I last purchased Guide Michelin: Paris in 1990. I've been through a few other Paris guides since then and I don't know why. There's really no need for...moreI last purchased Guide Michelin: Paris in 1990. I've been through a few other Paris guides since then and I don't know why. There's really no need for any other. What I love about Michelin guides, and this is edition is no exception, is that you have enough information to get around- including the best walking routes- but you are allowed to experience things on your own. It's a "Just the facts" guide without opinion beyond a few "Don't Miss" suggestions. The "Introduction to Paris" provides an excellent overview of the city's history, art, architecture, literature and music- giving context to a vibrant, dynamic place.
Florida Keys. 1937. Harry Morgan, husband to a former prostitute, disappointed father, erstwhile deep sea fishing guide. Broke. Desperate. Surrounded...moreFlorida Keys. 1937. Harry Morgan, husband to a former prostitute, disappointed father, erstwhile deep sea fishing guide. Broke. Desperate. Surrounded by wasted, depressed, angry, hopeless characters. Welcome to Hemingway.
How can a protagonist who refers to blacks as "niggers", who writes his own moral code with little regard for law or ethics, who regrets his daughters, and who has a dismal outlook on life even on his best days get under your skin? How can a writer, whose phrases are bleak, whose characters are mean, and who has a dismal outlook on life even on his best days make you tremble? Welcome to Hemingway.
When I turned the final page, I couldn't decide if this was one of the most awful stories I'd read or one of the most brilliant. So, I settled on both as true. The story is dark, wet, brutal, discombobulating. The writing is dark, wet, brutal and freaking amazing. The narrative shifts from Harry as first person narrator, allowing the reader to become intimately connected to the "have-nots"- Harry, his wife and family, his hired-as-needed crew- to the third person omniscient, forcing us to observe at a distance the "haves"- the idle rich and educated who moor their yachts and slum at the bars with the locals. In between is Harry's story told in third-person narrative. This manipulation of style breaks the reader from being within the story to observing it, as if to say we're no longer a part of what Harry is doing, we're just watching him from a seat off-stage...
Fortunately, the writing is classic Hemingway- spare and powerful and so, so sad. The scene between Harry and his wife, Marie, is tender and tragic, juxtaposing a black-hearted opportunist with a flawed but loving man. Unfortunately, the writing is classic Hemingway: every character sounds exactly alike, the flow, regardless of point of view, does not change. Although the causes of misery vary between characters, their responses are identical: caustic and wretched. Only Marie Morgan shows spirit and vulnerability. And lest we think Hemingway is getting soft, he cleaves away her dignity in one short scene. At least he leaves her ignorant of the insult.
The disjointed narrative reads like two novellas joined by loosely-intersecting characters and the story suffers from the relentless grind of depravity. There is no redemption, no growth, no character transformation. In the bleak era during which this was written- the Depression- perhaps the tone fit the times.
This was Hemingway's first long work after an eight-year hiatus. It feels like a giant fuck-you by Hemingway to the literary establishment and to his readers. Although Harry Morgan declares "A man.. one man alone ain't got...No man alone now... No matter how a man alone ain't got no bloody--chance." To Have and Have Not reads very much like a man who has declared himself to be alone, and not giving a damn. (less)
A follow-up to their 2006 reference & pairing guide What to Drink With What You Eat, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg offer this labor of love. It...moreA follow-up to their 2006 reference & pairing guide What to Drink With What You Eat, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg offer this labor of love. It's a sweeping overview of the world of fine wine that approaches wine from many different angles: historical, sensory, aesthetic, practical. True to their mission of desnobbing the art and process of wine appreciation, Page and Dornenburg write in an engaging, accessible style.
I appreciate their tackling of the matter of taste and agree that quality can be measured objectively but preference is in the palate of the beholder.
This guide is perhaps most useful to someone in the early-intermediate stages of understanding wine, but still serves as a valuable reference to any wine lover.
The single best wine + food reference I have read. Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page- a husband and wife power duo with heaps of experience in and acco...moreThe single best wine + food reference I have read. Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page- a husband and wife power duo with heaps of experience in and accolades from the world of fine wine and dining - want nothing more than to evangelize the joy of beautiful food and drink, in combination! They make the pairing experience accessible and fun, but still challenge the reader to experiment, to break out of the "white wine with fish, red wine with steak" rut.
This is an indispensable reference, divided into two primary sections: What to drink with what you eat & What to eat with what you drink. Their approach is incredibly comprehensive, but the editorial content is engaging and demystifying. This will be my go-to guide professionally and personally. And for $2.99 on i-tunes, there IS an app for that!
David Whyte spoke at Town Hall, Seattle on December 2, 2011. I had never heard of him, but a dear friend insisted that my husband and I attend with he...moreDavid Whyte spoke at Town Hall, Seattle on December 2, 2011. I had never heard of him, but a dear friend insisted that my husband and I attend with her and her daughters. She so believed in David's poetry and his message that she bought our tickets and made certain our calendars were free so we had no excuses.
