Minute Marginalia

Six Little Cooks

2008-02-02T18:19:00.000-08:00

Decades challenge; 19th-century women writers challenge.

E. S. Kirkland’s Six Little Cooks; or, Aunt Jane’s Cooking Class (1877; 6th ed, 1891; available via google books) shares a number of traits with Mary E. Bamford’s The Second Year of the Look-About Club (discussed in the previous post) . Both were written by 19th-century female authors; both have groups of children – friends and relatives -- working together to improve themselves (and faithfully recording information and their discoveries in notebooks); both place aunts in important roles as tutors. (Kirkland’s book is dedicated to her three nieces.)

Unlike Bamford’s book, however, here the participants are all female: six girls, ages nine to twelve, become skillful cooks under the tutelage of their aunt. The story begins when Aunt Jane’s niece Grace reads about a girl who enjoys cooking and is “seized with a desire to do likewise without delay.” Off she rushes “to get her mother’s permission, tripping over a footstool as she went, banging the edge of the door in her haste to get round it.” The narrator adds, “[Grace] always began everything with the same wild enthusiasm but was somewhat apt to grow weary of the new employment before she had thoroughly tried it.” (7)

Such an opening suggests this will be a book where the core activity transforms its practitioners. This section, however, is about the only attempt at character development, for Grace’s clumsiness and impulsiveness miraculously vanish as soon as she enters the kitchen. After the first day, she does not need to be reminded to wash her hands or don a clean apron, and all of the delicacies she prepares come out perfectly the first time. Apparently a desire to learn, a talented teacher, and a few good recipes are all that is needed for culinary success. (Indeed, the unspoken theme appears to be that everything works out magnificently once one begins cooking: the girls’ recipes result in delicious dishes in every chapter, with never a burnt crust or mis-seasoned offering; moreover, at one point, all Aunt Jane needs to do is remark that she wishes she had a marble slab for rolling out pastry, before one of her nieces immediately remembers that “there is one next door! When [the] hall-table slab was broken, Papa had it set out in the shed, and there it is now, just as large as life” and ready for use . . . )

The book is structured by days rather than traditional chapters (i.e., chapters are titled “First Day,” “Second Day”), though it’s evident more than 24 hours has elapsed in some cases. The bulk of each chapter is devoted to recipes, which Aunt Jane provides and the girls faithfully record in their notebooks. One hopes any young readers who decided to try making them had a knowledgeable adult nearby, since the book is stronger on ingredients than process.

Those looking for practical fare will need another book to supplement Strickland’s; hers is clearly designed to entice beginning cooks. Sweets and similar fare predominate: according to the index, of the 207 recipes in the book, 54 are for cakes (including 3 types of icing); 34, for puddings and sauces; 24, tea cakes and biscuits; 18, pastries; 16, custards and jellies; 14, confectionary and candy. That leaves 12 breakfast dishes, 14 lunch dishes (including 4 types of salad dressing), and 18 for “Sick room cookery” (5 types of gruel, 4 of tea, as well as lemonade, egg nog, and “toast water”). Appropriately, the book ends with a tea party for which the girls make tea biscuits, Virginia wafers, company tea cake, Dover cake with fruit, sponge cake, jelly cake, chocolate cake, macaroons, wine jelly and whipped cream, and chocolate meringues. (The feast at which these are consumed is not described, Strickland explaining “as my efforts have been limited to giving my little readers some account of their cooking lessons, I must not transgress bounds by describing anything outside” [231] -- a statement not completely accurate, but perhaps understandable here.)

A few recipes, for the curious.

No. 127 – Jenny Lind’s pudding [which Marion Harris Neil’s Something-Different Dish [1915] confirms is named for the singer because Lind liked this pudding so much]

One tumblerful milk and the same of flour, half a teaspoonful salt and one egg. When the egg is well beaten stir in half the milk, then salt and flour, and beat all together; then add the rest of the milk. Bake in patty-pans and serve with

No. 127 – Jelly Sauce

Half a cup currant jelly, two tablespoonfuls melted butter, the juice and half the grated peel of a lemon, half a teaspoonful nutmeg, one tablespoonful powdered sugar, two glasses wine. Beat the jelly to a smooth batter, then add gradually the butter, lemon, and nutmeg; beat hard, then add sugar, and lastly wine. Keep warm, and also well covered, to prevent the escape of the flavor.

[And, should that disagree with you, from the section on Sick Room cooking:]

No. 79 – Mrs. Miller’s Beef Tea

One lb. lean, juicy beef, one pint cold water, two even teaspoonfuls salt. Cut the beef in bits about an inch square, cover it with the cold water, and let it stand one hour. Heat it slowly over the fire till it reaches the boiling point, then strain and season.

No. 81 – Plain Gruel

Two quarts boiling water; into which stir one cup Indian meal and one tablespoon flour, previously made into a smooth paste with cold water. Boil slowly one hour. A handful of raisins boiled in the gruel improves it, especially for children’s taste.

Second Year of the Look-About Club

2008-02-01T18:04:00.000-08:00

Decades challenge; 19th-century women writers' challenge

Judging by the children’s books I’ve been reading, learning in the 19th-century – at least in literature – was rarely a solitary activity. Instead, one formed a club and learned collaboratively.

One example of this is Mary E. Bamford’s The Second Year of the Look-About Club (1889), which as the title suggests, is a sequel to her popular The Look-About Club. (Second Year is available via google books; the first volume isn’t online.) Nature studies form the core – and justification – for this episodic work. A group of children unite to research and share stories, primarily about the birds, animals, and insects they discover near their home. An assortment of adult relatives offer guidance and participate in some activities, such as “Story Night”; a cousin in far-off California also joins the club, contributing her discoveries in long letters.

Part of the book’s effectiveness rests in its multiple narrative approaches: in addition to the California cousin’s correspondence, some segments follow various characters through their daily doings; others rely on storytelling sessions where family members recount animal-based anecdotes or legends; and over one-third of the book is a pamphlet the club created, with informational stories narrated by the insect or animal being studied. Although naturalists would probably shudder over the anthropomorphized creatures, the result is a very gentle narrative, where insects live in families with siblings and helpfully volunteer information about themselves, almost as if they were new neighbors. For example, in the opening of the segment titled “A Voice from a Hole in the Ground,” the narrator’s tone and word choice almost suggest that of another child – just one from a rather different background . . . :

Don’t look down here. I don’t want anyone coming to look down my little hole unless it is an insect that will tumble in here for my dinner. I am going to be a ground-beetle some day – one of the kind called Calosoma – and I must eat all I can, so as to grow. When I am a fine ground-beetle, I shall eat, too. My folks catch June bugs . . . And another relative of mine does good, for he eats potato-beetles. Another of my relatives, that has bright green wings, will go up trees to catch canker-worms, and another kind does ever so much good in eating those dreadful cutworms that plague vegetable-raisers so.

You cannot see how I look while I am in this little hole, can you? Well, I am long and black and have thirteen divisions to me, and six legs . . . I know you think that I am homely in shape, but my markings are pretty and I shall make a fine beetle. (106-07)

In contrast with the anthropomorphized tone of these accounts, the illustrations – perhaps gleaned from other sources – support the informational bent of the book, depicting insects and other creatures almost as specimens. Most are carefully labeled (“Carabus Adonis”), though a few have more light-hearted captions (“I am going to be a ground-beetle”), even if the illustration doesn’t support such an approach.

Of equal interest are the occasional glimpses of mindsets from the era. The book opens with one club member, Kittie, unhappy because she needs glasses. When she receives a pair, her siblings are quite curious about this novelty. One even asks, “How do you keep them on?” and marvels at “the little gold bows with knobs on the end, that went behind [Kittie’s] ears.” Kittie’s initial pleasure in her improved vision fades after a classmate teases her, but her father has a solution: he and her mother take Kitty “to the Blind Asylum” so she can see “so many worse off than herself” and appreciate what she has. That she does, and the club celebrates with a “’Blind Night,’ on which blind animals were to be talked about” – everything from a neighbor’s blind canary to the fish in Mammoth Cave.

Perhaps because Bamford herself was so interested in nature, the gender differences in the story are minimal – boys and girls participate in the club fairly equally. (Indeed, the girls sometimes seem to take a more prominent role, as does their Aunt Nan.) Interestingly, one bias that occasionally emerges (reminiscent of attitudes found in some contemporaneous series, such as Elsie Dinsmore) is anti-Catholicism. In the final chapter, “The Club’s Story Night,” after Aunt Nan volunteers “a queer Jewish legend about pigeons,” the children’s father looks for “Mrs. Jameson’s Legends of the Monastic Orders” and contributes a story about St. Nicholas of Tolentino:

It is related of this St. Nicholas that he never tasted animal food. In his last illness, when weak and wasted from inanition, his brethren brought him a dish of doves to restore his strength. The saint reproved them, and, painfully raising himself on his couch, stretched his hand above the doves, whereupon they rose from the dish and flew away. (170)

The children – who’ve listened appreciatively to an assortment of other myths and legends throughout the book – respond with “What nonsense!,” a sentiment echoed by their grandmother after their father reads another story, this time about St. Francis of Assisi. (Although the children’s religion is never specified, the California cousin and her parents attend a summer Chautauquan meeting – another touch of the times.)

Little Jarvis

2008-01-11T19:49:00.000-08:00

Decades challenge (substitution #1) -- 1890
19th-century women writers challenge (Molly Elliot Seawell)

Molly Elliot Seawell, Little Jarvis (1890) (available on Google Books)

In his 1921 essay "A Plea for Old Cap Collier," Irwin Cobb skewered the practice of using selections in readers that "hold[ ] up as examples before the eyes of the young of the period . . . certain popular figures of poetry and prose who--did but we give them the acid test of reason--would reveal themselves . . . as incurable idiots." He illustrated his point by including among the examples Hemans' "Casabianca,” (1826) whose hero’s fatal filial persistence “has been played up as an example of youthful heroism for the benefit of the young of our race.” As Cobb explains:

Let us give this youth the careful once-over: The scene is the Battle of the Nile. The time is August, 1798. When the action of the piece begins the boy stands on the burning deck whence all but him had fled. You see, everyone else aboard had had sense enough to beat it, but he stuck because his father had posted him there. There was no good purpose he might serve by sticking, except to furnish added material for the poetess, but like the leather-headed young imbecile that he was he stood there with his feet getting warmer all the time,

The same mindset that glorified young Casabianca probably adored Molly Elliot Seawell's Little Jarvis -- and apparently did, since it was the prize story for Youth's Companion in 1890.

The epigraph on Little Jarvis’s title page signals the direction and governing philosophy behind the tale: “As his life was without fear, so was his death without reproach.” Jarvis is introduced as “the youngest midshipman aboard the Constellation” – his most important characteristic in Seawell’s eyes. He is also “the most troublesome” midshipman, though Seawell quickly qualifies this comment by adding that Jarvis is “merry, active, honest-hearted and . . . free from anything like meanness”. He is generously gifted with enthusiasm and courage, perhaps to the point of foolhardiness. The crew of the ship view him almost as a pet: they are bemused by his antics, frequently tolerating mischief that merits punishment, admiring Jarvis's tenacity. (He wins one friend, 21-year-old Lt. Brookfield, after challenging him to a duel to the death, which the latter refuses in favor of giving him a sound drubbing -- not once, but three times, since he repeats it each time Jarvis refuses to withdraw the challenge. Brookfield and the others are so impressed by Jarvis’s determination that they then invite him to dinner in the ward-room.)

