Resurrecting Mingus, Jenoyne Adams, Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2001, 241 pp
Mingus is a young black woman. Actually she is mixed: black father and white mother. She is a lawyer, a workaholic and as the book opens she has just lost another lover. So this is African American first fiction chick-lit.
Actually it wasn't too bad. Reading about Mingus took me away to someone else's bad life on a day when mine was in the pits. It was just a little too predictable, the characters a little too cardboard-like. I have to admit, it did not have a happy ending.
But I picked the book off a library shelf because of the title and my favorite thing about it was that a black father, dealing with the stress of raising a mixed family, would name his daughter after a jazz musician.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
SECOND GLANCE
Second Glance, Jodi Picoult, Atria Books, 2003, 420 pp
I read this for one of my reading groups and wasn't expecting much but was rather surprised. The setting is western Vermont, on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain. It is a small town with descendants of Native Americans, various troubled people and ghosts.
At first I was annoyed by chapters which read like short shorts about a variety of people. It felt like Alice Hoffman with a bigger vocabulary. But then we get the story of a woman in the 1930s whose father and husband are scientists in the Eugenics movement. This woman discovers that her real father was a Native American and the reader discovers that many Indians of that tribe were sterilized in the Eugenics program. Wow!
Back to the future, we find the woman from the 30s haunting the town and all the other characters having threads of connection to her. The woman's granddaughter is now a doctor who helps couples get the baby they want through genetic engineering, which is the brave new world of eugenics.
So Picoult has tackled a host of issues while essentially writing a love story (or actually several love stories.) I liked the way she braided the characters' storylines across generations. I approved of her intention to show that there is more going on in life than what one can see and measure. We had one of the best discussions we've had in that reading group, because of the book, and I admire the author for tackling the ethics of all this new science.
But the problem is the writing. It is just a little too lightweight despite all the big words. I imagine Margaret Atwood or Jane Smiley taking on such subjects and know that they would have gone deeper and thus taken the reader much deeper. In their hands, it would not have all worked out so neatly in the end.
I read this for one of my reading groups and wasn't expecting much but was rather surprised. The setting is western Vermont, on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain. It is a small town with descendants of Native Americans, various troubled people and ghosts.
At first I was annoyed by chapters which read like short shorts about a variety of people. It felt like Alice Hoffman with a bigger vocabulary. But then we get the story of a woman in the 1930s whose father and husband are scientists in the Eugenics movement. This woman discovers that her real father was a Native American and the reader discovers that many Indians of that tribe were sterilized in the Eugenics program. Wow!
Back to the future, we find the woman from the 30s haunting the town and all the other characters having threads of connection to her. The woman's granddaughter is now a doctor who helps couples get the baby they want through genetic engineering, which is the brave new world of eugenics.
So Picoult has tackled a host of issues while essentially writing a love story (or actually several love stories.) I liked the way she braided the characters' storylines across generations. I approved of her intention to show that there is more going on in life than what one can see and measure. We had one of the best discussions we've had in that reading group, because of the book, and I admire the author for tackling the ethics of all this new science.
But the problem is the writing. It is just a little too lightweight despite all the big words. I imagine Margaret Atwood or Jane Smiley taking on such subjects and know that they would have gone deeper and thus taken the reader much deeper. In their hands, it would not have all worked out so neatly in the end.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
SO YOU WANNA BE A ROCK & ROLL STAR
So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star, How I Machine-Gunned a Roomful of Record Executives and Other True Tales From A Drummmer's Life, Jacob Slichter, Random House, Inc, 2004, 281 pp
This guy was the drummer for Semisonic, a one-hit wonder band in the late 90s. Their hit was "Closing Time", which was huge and almost anyone remembers it. The book is their story from the author's viewpoint.
So the book is very real and quite down to earth. Slichter is probably one of the most unlikely music nerds to ever achieve fame. He doesn't contradict anything one has read about the music business, but it is better than most of those books because it is not particularly bitter and because it is so real. What struck me is that the band pretty much did everything right and if it hadn't been for a couple of fortuitous breaks, they would have never made it as big as they did. Yet, if it hadn't been for other unavoidable music business insanities, they would still be around.
Therefore, yes, it takes talent and business smarts and drive and terrible persistence, but it is also luck, timing and the biggest gamble in the world. I suppose that is all part of the allure. I can't say that I don't wish I could have had even a 100th of their success.
This guy was the drummer for Semisonic, a one-hit wonder band in the late 90s. Their hit was "Closing Time", which was huge and almost anyone remembers it. The book is their story from the author's viewpoint.
So the book is very real and quite down to earth. Slichter is probably one of the most unlikely music nerds to ever achieve fame. He doesn't contradict anything one has read about the music business, but it is better than most of those books because it is not particularly bitter and because it is so real. What struck me is that the band pretty much did everything right and if it hadn't been for a couple of fortuitous breaks, they would have never made it as big as they did. Yet, if it hadn't been for other unavoidable music business insanities, they would still be around.
Therefore, yes, it takes talent and business smarts and drive and terrible persistence, but it is also luck, timing and the biggest gamble in the world. I suppose that is all part of the allure. I can't say that I don't wish I could have had even a 100th of their success.
SAVAGE GARDEN
Savage Garden, Denise Hamilton, Scribner, 2005, 323 pp
Denise Hamilton is an LA based crime fiction writer and came to one of the reading groups I belong to recently. We read Savage Garden, which is her latest of four books. She began her professional life as an Los Angeles Times reporter and saw her share of criminal activity during her years there.
Eve Diamond, the main character in Hamilton's books, is also an LA Times reporter. In Savage Garden she remains true to character: feisty, obsessive news hound, needy in her love relationships and a bit compulsive about putting herself in harms way. The only difference between Eve and Sara Paretsky's or Sue Grafton's PIs is that Eve is a reporter, but she operates like a PI.
This time Eve's current boyfriend is the childhood best friend of a Latino playwright who is making his big LA debut. But the lead actress, a damaged young woman who also came up in the bario, has turned up dead.
It is a good mystery and a pageturner. I read it in one evening. At the reading group meeting, we learned from Denise that all of her plot ideas come from real stories which she covered in her days as a reporter, but for various reasons was not able to publish in a news format. Savage Garden grew out of an incident in the 1990s when the wife of the lead singer in Los Lobos was murdered. (Los Lobos is a well-loved Los Angeles latino band.) Another tidbit was that the book features a song called "Savage Garden" to which Denise herself wrote the lyrics.
I liked Hamilton's first book better (The Jasmine Trade) but this one was fun to read and nothing beats reading a book set contemporaneously in the city where one lives.
Denise Hamilton is an LA based crime fiction writer and came to one of the reading groups I belong to recently. We read Savage Garden, which is her latest of four books. She began her professional life as an Los Angeles Times reporter and saw her share of criminal activity during her years there.
Eve Diamond, the main character in Hamilton's books, is also an LA Times reporter. In Savage Garden she remains true to character: feisty, obsessive news hound, needy in her love relationships and a bit compulsive about putting herself in harms way. The only difference between Eve and Sara Paretsky's or Sue Grafton's PIs is that Eve is a reporter, but she operates like a PI.
This time Eve's current boyfriend is the childhood best friend of a Latino playwright who is making his big LA debut. But the lead actress, a damaged young woman who also came up in the bario, has turned up dead.
It is a good mystery and a pageturner. I read it in one evening. At the reading group meeting, we learned from Denise that all of her plot ideas come from real stories which she covered in her days as a reporter, but for various reasons was not able to publish in a news format. Savage Garden grew out of an incident in the 1990s when the wife of the lead singer in Los Lobos was murdered. (Los Lobos is a well-loved Los Angeles latino band.) Another tidbit was that the book features a song called "Savage Garden" to which Denise herself wrote the lyrics.
I liked Hamilton's first book better (The Jasmine Trade) but this one was fun to read and nothing beats reading a book set contemporaneously in the city where one lives.
Monday, January 02, 2006
THE PEARL DIVER
The Pearl Diver, Jeff Talarigo, Random House, Inc, 2004, 237 pp
I did not like this book at all. It is about a 19 year old Japanese woman in 1948 who is a pearl diver. At that time, this meant someone who dove for shellfish everyday, then turned over her catch to be sold at the markets. The divers got to keep the pearls they found. It was a cold and grueling profession but she loved it.
One day she discovers that she has leprosy. At that time there was no cure and even less understanding of the disease. Since it turns bodies into hideousness, I can see how it inspired mostly fear. The only known way at that time, to control its spread was to quarantine anyone who had it.
So off she went to a leprosarium on an island, leaving behind her family and any identity in her former life. It was considered about the worst sort of black mark on a family to have a member contract leprosy, so the diseased person was forgotten and basically became a non-person. Conditions at the leprosarium were bad and it was not unlike being in prison. She remained there for the rest of her life, even though medication was developed, even though she could have left, as her case was mild. She actually tried leaving in her later years, by which time she had cancer, but went back to the island to die there.
I think the author was trying to show a woman rising above adversity but I was not uplifted. I just felt yucky the whole time I was reading it and thankfully it was short. The style was disjointed and somewhat pretensious. I read it for a reading group, but felt so negative about the book that I skipped the meeting.
I did not like this book at all. It is about a 19 year old Japanese woman in 1948 who is a pearl diver. At that time, this meant someone who dove for shellfish everyday, then turned over her catch to be sold at the markets. The divers got to keep the pearls they found. It was a cold and grueling profession but she loved it.
One day she discovers that she has leprosy. At that time there was no cure and even less understanding of the disease. Since it turns bodies into hideousness, I can see how it inspired mostly fear. The only known way at that time, to control its spread was to quarantine anyone who had it.
So off she went to a leprosarium on an island, leaving behind her family and any identity in her former life. It was considered about the worst sort of black mark on a family to have a member contract leprosy, so the diseased person was forgotten and basically became a non-person. Conditions at the leprosarium were bad and it was not unlike being in prison. She remained there for the rest of her life, even though medication was developed, even though she could have left, as her case was mild. She actually tried leaving in her later years, by which time she had cancer, but went back to the island to die there.
I think the author was trying to show a woman rising above adversity but I was not uplifted. I just felt yucky the whole time I was reading it and thankfully it was short. The style was disjointed and somewhat pretensious. I read it for a reading group, but felt so negative about the book that I skipped the meeting.
FIRE SALE
Fire Sale, Sara Paretsky, GP Putnam's Sons, 2005, 402pp
Thanks to belonging to several reading groups, I have been reading mystery/crime fiction. In the past I have had a snobbish attitude toward this genre (after reading a bunch of thrillers in the 80s), probably similar to the attitude some readers have towards sci-fi. In fact, I have found some of these books a welcome relief from a reading diet heavy in literary fiction and 1940s novels. Some are better than others of course, and Sara Paretsky's latest book falls on the better side.