I will be forever grateful to this loving friend. I sat transfixed for the two hours David spoke, recited his poems and a handful of others that have inspired him through the years. He recited each poem from memory, repeating phrases and stanzas during the poem, then repeating the entire poem. It was a powerful way to experience poetry. He emphasized different words each time, paused a different points, allowing you to fully absorb the words, their meaning and effect.
And the poetry itself? I began to cry as he recited the first poem of the evening, "Brendan", written in honor of his son (it wasn't until I returned home that night with a copy of River Flow that I learned the poem was entitled Brendan, my husband's name). I cried through every poem after that. The tears were a visceral reaction; it's as if something deep in my psyche and in my physical self is responding to the power and beauty of the art. I often cry at the symphony for the same reason.
His poems are at once grounded and ethereal, fully of this world, yet soaring above. David is a native of Yorkshire, with Irish and Welsh roots, but he has lived for many years on Whidby Island in the Puget Sound. His language is lyrical but clean, expressive but not dramatic. His poems have a deep connection to nature and there is a tremendous sense of place, whether that place is the nook in the stairwell where his writing desk sits or kayaking in the the ocean:
Out on the Ocean
In these waves I am caught on shoulders lifting the sky
each crest breaks sharply and suddenly rises
in each steep wall my arms work in the strong movement of other arms
the immense energy each wave throws up with hand outstretched grabs the paddle
the blades flash lifting veils of spray as the bow rears terrified then falls
with five miles to go of open ocean the eyes pierce the horizon
the kayak pulls round like a pony held by unseen reins shying out of the ocean
and the spark behind fear recognized as life leaps into flame
always this energy smoulders inside when it remains unlit the body fills with dense smoke.
And one line - in a section of poems about Ireland, that speaks so loudly in its simplicity - it shatters the heart:
Ireland; joy when uttered, grief when heard
People form no less a vital center of David Whyte's poetry, whether in loving memory of his mother, as an expression of love to his partner, a poem of renewal and encouragement to a friend going through a divorce, or in astonishment at the birth and growth of his children:
From, "My Daughter Asleep"
Carrying a child, I carry a bundle of sleeping future appearances. I carry my daughter adrift on my shoulder, dreaming her slender dreams and I carry her beneath the window, watching her moon lit palm open and close like a tiny folded map, each line a path that leads where I can't go ....
Like an transformative book of poetry, there is no "I read" conclusion to the journey. Only "I am reading, re-reading." (less)
Color you and me surprised. I loved this. Start to finish (which took about 3 hrs). Couldn't put it down. Will buy the rest of the series this weekend...moreColor you and me surprised. I loved this. Start to finish (which took about 3 hrs). Couldn't put it down. Will buy the rest of the series this weekend. Brilliant. (less)
Funny. Went from a novel that was allegory- and fabulism-rich but story-poor that left me feeling a bit empty and blah to this disjointed, distopian,...moreFunny. Went from a novel that was allegory- and fabulism-rich but story-poor that left me feeling a bit empty and blah to this disjointed, distopian, ingenious insanity that I couldn't put it down. Mitchell strikes again. Review when my brain unscrambles. (less)
I've been under the weather all week, but finally gave up the ghost on Thursday, promising myself a day of Victorian languishment on the sofa, indulgi...moreI've been under the weather all week, but finally gave up the ghost on Thursday, promising myself a day of Victorian languishment on the sofa, indulging in cold cereal and a book. Thus was I able to finish The Tiger's Wife, started the night before as I huddled on that same sofa, shivering with fever and chills.
My physical state - which left me feeling hollow, forlorn, a bit weepy and frustrated - was the ideal condition in which to engage fully in Tea Obreht's Orange Prize-winning The Tiger's Wife. With its feverish mix of war, death, fabulism, violence, disease, bestiality, and the walking dead, I had the perfect companion for my misery. Although my illness outlasted the reading of this novel, I was not less sorry to see the latter end first.
The Tiger's Wife takes a modern-day tragedy - the early to mid 1990's war in the former Yugoslavia - and cloaks it in confounding mythology and brutal metaphor. As the novel opens, it is a few years following the end of the conflict. Borders have been drawn, peace accords signed, and where people rightly belong can be determined by their last names and their accents more easily than by their passports. Newly-formed nations are rebuilding on the foundations of ancient grudges.
We are led through the narrative by Natalia Stefanovic, a young doctor on a mission of mercy to an orphanage across "the border." She learns along the way that her beloved grandfather, a celebrated physician afflicted with terminal cancer, has died, ostensibly on his way to find her. In truth, he had inexplicably travelled to a remote village where four teenagers had been killed by a landmine left from the recent war. There he died and though his body was returned to his family, his affects were not, preventing his bereaved wife from mourning him properly and sending his spirit to a restful afterlife. Natalia's efforts to accept her grandfather's death and to recover his belongings bring about powerful memories of stories her grandfather told of his childhood and the fables his village kept alive through generations of invasion, war and deprivation.
