Sheila's comments (member since Oct 07, 2007)

Sheila's comments from the Constant Reader group.

barb I messed up I download the other for the rest of the year and forgot to copy this one - dah!

Sounds to me like Roth is in one of his down periods after finishing a book. I'd liken it more to playing golf - you can't do that in 5 minutes, it requires that you take time out from everything else that is going on in your life to play your round. People who want to play make the effort to find, schedule and pay for the time necessary. So will those of us who like to read. Doom and gloom merchant!

Beej,

No. We've never had forced segration int he way the US has had. But we have all sorts of other stuff. In Scotland when I was growing up we had religious segregation with Catholic and Protestant kids going to different schools. In the village I grew up in everyone went to the one village primary school until I was in my early teens when a family moved into the village who did not go to the same set of secondary schools. The next village to us was more mixed with both catholic and protestant families and both primary schools.
Nowadays, there's no racial segration per se but what we do have is schools which are predominantly made up of children whose first language is not English. But it is purely a question of location, immigration, and economics not a question of forced segregation.

Sherry,
I had the same thoughts - Gardenia was a popular scent then and there was something in his description of the little girls shoes and socks - patent leather was popular inthe late sixties here - although I felt the use of the word "underwear" placed it more modern.

I’d never heard of this author at all and having read the story I’m thinking “nice”, but is that all? No, it is leaving me with numerous unanswered questions.

I’m thinking does he translate well across to the UK? In one sense, I think he really does capture the little girl’s thoughts well, I can believe the narrator is female, her preoccupations with her dress, her hair, her mother’s perfume etc.

Is this story meant to be contemporary? I can’t tell. There is nothing in it that I can hear which sets the period – it could be today, or 1940s. Perhaps the use of the words “barrette” and the product name “Dixie Peach”, perhaps if I knew when Ebony magazine started, but I can’t tell. Does it matter? Well it matters because I’m trying to work out when it is set in order to reckon up how the mother can’t read and write at all. Yes I know there are lots of folks who read and write very poorly today, but very few who would be the age of a 5 year old's mother who can’t at all.

Also I’m trying to work out what the two neighbours were being called – was this slur sexual, racial or occupational? I can’t tell. Does it matter? Well if it is occupational it explains the mother’s preoccupation with her marriage and her daughter’s birth and baptism certificates, to show she is no hooker’s illegitimate child. I can’t see any lesbian comment fitting in anywhere else, so that leaves the racial one. So does the story hinge on a typically American preoccupation with race? Because the author is a man of colour and to me the way the women are referred to and the mother being a member of the Baptist church, these all make me think this family is. I can’t tell from the street references whether there is a colour divide as well as economic divide between the areas served by Seaton Elementary and Walker-Jones.

So why does all this concern me? Well it is because if I treat this as the daughter’s story then I can transfer it anywhere. Although I can’t actually recall my own first day at school after we got there, and I have never had to leave children at a school on their first day, I think the daughter’s story can be related to by anyone. If it is the story of the mother, even if it is told through the daughter’s memory eyes later on, then I need to have some more setting for it to make it feel right and hang together.

So on one level I am left nicely satisfied by this story, but that’s all: on the other, I am left wondering what the situation really was – was the deprivation racial or economic or both?

Oh Beej, that caught me from left court - I'll have to think about that.

When I was just getting ready to sleep last night, amongst all the thoughts going through my head came a thought stemming from the title of this story. Namely, that I was actually in a bit of a holding pattern myself as I wait for the big day. In the story there is the clear reference to holding patterns of the planes over Stansted. But perhaps all 4 characters in the story are themselves in holding patterns: Amber is in a holding pattern re her not talking until the narrator comes (traffic control) awaiting her parents talking with her at some later date; Will is in his own holding pattern, “done with living” but not dead yet, Felix sitting on the bench pondering this pivotal point in his life. And of course, the narrator herself, if you think of here as a soul/angel awaiting transition to the nest afterlife stage, is herself in a holding pattern albeit a working one. And in real life her life in its own holding pattern, as she has put real life on hold to her escapisms of work and books.

Denise, yes that is the film

My understanding is that quite often the Nobel committee give the prize to suppport someone they see as working for peace. Obama seems to have changed the US's attitude to the UN and is seen to be working towards a more inclusive understanding of others. Perhaps that's why.

I've never heard of her either. I asked around my European friends and so far nothing but peaked interest by the announcement

I am very sadden to hear of John's death. I met this lovely couple when I travelled to the US for work and spent time with them in their home surrounded by John's art. Warm feelings and deep affection in remembering them.