Ultimately, the Constellation encounters a French frigate, the Vengeance – with Jarvis the first to spot it, of course – and he is sent to his station on the maintop. The captain also sends a sailor to protect him, but to no avail, for when the mast is damaged in battle and about to fall, Jarvis refuses to leave his post and jump to safety despite the sailor’s urging and the others’ prudent departure for more secure spaces. Instead,

little Jarvis with all of his intrepid soul shining out of his unflinching eyes did not move an inch. There was a strange light upon his face and a manly and heroic confidence had taken the place of his boyish excitement.

And there he remains as the mast topples; he is found “wearing still on his young face the brave smile with which he had faced death when glory beckoned him upward.” When the Constitution returns to port with an account of the battle, its captain receives a medal, and Congress “passed a separate and special resolution in honor of little Jarvis.” The story ends there – a brief 64 pages, as short as Jarvis’s life.

Like Hemans’s poem, Little Jarvis lauds courage and a fatal idealism couched as devotion to duty (seen as steadfast, not suicidal, and echoed by the Congressional resolution that honors Jarvis for “gloriously preferr[ing] certain death to an abandonment of his post”). Both pieces reflect the same sensibility – not just of their authors but of the era’s attitudes toward the young (a mindset that had changed by the time of Cobb's piece). Giocante Casabianca was the 10- or 12-year-old son of the commander of L’Orient, who accompanied his father into battle and was killed when the ship exploded. The title character of Little Jarvis is also based on a real boy, 13-year old James C. Jarvis, who died in February 1800 when he would not desert his post on the mast of the Constellation; he was fatally injured or drowned when the mast fell.

I’m still not certain whether external circumstances motivated the story. Hemans poem appeared approximately 25 years after the event it romanticizes; Seawell’s story was published 90 years after Jarvis’s death and 25 years after the Civil War, at a time when historical fiction about battles was flourishing.

Miscellaneous sources and links:

Cobb’s “A Plea for Old Cap Collier is online at Project Gutenberg

“Casabianca” is at numerous sites; Endtime Pilgrim’s has a stunning reproduction of George Arnald’s painting, “Battle of the Nile,” as well as commentary on the poem.

A brief biography of Jarvis is at Destroyer History Foundation’s page for the USS Jarvis. Images of the gold medal Captain Truxton, Jarvis's captain, received – and the text of the congressional resolution -- are at the Dallas Public Library's website. Context for the battle is at “War with Tripoli” at Integrated Publishing.

Another challenge

2008-01-09T20:56:00.000-08:00

(and, with luck, a few more posts about books in the new year...)

Becky's Nineteenth-Century Women Writers Challenge was too tantalizing to pass up, especially since some titles can overlap with the Decades Challenge. I've tentatively selected a half dozen children's authors, most of whom are no longer that well known (some of whom are no longer known at all...) The six are

Mary Bamford
Mary Elizabeth Brush
Mary Crowninshield
Amanda Douglas
Laura Nichols
Molly Seawell

Most wrote what could be called informational fiction -- history and/or geography woven into a narrative; several also worked their stories into loosely-connected series.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

2007-11-19T22:45:00.000-08:00

I haven’t figured out if Brain Selznick really is that rare children’s book illustrator who moves between picture books and novels with equal facility or if it’s just that, more than other artists, when Selznick does illustrations for a novel, they get noticed. Certainly his work for Ann Martin’s Doll People – including the trompe l’oeil title page shown here – added immensely to the experience of reading the book . (And, of course, Selznick received a Caldecott Honor for his magnificent work with Barbara Kerley‘s Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins, including his homage to Charles Willson Peale .)

With The Invention of Hugo Cabret, however, Selznick blurs the boundaries between picture books and novels: the narrative alternates between traditional text and wordless sequences of illustrations. Each format contains unique information so that both are needed for the complete story. “Reading” it offers an unusual experience, for it requires shifting from one way of processing information to another at irregular intervals.

The plot is somewhat convoluted (to put it mildly). Young, orphaned Hugo Cabret has been living alone in a train station in Paris, stealing what he needs to stay alive and secretly tending to the station’s clocks. His alcoholic uncle, the clock keeper, disappeared weeks earlier, but Hugo conceals this information in order to continue work on a special project reconstructing an automaton. The mechanical figure is Hugo’s only connection to his father, who perished in a museum fire. When Hugo is caught trying to steal parts from a toy shop, the toymaker’s goddaughter Isabelle befriends him. Through persistence and coincidence, Isabella discovers Hugo’s hideout and the two fix the automaton, which surprises them by creating a mysterious drawing. The picture – an image that Hugo recognizes immediately (as will any reader familiar with Georges Melies’s A Trip to the Moon) -- moves the story into the second half of the book, and, ultimately, toward a resolution that combines film history, a fictionalized Georges Melies, art, and clockwork (or, put another way, machinery and magic -- ergo, movies).

Selznick’s narrative approach is perfectly matched to the tale, utilizing a format that combines words and sequential images in the best tradition of silent films. Even the book design recalls the genre, for the text pages have black borders reminiscent of intertitles. I’m still not certain whether what seem to be narrative flaws – a melodramatic plot occasionally relying on exaggeration, extraordinary coincidences, and actions that stem from a need to advance the storyline rather than from depth of characterization – are indeed failings or yet another of Selznick’s nods to his sources, those early action-driven movies. I am certain that this is an extraordinary book (worth more space than I’m giving it, especially in light of the many ways it explores ideas about visual narratives), one that I’m glad to have found.

Decades '08 Challenge

2007-10-17T17:40:00.001-07:00

After seeing a notice about the Decades '08 Challenge -- 8 books from 8 consecutive decades -- over at A Reader's Journal, I decided it might be an effective way to review some historic children's series books.

Here's my tentative list (which will probably be revised by 2008...):

1842 Cousin Lucy at Study - Jacob Abbott
1850 Mary Erskine - Jacob Abbott
1864 Little Suzy - Sophie May
1870 Bodleys Afoot - Horace Scudder

1886 Among the Trees at Elmridge - Ella Rodman Church
1896 A Little Girl in Old New York - Amanda Douglas
1903 Billy Whiskers - Frances Trego Montgomery
1911 Dutch Twins - Lucy Fitch Perkins

Out of the Deep I Cry & All Mortal Flesh

2007-10-13T23:11:00.000-07:00

Out of the Deep I Cry and All Mortal Flesh are the third and fifth books in Julia Spencer-Fleming’s mystery series. I'd read one of the earlier volumes for a book group discussion, then heard Spencer-Fleming speak at a conference and purchased Out of the Deep. Either I've become more accustomed to her detective and thus more interested in her world, or Spencer-Fleming just gets better with each book. After reading Out of the Deep, I found All Mortal Flesh and finished it in two days.

For those unfamiliar with Spencer-Fleming’s series, the premise is that Clare Fergusson, ex-Army helicopter pilot, now a newly-ordained Episcopalian priest, is at her first parish in the small town of Miller’s Kill in upstate New York. There she meets long-time resident and police chief, Russ Van Alstyne; the two quickly develop a friendship that threatens to become more (“threatens” because Russ is already happily married). This alliance allows Spencer-Fleming to look at crimes from two perspectives – the priest’s and the policeman’s.

Spencer-Fleming adopts her most creative narrative approach for Out of the Deep I Cry. Its opening chapter is set in 1970, when a young Russ Van Alstyne saves the widow Ketchem after she tries to drown herself. The next chapter leaps to the present, where Clare faces another watery problem: the church’s roof is leaking – with the worst patch near a memorial window given by the Widow Ketchem. Her daughter and only surviving relative, a parishioner, volunteers to use the Ketchem Trust to finance repairs, but doing so will deprive the town’s Free Clinic of a portion of its funds. Feeling guilty, Clare visits the clinic and encounters Debba Clow, an angry mother who is picketing to protest its doctor’s mandated immunizations for her children. When the doctor later disappears after meeting Debba outside of town – in the Ketchems' family graveyard – Clare steps in to help with the search, hoping to exonerate Debba.

As the novel progresses, flashback chapters (working progressively backwards in time) depicting key scenes from the Widow Ketchem’s life are interspersed with the main storyline. Connections between the two stories emerge: Widow Ketchem founded the free clinic and hired the now-missing doctor; vaccinations – or the lack thereof – brought about a Ketchem family tragedy. Thus, as the mystery advances toward a solution, a second story – the secrets of Widow Ketchem’s life – is gradually revealed, with each flashback providing insight into previous scenes.

As with Spencer-Fleming’s other books, the title (which, as usual, is taken from a hymn) carries particular significance. Among other things, a crucial point in Clare and Russ’s relationship is tied to a scene involving cries from the deep – but to say more would risk spoiling the plot.

Sometimes, I can be patient and wait for the paperback release of subsequent volumes. After finishing Out of the Deep I Cry, however, curiosity about how Spencer-Fleming was going to handle the complications she’d introduced into Clare and Russ’s relationship sent me to the library, where I happily seized on All Mortal Flesh, not realizing there was a volume between the two. Once I’d looked at the blurb, I was hooked.

Caveat to those still reading early titles in the series: Even the premise of All Mortal Flesh – printed on the blurb and mentioned in reviews – is a potential spoiler in regard to some of the continuing characters in the series. Consequently, all I’ll say is that the story is as much about Clare as about the mystery. For me, this was probably the most compelling book so far; virtually everything else was neglected until I’d finished it.

Obligatory link: An excerpt from the opening chapters of the first Clare Fergusson title, In the Bleak Midwinter, is online at Spencer-Fleming’s site, as is one for Out of the Deep I Cry. I don’t know if the hardcover of Deep is set a year earlier than the paperback or if the draft used for her website was never modified to correspond to the published version, but the first flashback really is dated 1970 (not 1969) in the paperback edition.

Tamar

2007-09-28T20:11:00.000-07:00

I really hadn’t planned on reading or blogging about two WWII novels back-to-back. (In fact, when I first saw the cover of this book, I mistook the parachutes for flying saucers and was thus a bit surprised to find it set in WWII.) Still, Mal Peet’s Tamar, winner of the Carnegie Medal (Britain’s equivalent of the Newbery), was too good not to write about.

Peet uses two linked story lines to narrate this story of secrets. The book opens in 1979, when a father suggests Tamar as a name for his son’s first child. Although the older man has never talked about his time with the SOE, he now volunteers the information that agents in his group all received code names using British rivers – thus, Tamar. Later, when the son’s wife announces the baby’s name during a family dinner, her mother-in-law, Marijke, drops the serving plate.

Shift to 1944, with Tamar and his wireless operator Dart hoping to evade the Germans as they parachute into the Netherlands to work with the Dutch resistance. Tamar’s cover as Christiaan Boogart, a farm worker, allows him to stay with the woman he loves – Marijke – and her mute grandmother on a farm. Dart, disguised as a doctor, is seeing the area for the first time. His base will be the town’s asylum – perhaps an ironic choice considering the mental strains wireless operators endured and the problems that will occur when Dart constructs an imagined romance.