V I Warshawsky, daughter of a Polish father and an Italian mother, raised in southside Chicago, is the intrepid PI of Paretesky's books. She is around 40 in Fire Sale, is single and has a lover who is recovering from wounds received while covering the Afghanistan invasion by the United States. So we are right up in contemporary times. Everyone has cell phones and she even brings in blogs!
Back in V I's old neighborhood, a factory bursts into fire just as she is about to enter it at midnight. She is doing an investigation but ends up in the hospital. This is a repeating pattern throughout the story. There is a rich family with a partriatch who also grew up in these slums, but now heads an empire of stores similar to WalMart.
So people die, the "WalMart" family is suspicious and V I solves it all while substituting at her old highschool as basketball coach for the female students. Plenty of issues are covered: poverty, bad schools, religion, gangs, teens, foreign sweatshops and greedy rich people.Entertaining for sure and how odd to be right back in southside Chicago after the Barack Obama book.
Thanks to belonging to several reading groups, I have been reading mystery/crime fiction. In the past I have had a snobbish attitude toward this genre (after reading a bunch of thrillers in the 80s), probably similar to the attitude some readers have towards sci-fi. In fact, I have found some of these books a welcome relief from a reading diet heavy in literary fiction and 1940s novels. Some are better than others of course, and Sara Paretsky's latest book falls on the better side.
V I Warshawsky, daughter of a Polish father and an Italian mother, raised in southside Chicago, is the intrepid PI of Paretesky's books. She is around 40 in Fire Sale, is single and has a lover who is recovering from wounds received while covering the Afghanistan invasion by the United States. So we are right up in contemporary times. Everyone has cell phones and she even brings in blogs!
Back in V I's old neighborhood, a factory bursts into fire just as she is about to enter it at midnight. She is doing an investigation but ends up in the hospital. This is a repeating pattern throughout the story. There is a rich family with a partriatch who also grew up in these slums, but now heads an empire of stores similar to WalMart.
So people die, the "WalMart" family is suspicious and V I solves it all while substituting at her old highschool as basketball coach for the female students. Plenty of issues are covered: poverty, bad schools, religion, gangs, teens, foreign sweatshops and greedy rich people.Entertaining for sure and how odd to be right back in southside Chicago after the Barack Obama book.
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Favorite Books for 2005
It is New Year's Eve. My husband and I had a band for many years and always played on New Year's Eve. So now we don't even think about leaving the house on this night. We are about to watch "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", having had a lovely home cooked dinner.
So it seems that the blog has become my performance venue for the time being. My gig tonight is to present to you, dear readers, my favorite books for 2005. I only read 109 books this year which is down from last year and my lowest since 2001. I am not sure why because it sure seems like I read continuously, but I do know that I read a heap of books that were over 500 pages long.
I usually try to limit my list to a TOP 10, but I couldn't do it this year. In spite of reading less, I had more favorite books and I see that as some kind of a good sign. So here they are, in order of when I read them. I am not giving any summaries here. You can go and see for yourself if you are interested. They are all available at public libraries. Let me know if you've read any and what you thought. I would also love to read your top favorites list and encourage you to post it as a comment here so others can see it as well.
Happy New Year and Happy Reading!
THE LIST
1. Raintree County, Ross Lockridge, Jr
2. The Great Fire, Shirley Hazzard
3. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke
4. Spending, Mary Gordon
5. Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
6. The Crimson Petal and the White, Michel Faber
7. The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson
8. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
9. The Dangerous Husband, Jane Shapiro
10. The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
11. The Known World, Edward P Jones
12. Weetzie Bat, Francesca Lia Block
13. Absolute Friends, John le Carre
14. Heir to the Glimmering World, Cynthia Ozick
15. No Country For Old Men, Cormac McCarthy
16. The Song of Names, Norman Lebrecht
17. Gonzales & Daughter Trucking Co, Maria Amparo Escandon
So it seems that the blog has become my performance venue for the time being. My gig tonight is to present to you, dear readers, my favorite books for 2005. I only read 109 books this year which is down from last year and my lowest since 2001. I am not sure why because it sure seems like I read continuously, but I do know that I read a heap of books that were over 500 pages long.
I usually try to limit my list to a TOP 10, but I couldn't do it this year. In spite of reading less, I had more favorite books and I see that as some kind of a good sign. So here they are, in order of when I read them. I am not giving any summaries here. You can go and see for yourself if you are interested. They are all available at public libraries. Let me know if you've read any and what you thought. I would also love to read your top favorites list and encourage you to post it as a comment here so others can see it as well.
Happy New Year and Happy Reading!
THE LIST
1. Raintree County, Ross Lockridge, Jr
2. The Great Fire, Shirley Hazzard
3. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke
4. Spending, Mary Gordon
5. Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
6. The Crimson Petal and the White, Michel Faber
7. The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson
8. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
9. The Dangerous Husband, Jane Shapiro
10. The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
11. The Known World, Edward P Jones
12. Weetzie Bat, Francesca Lia Block
13. Absolute Friends, John le Carre
14. Heir to the Glimmering World, Cynthia Ozick
15. No Country For Old Men, Cormac McCarthy
16. The Song of Names, Norman Lebrecht
17. Gonzales & Daughter Trucking Co, Maria Amparo Escandon
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Guest Blogger
I am honored to have a guest blogger today: my son Noah, who has the day off and is visiting me. He has a gift, as you will see. Please enjoy this Christmas tale composed by Noah for his nieces and nephews, my grandchildren.
Merry Christmas from your Uncle Noah! It is the middle of the night here in LA and I just ran into Santa Claus. He was dropping off gifts near where I live and as I was walking home, I saw him stuck on a roof next to my apartment building. He had just delivered to the children in that building. His sleigh and reindeer were trying to take off but could not. The problem was simple: NO SNOW and way too hot!! So the reindeer were over-heated cause they were trying to pull the sleigh on rocks instead of snow. I did not know what to do. I called the North Pole and spoke to the Chief Elf. He told me there was nothing I could do. So I went back to my office and did a Google search: "Santa" "LA" "Stuck" "NO SNOW". Only 1,333,658,452,652 came up in 0.0000275 seconds. I searched all of them and only found one of them with the solution I needed. It was the 1,333,658,452,652nd of them.
It was a guy named Wilbur. Was born in Idaho, the northern part, where it gets real cold in the winter. He does heating and cooling out here in LA, but never has any heating business because it never really gets cold enough in LA to turn the heat on. So he told me I had to make the roof where Santa was stuck cold enough so it would snow on that roof. I asked him how the heck I was going to do that. He told me he had a cousin Jasper that lives in Idaho, the northest part, where it gets REALLY COLD!!! He owns an ice cutting business where they cut ice out of the frozen lakes and ship it down to Las Vegas.
He told me that for just a few dollars more per pound of ice and per extra mile driven, I could get Jasper to bring me the ice I needed to make smow for Santa to take off. I was so happy I had a solution. I called Jasper on his 800 hot-line: 1-800-JUST-ICE, ICE BABY!!! Jasper picked up and I told him my story and that his cousin Wilbur told me to call him. He was very happy to hear from me, as he was kinda worried and all. You know, manning a hot line every year for the last 25 years on Christmas eve night, he got used to seeing Santa come by every year to drop off the presents. But when he heard my story, he knew exactly what had happened to Santa.
Jasper told me he could get 50 tons of ice to my address right away. So I gave him my credit card and he ran it. Only $2.99 a pound for the ice. Good thing I have an Amex card! He gave me my receipt number and told me ice was on the way. Then he told me it would get there on the 27th of December as Monday was a holiday.
Now what does that mean for you, my nieces and nephew? It means your presents won't be arriving from Santa tonight. There has been a delay. The presents (and there are lots of them) won't leave LA until the 27th of December and won't arrive in Cincinnati until after the New Year. But don't be sad my loves. Just think of it this way: When Christmas is over and the New Year has arrived, there will be more cool gifts that you will be getting from the coolest Uncle in all of LA: UNCLE NOAH!!!
Merry Christmas from your Uncle Noah! It is the middle of the night here in LA and I just ran into Santa Claus. He was dropping off gifts near where I live and as I was walking home, I saw him stuck on a roof next to my apartment building. He had just delivered to the children in that building. His sleigh and reindeer were trying to take off but could not. The problem was simple: NO SNOW and way too hot!! So the reindeer were over-heated cause they were trying to pull the sleigh on rocks instead of snow. I did not know what to do. I called the North Pole and spoke to the Chief Elf. He told me there was nothing I could do. So I went back to my office and did a Google search: "Santa" "LA" "Stuck" "NO SNOW". Only 1,333,658,452,652 came up in 0.0000275 seconds. I searched all of them and only found one of them with the solution I needed. It was the 1,333,658,452,652nd of them.
It was a guy named Wilbur. Was born in Idaho, the northern part, where it gets real cold in the winter. He does heating and cooling out here in LA, but never has any heating business because it never really gets cold enough in LA to turn the heat on. So he told me I had to make the roof where Santa was stuck cold enough so it would snow on that roof. I asked him how the heck I was going to do that. He told me he had a cousin Jasper that lives in Idaho, the northest part, where it gets REALLY COLD!!! He owns an ice cutting business where they cut ice out of the frozen lakes and ship it down to Las Vegas.
He told me that for just a few dollars more per pound of ice and per extra mile driven, I could get Jasper to bring me the ice I needed to make smow for Santa to take off. I was so happy I had a solution. I called Jasper on his 800 hot-line: 1-800-JUST-ICE, ICE BABY!!! Jasper picked up and I told him my story and that his cousin Wilbur told me to call him. He was very happy to hear from me, as he was kinda worried and all. You know, manning a hot line every year for the last 25 years on Christmas eve night, he got used to seeing Santa come by every year to drop off the presents. But when he heard my story, he knew exactly what had happened to Santa.
Jasper told me he could get 50 tons of ice to my address right away. So I gave him my credit card and he ran it. Only $2.99 a pound for the ice. Good thing I have an Amex card! He gave me my receipt number and told me ice was on the way. Then he told me it would get there on the 27th of December as Monday was a holiday.
Now what does that mean for you, my nieces and nephew? It means your presents won't be arriving from Santa tonight. There has been a delay. The presents (and there are lots of them) won't leave LA until the 27th of December and won't arrive in Cincinnati until after the New Year. But don't be sad my loves. Just think of it this way: When Christmas is over and the New Year has arrived, there will be more cool gifts that you will be getting from the coolest Uncle in all of LA: UNCLE NOAH!!!