Obreht employs the classical allegory of beast - an anthropomorphized tiger escaped from a zoo in 1941- vs. beastly man to illustrate the history of the Balkans. The region is a crossroads of war, a fault-line between East and West, a stew of race, language, religion that has rarely known extended peace. That domesticated tiger- the human collective of the former Yugoslavia- is suddenly tossed into the wild and learns to eat before being eaten. Man as enemy is the political machine, feckless and frightened despite weapons and shelter. But not every man is evil; the tiger's wife and the young boy who loves her - the young boy who would one day become Natalia's grandfather - represent hope, survival, and compassion.
Much has been made of the promise of this extraordinarily mature writer. Obreht’s gift with language is undeniable. She draws images of amazing depth and color, her imagination reveling in the richness of Balkan lore and the limitlessness offered by magical realism. Yet, the fable of the tiger's wife would be enough to make this dark and beautiful tale resonate. But all too soon the arc of Obreht's narrative becomes so entangled in her tapestry of fabulism that sadly, it drones. Her style is so lovely and lyrical, but the substance suffers under the weight of endless metaphor.
We never really get to know Natalia, who holds such promise as an interesting character. She is a grown woman yet her edges are dim, as if Obreht wasn't yet ready to inhabit the body and mind of a contemporary adult, from whom all magic has been stripped. We are left wanting to know more about the present reality, how the recent past is shaping the region's future. The tension that reverberates through the villages where Natalia travels signals that the although the conflict is over on paper, the suspicions and superstitions run as deep as history is long.
This is not a story as much as it is a patchwork of images. Those images are beautifully rendered but don't add up to a full narrative. The head recognizes the skill, but the heart is left unsatisfied. (less)
Beautiful presentation featuring simple, classic recipes that are authentic, yet don't require exotic ingredients. Because of their simplicity, the re...moreBeautiful presentation featuring simple, classic recipes that are authentic, yet don't require exotic ingredients. Because of their simplicity, the recipes require the freshest of ingredients. They are inherently healthy and balanced. In the two days I've had the cookbook, I've made three recipes. Each beautiful! I can easily envision cooking my way through the entire book. Wonderful introductions to each recipe, describing its origins and/or significance to Wells. Fantastic wine recommendations. So, true confession: The Provençal Cookbook features recipes from my most cherished spot on the planet; I'm predisposed to love anything Provençal. But Wells has captured its magic without playing on cliches or trivializing traditions.(less)
Oh, the treasures that await at Seattle's "The Spanish Table" market, tucked underneath the Pike St. Hillclimb. Reflecting off the gleam of steel pael...moreOh, the treasures that await at Seattle's "The Spanish Table" market, tucked underneath the Pike St. Hillclimb. Reflecting off the gleam of steel paella pans and bottles of port and Albarino, lining the way to the cheese and sausage cold case, are several rows of books: cookbooks from Spain and Portugal, travel books to illuminate the Santiago de Compostela, and works of fiction about Iberia or by authors who have a connection to that peninsula so ripe with history and romance.
Enter "The Spanish Bow" by the gorgeously-named Andromeda Romano-Lax. The eponymous bow is one of the few belongings a villager leaves to his children and wife - sent by post after his death in distant Cuba in 1898. Young Feliu Delargo is six at the time of his father's death. He selects the bow from his father's meager trove without understanding its use. Even after he begins violin lessons, he feels little more than rote interest in developing his musical aptitude.
Then a cellist visits his village, part of a trio featuring a famous pianist, Justo Al-Cerraz. From the first notes of the cello, Feliu is enchanted. His fate is sealed. What follows is a history of 20th century Spain, as experienced by a struggling, then famous, musician. As a child, Feliu travels to Barcelona where he studies with a depressed but brilliant musician. He then comes of age in the fading glory of the Spanish court, befriending the Queen and learning to play duets by making love with an eccentric pianist, the daughter of his tutor.
As a young man Feliu again encounters the piano prodigy, Al-Cerraz. The two form a musical partnership that lasts decades. Music may be the central theme to the novel, but the partnership between Feliu and Al-Cerraz is the novel's motif. The love-tolerance-mistrust-dependence that binds them mirrors how they feel about music, about Spain, and about Aviva, the beautiful Italian violinist who breaks their hearts. They cannot live apart from, yet are tormented by their love for each of these and for one another.
The novel has two distinct parts and feels. Feliu's early years read like a fable, naively, almost as if the book were a translation. Once Feliu reaches adulthood and Europe plunges into World War I, the pace picks up and the tone matures and becomes more modern. It is somewhat disconcerting. Feliu as a character diminishes as the situation in Spain becomes more desperate. Other characters, most notably Al-Cerraz and Aviva, but also historical figures such as Picasso, Elgar, Weill and Goebbels are richly colored and have more immediacy.