At first, plans advance smoothly and the story remains that of WWII espionage, focusing on the clandestine efforts of the resistance and the challenges of life in an occupied country. Complications set in: Tamar has been sent to unite the various factions of the Dutch Resistance, and some resist his attempts to control them. Moreover, Tamar and Marijke have kept their relationship hidden, and Dart has fallen in love with Marijke, believing the feelings are reciprocal.

Shift to 1995, as sixteen-year-old Tamar ponders her grandfather’s apparent suicide. Opening a box he has left her, she discovers an odd collection of items – a half-finished crossword puzzle the two had worked on together, Ordnance Survey maps of the Tamar River, 1,945 pounds in bills of assorted denominations, an old photograph of two young men, and a foreign passport for Christiaan Boogart. She understands he’s left her a puzzle to solve – but not the what or why. Aided by a Dutch friend, she begins a journey to the places marked on the maps. Chapters charting their discoveries as they follow the Tamar River to its source alternate with a different type of revelations in 1945, when unfortunate timing and a rash move by one defiant Resistance group – and the exposure of certain secrets -- bring destruction and death.

Although some of the grandfather’s secrets weren’t hard to penetrate, the story was still compelling, and the use of the contemporary plot interwoven with the WWII story made the latter particularly effective. (This dual narrative – story in the present containing the outcome of tale from the past – seems quite popular for WWII juvenile and YA fiction: Jane Yolen’s Devil’s Arithmetic and Briar Rose, and, more recently, Jackie French’s Hitler’s Daughter. Is this technique another way of reinforcing that the past and present are connected – or is there something in particular about WWII that inspires it?)

Possible spoilers and some musings on the oddities of American publishing: The British edition I read, issued by Walker Books, is subtitled “A Novel of Secrecy and Survival” – a perfect description of the core of this story – the unifying element and the ironic/heart-breaking one. The edition in my local bookstore and on Amazon, however, has a new subtitle “A Novel of Espionage, Passion, and Betrayal” – thus practically giving away a major plot twist. I find myself wondering – did the US publisher feel that American readers wouldn’t be able to anticipate later plot developments and thus needed to be prepared for the outcome? Or, as with Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s/Philosopher’s Stone, were they afraid that without an extra hint of drama (and, in this case, romance), the book wouldn’t sell? (And is there really such a difference between readers in the two countries?)

The Book Thief

2007-09-23T17:32:00.000-07:00

Computer problems and assorted commitments and complications have kept me away from blogging for far longer than intended. I'm trying to get back into the habit again. (we'll see...), starting with the best book I’ve read this year

Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief (not to be confused with the Travis McDade work with the same title) has been attracting a lot of attention, and justifiably so. Published an adult title in Zusak’s native Australia, but as a YA novel in the US, it was an Honor Book for the 2007 Printz Award and made the Best of 2006 lists for almost every review journal (Horn Book, School Library Journal, Publishers’ Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books…).

Death is the narrator in this tale of ten-year-old Liesel Meminger and her life in Nazi Germany. Taken in by foster parents (her own father was a communist and her mother is terminally ill), Liesel is plagued by nightmares about her younger brother’s death, but ultimately comforted by her foster father Hans and their late-night reading sessions. That their book of choice is the first one she stole, The Grave Digger’s Handbook (which dropped unnoticed in the cemetery when her brother was buried), is perhaps a first indicator of a theme in the novel, that good and evil are interwoven, and that fate – coincidence and timing – continually affects our lives.

Over time, Liesel gains friends and allies, all connected in some way with books – and, usually, with death: Rudy, the boy down the street with whom she forms a friendship verging on romance, strengthened by their mutual thefts of food and fiction; the mayor’s wife, ever-silent and ever-grieving her own dead child, who lets Liesel steal from her library; Max, a young Jewish man hiding in Liesel’s foster parents’ basement, tormented by nightmares of his less fortunate family. In one of the most extraordinary segments, Max creates a book for Liesel, using painted-over pages from Mein Kampf for paper. (And, as an added touch, those pages in The Book Thief are designed so that faint text from Mein Kampf is visible in spots under Max’s handwritten story.)

Like many other novels about the war, Zusak’s suggests that at certain times traditional values and logical expectations may vanish or be overridden: Theft is wrong – except, in this case, not only does it bring Liesel comfort and allow her to form bonds, but it also ultimately helps numerous others, especially those to whom she reads. Deception becomes the norm – whether it means concealing someone in a basement to save his life or stealing food to supplement meager rations. A chance remark can save a life – or destroy it -- and a parent’s action hoping to protect a child can be rendered useless with one stroke of fate.

Predictably, The Book Thief is also about books, writing, inscribing and re-inscribing, leaving one’s mark – painting words on a basement wall when learning to read, hiding messages in Mein Kampf, covering over the pages of one book for space to tell another story. Books become lifelines (in more ways than one) – though they can’t save everyone.

Early on, death tells the outcome of the plot – which seems fitting, for (as he also notes), we all know the ending anyway – it’s what happens before we get there that matters, and in this book that becomes a moving, enthralling tale.

An excerpt is online at Random House’s website.

Ladies of Grace Adieu

2007-05-19T20:41:00.000-07:00

Expectations play a large part in a book's reception, and I may have been fortunate in coming to Susanna Clarke's story collection The Ladies of Grace Adieu having heard, repeatedly, that it lacked the magnitude of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Because of the less-than-stellar reviews, I wasn't expecting much -- and thus was pleasantly surprised by the charm and originality of the stories. (Though only time will tell if our book group's consensus that the stories were enjoyable but forgettable holds true.)

Part of the pleasure came from seeing more of the distaff side of the world portrayed in Jonathan Strange, an emphasis reinforced by the book's title (which is also that of its first story). Since I obsess over patterns, the arrangement of the collection was another asset: it seemed designed to encourage discovery of common threads among adjacent stories.

Marriage and women's magic run through the first three tales, with "Ladies of Grace Adieu" and "On Lickerish Hill" both telling of women who free themselves from potentially murderous men and uncomfortable marriages (actual or impending) through magical means. ( Jill at Individual Take has also blogged about the connections between "Lickerish Hill" and the folktale "Tom Tit Tot," a British variant of "Rumpelstiltskin".) The third story, "Mrs. Mabb," reverses the concept: when a marriageable man falls under a magical enchantment, his unmagical but resolute girlfriend courageously decides to free him (a premise with tangential connections to "Tam Lin"). "The Duke of Wellington and His Horse" actually takes the same basic formula -- a human determined to reclaim something dear that's held captive by faerie -- but substitutes the title pair for the romantic couple in "Mabb". Women's work -- in the form of sewing and spinning (usually with magic entwined) -- is another recurring motif in the collection, and "The Duke of Wellington," one of our book group's favorite stories, exemplifies this beautifully.

"Mr. Simonelli or the Fairy Widower" and "Tom Brightwind or How the Fairy Bridge was Built at Thorseby" share more than subtitles -- both pair a human (more-or-less) doctor and a fairy widower in some type of deceptive relationship; both contain bevies of unmarried sisters, deceased patients, and problems related to childbearing (youth, fertility, death?). "Antickes & Frets," another favorite of the group, is perhaps the best of the sewing stories, and a fine companion to the final tale, "John Uskglass and the Cumbrian Charcoal Burner." As with "Mrs. Mabb" and "Duke of Wellington," two very different stories contain similar ideas: In "Antickes," a frustrated Mary, Queen of Scots (seen in the accompanying illustration from that story) schemes against the powerful Queen Elizabeth, who has taken away all she holds dear; in "John Uskglass," a frustrated charcoal burner seeks retaliation against the powerful fairy magician John Uskglass, who has ruined his home and frightened his pig. In both, the desire for revenge yields unexpected results.

Addenda: Jill's just added her thoughts on the book and some informative links.

Notable quote

2007-05-03T20:07:00.000-07:00

Perpetually behind, reading but not able to take the time to write reflective posts, I came across the following quote from Walt Whitman in the prologue to Sara Wadsworth's In the Company of Books: Literature and Its "Classes" in Nineteenth-Century America. It seemed to sum up so much of why I think blogging about books is important --

the process of reading is not a half-sleep, but, in highest sense, an exercise, a gymnast's struggle; . . . the reader is to do something for himself, must be on the alert, must himself or herself construct indeed the poem, argument, history, metaphysical essay -- the text furnishing the hints, the clue, the start or frame-work. Not the book needs so much to be the complete thing, but the reader of the book does.

International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day (April 23)

2007-04-15T21:15:00.000-07:00

I don't usually do this, but Making Light has linked to a post by SFWA vice-president Dr. Howard V. Hendrix which decries writers' decisions to post their material freely on the net. Hendrix calls said writers (among other things) "scabs" and "pixel-stained technopeasants". That, in turn, inspired Jo Walton to pronounce April 23 International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day and to suggest that "everyone who wants to should give away professional quality work online." Full details are at her site (linked above).

I confess that part of my delight in this is the thought of being able to read more of Walton's work, since her Tooth and Claw remains high on my list of favorite fantasies (Trollope with dragons!). The discussion at both sites also offers an interesting reminder of just how generous many talented people are in making their work so readily available -- yet another reason to promote the project.

Southern Fried

2007-04-15T17:51:00.000-07:00

I picked up Cathy Pickens’s first detective novel after hearing her speak at a conference. Since I tend to be picky about mysteries (as my book group can attest), I was a little hesitant to start it, thinking it might not be as entertaining as its author. It was a pleasant surprise to discover Pickens writes as well as she speaks.

In Southern Fried, Avery Andrews has returned to her hometown in South Carolina following a career disaster working as a high-powered attorney in Columbia. A practical joke brings her to the scene when a car is dredged up from a pond, resurrecting a 15-year-old mystery, and netting her a client. Avery’s other case – a factory under scrutiny by an environmental investigator – also heats up (literally) when an arsonist strikes.

Pickens has said she admired Nancy Drew and Perry Mason, and elements from both characters can be seen in Avery. In this book, Avery is probably closer to Nancy than Perry with her practical nature, perseverance, ruminations on aspects of the mystery, and frequent time behind the wheel of her car. (One wonders if it’s by coincidence or design that Avery ends up with a Mustang, Nancy’s car of choice in the revised volumes.)

Although the story is fast-paced, with significant space devoted to clues and plot developments, it’s also about Avery’s readjustment to being home and about life in a small town. As the following excerpts indicate, Pickens’s wry humor and conversational style also contribute to the story’s charm:

Aunt Letha’s rottweiler, a black mass of spoiled dog flesh named Bud, strutted at the end of his leash like one of Hannibal’s elephants. The family suspected he’d been named for an old boyfriend. Aunt Letha wouldn’t say.

The aunts had henpecked each other and the dinner to pieces before the time came to set it on the table. During the morning I’d snatched glimpses of the Thanksgiving Day parades on TV, roughhoused with my niece and nephew . . . and -- as my contribution to the traditional holiday feast -- burned the bottoms on the brown and serve rolls.