MERRY HAPPY BLESSED
The creator sent a man with a message
It was simple: love one another, he said
We in our complexity began the fragmentation
Naming every different kind of love instead
We have young love, tough love
Love at first sight, love gone wrong
A mother's love, a secret love
The love of the poets, a sad love song
Now each year we send cards with messages
And I ponder what I want to say
We celebrate this special season once a year
We need to love one another everyday.
It was simple: love one another, he said
We in our complexity began the fragmentation
Naming every different kind of love instead
We have young love, tough love
Love at first sight, love gone wrong
A mother's love, a secret love
The love of the poets, a sad love song
Now each year we send cards with messages
And I ponder what I want to say
We celebrate this special season once a year
We need to love one another everyday.
Saturday, December 24, 2005
GONZALES & DAUGHTER TRUCKING CO
Gonzales & Daughter Trucking Co, by Maria Amparo Escandon, Random House, Inc, 2005, 285 pp.
This was a reading group pick and an example of a book I might never have found otherwise. I really liked it! The subtitle is: A Road Novel with Literary License. Libertad Gonzales is the daughter of two truckers whose mother died at Libertad's birth and who was raised by her father while riding the Interstates in his 18 wheeler.
Now Libertad is serving time in a Mexican prison and consumed with guilt, but she is unable to reveal her crime to her fellow inmates at the Mexicali Penal Institution for Women. She comes across an old paperback and begins reading aloud, but what comes out is not the story in the book but her own story. The other women are largely illiterate, so Libertad forms The Library Club and "reads" to them everyday. Thus you learn her history and at the very end, her crime.
The prison, its inmates and staff reminded me of Pen Pals by Olivia Goldsmith. It is a complex scenario of graft, rehab and sorority. The trucker characters are larger than life and the author even provides a glossary of trucker lingo. The book itself touches on feminism, parenting, coming of age, teen issues and also has a dash of magical realism. Quite an accomplishment in a novel that keeps you turning the pages and reads like a bestseller. Highly recommended for teens, adults, men and women.
This was a reading group pick and an example of a book I might never have found otherwise. I really liked it! The subtitle is: A Road Novel with Literary License. Libertad Gonzales is the daughter of two truckers whose mother died at Libertad's birth and who was raised by her father while riding the Interstates in his 18 wheeler.
Now Libertad is serving time in a Mexican prison and consumed with guilt, but she is unable to reveal her crime to her fellow inmates at the Mexicali Penal Institution for Women. She comes across an old paperback and begins reading aloud, but what comes out is not the story in the book but her own story. The other women are largely illiterate, so Libertad forms The Library Club and "reads" to them everyday. Thus you learn her history and at the very end, her crime.
The prison, its inmates and staff reminded me of Pen Pals by Olivia Goldsmith. It is a complex scenario of graft, rehab and sorority. The trucker characters are larger than life and the author even provides a glossary of trucker lingo. The book itself touches on feminism, parenting, coming of age, teen issues and also has a dash of magical realism. Quite an accomplishment in a novel that keeps you turning the pages and reads like a bestseller. Highly recommended for teens, adults, men and women.
Blogging as a discipline
As usual, I have been absent from the blogosphere for many days. I make deals with myself that I will blog daily mainly because "they" say that one needs to post regularly in order to keep people coming to one's blog. Then the other day, I read on someone else's blog that it was a good way to get into the discipline of meeting deadlines and writing regularly. It all sounds good, but I am basically a slacker when it comes to discipline. Lord knows there are way too many things one must do daily in life: brush your teeth, get dressed, eat, clean up the kitchen, to mention just a few. Then there are weekly chores such as laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning the house. Finally there are the really annoying things like going to work at a certain time whether you feel like it or not, driving in freeway traffic, making the bank deposit, blah, blah, blah. So why would I want to make blogging and writing a regualrly scheduled duty when I do it for fun, for the joy of creating?
Well yesterday I was reading Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing and he says that writing that 1000 words a day is the way you learn to write. Somewhere on a blog yesterday I read that Ray is credited with the opinion that a writer needs to write 1,ooo,ooo words before he or she gets any good at all. (At 1000 words a day, that is about three years.) I am sure it is all true. I go on marathons where I promise all the gods that I WILL WRITE 1000 WORDS A DAY. It does not ever last.
What I am trying to say is that if you are a visitor to my blog, I am so glad to have you. Please check back from time to time. I read two to three books a week (that is one thing that does not ever feel like discipline to me, but most always feels like a guilty pleasure), so I doubt that I will run out of books to blog about for a long time, if ever. Then there will be the occasional chapter from the book I am usually not writing. But if you want a daily dose, you won't find it here. Luckily there are countless blogs where you can get that, so I don't have to feel obligated to provide it.
While I am on the subject, I just have to mention that I am puzzled by lit bloggers who merely mention interesting articles that they read elsewhere or post other bloggers posts. Don't these people have anything to do? Do they find this fun? Do they actually ever read all the books they talk about? Well, I don't want to get too snarky here, but I do think that "literary" people ought to be reading more than anything else, unless they are writing their 1000 words everyday, in which case they could be excused from reading once in a while. I have a writer friend (who is a regular here at Keep The Wisdom and I thank her for that), who doesn't read anything while she is writing a book. She wants to be sure her ideas are her own. I respect that totally, although I can't imagine going without reading for long enough to write a whole book.
Those are my thoughts today, Christmas Eve day. Oh, one more. Currently I am reading My Name is Red, by Orhan Pamuk. I haven't been able to get up to speed on this book yet, because it takes place in Turkey in the sixteenth century and I have never read a book set in Turkey. I feel like a very unprepared tourist so far. But what has struck me as I read is that there are so very many ways to live a life. I live in the outskirts of Los Angeles, a town which tries to convince you that there is only one way to live. I was born and raised as a middle class American, a culture which has quite limited approved ways to live. In Pamuk's book we have a cast of characters who are artists who illustrate books; calligraphers, miniaturists, colorists, etc. They go through long years of apprenticeship, their lives are fraught with the vagaries of political and religious upheavals, they become bent and blind doing this type of work. But it is what they love, it is their passion. So it is with writers. Even the most disciplined and dedicated writers lead lives of financial uncertainty and social ineptitude for the most part. I was filled with admiration and gratitude to all the writers who keep on writing and putting together books for me to read. I wanted to give them a special holiday party where they could just come in any old clothes, without a shower if they wished and sit around feeling relaxed, not having to be brilliant for a few hours, just eat and drink and talk about whatever, but feel honored and adored for the wonderful creatures they are.
Well yesterday I was reading Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing and he says that writing that 1000 words a day is the way you learn to write. Somewhere on a blog yesterday I read that Ray is credited with the opinion that a writer needs to write 1,ooo,ooo words before he or she gets any good at all. (At 1000 words a day, that is about three years.) I am sure it is all true. I go on marathons where I promise all the gods that I WILL WRITE 1000 WORDS A DAY. It does not ever last.
What I am trying to say is that if you are a visitor to my blog, I am so glad to have you. Please check back from time to time. I read two to three books a week (that is one thing that does not ever feel like discipline to me, but most always feels like a guilty pleasure), so I doubt that I will run out of books to blog about for a long time, if ever. Then there will be the occasional chapter from the book I am usually not writing. But if you want a daily dose, you won't find it here. Luckily there are countless blogs where you can get that, so I don't have to feel obligated to provide it.
While I am on the subject, I just have to mention that I am puzzled by lit bloggers who merely mention interesting articles that they read elsewhere or post other bloggers posts. Don't these people have anything to do? Do they find this fun? Do they actually ever read all the books they talk about? Well, I don't want to get too snarky here, but I do think that "literary" people ought to be reading more than anything else, unless they are writing their 1000 words everyday, in which case they could be excused from reading once in a while. I have a writer friend (who is a regular here at Keep The Wisdom and I thank her for that), who doesn't read anything while she is writing a book. She wants to be sure her ideas are her own. I respect that totally, although I can't imagine going without reading for long enough to write a whole book.
Those are my thoughts today, Christmas Eve day. Oh, one more. Currently I am reading My Name is Red, by Orhan Pamuk. I haven't been able to get up to speed on this book yet, because it takes place in Turkey in the sixteenth century and I have never read a book set in Turkey. I feel like a very unprepared tourist so far. But what has struck me as I read is that there are so very many ways to live a life. I live in the outskirts of Los Angeles, a town which tries to convince you that there is only one way to live. I was born and raised as a middle class American, a culture which has quite limited approved ways to live. In Pamuk's book we have a cast of characters who are artists who illustrate books; calligraphers, miniaturists, colorists, etc. They go through long years of apprenticeship, their lives are fraught with the vagaries of political and religious upheavals, they become bent and blind doing this type of work. But it is what they love, it is their passion. So it is with writers. Even the most disciplined and dedicated writers lead lives of financial uncertainty and social ineptitude for the most part. I was filled with admiration and gratitude to all the writers who keep on writing and putting together books for me to read. I wanted to give them a special holiday party where they could just come in any old clothes, without a shower if they wished and sit around feeling relaxed, not having to be brilliant for a few hours, just eat and drink and talk about whatever, but feel honored and adored for the wonderful creatures they are.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
READING FOR MY LIFE: 1940
A couple months ago, I completed reading through my lists of books for the decade 1940-1949; the first stage of MY BIG FAT READING PROJECT (see earlier posts in the archives.) The project consists of reading the top ten bestsellers of each year plus a selected list of other books, with the purpose of getting an understanding of each year as portrayed in books, as well as to see how the literature and events of these years influenced me, my life, my search for truth, enlightenment and understanding about life. I was born in 1947, but I started reading the books of 1940 to get a feel for the times I was born into.
I have already learned more than could have imagined from this reading. I have found out more than I ever knew I didn't know about World War II. I have discovered how earnest and wholesome many people were in the 1940s; that Christianity made for bestsellers back then; that war and the Industrial Revolution, communism and socialism were beginning to erode all those values and to create chaos. It has been a fascinating study made through fiction.
In 1940, my parents were in college, finishing their junior year and starting their senior year. Here is some background on my family:
My ancestors on both sides are all German. My father's great-great-grandfather was born in 1775 in the Duchy of Brunswick, part of the German kingdom called Hanover. His family were farmers and had lived there for centuries. There is possibly some Swedish blood in the family and we certainly have a proportion of blonde-haired, blue-eyed family members. This ancestor of my father was a soldier from the age of 16 and although he was illiterate, he could speak six languages, including German, Dutch, Low German, some English and a little Swedish. He settled in Osnabruck (still in Hanover) and married a tenant farmer's daughter. They had 5 children, three of whom lived. The youngest of these was my father's great-grandfather who was named Balthasar Henry, but was known as Willie.