Romano-Lax incorporates an astonishing degree of historical detail into The Spanish Bow. Feliu's life is loosely based on that of the great Spanish cellist, Pablo Casals. The author clearly wanted to present a modern history of Spain in its entirety, using art and the pursuit of artistic independence and purity as a mirror to reflect Spain's troubled quest for democracy. It's impressive and engrossing, but the narrative does lose focus in this dogged commitment to history. Years are jumped over, Feliu's rise to fame is foggy, Aviva- a Jew who lives in Berlin when she is not touring with Feliu and Al-Cerraz- is a storyline that begs better resolution. Too much time is given to Feliu's touring and the daily drudgery of his life off the road- sections that could have been deleted in favor of a brisker plot and narrative momentum.
The Spanish Bow is a wonderful debut by a devoted student of history, lover of music, and talented storyteller. Historical fiction lives and breathes with intelligence and passion under Ms. Romano-Lax's pen. I see she has a new work debuting early 2012. It's set in Italy, on the eve of World War II, art, intrigue and the Third Reich. I can't wait!
On this final day of 2011, I share a transcendent poem:
From March '79
Being tired of people who come with words, but no speech, I made my way to the s...moreOn this final day of 2011, I share a transcendent poem:
From March '79
Being tired of people who come with words, but no speech, I made my way to the snow-covered island. The wild does not have words. The pages free of handwriting stretched out on all sides! I came upon the tracks of reindeer in the snow. Speech but no words.
As we look back on a year of increased political polarization and as we anticipate the propagandizing and muck-racking misery of Campaign 2012 to come, Tomas Tranströmer's beautiful imagery has particular resonance. To escape from the miserable nothingness of punditry to the exquisite fullness of nature. To seek out silence, away from our Tower of Babel. What a dream. What a goal.
And another that struck deep, as I accept growing older and giving up on hopes and dreams because it is, it just is, too late.
Black Postcards
I.
The calendar all booked up, the future unknown. The cable silently hums some folk song but lacks a country. Snow falls in the gray area. Shadows fight out on the dock.
II.
Halfway through your life, death turns up and takes your pertinent measurements. We forget the visit. Life goes on. But someone is sewing the suit in silence.
What a powerful, chilling image. To acknowledge that somewhere, someone is quietly sewing your death suit. Not in malice, not for revenge, but because it is the way of mortality.
This slim volume, subtitled 'The Best Poems of Tomas Tranströmer' is extraordinary. I am grateful to the Nobel Committee for awarding Tranströmer its 2011 Prize in Literature. I'm a poetry ignoramus and would never have discovered Tranströmer but for the award.
The poems are short and the language simple, but therein lies the power. The stanzas are crystalline, they shimmer with light, they reflect with brilliant clarity, but quietly, sparely, like winter, like an icicle, like a lake. This is beautiful stuff.
And to end the year on a note of life and hope, from Vermeer
...Passing through walls hurts human beings, they get sick from it, but we have no choice. It's all one world. Now to the walls. The walls are a part of you. One either knows that, or one doesn't; but it's the same for everyone except for small children. There aren't any walls for them.
The airy sky has taken its place leaning against the wall. It is like a prayer to what is empty. And what is empty turns its face to us and whispers: "I am not empty, I am open."
The Warmth of Other Suns is a transformative book, one that can profoundly change and shape the way we view American history. The list of awards and a...moreThe Warmth of Other Suns is a transformative book, one that can profoundly change and shape the way we view American history. The list of awards and accolades is so long the book does not need my imprimateur, but I will echo each and every one by saying, "Read this."
From 1915 to 1970, thousands of black Americans undertook a pilgrimage of hope and determination that led them from cotton fields, rice and tobacco plantations, from villages and towns in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia to a new world in the north. They followed the trails and tracks of the Underground Railroad laid down by generations of escaped slaves and abolitionists before them, settling primarily in Chicago, Milwaukee, Gary, IN, New York, Newark and Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Oakland. It was, as the author states, "...the first mass act of independence by a people who were in bondage in the country far longer than they have been free." (p. 10) It was an act of individuals and families - breaking free of the cruel grip of Jim Crow - that grew into an extended social revolution. It was perhaps the most significant event of 20th century America and few of us know anything about it.
That Isabel Wilkerson is an award-winning journalist is evident in her intense, encompassing and rigorous research. She conducted over twelve hundred interviews and spent several years examining primary source documents, scholarly and literary works that witness, analyze and recount the beginnings of Jim Crow South in the 1880's, through the end of the Great Migration in the 1970's.