I’ve already started the second in the series, Done Gone Wrong, and am finding it as enjoyable as the Southern Fried; the third title, Hog Wild, was just released in hardcover last month.

Hitler's Daughter (TBR and Decades challenge)

2007-04-14T20:48:00.000-07:00

Jackie French's Hitler's Daughter is a novel that shouldn't work -- yet it does. The premise is certainly original: in contemporary Australia, a young girl, Anna, entertains her friends by spinning a tale about Hitler's daughter, Heidi. Hitler never publicly acknowledges his relationship to Heidi (possibly because she has a physical disability) but does visit occasionally; she is kept hidden away, cared for by a governess devoted to the party. In many ways, it’s a story about secrets and deliberate blindness – not just about Heidi’s existence, but also about the camps into which people disappear; the petty thefts and pilfering (the cook, for example, takes scraps of food to feed her family); the black market trade as resources become scarce; the steady increase in lies and the decision not to see unpleasant truths.

The latter mindset carries over into the contemporary storyline: Anna’s tale causes Mark, one of her auditors, to ask questions about his family’s past and about current events. But his queries – about how his grandfather acquired land formerly occupied by the Aborigines, about news reports of genocide “in that place with the funny name . . . a long way away,” and about similar issues – are dismissed by his busy parents. The point is reinforced by a nightmare in which Hitler tells him, “You are all my children. . . None of you question. You are all Hitler’s children.”

There are no tidy solutions to the issues raised (and, perhaps ironically, the main storyline receives closure only by hinting at yet another secret), but that contributes to the book’s impact; it’s a tale one remembers. What makes all of this more impressive is the brevity – French manages to create two storylines with appealing characters and memorable scenes in a scant 121 pages (with wide margins and generous leading, no less).

Hitler's Daughter, cont'd

2007-04-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

Equally impressive is French’s versatility – I had to double-check to be certain she really was also the author of Diary of a Wombat, a sweet and funny picture book depicting life from a wombat’s point-of-view. (“Monday. Morning: Slept. Afternoon: Slept. Evening: Ate grass. Scratched. Night: Ate grass.”) (For the story behind Wombat -- almost as amusing as the book -- see French’s website .)

And -- a query to blog-savvy readers: Is there a way to insert images midway through an entry? The only way to keep the Wombat cover next to that paragraph was to create a separate entry, but it seems as if there ought to be a better method.

Notes on a mystery writers' panel

2007-04-09T20:46:00.000-07:00

Back from a conference and still hopelessly behind. . . Consequently, instead of creating an entry reviewing what I’ve been reading, this post contains notes from one of the presentations I attended. The speakers were two writers of detective fiction, Cathy Pickens (whose series character is attorney Avery Andrews, operating in Dacus, South Carolina) and Julia Spencer-Fleming (creator of Clare Ferguson, an Episcopalian priest and amateur sleuth working with police chief Russ Van Alystyne in Miller’s Kill, in upstate New York).

Both authors were terrific speakers; their session was one of the high points of the conference. Cathy Pickens, who'd expected to be half of a panel and engaging in dialogue with Julia Spencer-Fleming, instead found herself alone for the first segment, but handled the situation with grace.

A few memorable quotes and paraphrases from her comments:

On why her series character is an attorney:
"The courthouse and the hospital are the two places where people battle for their lives."
(Also "I started with Nancy Drew but I loved Perry Mason.")

On her critique group:
She mentioned it’s comprised only of people writing detective fiction and is by invitation only. No "yeah buts" are allowed (in response to criticism), because "if it's not working on paper it's not working."

On To Kill a Mockingbird (which I think she called "the most perfect book ever"):
It's "the first book I read where people talked like I did."

She also compared Scout to Nancy Drew: "a really cool girl" who gets to do exciting things (and I think she noted both were raised by widowers, forging a closer connection with their fathers).

Midway through the session, Julia Spencer-Fleming arrived; she'd encountered a series of transportation problems that would have felled a lesser woman. Instead, removing her coat as she crossed the room, she was immediately ready to participate in the panel, witty and vivacious.

Quotes and occasional paraphrases from her comments:

On being a lawyer (who's never practiced law):
"Law school -- it seemed like a good idea at the time. When you've got a history degree what else are you going to do?"

On her books:
"[P]sychologically realistic books" appeal to her. She wanted a "solid reason" for justifying an amateur’s participation in solving crimes and chose a cleric because they're involved in "crisis points" and know things about people that others don't. Balancing the narrative between a policeman and a priest "gives [her] a lot of play to look at what justice means" from two vantage points; moreover, the priest is "bringing broken pieces together and reassembling them into . . . wholeness" -- which, she added, is also what detective fiction does.

Living in Maine, she feels the weather "becomes another antagonist [in the books]. . . It can kill people." She "wanted to have a story where the place became another character" and feels crime fiction currently captures regional voices better than many other types of fiction (an idea also supported by Pickens).

Julia Spencer-Fleming’s website – which reads just the way Spencer-Fleming talks – has more information about her books and an interview with Cathy Pickens. Cathy Pickens’s website offers an introduction to Avery Andrews and her author as well as an annotated bibliography of books about writing.

Back soon

2007-04-02T20:34:00.000-07:00

It's been one of those stretches where the closest I've been able to come to blogging is remembering that there's been no time to do it. Kidnap and Hitler's Daughter were both memorable books; some time soon, I'm hoping for a breathing space to write about them -- but not right now.

Thinking Bloggers

2007-03-19T18:32:00.000-07:00

Jill at My Individual Take was kind enough to nominate me for a Thinking Blogger Award. According to the rules, each nominee is to nominate five more blogs -- a task that should be simple, but which has left me stymied for the past few days. (I can stare at a bookshelf for more than 5 minutes while debating which title to read -- now I have to select five blogs?)

Although I'm probably not supposed to, I (re)nominate My Individual Take, because Jill's the one who got me started on all of this, and her thoughts about books are often so different from my own that she makes me reevaluate some of my ideas.

A Reader's Journal, because she reads so voraciously and expansively

A Commonplace Book, because of Julius Lester's magnificent writing and reflections, as well as the stunning photos

Oz and Ends, for the analysis and excellent introduction to contemporary YA fantasy/sf

(I know that’s only four – choosing a fifth required one decision too many...)

And yet another challenge...

2007-03-16T23:02:00.000-07:00

Just went over to look at A Reader's Journal and discovered she's found another intriguing reading challenge -- 15 Books in 15 Decades . Her rationale for joining echoes my own -- the need for an extra push to try books I might not otherwise read, with the added incentive that the selections can overlap with those from other challenges. Right now, I'm going for an unimpressive 6, mostly because my current read is George Waller's Kidnap: The Story of the Lindbergh Case from 1961, and the TBR challenge includes titles from several of the other decades. So, the current list is

2000s - Hitler's Daughter
1990s - Reviving Ophelia
1980s - Name of the Rose
1970s - Transformations
1960s - Kidnap
1950s - The Case of the Grinning Gorilla (one of the only two ESG Perry Mason books I've never read, and it's sitting tantalizingly on the bottom shelf...)

Tequila Worm (TBR challenge)

2007-03-16T17:41:00.000-07:00

The Tequila Worm, Viola Canales's first book for children, is part of the recent trend in publishing semi-autobiographical novels chronicling the experiences of Latino immigrants. The story follows Sofia, a bright teenager, who receives an opportunity to attend a private school on a full scholarship. As she debates whether to accept the scholarship, she also reexamines her own life and, accordingly, the culture in which she’s been raised. Part of the story, then, is about growing up Mexican-American; part is simply about being a teenager and about life with a close family and friends. On both levels, it was a rich and rewarding read.

In Interpreting Literature with Children, Shelby Wolf cites a study that "found four sociopolitical themes in Latino/a literature for children: '1) Border crossing, 2) Coming home, 3) Healing, community, and spirituality, and 4) Shaping language and being shaped by language'" (Carmen Medina and Patricia Enciso, "Some words are messengers/Hay palabras mesaneras," New Advocate 15 [2002]). That quartet of concerns runs through Canales: Sofia (and it's probably not coincidence that the character's name means wisdom) is dealing with two sets of border crossings: her own, to go off to the different world of a private boarding school, and her best friend Berta's, as she prepares for a quinceanera, crossing the border from childhood. Sofia's decision to help Berta with the preparations also lays the foundation for her own journey, but she never forgets her home and, indeed, returns for the novel's final scenes.

The importance of community – and various types of beliefs – is an integral part of the story. Religion is also used to establish one of the initial culture clashes through some carefully selected description. At the Episcopalian boarding school, Sofia shares a 12 x 15 dorm room with another student, who has decorated her half with "a framed, signed Chagall print . . . . a small Persian rug . . . [and] a cut-glass vase with pink and yellow roses.” In Sofia's half, her mother sets up a home altar with "a ten-inch statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe with lightbulb and cord, [a] glow-in-the-dark rosary, a framed print of the Guardian Angel, and my late grandmother's favorite saint, the black San Martin de Porres. It was so old and badly chipped that his face was chalk white and his body rotated in three broken parts on a thin wire. Last was a twelve-inch bleeding Christ on a wooden cross.”

As for language, the novel is all about story, from the opening chapter (“The Storyteller’s Bag”) through the gifts Sofia exchanges with her roommate (“I gave her the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, saying it would give her a taste of the magical; she gave me a book of poems by Emily Dickinson, saying it would give me a taste of the Northeast”) to the final chapters, as Sofia discovers her own voice as a storyteller.

Quotable quotes

2007-03-02T18:27:00.000-08:00

First post after (forced) migration to the new blogger -- (oh, the horror of change...)

I just received Celebrating Children's Books: Essays in Children's Literature in Honor of Zena Sutherland (eds. Betsy Hearne and Marilyn Kaye) in a batch of used books. It's a collection of short pieces primarily by children's book authors, and, as such, is filled with memorable passages. Here are a few of the more quotable ones, in order of appearance. (I'm still reading...)

Plot is not the same as story. Plot, say, is the road on which we drive our car . . . story is what we see along the way.
--Lloyd Alexander, "The Grammar of Story"

We [writers] are all at the mercy of the quality of the imagination we inherit. The book can never be better than that.
--Susan Cooper, "Escaping into Ourselves"

[On bibliotherapy and problem books]
But often we want to forget, to swathe our seminal awareness in comfort. And we present children with cozy books about divorce and desertion and death and sex, promising them that, in the end, everything can be made all right. Thus we drown eternal human questions with contemporary bromides, all mechanics and sanctimony, filled with a ruinous complacency.
--Paula Fox, "Some Thoughts on Imagination in Children's Literature"

[ditto]
While we are thinking about the application of books to readers, I would like to point out how this particular brokerage seems to be conducted only with children's books; one does not rush to give Anna Karenina to friends who are committing adultery, or minister to distressed old age with copies of King Lear.
--Jill Paton Walsh, "The Art of Realism"

More to come...