Willie became a spinner of flax and a tailor, but the cotton that was being imported from America took over from flax and put Willie out of business. In 1837, he sailed with many other German emigrants from the North Sea and arrived in Baltimore, MD on July 4. From there he walked to Pittsburgh, PA in ten days. Although he had intended to go to Cincinnati, OH, he was tired of walking and stayed in Pittsburgh. About six years later, after establishing himself as a tailor and opening his own shop, he married. He was 32 and his new wife was 22. They had three sons and three daughters. The youngest son, born August 3, 1854 and named William was my father's grandfather. He also became a tailor.
William married a preacher's daughter and had nine children, the eighth of which was my grandfather, Ernest August, born in 1892 and a third generation American. He married the daughter of a grocery store owner. Two of his brothers married my grandmother's sisters. Ernest and my grandmother lived in her childhood home at first, a tradition that would continue when my parents married and lived in my father's childhood home until my first sister was about to be born. My dad's parents were church-going Lutherans and heavy drinkers. My grandmother did not learn to drive until around the time I was born and I recall her riding the brake down the many hills of Pittsburgh. My grandfather was an accountant and went to work everyday on the streetcar, as did my father when I was an infant and toddler.
This side of my family had several ministers, some alcoholics and some who went insane. Both of my grandparents were alcoholics and my father probably was too, though he got sober in his late 50s and remained so to the end of his life. My father was highly intelligent, deeply spiritual and totally committed to the family. He died of Alzheimer's leading to pneumonia at the age of 84, but could still sing all the old hymns and Christmas carols as well as harmonize to anyone else's singing.
Less is known about my mother's family. She is still living and in her words, her family never talked about anything. Her ancestors were also German but there is little information that anyone remembers about when they came to this country. Her grandfather Charles, married Mathilda, who came to the United States when she was eight years old. These great-grandparents of mine lived in Fraser, Michigan, near Detroit. My grandfather on this side of the family, also named Charles, was born March 16, 1887. He had two brothers and one sister. At some point the family moved to Port Hope, Michigan, a small town in the thumb district right on Lake Michigan. Grandpa married Emma, one of seven children from a farming family near Port Hope. His sister married Howard Smith, a banker and co-owner of the hardware store in Port Hope. My grandfather eventually took over that hardware store and ran it until the Depression in the 1930s. After their first child was born in 1915, he and my grandmother bought a house on M25, facing Lake Michigan. We visited that house every summer of my childhood.
Grandpa worked all his life but he was at heart a musician, liked to play drums in local bands and to have a good time. He was always frustrated at working jobs that did not use his musical talents. My grandmother was a fearful woman who was terrified of storms, never drove a car and hated the telephone. She was a prolific gardener and an excellent cook but not much fun to be around. She had four children but was often in poor health due to a bad back, though she lived to be 93. My mother was the second child and when she was three years old, was sent to live with Aunt Lydia and Uncle Howard. Grandma was done in by the birth of my mom's sister and Aunt Lydia had lost her only daughter at the age of eight. Mom thought she was going for a week, but she never went back home to live, only to visit on weekends. After the hardware store failed in the Depression, times were tight and my mother used to tell us how she only had two dresses for school. She wore one for a week and the other for the next week. This story was usually told when I would clamor for new clothes. She did not get along well with her aunt, who was a bitter and critical woman, but she loved Uncle Howard, who recovered financially and paid for her college education.
Although my mother was a year older than my father, she skipped one grade during school and my father skipped two, so they both arrived as freshmen at Valparaiso University in Indiana in 1937. This was and still is a Lutheran school and my father was sent there on his parent's money supplemented by a scholarship from a Lutheran insurance company. He wrote for the university paper, drank heavily with fraternity brothers and sang in the choir. My mother majored in music education, studied organ and also sang in the choir, which is where they met.
In 1940, they were not yet a couple. Though the war was raging in Europe, it did not have much effect on college life. Germany took Norway, Denmark, Holland and France that year and were being bombed by England, but the United States was not yet involved. In fact there was quite a lot a sentiment in this country against having anything to do with Europe's troubles. President Roosevelt however was all for getting involved and there was a lot of stirring up about how democracy and the American way of life was at risk. Actually it probably was at that point and still is. By the end of the year, Roosevelt had pushed through Congress lots of money for armaments, started a draft to build up the military, exchanged destroyers with England and got us a bunch of naval bases all around Europe and Africa. He also got re-elected for a third term.
In the literature I read for 1940, there is a preponderance of books about war and the message is clearly that war is not a solution. I was mildly surprised at first to find the writers of fiction to be almost unanimously against war. There is also a strong religious theme in many of these books. God is alive and well in America of 1940. (For the list of books I read, see my post of October 30, 2005.)
Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, won the Pulitzer Prize. There were no Nobel prizes that year due to the war. In those days, those were the only big awards for literature.
In film, Gone With the Wind won Best Picture, Best Director (Victor Fleming) and Best Actress (Vivien Leigh). Goodbye Mr Chips, based on a book by James Hilton, won Best Actor (Robert Donat). Popular songs were: You Are My Sunshine, How High the Moon, When You Wish Upon A Star and Blueberry Hill.
Technological developments that year included the building of the cyclotron at the University of California, which allowed scientists to split atoms; the development of a form of penicillin practical for treating infection; the first combustion chamber for jet engines, the first electron microscope and the first successful helicopter flight. Whether they realized it or not, science was setting the stage for the most destructive war mankind had ever known.
What I see in the literature is a clinging to the old answers such as religion and family with the creeping in of decay, evil and breakdown. While the writers are not pro war, the readers want to be reassured that there is something to fight for and, as always, to be entertained. The people I came from were trying to get an education and better themselves, to rise above farming and blue collar professions, to keep the arts in their lives and to follow their religion. My father wanted to be a teacher and my mother a musician. They loved classical music and were both readers. For thinking men and women and for writers, it was a time of trying to come to terms with war, with struggles for freedom and equality and with finding a way to achieve the goals of mankind without mass killing.
When an individual wants power and is not himself in very good shape, he can go to the not-haves and rile them up and get them to fight for some better future life, because they have nothing to lose. Nor do they have the education or intelligence to see that they are being duped and merely used for the empowerment and enrichment of a few unscrupulous individuals. That has been going on for eons, but in the early 20th century the rise of communism and fascism was happening along with the beginnings of a new era of struggles for equality and independence amongst the downtrodden. I can see influences in the literature that could have led to my interest in the underdog, the unfortunate and the forgotten of the world. Of course, those ideas also came from my Christian upbringing, especially as taught to me by my parents, but I found that the poor, the immigrant, Blacks, Jews, women and basically all the oppressed were in the literature and minds of Americans in 1940.
The voices in these books are distinct even if they are from the same time. Richard Llewellyn is romantic, Christopher Morely ironic, Hemingway is earnest and even optimistic, Sholem Asch is dreary (of course he was also Polish), Kenneth Roberts is a bit stuffy and know-best and Steinbeck is downright spiritual. Yet all the books so far are about the plight of man and his dreams and how he adapts to change. The haves against the have-nots is a common theme as well as war. Also there are the able versus the not able, the trustworthy, hardworking types versus the riffraff, yet among the riffraff are those occasional creatures who are wily, adventurous and actually keep the others in tea and cakes or fight their battles for them.
The theme of change and what happens to those who can't deal with it is a major theme in my life, which I suppose began with the Industrial Revolution. As far as being American goes, I come from people who desired change, to whom the status quo was intolerable, who came to this country with hopes and dreams and who had the incredible work ethic necessary to make it in a new land and culture.
While reading a couple of the more frivolous books, I was thinking about how there was this terrible war going on in Europe, the Germans are just taking over countries and slaughtering people, while Americans are trying to pretend that it isn't happening and has nothing to do with them. They are buying and reading love stories while talking about how bad things are in Europe. It seemed incredible to me, but then I thought about how after 9/11, some award shows got cancelled and the Spider Man movie wasn't released because it had the Twin Towers in it and people were all upset and flying flags on their cars, but in just a few months they were mostly bored with it and the economy was going from bad to worse and really people were worried about money. The best sellers, such as The Nanny Diaries, which was a bunch of gossip about rich people, just kept selling.
I guess war is just unconfrontable. They sure have to do a lot of propaganda and PR and advertising to get people fired up enough to take an actual interest. At least that is what I have seen from reading history. A war is going on, maybe for years and years, but most people still go to work or farm or whatever and try to stay alive like they always do. If the war actually comes through where they live it is damn inconvenient, but life goes on. Babies get born and people have to eat and they always want some entertainment. Maybe there are scarcities and rationing but people make do and get by. Then when the war is over, the soldiers that didn't die come home and are shellshocked or hardened or Agent Oranged, but things go back to normal after a while and there is even usually some kind of economic boom.
When I was in college in the 60s and then after I dropped out and became a hippy, all I knew was that some guys went to Vietnam, some peoples' relatives got killed (no one I actually knew though) and we just protested and helped guys get out of the draft. Meanwhile we were learning macrobiotics and getting high and listening to our favorite music, while there were guys over there dying. I think we didn't feel we had to care about those guys because we knew you could get out of going if you even tried and we thought guys who went were stupid, straight Hawks and had no respect for them. To this day, I have never known personally anyone who fought in Vietnam. My ex-boyfriend enlisted, which we thought was the stupidest thing of all, because it meant you agreed with the war and believed all that hogwash about fighting communism.
It sounds really cold to me now and I wonder how I became such a cynic. I didn't really know much about history or what was really going on in Vietnam or how we got involved. I just knew that I thought war was wrong, that I was a pacifist and I just was not going to participate. I wonder how many people in the 40s felt that way until they got shamed into or excited into taking part in it. I bet there was heavy pressure to be "patriotic" and if you weren't something was weird about you, especially if you were German or Japanese. I wonder how my parents really felt about it.
My parents grew up with parents who had lived through World War I, either safely from here or who had friends and relatives who fought or who fought themselves. My parents were born just as that war ended and by the time they were young man and woman, there was another world war. And I was born just after that one was over. But really it wasn't talked about, it wasn't stressed. It was the space race and learning science to keep up with the Russians and Eisenhower and peace and prosperity; subdivisions and cars and money and getting ahead and cocktail parties. Mostly in my family it was church and giving money to the church and to unfortunate orphans and being good and staying away from disreputable people and being safe.