But Ms. Wilkerson is also a consummate story-teller. The Warmth of Other Sons is one of the finest pieces of narrative non-fiction I have read. She takes the very difficult subject of Jim Crow - one that is so horrifying it is hard to absorb and accept- and humanizes it by telling the stories of three participants in the Great Migration. We ride a train north in the late 1930's from Mississippi to Milwaukee with pregnant Ida Mae Gladney, her husband and two small children, who abandon their lives as cotton sharecroppers and eventually make a home in Chicago's South Side. We escape from Florida's citrus groves to Harlem in 1945 with George Swanson Starling, who risks lynching by organizing his fellow fruit pickers to strike for higher wages. We travel the long highway miles between Monroe, Louisiana to Los Angeles, California with Dr. Robert Joseph Pershing Foster in 1953 and imagine a life of respect and glamour that surely awaits an educated, handsome, well-spoken black man- in diverse, liberal Southern California.
Wilkerson weaves these narratives along parallel lines, taking us through each stage of the migrants' journeys concurrently, pausing to describe the social and political conditions that existed in the region or the era. Rarely have I read a non-fiction work that provides so complete a foundation and builds a structure without overwhelming the narrative in detail.
The author tells these migrants' stories with grace and empathy, but does not sentimentalize or over-dramatize history. She presents the ugliness and horror of Jim Crow and the racism that existed in the North - where discrimination could not be identified by a set of written rules and laws, but was as prevalent and cruel as in the South - without making caricatures of its heroes and villains, as too often happens in literary works.
One of the vital outcomes of studying history is compassion developed through greater understanding and knowledge. Although the Great Migration nominally ended in the 1970's, after the Civil Rights Movement of the previous decade tore away the Jim Crow curtain from the South, it is a story without end. We are a nation of immigrants, celebrating the American promise of life, liberty, and happiness, yet we remain divided by class, color, economics, education, and vision. We are largely integrated, but not always comfortably. Isabel Wilkerson offers a transcendent work that is epic in scope but relayed in the most personal, relevant way. It is the quintessential American story - perseverance and hope in the face of injustice and hate. With works as fine as Isabel Wilkerson's, it is my hope that history can light a way to a better future for all. (less)
"On March 14, 1885, a body is floating in the old Marshall Reservoir, in a light snow, and then under a waxing moon." From its opening sentence, The R...more"On March 14, 1885, a body is floating in the old Marshall Reservoir, in a light snow, and then under a waxing moon." From its opening sentence, The Reservoir draws in the reader with harsh details rendered in shapely language. This is historical fiction at its entertaining, dramatic, and authentic best.
Historian and short story writer John Milliken Thompson read a paragraph in a history of Richmond, VA that sparked his curiosity. His research took him deep into 1880's Virginia, into the death of a single, pregnant woman and the sensational trial of a promising young lawyer. He emerged with a classical Greek tragedy that is rich with period detail and crime noir suspense. It's all here: passion and lust, brotherly love and rivalry, trust and betrayal, tenderness and violence. But murder? You be the judge...
This is not a page-burner. The suspense builds slowly, as the story winds back and forth in time and the details of the dead woman's final days, as well as her childhood, are reconstructed. It's like sipping a few fingers of small batch bourbon, not tossing back a belt of Wild Turkey. You'll want to savor the nuance and the smoldering tension as the characters' true natures emerge and you piece together the clues. Milliken Thompson does a masterful job of giving his characters multiple dimensions. No one wears shining armor or angel's wings, but neither is anyone completely black of heart. Well, almost no one...
I was also impressed by the way the author shows the South struggling to adapt in this generation after the Civil War. The societal contrasts are striking: Slavery may be abolished but racial oppression is deeply rooted; cities are rapidly modernizing, but the South is still an agrarian region; most women have little say in their social or economic futures, but some are finding their way into higher education and white collar employment.
The latter third of the book is a gripping courtroom drama that will have you racing to the end. What you discover in the final pages may not be at all what you'd expected. It is not an easy ending, but it is perfectly executed. What you can be certain of is a brilliantly written drama that brings immediate life to a long-ago tragedy. (less)
Is it possible that two different writers penned this novel? It's not the shift back and forth with each chapter between 1942 and modern-day Paris tha...moreIs it possible that two different writers penned this novel? It's not the shift back and forth with each chapter between 1942 and modern-day Paris that is jarring. It's that one story is told with such grace and honesty; the other with droning melodrama.
The novel's title character, Sarah, is ten years old when she and her parents are taken by French police to the Vélodrome d'Hiver, or Vel d'Hiv', in central Paris. It is July 1942 and French Jews are awakening in the living nightmare of the Holocaust. The tragedy of Vel d'Hiv', a mass arrest ordered by Nazis but carried out by French authorities, would become France's greatest shame of a generation. Thousands of Jews, mostly women and children, were arrested and sent to this large indoor cycling arena during a two-day period in mid-summer. There they spent days without food, little water, and no sanitation before being deported to one of several internment camps in eastern France. The internment camps were temporary stops, to sort and separate families. These French citizens were eventually sent to Auschwitz, where nearly all were slaughtered.