Classics Challenge #5

2007-02-14T19:08:00.000-08:00

I started two other books -- Oliver Twist and Phineas Redux -- and decided the first was too grim and the second too late in Trollope's writing (and too focused on men in politics) for a February read. John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps (available online at Project Gutenberg) was another title on my list, and reached to the top after a friend who teaches detective fiction graciously responded to my questions about Buchan's literary significance. He explained that Buchan moved the spy/suspense story toward greater realism in style and structure (as contrasted with someone like E. Philips Oppenheim) and was among the first to introduce such conventions as the hero pursuing a malefactor while himself being pursued by police. According to my friend Randy, 39 Steps is also "the book that establishes how one can truly disguise oneself, by BECOMING another person. No false whiskers or putty noses." The blurb on the library's edition of The Thirty-Nine Steps also claims that "During the First World War, [Buchan] became recognized as a great writer, both for his History of the War and his romances, including Thirty-Nine Steps . . . His writing showed superb narrative skill combined with knowledge of facts and background."

All of that leaves me feeling I should have taken much more from my reading of this novel. It was mildly entertaining, and, if I hadn't known there were supposed to be multiple plot twists, it probably would have been more suspenseful than it was.

Thanks to Randy's comments, I was more aware of the use of disguise and noticed that Buchan does employ it for multiple characters and also discusses the accompanying mindset. In the excerpted scene below, the protagonist, Hannay, adopts the role of a surveyor; Buchan includes a detailed description of the physical and mental changes involved, illustrating Hannay's gradual change in understanding of the concept (a change mirrored in the way later characters employ disguise).

I borrowed [the old surveyor's] spectacles and filthy old hat; stripped off coat, waistcoat, and collar, and gave him them to carry home; borrowed, too, the foul stump of a clay pipe as an extra property. . . .

Then I set to work to dress for the part. I opened the collar of my shirt--it was a vulgar blue-and-white check such as ploughmen wear--and revealed a neck as brown as any tinker's. I rolled up my sleeves, and there was a forearm which might have been a blacksmith's, sunburnt and rough with old scars. I got my boots and trouser-legs all white from the dust of the road, and hitched up my trousers, tying them with string below the knee. Then I set to work on my face. With a handful of dust I made a water-mark round my neck, the place where Mr Turnbull's Sunday ablutions might be expected to stop. I rubbed a good deal of dirt also into the sunburn of my cheeks. A roadman's eyes would no doubt be a little inflamed, so I contrived to get some dust in both of mine, and by dint of vigorous rubbing produced a bleary effect. . . .

My boots did not satisfy me, but by dint of kicking among the stones I reduced them to the granite-like surface which marks a roadman's foot-gear. Then I bit and scraped my finger-nails till the edges were all cracked and uneven. The men I was matched against would miss no detail. I broke one of the bootlaces and retied it in a clumsy knot, and loosed the other so that my thick grey socks bulged over the uppers. Still no sign of anything on the road. The motor I had observed half an our ago must have gone home.

My toilet complete, I took up the barrow and began my journeys to and from the quarry a hundred yards off.

I remember an old scout in Rhodesia, who had done many queer things in his day, once telling me that the secret of playing a part was to think yourself into it. You could never keep it up, he said, unless you could manage to convince yourself that you were it. So I shut off all other thoughts and switched them on to the road-
mending. I thought of the little white cottage as my home, I recalled the years I had spent herding on Leithen Water, I made my mind dwell lovingly on sleep in a box-bed and a bottle of cheap whisky. . . .

Earlier in the story, Hannay paid more attention to exteriors when constructing his disguises; later, the book will move toward the other extreme.

Much of the plot left me thinking I should be watching it as a Matt Damon movie: dramatic chases alternate with brief interludes in hiding at various quaint or ununsual locales, interspersed with the occasional explosion, unexpected corpse, or violent confrontation. Although the novel seems quite plot-driven, this page has an interesting set of questions examining the hero and ideologies in the work.

Classics challenge #2, 3, and 4 -- postscript

2007-02-10T20:27:00.000-08:00

(Supplement to the previous post about my three most recent titles for the 2007 Winter Classics Challenge . . .)

Jill at Individual Take has written one of her wonderfully comprehensive entries for Mary Barton, with summary, extract, commentary, and links; her other reflections on the work and its author are here (gender issues and the canon) and here (initial responses to the early chapters). She has also just added her insights on Scarlet Pimpernel in its various permutations, again with relevant links. As always, her comments are well worth reading.

Since I knew Jill would cover those works so well, I didn't worry about supplementary information for Elizabeth Gaskell or Baroness Orczy. A Bell for Adano does merit a couple of links, however. This is what appears to be a graduate student's study for a library science course in bibliography; it links to the original cover image and includes excerpts from contemporary reviews about 3/4 down the page, followed by discussion of the novel's reception over time and a critical essay. Among other things, I learned that John Hershey had written an article for LIFE magazine ("AMGOT at Work: An American Major brings some American democracy to his job of administering a small Sicilian town," August 23, 1943) which served as the genesis of the novel.

Finally, over at Dolce Bellezza, another blogger recently discovered A Bell for Adano, found it "one of the loveliest books [she's] ever read," and comments on its appeal for her.

2007 TBR Challenge #1: Love, Ruby Lavender

2007-02-09T21:25:00.000-08:00

Sadly, the cover illustration (by the very talented Marla Frazee, whose Roller Coaster should be considered a must-see picture book) is probably the best part of this novel. It's not a bad story (and, indeed, received a starred review in SLJ and was listed as an ALA Notable), but it's also not an outstanding one; readable, yet a trifle forced in spots.

The book is about Coping with Death -- Ruby Lavender's grandfather died a year ago, and the effects are still evident in Ruby's world, especially when her grandmother, a constant in Ruby's life, decides to leave their small Mississippi town and stay with relatives in Hawaii indefinitely. In her absence, Ruby makes a new friend, cares for three chickens that she and her grandmother saved from slaughter after the sale of an egg ranch, waits for their eggs to hatch, and continues her quarrel with another girl whose father died the same time as Ruby's grandfather (the latter a technique used to allow author Deborah Wiles to keep bringing up the death and adding a bit more information about the circumstances each time). Letters between Ruby and her grandmother -- set off in a different font -- appear at the beginning and end of numerous chapters, providing additional commentary on situations in the story. Ultimately, of course, Ruby and her antagonist reach a truce of sorts and Ruby also finds peace regarding her grandfather's death.

The story has a few creative touches -- I enjoyed the chickens with their distinctive personalities -- and recognition of the important issue of taking on unnecessary guilt when a loved one dies. The characters seemed a little underdeveloped, however, sometimes designed to advance the plot rather than stand as fleshed-out personalities in their own right, and the story seemed occasionally to want to teach rather than to portray life or entertain. As this excerpt illustrates, the prose is easy to follow, fairly streamlined, but not up to the quality of Rylant or MacLachlan:

The back meadow shimmered with sound. Ruby and Miss Eula walked through the flowering meadow grass, holding hands in the last wash of daylight, listening to the zizz, zizz, zizz of life around them. The moon was beginning to rise, a crescent moon, the color of old teeth.

(I still can't figure out why Wiles chose that last comparison, especially for the final image in a paragraph designed to establish the scene as pleasant and relaxing, but do like the flow of "holding hands in the last wash of daylight.")

My copy is a paperback that demonstrates just how much marketing is now involved with children's books. Not only does it contain a "Grandmother-Granddaughter Reading Group Guide," a list of book-related activities ("Ruby drew a map of [her hometown] . . . Draw a map of your own town"), but it also has an interview with the book's author conducted by its fictitious narrator Ruby Lavender, along with the first chapter of Wiles's "next hilarious and heartfelt coming-of-age novel."

Classics Challenge, #2, 3, and 4

2007-02-09T19:48:00.000-08:00

Elizabeth Gaskell - Mary Barton
Baroness Orczy - Scarlet Pimpernel
John Hershey - A Bell for Adano (substitution for Oliver Twist)

Random thoughts: I hadn't planned on writing about these three books as a group -- or, for that matter, even reading Adano for the classics challenge. A chance reference to it in a crossword puzzle reminded me that my mother's copy was on the bookshelves. Glancing at the foreword, I was intrigued by the following:

You see, the theories about administering occupied territories all turned out to be just theories, and in fact the thing which determined whether we Americans would be successful in that toughest of all jobs was nothing more or less than the quality of the men who did the administering. . . .

America is the international country. . . . That is where we are lucky. No other country has such a fund of men who speak the languages of the lands we must invade, who understand the ways and have listened to their parents sing the folk songs and have tasted the wine of the land on the palate of their memories....

Hershey seemed to touch on so many timely issues that I wanted to try the novel, to see how the issue of US military in occupied territory in WWII would be presented (though it's not a subject I'm going to discuss in the entry).

Thinking back, it seems as if all three books deal, in some fashion, with power and authority figures, and with their potential for good or ill. Although all three use outside narrators, each positions the reader in a slightly different relationship to those in power. Mary Barton generally aligns us with Mary's perspective and that of the working class characters surrounding her; Bell's narrator is clearly sympathetic towards Major Joppolo, the Italian immigrant and former government clerk who is now in charge of overseeing affairs (in more ways than one) in the occupied town of Adano on the Italian coast. Pimpernel frequently shifts perspective early in the novel, but stays with Lady Marguerite for much of the later chapters, generally favoring whichever angle allows inflating the tension and elevating the Scarlet Pimpernel and his dazzling achievements. Like many other literary superluminaries (Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe), the Pimpernel is almost always seen through others' admiring eyes, further magnifying his exploits and skill.

In all three novels, the antagonists also represent a larger force -- Chauvelin, the French revolutionary government; John and Harry Carson, the mill owners and manufacturers who band together to make decisions affecting their workers' lives and welfare; General Marvin, military bureaucracy. Their position allows them to wield sufficient power to damage or destroy -- and occasionally end -- the lives of others, including those who should instead be receiving their protection. At some point, each of these men seems to respond out of ego and/or vindictiveness -- exacerbated by an inability to see their victims as people instead of as obstructions. Each novel has a different resolution: Gaskell's Mary Barton brings Carson to some recognition of the sufferings of his workers and a happy (and romantic) ending for the title character; Hershey -- the other novelist writing about a contemporaneous situation and social problems -- opts for the reverse: General Marvin triumphs, and Joppolo ends up en route to Algiers, although the acquisition of the title object at least implies some hope for Adano's future; Chauvelin is ignominiously defeated by the audacious and ever-resourceful Pimpernel.

Two of the novels are written by women, and although at first glance Mary Barton and The Scarlet Pimpernel may seem wildly dissimilar -- one highlighting the plight of the working poor, the other proclaiming that noblemen are, indeed, noble men, and that all that satin and lace merely disguises brilliant minds and dashing young men who live for daring rescues -- there are also some striking similarities. Gaskell and Orczy season their plots with romances, and with somewhat similar ones, at that. In the course of both novels, a woman comes to the realization that she does, indeed, love the man who is devoted to her -- but this discovery occurs under circumstances that prevent her from declaring or demonstrating her love. To complicate matters further, the woman manages (because of her relationship with another man) to place her beloved in jeopardy, then races frantically against time in order to save his life, finding her goal impeded by weather and the complications of travel on water. Unexpected delays heighten her fears until, after witnessing her beloved's trial (literal or metaphorical), she reveals the intensity of her love; the man is saved, the woman swoons, and romance begins (or resumes).