FYI, the author just made it into British Council Contemporary Writers database of the 600 writers 'regarded as the best of UK and Commonwealth writers' at http://www.contemporarywriters.com/autho...

If you do nothing else today watch this video in full.

http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adic...

I got posted it by a friends and thought it excellent. I'm taking her books with me to India.

Sherry, I've not read anything by him so I thought I'd take a dip in. If I don't like it it wasn't that expensive. I'm not going to be able to spend money where I am going on these sort of things so I am stocking up a bit before I go. My biggest nightmare is ipod & PC failure!

I know Amitav Ghosh and have Hungry Tide out of the library at the moment, but whether I get to it before I go may be another matter. But I do have audio of Sea of Poppies.

As for PD James I have read a couple of hers, but like you I tend to watch them on TV. I just wanted to take a real range of stuff with me and got perked up on the crime thing via the Ian Rankin documentary.

Gabrielle, I quite like the McCall Smith ones and have read several and have seveal more in audio or ebook editions reading and waiting. Yes they are light reads, but sometimes that is just what one needs. Good stories.

For anyone else in Europe I just spotted Audible with a sale of crime books I just picked up Ian Rankin's Whitch Hunt, Michael Connelley's Blood Work and Carl Haissen's Native Tongue, all unabridged, and each less than £5. I don't know if audible.com and audible.co.uk do the same promos at the same time.

Rashida,
Nicely put. That's exactly what I was getting at when describing her as a soul, doing her good deeds to earn her place in the afterlife. What's that Win Wender film called? Didn't they have big black coats on, which bellowed in the wind. Bootleg jeans would be better.

I had all sorts of things going through my head as I read this and tried to understand exactly who this person was. In fact at one point I thought it wasn’t a personat all, but a bird perhaps, or some soul sent to work her magic on folks before earning the right to move onto the next life. Perhaps she took the shape of an imaginary friend for Amber, became a stray cat walking in from the garden for Will to talk to, Felix’s somehow familiar looking, but not, fiend or relative.

At the start she is a sort of Nanny McPhee type, but then indoors, back home, turning into a hip younger person with bootleg jeans! Which persona is the real one? Why is her work persona hidden? She seems a bit of a chameleon on a Mission Impossible – 'your mission, should you choose to accept it is Felix, 15 Level 7'. Beej wrote “I don't think she was pretending to be an old lady. I think it's how she saw herself” I think she is one of these folks who immerse themselves in work and do not really live. I think she uses professional detachment “ my credibility is still intact” as an excuse for not actually living her own life and feeling her own emotions. She lives through her clients, and when she surprises herself by feeling emotion she can only deal with it by going to the library and reading about it, not by continuing to experience it in reality – like Michael said “Super Social Worker/Clarke Kent” – so Michael what did you see as the puzzle?

Then there is the whole thing about flying, the bird’s eye view of the countryside. Why are her boot legged jeans more aerodynamic? Maybe I’m taking it too literally but I also know London and the SE of England where this is set. Walthamstow, is in NE London, it doesn’t have an airport. So is she really talking about getting on a plane?

I can see what you mean about the ending, Perhaps it should have finished it of at the “This has been a narrow escape” sentence. But I suppose the final part just returns her to another of her false lives, her escapisms from reality which she has little of in her own life, except I suppose she sees so much as a social worker she doesn’t want it.

What surprised me about this story having read several others of Chrissie’s is how little humour is in here, she has a really dry wit. Her deft touch with detail is there as is her always present references to the natural landscape. Barb wrote “My favorite thing about the story was her description of the small details” I agree Barb, this is something the author does very well in her other works. She has got really good at painting a scene with a few vivid strokes, of reflecting so much about the human condition in a few words – baking the cake for instance, you could almost follow the recipe.

Yulia, I trust you had a great birthday and my best wishes to you for the coming year.

I think the art work Ruth posted for you is amazing. I've heard folks do the equivalent "songs of my years" memories, my boxes would be overflowing in places, some would be falling apart from usage and others would definitely have cobwebs covering them.

Donna, Another new author for me. Tx.

How I wish Goodreads had a link through to Audible.co.uk, it has a audible.com one but I haven't found an audible.co.uk one yet - shame - where can we make suggestions?

Tx for checking that Barb. I'll keep being here.

I wish we'd had this when I was doing distance learning courses.