Maybe it worked. When I was in my 20s there was Vietnam and when I was in my 40s there was Desert Storm and now there is the "war on terror", but no more world wars, at least not yet. Maybe that atom bomb really did scare people enough. Now war is more localized and more covert and done with money and marketing and hostile takeovers. Still the poor get squeezed out and the rich stay rich and the middle class does all the work that isn't grunt work and on we go.
Doing the reading, it was at times extremely weird to be so much in another entire decade. The writers and readers of that time were somewhat obsessed with the coming war, the changes in society and how to make sense of it all, while in today's world we take all that for granted. The themes of independence, preserving a way of life that includes liberty and material plenty but at the same time the concern for the elements of society who are poor, suppressed, etc portray the beginnings of socialism and communism as almost acceptable instead of abhorrent ideas. It did not seem as polarized as it does today, but more like an awakening of consciousness to the whole world situation.
Patriotism and nationalism are concepts that have never done much for me. In fact, I feel a distaste for those ideas because they lead to war, to justifications of war and armaments and to an emphasis on the differences between segments of the human race. I suppose any country has its allies and enemies and has to figure out how to work harmoniously with the allies and how to defend itself against its enemies. But somehow between that decade when I was born and my young adult years, it got very muddled. By the time I went to college, I was against war, racism, imperialism, economic oppression. Of course, I don't think I was in the majority of American thought, but I am so curious to discover how I became so anti-establishment, so enamored of the hippy ideals of the brotherhood of man and so dedicated to ending war on this planet. As I continue this reading adventure, I plan to discover the answers to all that.
I have already learned more than could have imagined from this reading. I have found out more than I ever knew I didn't know about World War II. I have discovered how earnest and wholesome many people were in the 1940s; that Christianity made for bestsellers back then; that war and the Industrial Revolution, communism and socialism were beginning to erode all those values and to create chaos. It has been a fascinating study made through fiction.
In 1940, my parents were in college, finishing their junior year and starting their senior year. Here is some background on my family:
My ancestors on both sides are all German. My father's great-great-grandfather was born in 1775 in the Duchy of Brunswick, part of the German kingdom called Hanover. His family were farmers and had lived there for centuries. There is possibly some Swedish blood in the family and we certainly have a proportion of blonde-haired, blue-eyed family members. This ancestor of my father was a soldier from the age of 16 and although he was illiterate, he could speak six languages, including German, Dutch, Low German, some English and a little Swedish. He settled in Osnabruck (still in Hanover) and married a tenant farmer's daughter. They had 5 children, three of whom lived. The youngest of these was my father's great-grandfather who was named Balthasar Henry, but was known as Willie.
Willie became a spinner of flax and a tailor, but the cotton that was being imported from America took over from flax and put Willie out of business. In 1837, he sailed with many other German emigrants from the North Sea and arrived in Baltimore, MD on July 4. From there he walked to Pittsburgh, PA in ten days. Although he had intended to go to Cincinnati, OH, he was tired of walking and stayed in Pittsburgh. About six years later, after establishing himself as a tailor and opening his own shop, he married. He was 32 and his new wife was 22. They had three sons and three daughters. The youngest son, born August 3, 1854 and named William was my father's grandfather. He also became a tailor.
William married a preacher's daughter and had nine children, the eighth of which was my grandfather, Ernest August, born in 1892 and a third generation American. He married the daughter of a grocery store owner. Two of his brothers married my grandmother's sisters. Ernest and my grandmother lived in her childhood home at first, a tradition that would continue when my parents married and lived in my father's childhood home until my first sister was about to be born. My dad's parents were church-going Lutherans and heavy drinkers. My grandmother did not learn to drive until around the time I was born and I recall her riding the brake down the many hills of Pittsburgh. My grandfather was an accountant and went to work everyday on the streetcar, as did my father when I was an infant and toddler.
This side of my family had several ministers, some alcoholics and some who went insane. Both of my grandparents were alcoholics and my father probably was too, though he got sober in his late 50s and remained so to the end of his life. My father was highly intelligent, deeply spiritual and totally committed to the family. He died of Alzheimer's leading to pneumonia at the age of 84, but could still sing all the old hymns and Christmas carols as well as harmonize to anyone else's singing.
Less is known about my mother's family. She is still living and in her words, her family never talked about anything. Her ancestors were also German but there is little information that anyone remembers about when they came to this country. Her grandfather Charles, married Mathilda, who came to the United States when she was eight years old. These great-grandparents of mine lived in Fraser, Michigan, near Detroit. My grandfather on this side of the family, also named Charles, was born March 16, 1887. He had two brothers and one sister. At some point the family moved to Port Hope, Michigan, a small town in the thumb district right on Lake Michigan. Grandpa married Emma, one of seven children from a farming family near Port Hope. His sister married Howard Smith, a banker and co-owner of the hardware store in Port Hope. My grandfather eventually took over that hardware store and ran it until the Depression in the 1930s. After their first child was born in 1915, he and my grandmother bought a house on M25, facing Lake Michigan. We visited that house every summer of my childhood.
Grandpa worked all his life but he was at heart a musician, liked to play drums in local bands and to have a good time. He was always frustrated at working jobs that did not use his musical talents. My grandmother was a fearful woman who was terrified of storms, never drove a car and hated the telephone. She was a prolific gardener and an excellent cook but not much fun to be around. She had four children but was often in poor health due to a bad back, though she lived to be 93. My mother was the second child and when she was three years old, was sent to live with Aunt Lydia and Uncle Howard. Grandma was done in by the birth of my mom's sister and Aunt Lydia had lost her only daughter at the age of eight. Mom thought she was going for a week, but she never went back home to live, only to visit on weekends. After the hardware store failed in the Depression, times were tight and my mother used to tell us how she only had two dresses for school. She wore one for a week and the other for the next week. This story was usually told when I would clamor for new clothes. She did not get along well with her aunt, who was a bitter and critical woman, but she loved Uncle Howard, who recovered financially and paid for her college education.
Although my mother was a year older than my father, she skipped one grade during school and my father skipped two, so they both arrived as freshmen at Valparaiso University in Indiana in 1937. This was and still is a Lutheran school and my father was sent there on his parent's money supplemented by a scholarship from a Lutheran insurance company. He wrote for the university paper, drank heavily with fraternity brothers and sang in the choir. My mother majored in music education, studied organ and also sang in the choir, which is where they met.
In 1940, they were not yet a couple. Though the war was raging in Europe, it did not have much effect on college life. Germany took Norway, Denmark, Holland and France that year and were being bombed by England, but the United States was not yet involved. In fact there was quite a lot a sentiment in this country against having anything to do with Europe's troubles. President Roosevelt however was all for getting involved and there was a lot of stirring up about how democracy and the American way of life was at risk. Actually it probably was at that point and still is. By the end of the year, Roosevelt had pushed through Congress lots of money for armaments, started a draft to build up the military, exchanged destroyers with England and got us a bunch of naval bases all around Europe and Africa. He also got re-elected for a third term.
In the literature I read for 1940, there is a preponderance of books about war and the message is clearly that war is not a solution. I was mildly surprised at first to find the writers of fiction to be almost unanimously against war. There is also a strong religious theme in many of these books. God is alive and well in America of 1940. (For the list of books I read, see my post of October 30, 2005.)
Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, won the Pulitzer Prize. There were no Nobel prizes that year due to the war. In those days, those were the only big awards for literature.
In film, Gone With the Wind won Best Picture, Best Director (Victor Fleming) and Best Actress (Vivien Leigh). Goodbye Mr Chips, based on a book by James Hilton, won Best Actor (Robert Donat). Popular songs were: You Are My Sunshine, How High the Moon, When You Wish Upon A Star and Blueberry Hill.
Technological developments that year included the building of the cyclotron at the University of California, which allowed scientists to split atoms; the development of a form of penicillin practical for treating infection; the first combustion chamber for jet engines, the first electron microscope and the first successful helicopter flight. Whether they realized it or not, science was setting the stage for the most destructive war mankind had ever known.
What I see in the literature is a clinging to the old answers such as religion and family with the creeping in of decay, evil and breakdown. While the writers are not pro war, the readers want to be reassured that there is something to fight for and, as always, to be entertained. The people I came from were trying to get an education and better themselves, to rise above farming and blue collar professions, to keep the arts in their lives and to follow their religion. My father wanted to be a teacher and my mother a musician. They loved classical music and were both readers. For thinking men and women and for writers, it was a time of trying to come to terms with war, with struggles for freedom and equality and with finding a way to achieve the goals of mankind without mass killing.
When an individual wants power and is not himself in very good shape, he can go to the not-haves and rile them up and get them to fight for some better future life, because they have nothing to lose. Nor do they have the education or intelligence to see that they are being duped and merely used for the empowerment and enrichment of a few unscrupulous individuals. That has been going on for eons, but in the early 20th century the rise of communism and fascism was happening along with the beginnings of a new era of struggles for equality and independence amongst the downtrodden. I can see influences in the literature that could have led to my interest in the underdog, the unfortunate and the forgotten of the world. Of course, those ideas also came from my Christian upbringing, especially as taught to me by my parents, but I found that the poor, the immigrant, Blacks, Jews, women and basically all the oppressed were in the literature and minds of Americans in 1940.
The voices in these books are distinct even if they are from the same time. Richard Llewellyn is romantic, Christopher Morely ironic, Hemingway is earnest and even optimistic, Sholem Asch is dreary (of course he was also Polish), Kenneth Roberts is a bit stuffy and know-best and Steinbeck is downright spiritual. Yet all the books so far are about the plight of man and his dreams and how he adapts to change. The haves against the have-nots is a common theme as well as war. Also there are the able versus the not able, the trustworthy, hardworking types versus the riffraff, yet among the riffraff are those occasional creatures who are wily, adventurous and actually keep the others in tea and cakes or fight their battles for them.
The theme of change and what happens to those who can't deal with it is a major theme in my life, which I suppose began with the Industrial Revolution. As far as being American goes, I come from people who desired change, to whom the status quo was intolerable, who came to this country with hopes and dreams and who had the incredible work ethic necessary to make it in a new land and culture.
While reading a couple of the more frivolous books, I was thinking about how there was this terrible war going on in Europe, the Germans are just taking over countries and slaughtering people, while Americans are trying to pretend that it isn't happening and has nothing to do with them. They are buying and reading love stories while talking about how bad things are in Europe. It seemed incredible to me, but then I thought about how after 9/11, some award shows got cancelled and the Spider Man movie wasn't released because it had the Twin Towers in it and people were all upset and flying flags on their cars, but in just a few months they were mostly bored with it and the economy was going from bad to worse and really people were worried about money. The best sellers, such as The Nanny Diaries, which was a bunch of gossip about rich people, just kept selling.