Adano, written by a man, takes a much more prosaic approach to gender relationships and love. There are no scenes where men burn with undying passion as in the following from Pimpernel (which also serves as an example of Orczy's style, since it seems only fair to include an excerpt from her work):

She looked divinely pretty as she stood there in the moonlight, with the fur-cloak sliding off her beautiful shoulders, the gold embroidery on her dress shimmering around her, her childlike blue eyes turned up fully at him.

He stood for a moment, rigid and still, but for the clenching of his hand against the stone balustrade of the terrace.

. . . His whole attitude was one of intense longing -- a veritable prayer for that confidence, which her foolish pride withheld from him. . . .

. . . Had she but turned back then, and looked out once more on to the rose-lit garden, she would have seen that which would have made her own sufferings seem but light and easy to bear -- a strong man, overwhelmed with his own passion and his own despair. Pride had given way at last, obstinacy was gone: the will was powerless. He was but a man madly, blindly, passionately in love, and as soon as her light footsteps had died away within the house, he knelt down upon the terrace steps, and in the very madness of his love he kissed one by one the places where her small foot had trodden, and the stone balustrade there, where her tiny hand had rested last.

(And isn't that a romantic note on which to end?)

Another reading challenge and list...

2007-01-27T20:40:00.000-08:00

Since I missed the deadline for the Chunkster Challenge, which would actually have allowed me to list only The Name of the Rose (a title I'm determined to tackle), I'm going to try for the 2007 TBR challenge, which requires 12 (!) books be posted by 1/31. Here's my somewhat eclectic list (most of which won't be tackled until after the Classics Challenge):

summer reading
1. The Name of the Rose
2. Reviving Ophelia
-------------
faster fare (juveniles):
3. Black Duck (hasn't quite been on the TBR list 6 months, but will be by the time I get to it)
4. Tequila Worm (ditto)
5. A Certain Slant of Light
6. Love, Ruby Lavender
7. Hitler's Daughter
-------
miscellany:
8. Reshaping of Everyday Life
9. Floating Girl
10. Stravaganza: City of Light (which will also entail rereading Stravaganza: City of Masks)
11. School Stories (19th century juvenile)
12. Larry (ditto)
-------
alternates (because what's life without some flexibility?):
1. Scarlet Pimpernel (if overlap with the classics challenge is allowed)
2. Life of Pi

Mary Barton, pt. 1

2007-01-26T18:23:00.000-08:00

I'm currently reading Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton for the Classics Challenge, and posting thoughts on the first twenty chapters. (Jill, have you started it yet?) [Correction: Make that the first ten chapters; must've been seeing double when I looked at the roman numerals in the chapter heading...]

Random thoughts: The preface makes it evident this is a novel of social justice, "to give some utterance to the agony which from time to time convulses [the Manchester factory workers]," to illustrate (and perhaps bring about some means to alleviate) their plight.

Oh! 'tis hard, 'tis hard to be working
The whole of the live-long day,
When all the neighbors about one
Are off to their jaunts and play.

The above, a Manchester song which serves as an epigraph for chapter 1, introduces two of Gaskell's techniques. Although her preface refers to the workers as "dumb," or voiceless, Gaskell incorporates songs and poems giving them a voice and reiterating (or baldly stating) their hardships. Her use of Manchester dialect adds verisimilitude and again acknowledges the distinctive voice of her subject.

As does the song, Gaskell frequently constructs contrasting scenes and situations. The opening paragraph even speaks of "the effect of contrast in these [. . .] thoroughly rural fields, with the busy, bustling manufacturing town [of Manchester]." The garden in this pleasant rural environment grows "in most republican and indiscriminate order" and all things flourish: "the young green leaves . . . almost visibly fluttered into life." The main characters (and first mention of moral dangers of factory life) are introduced into this happy setting, but death (of the first Mary Barton, the title character's mother) arrives almost as soon as they return to the city. This tragedy brings about more contrasts: after the death of his wife, John Barton is "a changed man," a situation exacerbated by economics:

At times it is a bewildering thing to the poor weaver to see his employer removing from house to house, each one grander than the last . . . concerts are still crowded by the subscribers, the shops for expensive luxuries still find daily customers, while the workman loiters away his unemployed time in watching these things and thinking of the pale, uncomplaining wife at home, and the wailing children asking in vain for enough of food, -- of the sinking health, of the dying life of those near and dear to him. The contrast is too great. (emphasis added)

The situation worsens after a mill fire: the employers have "happy family evenings" and pleasant leisure while the workers' "family music was hungry wails [and] the very closest bonds of nature were snapt."

Mary's aspiring suitors provide yet another contrast. They are Harry Carson, the son of the owner of the mill that burned, and Jem Wilson, the son of one of Carson's factory workers. Mentions of the former are frequently accompanied by authorial comments foreshadowing disaster from the relationship, an idea perhaps reinforced via the differences between Mary's two girlfriends. Margaret, friend of Jem's family, seems to embody all positive virtues, while the deceitful Sally, who helps Carson in wooing Mary, is "vulgar-minded to the last degree."

Stylistically, Gaskell occasionally adopts an intrusive narrative voice to reinforce her points ("And when I hear, as I have heard, of the sufferings and privations of the poor . . . can I wonder that many of them, in such times of misery and destitution, spoke and acted with ferocious precipitation?")

Miscellaneous connections to other works/situations: an early reference to "an acuteness and intelligence of countenance, which has often been noticed in a manufacturing population" calls up memories of the Lowell mill girls and their writings and interest in education; the movement for shorter work hours also parallels events in the Lowell mills; there's an intriguing statement -- italicized in Gaskell's text -- that "'far th' greater part o' the accidents as comed in, happened in th' last two hours o' work' when people were tired and careless" (which the editor's notes attribute to Lord Ashley "during the debate of the Factory Bill, 1844"), an argument I don't remember encountering in the Ten-Hour Movement in the US.

Ithaca at last

2007-01-22T21:25:00.000-08:00

Classics Challenge #1: The Odyssey

But come, my friend,
tell us your own story now, and tell it truly.
Where have your rovings forced you?
What lands of men have you seen, what sturdy towns,
what men themselves? Who were wild, savage, lawless?
Who were friendly to strangers, god-fearing men? Tell me,
why do you weep and grieve so sorely when you hear
the fate of the Argives, hear the fall of Troy?
That is the gods' work, spinning threads of death
through the lives of mortal men,
and all to make a song for those to come . . .

-- Robert Fagles' translation of The Odyssey, 8: 641-51

It took Odysseus twenty years to return to Ithaca, so I suppose I shouldn't be dismayed that it took me thirty days to get him there and finish the book. Dorothy Parker once said, "I hate writing. I love having written," and, while "hate" is far too strong, The Odyssey is definitely a book that I'm happier to have read than I was to be reading it -- which is not to say that I didn't enjoy encountering some of the classic epithets ("Dawn with her [perpetually] rose-red fingers"; Hermes, "the giant killer" ...) and experiencing the source rather than a synopsis, especially for the famous clashes with Cyclops and Circe (both of which were far briefer than I expected).

The Fagles translation has been praised for its accessibility, and it is lively and easy to follow. (In his afterword, Fagles quotes Alexander Pope's "Homer makes us hearers," and his poetry preserves this; periodically, I read passages aloud to the cat just to hear the cadence.) Bernard Knox's introduction -- which, in true academic fashion, is more than 10% of a 500+ pg book -- warned me that Odysseus wouldn't show up for quite a while, and, indeed, it took more than 1/3 of the poem before he swept into the story, something else I hadn't expected, (especially having just seen the movie with Armand Assante, which emphasizes the travels along with the love story). Knox's comments also provided a framework for interpretation: I was anticipating a tale about a journey, but Knox suggests that hospitality (without which, he notes, travel would not be possible) is a recurring concept in the work; the different receptions given to travelers (especially Odysseus and Telemachus) provide continuity throughout the narrative. Focusing on that element was especially helpful during the last third of the story, when Odysseus was back in Ithaca but not yet truly home.

From the Stacks #5: A. S. Byatt's Possession

2007-01-16T20:49:00.000-08:00

Wow. Possession was such a magnificent book. My biggest regret is not reading it during the summer when there would be t i m e to double back and explore it at leisure. It's the type of novel where ideas are played out and interlocked on so many levels.

Random thoughts: The book begins and ends with the discovery of secret letters and with unlawful possession of same. The first letter starts the plot in action; the second resolves the remaining complications. (And neither letter ever reaches its intended destination.) The first letter also starts the chain of ideas associated with possession, some of which include:

physical possession -- of various letters (Roland's, Maud's relatives), of objects in collections (especially institutional, with limited access and restricted use of material), of women in the 19th century (and their limited rights of possessions, even of their own children, leading to Christabel's flight)
material possessions -- as in wealth: Cropper's excess, especially, contrasted with the more limited financial resources of the British institutions; in general, Americans seem to be presented as wealthier and more assertive than their British counterparts, leading to issues about national claims and about the marketability of artifacts, the struggle between collectors, scholars, and national heritage
intellectual property/possessing copyright -- controlling access to ideas, via copyright or related issues
obsession/possession -- with another's life (academically or romantically) -- or with any type of passion, actually (Cropper's desire to own all things Ash)
spiritual/seances -- being possessed by spirits, Ash's "Mummy Possest"
possessing knowledge -- again, multiple levels: Roland and Maud's desire to possess information about Ash and Christabel; Ash's continual quest to possess knowledge of the world; Swammerdam, the scientist Ash studied and wrote about, in search of knowledge of the microscopic world (and perhaps the other extreme, Christabel's desire to possess the type of knowledge gained from seances, of the other world)
sexual possession -- ("an outdated phrase," to quote Byatt, and the last direct reference to the word in the novel)

(Note: spoilers in this paragraph:) Another idea woven through the book is not quite the opposite of possession, but perhaps a tempering of it: openness rather than secrecy, choosing not to closet or close oneself or something else away. Maud opens herself to Roland, physically and emotionally, at the book's conclusion, one of the elements contributing to a happy ending. That, in turn, contrasts with the tragedy of Ash's wife, who kept herself closed too long, until she could neither open to Ash or write truly in her journal. Throughout the story, openness and sharing -- ideas, information, access -- lead to advances in knowledge. The sequence begins with Roland telling Maud about the letter (which has remained undiscovered partly because it's in an archive with limited access); only at the end, when everyone shares information (foiling a plot hatched in secret and planned for the dark of night), is there a satisfactory conclusion for all.

There's so much more I'd like to write, but the thing I don't possess right now is the time to do it. (I actually finished the novel two weeks ago and am halfway through The Odyssey for the next challenge, but finding moments to order my thoughts enough to comment about them has been almost impossible.)

Best reading from 2006

2006-12-31T17:56:00.000-08:00

Most of my reading for 2006 was children's and YA lit, to stay abreast of the field, and most of it was recorded in a spiral notebook rather than online. I usually rate books on a 1-4 star system. The following are titles that received 4 stars.