Left behind, hidden in a closet in Sarah's apartment in the Marais district, is Sarah's little brother. The central story of Sarah's Key is Sarah's Odyssey of survival and search for her brother. It is beautifully told, with heartbreaking passion and commitment to the truth. It is a story that brings to life this horrible act of complicity and cowardice that France only officially recognized in 1995, when former French president Jacques Chirac offered a formal apology.
Alternating with Sarah's story is that of Julia's, which is set in present-day Paris. Julia is an expatriate American, married to - wait for it- a gorgeous, philandering French man with whom she has great sex and a charming daughter.
Here's just one example of Julia's exasperating narrative:
"I had always put up with Bertrand's provocative, sometimes downright nasty sense of humor. It had never hurt me. It had never bothered me."
Then in the next paragraph:
"I had put up with it because he made it up to me every time he realized he had hurt me, he showered me with gifts, flowers, and passionate sex. In bed was probably the only place Bertrand and I communicated, the only place where nobody dominated the other."
So, A) Were you hurt, or not? B) Was there an editor assigned to this novel, or not? 3) Can I barf now, or what?
We know where this is going. And we don't care, because it is so nauseatingly cliché. Randy, brooding French man, fish-out-of-water American (who has lived in France for 20+ years), snooty French in-laws, and sub-plots detract from the importance of the principal story.
Julia's role is to uncover the truth of Sarah's life and what happened to her and her family after their arrest on July 16, 1942. Weaving the past and present is an excellent idea and I admire how Julia's character represents the reader, most likely as ignorant of Vel' d'Hiv as she. The connection between Sarah and Julia is clever and gives this plot a sense of urgency. The very real ambivalence of modern France toward its Jewish population is also well done. It's unfortunate that Julia's own story is mired in maudlin romance and her character inconsistent and superficial.
Terry Gross, host of public radio's Fresh Air, recently interviewed actress Kristin Scott Thomas, who plays Julia in the movie adaptation of Sarah's Key. Kristin's connection to the story and how she learned of the Vel d'Hiv' tragedy is fascinating. Well worth a listen:
Like a flame to moths, philandering philosopher Oliver Vice is irresistible. He is also enigmatic, inscrutable, and narcissistic. But is he suicidal?
T...moreLike a flame to moths, philandering philosopher Oliver Vice is irresistible. He is also enigmatic, inscrutable, and narcissistic. But is he suicidal?
The Vices opens with Oliver's death, a dramatic finish in the swirling waters of the north Atlantic into which Oliver pitched, or was pitched, from the Queen Mary II. Oliver's final days are investigated by the narrator, who remains cleverly unnamed, though he is at the story's heart. Indeed, his is the heart that pulses for Oliver's for the length of this story, as he explores Oliver's life in search of an explanation for his death.
It is also an examination of obsession and identity, of forgery and fraud. And it's wrapped up in a delicious package of bright language and fascinating characters, chock full of wit and thrills, layered with humor and melancholy. It was a pleasure to partake of this sometimes zany, sometimes poignant work of fiction.
Lawrence Douglas is a writer new to me. His style brings to mind the precisely-crafted novels of Michael Frayn, Kate Atkinson, Ian McEwan, and Russell Banks. I love his way with words, the economy of phrase that turns smartly on a crisp heel, yet provides rich imagery "...a bald homunculus crawled toward her on the concrete floor...and curled nautiluslike at her feet.." Yes, I had to look up "homunculus." I dig learning new words. I dig this book.
A good place to start one's research, though I wonder about the relevancy of print versions of this and similar manuals. Seems much wiser to release a...moreA good place to start one's research, though I wonder about the relevancy of print versions of this and similar manuals. Seems much wiser to release an on-line edition that could be updated regularly- one could pay of an annual subscription. I received this as part of my writing program (less)
Once upon a time, in the fabled Land of Milk and Honey (1970's California), the Knights (and a few Maidens) of Vitis Vinifera vowed to champion beauti...moreOnce upon a time, in the fabled Land of Milk and Honey (1970's California), the Knights (and a few Maidens) of Vitis Vinifera vowed to champion beautiful wines that would express the true nature of the golden slopes and coastal valleys they called home. They armed themselves with degrees from the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology, they pulled stints in wine shops and wineries, they met to taste the great wines of the world, sharpening their palates on Bordeaux and Burgundies, Rieslings and Champagnes. They shared and stumbled together, battling the dragons of weather, pestilence, fungus, financial woes, burnout and poor judgment to create a stunning array of wines that would be celebrated across the world (I write of the legendary Judgment of Paris, at which a host of California wines bested French labels in a blind tasting in 1976).