I guess war is just unconfrontable. They sure have to do a lot of propaganda and PR and advertising to get people fired up enough to take an actual interest. At least that is what I have seen from reading history. A war is going on, maybe for years and years, but most people still go to work or farm or whatever and try to stay alive like they always do. If the war actually comes through where they live it is damn inconvenient, but life goes on. Babies get born and people have to eat and they always want some entertainment. Maybe there are scarcities and rationing but people make do and get by. Then when the war is over, the soldiers that didn't die come home and are shellshocked or hardened or Agent Oranged, but things go back to normal after a while and there is even usually some kind of economic boom.
When I was in college in the 60s and then after I dropped out and became a hippy, all I knew was that some guys went to Vietnam, some peoples' relatives got killed (no one I actually knew though) and we just protested and helped guys get out of the draft. Meanwhile we were learning macrobiotics and getting high and listening to our favorite music, while there were guys over there dying. I think we didn't feel we had to care about those guys because we knew you could get out of going if you even tried and we thought guys who went were stupid, straight Hawks and had no respect for them. To this day, I have never known personally anyone who fought in Vietnam. My ex-boyfriend enlisted, which we thought was the stupidest thing of all, because it meant you agreed with the war and believed all that hogwash about fighting communism.
It sounds really cold to me now and I wonder how I became such a cynic. I didn't really know much about history or what was really going on in Vietnam or how we got involved. I just knew that I thought war was wrong, that I was a pacifist and I just was not going to participate. I wonder how many people in the 40s felt that way until they got shamed into or excited into taking part in it. I bet there was heavy pressure to be "patriotic" and if you weren't something was weird about you, especially if you were German or Japanese. I wonder how my parents really felt about it.
My parents grew up with parents who had lived through World War I, either safely from here or who had friends and relatives who fought or who fought themselves. My parents were born just as that war ended and by the time they were young man and woman, there was another world war. And I was born just after that one was over. But really it wasn't talked about, it wasn't stressed. It was the space race and learning science to keep up with the Russians and Eisenhower and peace and prosperity; subdivisions and cars and money and getting ahead and cocktail parties. Mostly in my family it was church and giving money to the church and to unfortunate orphans and being good and staying away from disreputable people and being safe.
Maybe it worked. When I was in my 20s there was Vietnam and when I was in my 40s there was Desert Storm and now there is the "war on terror", but no more world wars, at least not yet. Maybe that atom bomb really did scare people enough. Now war is more localized and more covert and done with money and marketing and hostile takeovers. Still the poor get squeezed out and the rich stay rich and the middle class does all the work that isn't grunt work and on we go.
Doing the reading, it was at times extremely weird to be so much in another entire decade. The writers and readers of that time were somewhat obsessed with the coming war, the changes in society and how to make sense of it all, while in today's world we take all that for granted. The themes of independence, preserving a way of life that includes liberty and material plenty but at the same time the concern for the elements of society who are poor, suppressed, etc portray the beginnings of socialism and communism as almost acceptable instead of abhorrent ideas. It did not seem as polarized as it does today, but more like an awakening of consciousness to the whole world situation.
Patriotism and nationalism are concepts that have never done much for me. In fact, I feel a distaste for those ideas because they lead to war, to justifications of war and armaments and to an emphasis on the differences between segments of the human race. I suppose any country has its allies and enemies and has to figure out how to work harmoniously with the allies and how to defend itself against its enemies. But somehow between that decade when I was born and my young adult years, it got very muddled. By the time I went to college, I was against war, racism, imperialism, economic oppression. Of course, I don't think I was in the majority of American thought, but I am so curious to discover how I became so anti-establishment, so enamored of the hippy ideals of the brotherhood of man and so dedicated to ending war on this planet. As I continue this reading adventure, I plan to discover the answers to all that.
Saturday, December 03, 2005
DREAMS FROM MY FATHER
Dreams From My Father, Barack Obama, Random House, Inc, 1995, 453 pp.
I read this for one of my reading groups. Being the non-political person that I am, I was completely unaware of who this person is, but my very political girlfriend filled me in. Obama is currently a US Senator from Illinois and a hot guy in the Democratic party these days. After reading his memoir, I am a supporter. He has a fine sense of integrity and understanding about people though I fear that the political process in this country would kill that off in even the strongest individual.
In the early 90s, Obama was studying law at Harvard and became the first Black man to be elected as President of the Harvard Law Review. The publicity engendered by this event brought him a publishing offer, so he wrote this story of his life up to that point. After winning the seat in the US Senate, the book was republished.
Obama's mother was a white woman from Kansas, whose family moved to Hawaii when she was a teenager. There at the University of Hawaii, she met an African student from Kenya. They married and had Barack in the early 60s. But the father left when Barack was only 2 years old to get his PhD at Harvard, because his scholarship money was not enough to support a wife and child. Before he could complete his degree, he was summoned back to Kenya by his government and the marriage dissolved due to time and distance.
So Barack was raised by his white mother and grandparents while his father took on the quality of a myth. When Barack was ten years old, his father came for a two week visit which only served to confuse Barack further. But he managed to complete highschool and college, by which time he had decided to live as a Black man.
After college, he went to Chicago to work as a community organizer in the ghettos of South Chicago and came face to face with the results of racism in a northern industrial city. Just before entering Harvard Law School, he finally traveled to Kenya and met his father's side of the family, finding at last the other half of his heritage.
It was a fascinating book, written in a novelist's style and hard to put down. It added much to my growing fund of knowledge about Blacks in this country, their African forebears, racism and the long slow climb of the Black race in America from slaves to full citizens of this country; a climb which is far from over.
I doubt that this country is ready to elect a Black President, but I am sure it will happen in my lifetime. If Obama can stay in politics and maintain the integrity he displays in his book, I would be glad to have him as President of the United States.
I read this for one of my reading groups. Being the non-political person that I am, I was completely unaware of who this person is, but my very political girlfriend filled me in. Obama is currently a US Senator from Illinois and a hot guy in the Democratic party these days. After reading his memoir, I am a supporter. He has a fine sense of integrity and understanding about people though I fear that the political process in this country would kill that off in even the strongest individual.
In the early 90s, Obama was studying law at Harvard and became the first Black man to be elected as President of the Harvard Law Review. The publicity engendered by this event brought him a publishing offer, so he wrote this story of his life up to that point. After winning the seat in the US Senate, the book was republished.
Obama's mother was a white woman from Kansas, whose family moved to Hawaii when she was a teenager. There at the University of Hawaii, she met an African student from Kenya. They married and had Barack in the early 60s. But the father left when Barack was only 2 years old to get his PhD at Harvard, because his scholarship money was not enough to support a wife and child. Before he could complete his degree, he was summoned back to Kenya by his government and the marriage dissolved due to time and distance.
So Barack was raised by his white mother and grandparents while his father took on the quality of a myth. When Barack was ten years old, his father came for a two week visit which only served to confuse Barack further. But he managed to complete highschool and college, by which time he had decided to live as a Black man.
After college, he went to Chicago to work as a community organizer in the ghettos of South Chicago and came face to face with the results of racism in a northern industrial city. Just before entering Harvard Law School, he finally traveled to Kenya and met his father's side of the family, finding at last the other half of his heritage.
It was a fascinating book, written in a novelist's style and hard to put down. It added much to my growing fund of knowledge about Blacks in this country, their African forebears, racism and the long slow climb of the Black race in America from slaves to full citizens of this country; a climb which is far from over.
I doubt that this country is ready to elect a Black President, but I am sure it will happen in my lifetime. If Obama can stay in politics and maintain the integrity he displays in his book, I would be glad to have him as President of the United States.
WHERE HAVE I BEEN?
I haven't posted for about three weeks and my apologies to anyone who stopped by looking for something new. On November 20, I got a killer flu, which luckily didn't kill me. It just put me to bed for a few days. I managed to get well in time to travel to Michigan for Thanksgiving with my extended family. I also managed to gain back all the weight I lost when I was too sick to eat. Ah well.
Then I returned home and went back to work. I am a teacher and my class was in tatters from 3 days with a substitute, so that is my excuse for last week. Just too exhausted at the end of the day to do anything but flop onto the couch and read. But nothing keeps me from reading and I've got lots of books to blog about. I also have worked on the first installment or whatever (I can't decide what to call it) from the Big Fat Reading Project.
Just a few comments on that. I have all these notes I have kept while reading and all my summaries of the books plus other info, but when I try to put this together in some readable form, it seems to lose all its life and become dry and boring. So I am struggling with that. If any readers here are writers and have run into a similar problem, I would be so grateful to hear of your experiences and how you solved it. I hope to have something posted by the end of this weekend, but it may take until the Christmas break from school to get it done. Thanks for your patience.
One other item: I am currently reading The Wall, by John Hersey. It is catagorized as fiction but comes across as fact. I spent an hour searching the web today to get some info and came up with virtually nothing. Does anyone have background data on this book? I am about 190 pages into it and am finding it good, not gripping, but heavy going. It is about Jews being enclosed into a ghetto in Warsaw in 1939-1943. I understand that there is an uprising near the end but right now it is just disturbing to the point of depressing. The things that humans do to each other are just a bit much.
Then I returned home and went back to work. I am a teacher and my class was in tatters from 3 days with a substitute, so that is my excuse for last week. Just too exhausted at the end of the day to do anything but flop onto the couch and read. But nothing keeps me from reading and I've got lots of books to blog about. I also have worked on the first installment or whatever (I can't decide what to call it) from the Big Fat Reading Project.
Just a few comments on that. I have all these notes I have kept while reading and all my summaries of the books plus other info, but when I try to put this together in some readable form, it seems to lose all its life and become dry and boring. So I am struggling with that. If any readers here are writers and have run into a similar problem, I would be so grateful to hear of your experiences and how you solved it. I hope to have something posted by the end of this weekend, but it may take until the Christmas break from school to get it done. Thanks for your patience.
One other item: I am currently reading The Wall, by John Hersey. It is catagorized as fiction but comes across as fact. I spent an hour searching the web today to get some info and came up with virtually nothing. Does anyone have background data on this book? I am about 190 pages into it and am finding it good, not gripping, but heavy going. It is about Jews being enclosed into a ghetto in Warsaw in 1939-1943. I understand that there is an uprising near the end but right now it is just disturbing to the point of depressing. The things that humans do to each other are just a bit much.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
WAITING
Waiting, by Ha Jin, Random House, Inc, 1999, 308pp
I've had this book on my shelf for a while. It won an NBA and a PEN/Faulkner award, so I had high expectations which unfortunately were not met.
