like Don Juan the Rib, the Queen of Kent, and the Hero of Socialist Labor, representations of aspects of the narrator, or individuals? The narrator's perspective on alcoholism, alcoholics & alcohol is gritty, tough, and incredibly insightful. Is it just a coincidence that the narrator is named Jerzy, is a writer, and has been to rehab eighteen times? Just read this masterpiece and see how the narrator fares. This is my second Pilch novel and they were both five star reads!
> Originally published 2000
> Narrator is writer, named Jerzy, writing about his 18 visits to the "alco" unit in a rehab facility
> p.32..."This nightmarish asininity had to be finally brought to a stop, the truth had to be looked manfully in the eye, and the truth was not pouring vodka down the drain or throwing bottles out of the window; the truth was drinking."
> Chapter 13, "Passages" consists solely of passages from other real life authors about drinking ..."And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven clothed with a cloud"...Revelations
>Love of his life...Ala-Alberta asks him "why do you drink?"....p. 60 is a rambling set of excuses.....
> Title references: the name of a pub, the name of a constellation of stars (actually Orion, which he describes as having a raised bottle to its lips), quote from Revelations
> p.78..."...the dream of a deep sleep is the dream of every drunkard."
> Vocabulary: 1) exegetes/one who practices exegesis, an explanation, most often of religious texts 2) farinaceous/containing or made of meal or flour b : containing or rich in starch 3)tumid/formed as if by swelling or inflation
> Characters: Don Juan the Rib (hairdresser & musiccontaining or made of meal or flour b : containing or rich in starch ian), Columbus the Explorer (a social studies teacher), Simon Pure Goodness (law student), Old Kubica (narrator's grandfather, drunkard), she-therapists (therapists on the ward whose platitudes bother narrator)
> p.86..."A person writes a book and he thinks that when the book goes out among people it will change the world--and that, I assure you, is a very great delusion. Yet to write without the faith that writing will change the world--such a thing is impossible,"
> p.86..."...an alcoholic will escape into death more readily than he will admit his powerlessness with regard to booze."
> p.154..."I'm not capable of describing my own liberation as a series of plausible events; I lack the ability to convey the evolutionary history of my own resurrection--I present only these epiphanic stanzas, though my resurrection too was like an epiphany, like a haiku; it wal like a single line of poetry, unerring as lightning."
> LibraryThing Review: I think Jerzy Pilch is a phenomenal writer! In "The Mighty Angel" Pilch bombards the reader with the experience of being a regular on an "alco" ward in a rehab facility. Question.....Are the characters, like Don Juan the Rib, the Queen of Kent, and the Hero of Socialist Labor, representations of aspects of the narrator, or individuals? The narrator's perspective on alcoholism, alcoholics & alcohol is gritty, tough, and incredibly insightful. Is it just a coincidence that the narrator is named Jerzy, is a writer, and has been to rehab eighteen times? Just read this masterpiece and see how the narrator fares. This is my second Pilch novel and they were both five star reads!
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
"The Pets" by Bragi Olafsson ***
>. Icelandic author
> orig. Published 2001
An odd Icelandic story about a man hiding under a bed in his own apartment throughtout an evening in which his friends have a party without him. It is a quick read....mildly engaging with a disappointing ending. The characters are interesting and the plot is clever, yet pverall the story falls short somehow. Oh well......
> orig. Published 2001
An odd Icelandic story about a man hiding under a bed in his own apartment throughtout an evening in which his friends have a party without him. It is a quick read....mildly engaging with a disappointing ending. The characters are interesting and the plot is clever, yet pverall the story falls short somehow. Oh well......
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