Then one day a great shadow fell over the land. A cunning sorcerer - bearing the benign moniker of Robert Parker - and his sipping sycophants - writers for Wine Spectator - sidled on to the scene. Slinging arrows in the shape of 100-point scale scores, these sorcerers cast a spell over the land, causing the people to believe that quality wine was plush, plummy, velvety, overripe, oak-laden, high-alcohol jam that bore no distinguishing characteristics of the terroir from whence it came. The people were deceived and began to shell out premium coin for ripe and fruity plonk. The Knights of Vitis Vinifera fell to their knees, proclaiming allegiance to the Dark Lords of High Scores. They were rewarded with riches beyond imagination.
The Court Jester, Randall Grahm, and the Court Wizard, Leo McCloskey become the central characters in this tale. The former, the iconic proprietor of Bonny Doon Vineyard and erstwhile owner of Pacific Rim, Cardinal Zin and Big House wines, took a tangled route through the California wine industry. He baffled and beguiled his counterparts, critics and devotees by reaching for the sun with his wings barely glued to his back. He grew everything, everywhere, experimenting with varietals, sites and techniques in an astonishing display of fearlessness. His odd pockets of vineyards grew into an empire of brands and Grahm - through his prolific newsletters and showboat style- became the tail that wagged the dog. A master of marketing which grossly overshadowed the quality of his wine in the heady days the 90's, Grahm at last returned to his original, earnest goal of creating artisanal wines that speak of the true terroir of California. He is now a champion of biodynamic processes, committed to restoring winemaking to a craft of nature respectfully managed- not manipulated- by man.
Leo McCloskey, a contemporary of Grahm's, was a young, gifted scientist and winemaker who guided storied Ridge Vineyards to worthy acclaim. He pursued a doctorate in chemical ecology at UC Davis and Santa Cruz, and earned his reputation as a skilled winemaker and consultant. McCloskey recognized early that the rapid and massive growth of the California wine industry needed savvy businesspeople to manage the aspirations of idealistic entrepreneurs. He studied the ascending importance of Robert Parker, editor of The Wine Advocate and the world's most renowned wine critic, and of the luxury magazine Wine Spectator, which copied Parker's 100-point rating scale. McCloskey's genius revealed itself in the creation of a service that winemakers had no idea they needed: Enologix. Enologix is founded on the principle that wine quality can be measured empirically, therefore crafted chemically. He has created a metric which takes into account the tastes of Robert Parker and critics from Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast and other noted wine and spirits publications. The algorithms analyze a wine's flavor components at every stage of production, from growing, harvesting, and fermentation to aging and bottling. Used in conjunction with a market analysis, the Enologix metric is designed to ensure a wine will reach a target price, volume and critic score.
In An Ideal Wine, David Darlington pours out a sweeping history of the modern California wine industry, the one that began with idealists in blue jeans in the late 60's, through today's corporate megalopolises. Dozens of winemaking and kingmaking scions are introduced, though the two principals- Grahm and McCloskey- are featured as the Yin and Yang of the vast and complicated pursuit of the "Ideal Wine."
Darlington is comprehensive and fair, respectful of the access McCloskey and Grahm provided to their businesses and personal lives. He does not spare us Grahm's cringe-worthy self-absorbed silliness nor does he glide over McCloskey's obvious love of beautiful wine. But despite his journalist's quest for balance, it is clear which approach he favors: the artisan's, over the industrialist's.
And it is not hard to determine why. To the industrialist, the vine and its fruit are commodities. Remedial techniques, such as micro-oxygenation, spinning cone, reverse osmosis, and oak chips are regularly employed to correct what nature has wrought. The artisan has a "less is more" approach, adapting viticultural and oenological processes to the prevailing climate and terrain.
Of course, nothing is so black and white- there are no true villains or heroes. If one hopes to make a living making wine, business principles that recognize consumer demand must be respected. The wine artisan's quixotic mission is to refine the consumer's palate; the wine industrialist admits that an American populace raised on high-sugar treats that are silky with fat will clamor for a wine that offers these qualities, year in-year out. Many will pay top-dollar if popular critics tell them so; otherwise bulk juice bottled by discount retailers or mammoth wineries will suit just fine.
An Ideal Wine is a ripe blend of anecdotal, wizard-revealing dish-outs and technical information, which will satisfy the wine geek without overwhelming with jargon. Sadly, it is probably too intense and in-depth to appeal to the consumer targeted by Enologix- the one who wants to be pleased without having to reflect on how the substance in their glass came to be.
I toast Darlington for revealing the reality behind the romance of winemaking, for underscoring the idea that winemaking is an incredible marriage of art and science, perhaps the greatest collaboration of man and nature that we know. It is also a partnership still in its infancy in the United States. Winegrowers and winemakers are yet in the early days of exploring the micro-climates and micro-terrains of California and the Pacific Northwest and defining and working within the terroir of each. Exciting, beautiful wines are being crafted throughout the region and there is a slight but growing shift away from the mammoth mouthfuls advocated by popular critics.