Picture books:
Joyce Sidman, Song of the Water Boatmen and Other Pond Poems, il. Beckie Prange. (2006 Caldecott Honor)
David Wiesner, Flotsam.
Mini Grey, The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon

Children's/YA fiction:
Julius Lester, Day of Tears: A Novel in Voices (2006 Coretta Scott King Award)
Megan Whalen Turner, King of Attolia
Julie Hearn, The Minister's Daughter
Alan Armstrong, Whittington (2006 Newbery honor)
Nikki Grimes, Jazmin's Notebook

Juvenile non-fiction:
Elizabeth Partridge, This Land Was Made for You and Me: The Life and Songs of Woody Guthrie

Graphic novel
Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

Adult fiction
Naomi Novik, Her Majesty's Dragon

Adult non-fiction
Charles Fishman, The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works--and How It's Transforming the American Economy

The Minister's Daughter

2006-12-23T17:28:00.000-08:00

Jill at My Individual Take mentioned blogging about Julie Hearn's The Minister's Daughter (one of our book group's selections), motivating me to write my thoughts, too.

The book in brief: In 1645 England, a minister's daughter schemes to conceal the truth about her pregnancy by attributing it to witchcraft, implicating the village healer and her young granddaughter.

Notable plot or structural elements: The narrative employs two perspectives: the first is that of the minister's other daughter, manipulated by her pregnant sister and telling their part of the story almost 50 years later; the second is an omniscient narrator, primarily focused on the healing woman and her granddaughter Nell. The majority of the book is told from the latter point-of-view and thus frequently shows the consequences of the daughters' actions. The omniscient narrator also allows the introduction of the fantastic, another element that sets the book apart, for this is a Britain where piskies and fair folk really do roam the countryside and the human inhabitants either ignore, deny, or accommodate them.

Random thoughts (partly inspired by and probably incorporating ideas from the group's discussion): During the book discussion, someone questioned the rationale behind blending fantasy with history. Pondering that made me aware of how much of the book is about perception -- about how one's understanding of the world changes according to what one sees or does not see (deliberately or otherwise): in other words, the same attitudes the inhabitants exhibit toward the resident piskies.

The concept even extends to interpreting the book's title, The Minister's Daughter. Which daughter? Is it Grace, the perpetual deceiver, and is this then a tale of the ills wrought by those who lie for their own gain and about the falseness of appearance? Or is it Patience, the sister who slowly perceives the truth, and whose discovery of her own gullibility (and misperception) taints the rest of her life and poisons her feelings for her sibling? Even the British title, The Merrybegot, contains the same type of referential ambiguity: looked at one way, it's the story of Nell, a Merrybegot; shift the focus and it's about Grace's pregnancy, for her unborn child is also a Merrybegot. (Additionally, a crucial plot point rests on Patience's misunderstanding of a reference to a Merrybegot -- and Grace's recognition of same and use of the truth to aid her deception.)

Almost every major event involves perception, misunderstanding, and/or deception (and the characters most frequently guilty of the latter two are the minister and his daughters). It would be interesting to graph the major characters' actions in this light. Patience, as noted before, moves from generally mis-perceiving situations to understanding; in the other household, Nell's granny follows an opposite path, from clarity toward oblivion.

As mentioned, the novel employs a dual perspective, and it's the omniscient narrator who -- while pinning the book firmly to history through the introduction of real figures such as Matthew Hopkins and Charles II -- also suggests that with a little tweaking our perception of history might be able to incorporate a little enchantment, just a few piskies who might be there or might merely be a trick of the eye.

And, of course, locating the story in the 1640s extends the idea of the importance of perception to the world beyond the novel -- the witchhunts, where being viewed as a witch could mean life or death, and the struggle between competing politics and religious beliefs, again strife caused by differing perceptions about worship, divinity, and kings.

There's a telling moment early in the story where the church (now under the control of the new, rigidly Puritan minister) is described. The two paragraphs not only accentuate items concerned with seeing but also twice introduce the concept of changing perceptions through the use of religious trappings:

"Nearly everyone remembers when there was stained glass in the church window, all lit up on sunny days, like little bits of heaven. There was an altar, too, with a statue of the Virgin Mary, a tall candle always burning, and niches where folk could leave roses, or apples, or locks of hair from a sickly child in need of the Lady's blessing. None of those things are here anymore. They were papist trappings, according to the minister, and no great loss to anyone. There is a plain table now where the altar used to be and nothing at all in the windows except a rectangular view of the heavens themselves, be they cloudy, fair, or bucketing rain.

"No one knows what has happened to the beautiful statue of Mary. Some claim it was rescued, under cover of darkness, and is standing, still, in some private chapel or secret chamber. Others will tell you it was carted deep into the wood and thrown among brambles, where it lies, facedown, weeping bright blue tears. But those who understand the way of the world say it got smashed to smithereens with a mallet."

This, in turn, suggests further questions about religion -- is it based primarily on perception: on whether one sees the Virgin Mary, the bare altar, or the piskies as truth? Is it a matter of where one looks, what one looks for? The book evades deeper exploration of these issues; perhaps the closest it comes is in the positive depiction of wiccan precepts. Although some members of the group saw it as critical of the church or Christianity, others felt that it favored tolerance -- an openness to multiple perspectives.

(That seems an awkward place to end the commentary, but if I don't stop now, I'll never finish Possession by the end of December...)

Addenda Jill's just added her take on the book, with an interesting critique and several informative links.

Joining the Winter Classics Challenge

2006-12-16T21:48:00.000-08:00

Since hearing about the Winter Classics Challenge from Jill of Individual Take was one of my main motivations for starting a blog, I'm definitely going to try it. My five titles are

1. The Odyssey - Homer
2. Mary Barton - Elizabeth Gaskell
3. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
4. Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy
5. something by Trollope
5a. possible substitutions for some of the above:
Pickwick Papers - Dickens; 39 Steps - Buchan

For years, I've been telling myself I'd read The Odyssey to better understand its influence on so many subsequent narratives, but never could manage to sit down and get through it. I'm hoping that committing to the challenge will provide enough incentive to complete it (especially since the Fagles translation has received so much praise).

I've added Mary Barton after seeing it on Jill's list, and Oliver Twist because the eponymous heroine of Katherine Paterson's Lyddie loves it so. The Scarlet Pimpernel is there for something lighter, a filler; the Trollope title will remain open until I figure out which of the ones on the bookcase seems the best choice. The two alternatives are other works that I keep hearing about but have never tried.

From the Stacks #4

2006-12-15T21:13:00.000-08:00

I still haven't tackled Allende or made it beyond the first chapter of Possession, but did manage two children's books that have been sitting on the shelves for more than a year...

Up from Jericho Tel

This must be one of E. L. Konigsburg's most unusual works, beginning with the premise: the ghost of Tallulah Bankhead recruits two children to discover what became of her favorite diamond necklace, stolen from her body the night she died. The children, loners united partly by their common residence in a trailer park, meet with Bankhead after being pulled below ground in a clearing they've christened Jericho Tel and which they've been using as a burial ground for dead wildlife. They are then sent forth -- invisible, but corporeal -- to various locales to investigate the friends who were with Tallulah the night of the theft.

Published in 1986, Jericho Tel is in some ways a forerunner of works like The View From Saturday (1996), with its use of two very dissimilar -- and distinctly individual -- children uniting for a common cause; it's also reminiscent of A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver (1973) with the spirit of a powerful female trying to resolve the loose ends of her life. And, like Konigsburg's first Newbery winner (and second novel), From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (1967), it pairs an overly practical, mathematically inclined boy with a bossy girl who longs for more attention; both grow closer while hiding from adults and uncovering a secret about an object associated with a famous person.

There are some wonderfully quirky elements in the book, such as the weathergrams ("a poem of ten words or less that a person writes on a plain brown paper bag and hangs on a tree . . . . [It] is rubbed by the wind, faded by the sun, washed by the rain and becomes part of the world"), which the children use in lieu of gravestones in their burial ground. (This site has more on weathergrams, including a few examples.)

Like Konigsburg's other books, Jericho Tel privileges intelligence, individuality, and achievement, and occasionally flaunts conventions. Although the introduction of the fantasy element is somewhat jarring (as several reviewers noted), the tone of the book and innovative approach made it a delightful, enriching read.

Necessary Roughness

Like her Finding My Voice, Marie G. Lee's Necessary Roughness is set in a town in Minnesota that has only one Asian-American family -- that of the teen-aged protagonist. Although Chan Kim is not pleased when his family moves from LA, he gradually makes friends and begins to adjust to small-town life, especially after being recruited for the football team. As does the protagonist in Voice, Chan struggles against his family's rigid rules and high academic expectations, which often clash with his own desires and interfere with his ability to fit in socially, a situation complicated by the racism of some of his peers. And, again like Voice, he has a talented sister who excels academically and is (for the most part) better able to comply with their parents' wishes.

In the use of sports as bonding and the problem of too much roughness on the playing field (from which comes the title), Lee imitates Chris Crutcher's model, though not as successfully. Like Crutcher, she incorporates a few shocking events into the plot, but doesn't seem able to resolve them for maximum effect. It's a fast read, and certainly not a bad book, but not an outstanding one.

Stacks challenge #3: Plain & Fancy

2006-11-28T18:45:00.000-08:00

Brief thoughts
Inspired by others tackling non-fiction, I picked Susan Burrows Swan's Plain & Fancy: American Women and Their Needlework, 1650-1850. Packed with illustrations, the book combines slight social history with a detailed study of the types of needlework practiced in America over two centuries. Swan was a curator at Winterthur and, judging by that background and the few sites that have reviewed her titles, her intended audience has far more experience with needlework than I do; my interest was in the social and cultural history.

One of the book's strengths is its heavy use of primary sources -- diaries, advertisements, letters, and, of course, the needlework itself -- allowing glimpses of people and institutions. Swan touches on the progression of needlework in various female academies, changing trends in fashions, and the gradual deterioration in skill over the centuries, with an admitted emphasis on decorative, rather than practical, sewing. There are rare flashes of humor, as when she describes "a sprightly picture, probably intended as a mourning picture, by Lucy Nye . . . [who] apparently had no one to mourn, so instead of a name on the tomb, she substituted a cheerful verse." The text is brief and accessible enough to make it fairly easy reading, though the book's design is occasionally an impediment. (Not all illustrations are on -- or near -- the pages where they're discussed; new terms are followed by the phrase "see Glossary", sometimes accompanying a discussion that repeats information from that source, other times with no supplementary information whatsoever.) Nonetheless, it's a useful, if not essential, reference for studying women's and children's social history (and seems highly regarded by those collecting and researching needlework).

And a related link...
Looking for online commentaries on Plain & Fancy turned up not a review but a dazzling example of social history based on a needlework artifact, Cross-Stitched History: Artistry and Ambition in Christina Arcularius’s Tree of Knowledge Sampler, written by Margaret K. Hofer, curator of decorative arts at the New York Historical Society. It's actually part of the Commonplace: The Interactive Journal of Early American Life site, which, as the title suggests, offers an assortment of articles about American history.

Stacks challenge #2: Anansi Boys

2006-11-25T16:27:00.000-08:00

Continuing with another sf/fantasy title, Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys...

Thoughts while reading (at the 2/3 point):
So far this hasn't inspired the type of note-taking or examination as the Atwood, though it's been equally absorbing (and, at times, laugh-aloud funny). Mostly, I'm enjoying the way Gaiman uses legends and folklore as the basis for his tale. Gaiman also excels at intricate plots: more than one figure who initially seemed to be nothing more than a background element -- something casually introduced only to illuminate the protagonist or add color to a situation -- has instead reappeared in the most surprising situations, advancing the story.