The story is set in 1960s-1980s China, which is post-revolutionary Red China. Lin Kong is a doctor in an army hospital. He is married to a woman he does not love. The marriage was arranged by his parents and his wife remains in the small village where Lin Kong was raised along with their daughter. Every summer for 20 years, he goes to the village during his annual leave from the hospital, which is in a nearby city, and tries to get a divorce from his wife. Every year she says she will permit the divorce but when they get to the court she changes her mind.
There is another woman, a nurse at the hospital, whom he wishes to marry. She waits throughout the 20 years. Morality is very strict under the Communist regime and they have no physical relationship. This situation goes on for a good two thirds of the book, so the reader is waiting as well and yes, that is as uneventful as it sounds. Neither Lin Kong nor his lover are particularly likeable characters and their affair is rather pedestrian.
Finally the divorce is granted, the frustrated lovers marry and then their troubles really begin.
They have a child, the new wife becomes clingy and neurotic and Lin Kong, after all these years, doesn't really have the knack of being a husband. He had moved the ex-wife to the city after the divorce which leads to an ironic ending that is actually quite good but geez, I waited 300 pages for that?
I've had this book on my shelf for a while. It won an NBA and a PEN/Faulkner award, so I had high expectations which unfortunately were not met.
The story is set in 1960s-1980s China, which is post-revolutionary Red China. Lin Kong is a doctor in an army hospital. He is married to a woman he does not love. The marriage was arranged by his parents and his wife remains in the small village where Lin Kong was raised along with their daughter. Every summer for 20 years, he goes to the village during his annual leave from the hospital, which is in a nearby city, and tries to get a divorce from his wife. Every year she says she will permit the divorce but when they get to the court she changes her mind.
There is another woman, a nurse at the hospital, whom he wishes to marry. She waits throughout the 20 years. Morality is very strict under the Communist regime and they have no physical relationship. This situation goes on for a good two thirds of the book, so the reader is waiting as well and yes, that is as uneventful as it sounds. Neither Lin Kong nor his lover are particularly likeable characters and their affair is rather pedestrian.
Finally the divorce is granted, the frustrated lovers marry and then their troubles really begin.
They have a child, the new wife becomes clingy and neurotic and Lin Kong, after all these years, doesn't really have the knack of being a husband. He had moved the ex-wife to the city after the divorce which leads to an ironic ending that is actually quite good but geez, I waited 300 pages for that?
Sunday, November 13, 2005
MIRROR MIRROR
Mirror Mirror, by Gregory Maguire, HarperCollins Publishers Inc, 2003, 276 pp
Maguire's most recent book, Son of a Witch, just came out, so he was being widely promoted. I somehow had not heard of him but was seduced by the promotion. He also writes children's books and it is all a unique twist on the fantasy genre.
In Mirror Mirror, he takes the tale of Snow White and sets it in Italy, 1502. Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia are pulling their shenanigans and are central to the story. There are dwarves as well. It is an odd mix of history, imagination, legend and something like metaphysics.
It is hard to describe, highly literary, and not an easy read. If it hadn't been for a few books I'd already read, such as Rule of Four, by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason; Catalina, by Somerset Maugham; and especially Prince of Foxes, by Samuel Shellabarger, all of which deal with that time period, I would have been quite lost. As it was, I could only marvel at his imagination and keep a dictionary close by.
I can't say that I loved the book, but it had a fascination. Though there was plenty of action at times, it seemed to move slowly. Perhaps I was under an enchantment as a reader. I'd like to hear about any of Maguire's books that anyone has read.
Maguire's most recent book, Son of a Witch, just came out, so he was being widely promoted. I somehow had not heard of him but was seduced by the promotion. He also writes children's books and it is all a unique twist on the fantasy genre.
In Mirror Mirror, he takes the tale of Snow White and sets it in Italy, 1502. Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia are pulling their shenanigans and are central to the story. There are dwarves as well. It is an odd mix of history, imagination, legend and something like metaphysics.
It is hard to describe, highly literary, and not an easy read. If it hadn't been for a few books I'd already read, such as Rule of Four, by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason; Catalina, by Somerset Maugham; and especially Prince of Foxes, by Samuel Shellabarger, all of which deal with that time period, I would have been quite lost. As it was, I could only marvel at his imagination and keep a dictionary close by.
I can't say that I loved the book, but it had a fascination. Though there was plenty of action at times, it seemed to move slowly. Perhaps I was under an enchantment as a reader. I'd like to hear about any of Maguire's books that anyone has read.
Saturday, November 12, 2005
THE SONG OF NAMES
The Song of Names, by Norman Lebrecht, Random House, Inc., 2002, 311 pp.
I picked this book out of a shelf of trade paperbacks at one of my favorite independent bookstores: Once Upon A Time, in Montrose, CA. I was solely attracted by the title. On the back cover the blurb says, "Martin Simmonds' father tells him, 'Never trust a musician when he speaks about love.' The advice comes too late." I was sold.
My husband actually read the book first and was completely charmed. (We are both musicians.) He would read to me from it in bed at night. Then it sat on my shelf of to-be-read contemporary fiction for months. Finally I got it selected as a pick for the reading group at the very store where I bought it and sat down to read it last weekend.
I was not disappointed. It has been a while since I enjoyed a book this much. Martin Simmonds is the son of a man who ran a music promotion company that catered to the middle-class as an audience. In 1940s England, that was unique and probably considered quite low-brow. But the man was a master of PR and with this skill would take young hopefuls in classical music and build them a career of minor fame.
Just before Hitler invaded Poland, David Rapoport, a nine year old violin prodigy is left by his father in the care of the Simmonds family. David is many things to the family. To the father, he is the great future star who will make the company well thought of. So David is groomed and coddled, brought to the best teachers, given an almost priceless violin. To nine year old Martin, David is a brother, a companion, an idol, but most of all someone to love in a fairly loveless family. They grow up together and David makes Martin come alive, gives him a personality and Martin feels loved.
The book begins 40 years after David disappeared on the night of his world debut. Martin is an old hypocondriac and a broken spirit. He now runs the family business which has devolved into a shoddy, outdated sheet music company. On a business trip to the English hinterlands, Martin hears a young violinist with a bit of David's signature technique in his playing. So begins the search for the lost David and the reader learns the back story.
It is a wonderful book, written in a smart modern tone but full of history. During the Battle of Britain, you feel you are there with two nine year old boys, doing the paper route and exploring the bomb sites. The world of a training musician, of the singleminded competitive attitude necessary, of the maneuvering by the manager/promoter is all created. And the inner life of a boy growing to manhood in a foreign country with no news of his Jewish family in war-torn Poland is portrayed with reality and sensitivity. But it is not a mawkish or heartwarming story. It is full of human folly and unlovely emotions. The moment when the meaning of the title is revealed was so heart-stopping for me that I had to put the book down for a while. But there is also humor, musical philosophy, religious ideas and a good dose of mystery.
The Song of Names won a Whitbread First Novel Award. Say what you will about awards, but if it hadn't won I may have never heard of or found the book.
I picked this book out of a shelf of trade paperbacks at one of my favorite independent bookstores: Once Upon A Time, in Montrose, CA. I was solely attracted by the title. On the back cover the blurb says, "Martin Simmonds' father tells him, 'Never trust a musician when he speaks about love.' The advice comes too late." I was sold.
My husband actually read the book first and was completely charmed. (We are both musicians.) He would read to me from it in bed at night. Then it sat on my shelf of to-be-read contemporary fiction for months. Finally I got it selected as a pick for the reading group at the very store where I bought it and sat down to read it last weekend.
I was not disappointed. It has been a while since I enjoyed a book this much. Martin Simmonds is the son of a man who ran a music promotion company that catered to the middle-class as an audience. In 1940s England, that was unique and probably considered quite low-brow. But the man was a master of PR and with this skill would take young hopefuls in classical music and build them a career of minor fame.
Just before Hitler invaded Poland, David Rapoport, a nine year old violin prodigy is left by his father in the care of the Simmonds family. David is many things to the family. To the father, he is the great future star who will make the company well thought of. So David is groomed and coddled, brought to the best teachers, given an almost priceless violin. To nine year old Martin, David is a brother, a companion, an idol, but most of all someone to love in a fairly loveless family. They grow up together and David makes Martin come alive, gives him a personality and Martin feels loved.
The book begins 40 years after David disappeared on the night of his world debut. Martin is an old hypocondriac and a broken spirit. He now runs the family business which has devolved into a shoddy, outdated sheet music company. On a business trip to the English hinterlands, Martin hears a young violinist with a bit of David's signature technique in his playing. So begins the search for the lost David and the reader learns the back story.
It is a wonderful book, written in a smart modern tone but full of history. During the Battle of Britain, you feel you are there with two nine year old boys, doing the paper route and exploring the bomb sites. The world of a training musician, of the singleminded competitive attitude necessary, of the maneuvering by the manager/promoter is all created. And the inner life of a boy growing to manhood in a foreign country with no news of his Jewish family in war-torn Poland is portrayed with reality and sensitivity. But it is not a mawkish or heartwarming story. It is full of human folly and unlovely emotions. The moment when the meaning of the title is revealed was so heart-stopping for me that I had to put the book down for a while. But there is also humor, musical philosophy, religious ideas and a good dose of mystery.
The Song of Names won a Whitbread First Novel Award. Say what you will about awards, but if it hadn't won I may have never heard of or found the book.
Friday, November 11, 2005
THIS AND THAT
Despite all my best intentions, I have not finished my writing on the reading I did for the decade of 1940-1949. I started a new job in September, teaching in a private school. I actually love the job, but it was supposed to be a 5 hours a day, 5 days a week gig but has turned out to be more like 7 hours a day while I learn my way around the school, the kids, the curriculum, etc.
So it is all I can do to keep up my reading. I try to read at least 100 pages a day but a good day is 200 pages. I have started reading books for 1950 and have finished one. Tonight I got about half way through a second. I am also in four reading groups which works out to approximately one book a week, but it is good, because it keeps me reading contemporary books and gives me people to talk to about books. As a wanna-be writer, I think it is healthy to listen to and observe how other readers besides myself react to books. I've been in these reading groups for about a year now and it has been quite revealing.
Although I read the entire LA Times and NY Times book reviews every week as well as Bookmark Magazine every month, although I read about 10 different literary blogs on a regular basis, there is really no comparison to listening to your everyday reader say how she felt about a book. I have met every kind of reader in these groups. There are people who only want to read a book that makes them feel good. There are other people who automatically dislike a book if it does not agree with their views on life, politics, religion, you name it. Some readers in these groups balk if they have to look up words in a dictionary while reading a book. Others freak out if a book is more than 300 pages long. But then there are readers who love learning about some thing, people, or place they didn't know about before. And readers who love history. And readers who just get rapturous over good writing.