Until Gaiman made it explicit, I'd missed the idea that Spider and Fat Charles were the same person. Now, looking back, I see similar doublings throughout the book:

the dual nature of Anansi (which also reminded me of Gail Haley's illustrations for her account of Anansi in A Story, A Story)
the dual nature of the other gods Fat Charlie visits -- especially through Gaiman's description of the birdwoman (which also calls up images of the Native American trickster figure Raven):

Fat Charlie saw one thing with his eyes, and he saw something else with his mind, and in the gulf between the two things, madness waited. . . .
. . . while he knew that he was seeing a bird, mad-eyed, ragged-feathered, bigger than any eagle . . . its feathers the color of slate overlaid with an oilslick sheen, making a dark rainbow of purples and greens, he really only knew that for an instant, somewhere in the very back of his mind. What he saw with his eyes was a woman with raven-black hair, standing where his idea of a bird had been.

the hidden room in Grahame Coats's office -- thus making two rooms in one (and reminiscent of Gaiman's children's books, most notably Coraline with its doubled worlds)
Coats himself, who (at this point, anyway) has two identities he's been maintaining for some time -- one man, two names (And is his surname also an indication that one identity is a sheddable layer?)
the cruise boat, which also has two names -- Squeak Attack, formerly Sunny Archipelago (and I still don't get that joke...)

Belatedly wondering whether it's also noteworthy that one of the first abilities attributed to Fat Charlie's father is his ability to rename people, so they essentially have two identities, their original name and that bestowed by him, and/or whether it's coincidence or significant that Charlie has two romantic interests, Rosie and Daisy, both of whom possess floral names.

Quick comments after finishing the book:

More doublings in the last section, especially for Grahame Coats. Is the shift in the location also a reminder that the Anansi tales travelled from Africa to other locations?

Searching for information about the book on Neil Gaiman's blog also brought up a contemporary twist in writing fiction, one that adds a wrinkle for people who like to analyze names. It's the auctioning off of naming rights for various characters. In this case, the cruise boat was christened by the winner of an eBay auction to support one of Gaiman's favorite organizations, CBDLF (which may explain why the name isn't making sense within the context of the book). (Just found Gaiman's post announcing the winner, which is apparently connected with product promotion -- and another post from him, saying this has been occurring since at least 2000. A slashdot entry provides a bit more context for the name and comments on the concept.)

Finally, since I'm linking to authors' blogs, Julius Lester, who's done some marvelous retellings of American trickster tales in his Uncle Remus series, has just started a blog.

Handmaid's Tale, pt. 2

2006-11-19T15:44:00.000-08:00

Like the movie monster that becomes considerably less frightening once it shows onscreen, the world revealed in the book's second half left its scope more limited than I'd expected. The fault was probably mine: read fifteen years ago, the concept would have seemed more innovative.

Gaps and connecting images are the two areas of books I usually enjoy examining. The color red threads through the novel, from the first tulips to the handmaids' outfits (as well as their training ground, the Red Center) to the color of the lipstick that ultimately reveals Offred and the Commander's illegal activities. (The tell-tale lipstick stain on the hood of the cloak also echoes the blood-stained hood of the corpse in the beginning, "the one red smile . . . the same as the red of the tulips in Serena Joy's garden.") Then there's the narrator's name, Offred -- or Off-red, a succinct statement of her desire to be free from that role and outfit. (Initially, I wondered if that was a too much of a semantic stretch, then found several essays on the book in the Summer 2006 issue of University of Toronto Quarterly, via Project Muse. Not only did others also consider the Of-fred/Off-red interpretation, but Rosemary Sullivan notes that "Robed in red, [Offred] would be an offering" -- or offered -- to the Commander. Another article commented on the various types of wordplay in the novel, or, as Eric Domville phrases it, "there flourishes a paradoxical jouissance in the telling, in the endless playing with words and their meanings and associations." He also mentions something I'd forgotten -- that Offred's previous career was as a librarian.)

Phonetically, "red" is indistinguishable from "read", and reading and reconstructions are another intriguing aspect of the novel. Having seen "Historical Note" in the table of contents, I'd spent most of the book anticipating an author's note providing historical context and commentary to round off the reading, and was caught off guard by what followed (although, in one sense, it does round off and provide historical commentary on the reading . . . ). Is the intent to contrast scholarship/history vs the lived experience? Is it significant that a male scholar presents on a woman's experience -- the difference between Perry Miller (who, I've since learned, was also one of Atwood's professors) trying to recapture the Puritans and Mary Webster (the other person named in the dedication), Atwood's ancestor, a 17th-century woman who survived hanging after being accused of witchcraft?

Indeed, the transmission of history and issues of knowing/not knowing outcomes (incomplete or obscured history?) are also ideas that recur throughout the book: in the Red Centers, films from the past are used to show the wrongs of the past (but take on a different meaning for Offred, who sees her own mother in the footage -- like the Miller/Webster dedication, another example of impersonal history juxtaposed against lived experience). The past is also distorted through the Commanders' versions of history and partially erased through the book burnings and attempts to keep women from literacy (and through the periodic purges of records); the recent past is transmitted in fragments via the Handmaids' whispers or a moment's glance at a photo. Even Offred's history comes piecemeal throughout the book. Is the tale's supposed preservation in disguise on music tapes important -- a reminder of the palimpsestic nature of much of women's writings?

More questions than answers there...

Doubling back to reconsider a few of the elements I'd noticed or questioned from the first half, I find I still don't know if Nick's name was indicative of his role (as tempter or as rescuer, in the nick of time), nor have I reached any conclusions about why every other chapter is titled "Night." A reminder of the darkness of that society? Of the limited times Offred and others like her are unobserved and have some personal freedom (but do they?)? Of the protagonist's changing situation (since most of the changes occur at night -- from solitude to secretive meetings with the Commander to trysts with Nick to departure)? Is "light", the last word of Offred's narrative, an indication of hope?

Handmaid's Tale, pt. 1

2006-11-17T17:07:00.000-08:00

There are right times and wrong times for certain books. I'd planned to start the Stacks challenge with Possession, but it seemed to call for a leisurely reading, antithetical to my current situation -- and then spotted Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, at the back of another shelf. Now I'm halfway through the book and marvelling that it sat so long unread...

Random associations and ramblings on the reading so far:
A conversation with Jill of Individual Take about approaches to reading (based on her gleanings from Well-Educated Mind) prompted me to look for a table of contents with chapter titles. The book's dedication was on the facing page, with one recognizable name -- Perry Miller, whose landmark scholarship redefined our understanding of the Puritans. So far, the Puritan mindset is clearly in evidence in the novel (but more repressive than I remember it in Miller). As for chapter titles, I still haven't figured out why every other chapter is titled "Night". (Is there a time progression I'm missing?)

The middle chapter is called "Birth Day" and is the section I'm reading now. It's filled with references to births:

the birth of Ofwarren's daughter (and, as a contrast, Warren's wife's pseudo-birth?)
Offred's mother's memories of being pregnant (and, as a contrast, the films of pro-choice rallies?)
the opening scene with Offred eating an egg (and describing its shell as "a barren landscape")
is Moira's escape another type of birth?
or Offred's desire to escape and provide a reconstruction of her history (thus giving birth to a narrative?)
and Offred's new relationship with the Commander, via the secret meeting and game of scrabble (during which she spells "zygote", another connection)

Flipping to the front of the book, the first two epigraphs -- the Rachel and Bilbah passage from Genesis and excerpt from Modest Proposal -- deal with too few and too many births (an image repeated in the "Shopping" chapter when the two handmaidens, Offred and Ofglen, look at the doctors executed for having tried to prevent births).

That, in turn, reminded me of one of the earliest Biblical allusions in the book, where Aunt Lydia tells the women "Some of you will fall on dry ground or thorns. Some of you are shallow-rooted": What was originally a metaphor for faith is now one for fecundity. Aside from the obvious connection with some religions' repression of women and attempt to control their reproductive rights, are there other meanings here? I went to Thomas Cahill's Gift of the Jews, hoping to find a passage about the difference between Abraham's new religion with its one (male) god and the pairing of male and female deities that many earlier religions favored. Instead, the book opened to the section where Sarah gives Abraham her handmaiden, Hagar -- the generation preceding Rachel and Bilbah. And then came the realization that the Virgin Mary is sometimes referred to as God's handmaiden. How much is Atwood implicating an entire religious perspective?

Related to that -- and to the potential importance/weight of names: Is it significant that Moira, currently a symbol of hope, takes her name from a Greek goddess (of fate)? So many of the other names (like the Marthas) are clearly Biblical; Offred even makes a point of noting that her Luke wasn't a physician. (And is Nick, her tempter, supposed to bring up the association with Satan's nickname?)

Unbelievably, it took until midway through writing these notes before I realized that Commander wasn't actually a military title (and periodically I wonder if it's coincidence that Serena Joy, who enjoyed freedom and fame speaking out to curtail other women's rights, has a name that sounds vaguely like Schlafly). (And they're even both blonde...) Atwood's handling of the handmaids' names is deft. The first one, Ofglen, I read as merely foreign, mentally pronouncing it "Aufg-len" -- until Ofwayne and Ofwarren were both introduced four paragraphs later and the impact stopped me in mid-chapter.

Back to the book...

Will This Really Reduce the TBR Mountains?

2006-11-15T22:30:00.000-08:00

Heard about the From the Stacks challenge and decided to try it. Two titles that I'm ashamed not to have read sooner and have had on the shelf for years are A.S. Byatt's Possession and Isabel Allende's House of the Spirits. (But I see on "The Incredible Growing List" on overdue books that I'm not the only one still waiting to read Byatt.) For now, those two will constitute the list; I'll decide on the remaining titles later.

Starting off...

2006-10-22T21:44:00.000-07:00

Halfway through Hilary McKay's Caddy Ever After and delaying, because I do not want it to end. That will mean waiting years (forever?) for a new Casson family book.

Odd seems to govern almost everything about McKay's writing. Her characters are quirky, and Caddy Ever After, while magnificent, seems to break all the rules and yet do just what a later volume in a series ought to: it assumes readers know the characters and their backstory and thus spends almost no time on clarifying relationships. Instead, it builds on what readers familiar with the series already know, advancing the family's story and individuals' growth. McKay doesn't, however, follow the series' established narrative formula. Instead of her usual novel told in third person, she experiments with several short stories, each told by one of the Casson children. (I can't think of another series that so blithely breaks the narrative pattern by shifting point-of-view in that fashion.) Nor, so far, does she follow the pattern of making the title character the focus of the story: Caddy has yet to put in an appearance; indeed, she's barely been mentioned.

Other elements remain the same. The Cassons' story is entwined with others'; ever since Sarah and Saffron joined forces in Saffy's Angel, the family's tensions and triumphs have extended to a small group of unorthodox friends. And, as in the first books, finding one's identity, navigating the space between individuality and isolation, overcoming fears, and using the arts and creativity to foster community motivate the characters.