Then there is the blog here. I don't know who reads it. Sometimes I get wonderful comments and other times I get emails from people who are too shy or afraid to post a comment. Other times I get those spam comments from people who are promoting their own blogs (and usually selling something). There is some kind of button you can push to keep those people from posting comments, but I am a strong believer in laissez-faire capitalism, so I just let it happen. For most of the time there are no comments at all. But if you are reading this and have ever entertained the idea of posting a comment, PLEASE DO SO. Even if you disagree violently with what I have said about a book, even it you read comic books or Nicholas Sparks, I am interested in what you have to say about reading, books, fiction and how these things affect your life.
This week, I went out and did some retail therapy, after months of being careful not to spend money. My biggest thrill was purchasing Jane Smiley's Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel.
I've read about three chapters and I am the most enthralled with her awareness that any novel is only as good as a reader thinks it is. That is so democratic, so merit based and just so sensible. So getting back to all those book reviews I read, I am afraid I don't have much use for critics who think their job is to criticize any book they read. I read the reviews to find out what has been published. I rarely agree with the reviews. And I write this blog simply to communicate what happened when I read a book, how it affected me and to hopefully stimulate a dialogue on any given book.
What are you reading? What books have you loved? How does reading affect your life?
So it is all I can do to keep up my reading. I try to read at least 100 pages a day but a good day is 200 pages. I have started reading books for 1950 and have finished one. Tonight I got about half way through a second. I am also in four reading groups which works out to approximately one book a week, but it is good, because it keeps me reading contemporary books and gives me people to talk to about books. As a wanna-be writer, I think it is healthy to listen to and observe how other readers besides myself react to books. I've been in these reading groups for about a year now and it has been quite revealing.
Although I read the entire LA Times and NY Times book reviews every week as well as Bookmark Magazine every month, although I read about 10 different literary blogs on a regular basis, there is really no comparison to listening to your everyday reader say how she felt about a book. I have met every kind of reader in these groups. There are people who only want to read a book that makes them feel good. There are other people who automatically dislike a book if it does not agree with their views on life, politics, religion, you name it. Some readers in these groups balk if they have to look up words in a dictionary while reading a book. Others freak out if a book is more than 300 pages long. But then there are readers who love learning about some thing, people, or place they didn't know about before. And readers who love history. And readers who just get rapturous over good writing.
Then there is the blog here. I don't know who reads it. Sometimes I get wonderful comments and other times I get emails from people who are too shy or afraid to post a comment. Other times I get those spam comments from people who are promoting their own blogs (and usually selling something). There is some kind of button you can push to keep those people from posting comments, but I am a strong believer in laissez-faire capitalism, so I just let it happen. For most of the time there are no comments at all. But if you are reading this and have ever entertained the idea of posting a comment, PLEASE DO SO. Even if you disagree violently with what I have said about a book, even it you read comic books or Nicholas Sparks, I am interested in what you have to say about reading, books, fiction and how these things affect your life.
This week, I went out and did some retail therapy, after months of being careful not to spend money. My biggest thrill was purchasing Jane Smiley's Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel.
I've read about three chapters and I am the most enthralled with her awareness that any novel is only as good as a reader thinks it is. That is so democratic, so merit based and just so sensible. So getting back to all those book reviews I read, I am afraid I don't have much use for critics who think their job is to criticize any book they read. I read the reviews to find out what has been published. I rarely agree with the reviews. And I write this blog simply to communicate what happened when I read a book, how it affected me and to hopefully stimulate a dialogue on any given book.
What are you reading? What books have you loved? How does reading affect your life?
Thursday, November 03, 2005
1941 READING LIST
This is a list of books I read that were published in 1941, as part of My Big Fat Reading Project.
BESTSELLERS
*1. The Keys of the Kingdom, by AJ Cronin. A common man becomes a priest, goes to China in the 1920s, does a lot of good and never really gets recognized for it.
2. Random Harvest, by James Hilton. A World War I amnesia victim finally finds out who he is and finds his lost love.
3. This Above All, by Eric Knight. World War II love story and commentary on war.
4. The Sun Is My Undoing, by Marguerite Steen. Huge, historical novel about a larger than life character, slave trade and abolition in 1840s England.
*5. For Whom The Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway. Holdover from the 1940 list. Spanish Civil War.
6. Oliver Wiswell, by Kenneth Roberts. Another holdover from 1940. Revolutionary War.
7. H M Pulham, Esquire, by John P Marquand. A Boston man, WWI veteran, has money. This is the story of the rest of his life, including having his son go off to WWII.
8. Mr and Mrs Cugat, by Isabel Scott Rorick. Also about well-to-do New England people and the quirks of their marriage.
9. Saratoga Trunk, by Edna Ferber. The lives of a Texas man and a Creole woman who become railroad barons.
*10. Windswept, by Mary Ellen Chase. Wonderful and beautiful story of a man, Maine and values.
OTHERS
1. Between Two Worlds, by Upton Sinclair. Second volume of the World's End series, following Lanny Budd up to the beginning of the Depression.
2. The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, by Vladimir Nabokov. Story of a writer.
3. A Curtain of Green, by Eudora Welty. Her first short story collection.
*4. Darkness at Noon, by Arthur Koestler. Great and heavy; Russian communist history as it is rarely told.
5. The Ill Made Knight, by T H White. Third book of the Once and Future King. Lancelot's story.
6. The Castle on the Hill, by Elizabeth Goudge. A plucky heroine survives WW II in England.
7. Wild is the River, Louis Bromfield. Post Civil War story set in New Orleans.
8. Without Signposts, Kathleen Wallace. What it was like for mothers with small children in England during WWII.
*9. The Scum of the Earth, by Arthur Koestler. A memoir about the prison camps to which liberal writers were sent during early WWII.
10. O Henry Prize Stories of 1941.
11. Caldecott Medal: Make Way For Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey. A family of ducklings in Boston.
12. Newbery Award: The Matchlock Gun, by Walter D Edmonds. A ten year old boy defends his mother and sister using an old gun, while his father is off fighting Indians in Colonial America.
* means a book I especially liked.
BESTSELLERS
*1. The Keys of the Kingdom, by AJ Cronin. A common man becomes a priest, goes to China in the 1920s, does a lot of good and never really gets recognized for it.
2. Random Harvest, by James Hilton. A World War I amnesia victim finally finds out who he is and finds his lost love.
3. This Above All, by Eric Knight. World War II love story and commentary on war.
4. The Sun Is My Undoing, by Marguerite Steen. Huge, historical novel about a larger than life character, slave trade and abolition in 1840s England.
*5. For Whom The Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway. Holdover from the 1940 list. Spanish Civil War.
6. Oliver Wiswell, by Kenneth Roberts. Another holdover from 1940. Revolutionary War.
7. H M Pulham, Esquire, by John P Marquand. A Boston man, WWI veteran, has money. This is the story of the rest of his life, including having his son go off to WWII.
8. Mr and Mrs Cugat, by Isabel Scott Rorick. Also about well-to-do New England people and the quirks of their marriage.
9. Saratoga Trunk, by Edna Ferber. The lives of a Texas man and a Creole woman who become railroad barons.
*10. Windswept, by Mary Ellen Chase. Wonderful and beautiful story of a man, Maine and values.
OTHERS
1. Between Two Worlds, by Upton Sinclair. Second volume of the World's End series, following Lanny Budd up to the beginning of the Depression.
2. The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, by Vladimir Nabokov. Story of a writer.
3. A Curtain of Green, by Eudora Welty. Her first short story collection.
*4. Darkness at Noon, by Arthur Koestler. Great and heavy; Russian communist history as it is rarely told.
5. The Ill Made Knight, by T H White. Third book of the Once and Future King. Lancelot's story.
6. The Castle on the Hill, by Elizabeth Goudge. A plucky heroine survives WW II in England.
7. Wild is the River, Louis Bromfield. Post Civil War story set in New Orleans.
8. Without Signposts, Kathleen Wallace. What it was like for mothers with small children in England during WWII.
*9. The Scum of the Earth, by Arthur Koestler. A memoir about the prison camps to which liberal writers were sent during early WWII.
10. O Henry Prize Stories of 1941.
11. Caldecott Medal: Make Way For Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey. A family of ducklings in Boston.
12. Newbery Award: The Matchlock Gun, by Walter D Edmonds. A ten year old boy defends his mother and sister using an old gun, while his father is off fighting Indians in Colonial America.
* means a book I especially liked.
GUARD OF HONOR
Guard of Honor, James Gould Cozzens, 1949, 631 pp.
With this book, I completed the novels for 1949. It won the Pulitzer Prize that year and took forever to read. I had never heard of it before and that may be because it is highly dated. It concerns only three days on a base of the American Army Air Force in Ocarana, Florida, during World War II. At that time, the Air Force was not yet a separate branch of the military and much of the might of air power was being developed as World War II was fought.
In the three days which the story covers, everything that could go wrong does. In addition, much of the trouble has racism at its root. There is a cast of at least 20 characters and about 10 main characters, so Cozzens uses the circumstances as a frame on which to do character studies of these numerous men and women. The women include WACS and officers' wives. He also throws in a sort of philosophy of war and army life.
So much goes wrong by the second day that I expected a big tragic ending. Instead, it all simmers down and gets approximately sorted out so that you understand that life will go on. Well, I suppose that could be a motto of war and army life.
Generally it was all "good" writing in a combination of English class and newspaper writing training. I found it much too wordy, somewhat pedantic and never fully gripping or exciting. The ending was unforgivable after 550 pages of build-up. I can surely see why we needed a Hemingway to come along.
With this book, I completed the novels for 1949. It won the Pulitzer Prize that year and took forever to read. I had never heard of it before and that may be because it is highly dated. It concerns only three days on a base of the American Army Air Force in Ocarana, Florida, during World War II. At that time, the Air Force was not yet a separate branch of the military and much of the might of air power was being developed as World War II was fought.
In the three days which the story covers, everything that could go wrong does. In addition, much of the trouble has racism at its root. There is a cast of at least 20 characters and about 10 main characters, so Cozzens uses the circumstances as a frame on which to do character studies of these numerous men and women. The women include WACS and officers' wives. He also throws in a sort of philosophy of war and army life.
So much goes wrong by the second day that I expected a big tragic ending. Instead, it all simmers down and gets approximately sorted out so that you understand that life will go on. Well, I suppose that could be a motto of war and army life.
Generally it was all "good" writing in a combination of English class and newspaper writing training. I found it much too wordy, somewhat pedantic and never fully gripping or exciting. The ending was unforgivable after 550 pages of build-up. I can surely see why we needed a Hemingway to come along.
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