During a trip to the Languedoc region of southern France last spring, my husband and I spent a couple of days with biodynamic farmer and winemaker, Jean-Pierre Vanel (Domaine LaCroix-Vanel). We visited two vineyards that he had just purchased. The vineyards had been conventionally farmed and resembled moonscapes: the soil was brittle and dead, the vines were tired, flat, and gray. Jean-Pierre caressed the vines, lamenting over their poor state like a nursemaid with a cherished charge. We then visited vineyards he has tended biodynamically for several years. They were green and lush in the early days of their ripening. Grasses grew underfoot, the soil was thick and richly-colored, flora and fauna abounded in harmony. Vanel's wines- blends of the region's signature grenache, mourvedre, syrah, cinsault, carignan (reds) and grenache blanc, roussanne, terret (whites) are fine and pure, with angles and tannins, acids and structure: wines that fully express their terroir. Vanel's vision is to be a steward of his land, to allow the vines to create the wine. Not unlike the vision of that long ago, once upon a time, California. (less)
This silly book barely warrants the ten minutes it will take to type this review. I suspect the editor spent all of seven minutes editing the manuscri...moreThis silly book barely warrants the ten minutes it will take to type this review. I suspect the editor spent all of seven minutes editing the manuscript. There are so many errors, including the worthless map on the opening page that marks the Luxembourg Garden on the RIGHT BANK.
I could almost excuse the crap editing if the author wasn't a wretched combination of arrogant and boring. Baxter, an Australian, has an ironic chip on his shoulder for Americans, he is weirdly gleeful at marrying into a family of French who cannot cook, and his tone smacks of a self-satisfied expatriate snob. I am turned off to reading any of his other works.
But since this is Paris, all is not lost. The city is big enough for all manner of buffoons. And I will say an enthusiastic Bravo for Baxter's admonition to see Paris à pied. I will go through a box of Band-Aids before I step on the Metro. I never, ever tire of walking Parisian alleyways and boulevards. It's part delight in the familiarity of favorite haunts, part wonderment in discovering what I hadn't noticed on previous visits.
Case in point (and saving this tedious read from being tossed across the room) is Baxter's loving homage to his Parisian neighborhood, the Sixth arrondissement. This is the stomping ground of the "Lost Generation" - those post-WWI European and American writers and artists who came together in Paris during the magical era between the wars and prior to the Depression. Think Hemingway, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Ford Madox Ford, Djuna Barnes, Cole Porter, Josephine Baker, Dali, Buñuel, Picasso. The storied Café de Flore, Les Deux Magots, La Coupole, Saint-Germain-des-Pré, Shakespeare and Company... I am marking my map and plotting my pilgrimage. The 6ème will be the focus of my upcoming trip.
Skip this book and run, don't walk, to your nearest video store (or to your computer if you do Netflix). Rent Woody Allen's wonderful, sweet, magical and lovely "Midnight in Paris." There are few finer tributes to this most beautiful of cities. (less)
Dr. Jennifer White is losing her mind. Literally. Her brain's cells and blood vessels are decaying, coating the vibrant organ of her consciousness wit...moreDr. Jennifer White is losing her mind. Literally. Her brain's cells and blood vessels are decaying, coating the vibrant organ of her consciousness with clumps of dying and dead tissue. This brilliant woman - an orthopedic surgeon, mother of two grown children, and a recent widow - is losing her mind to dementia.
I began Turn of Mind an hour before bedtime and finished it shortly after breakfast the next day. In between I slept, swam, showered, and ate my oatmeal, but all other moments were devoted to turning the pages of this astonishing, wrenching book.
The narrative is relayed through Jennifer and via the notebook in which her caretaker, Magdalena, her children Mark and Fiona, and her friends and colleagues record their conversations with and observations of this vibrant woman whose light is dimming under the cloud of Alzheimer's. In the first pages, the novel's structure was off-putting. When I flipped through and saw that the entire book was a series of short paragraphs at most, with pages of one line sentences, I doubted its ability to hold me with a story of complete characters and compelling plot. But that doubt was quickly dispelled.
Alice LaPlante displays masterful writing by using her primary character's point of view to show the horror of dementia. As readers we are not passive observers of Jennifer's disintegration. We are in her head, seeing through her eyes, feeling her confusion as reality wavers like a room filled with funhouse mirrors. LaPlante allows us to laugh, as Jennifer pokes fun at her disease (Top 10 Signs You Know You Have Alzheimer's, #2: You keep discovering new rooms in your house). We are Jennifer as she cunningly slips past her minders to have barefoot adventures in her Chicago neighborhood, not feeling the cold, not fearing strangers who loom from the darkness, not minding that we don't have money to pay for the meal we have somehow eaten at an Italian restaurant. We feel both outrage at and empathy for her children, who take advantage of their mother's diminished awareness, yet who also try to protect her. The conversations Mark and Fiona have with Jennifer, when they know she will not remember what was said, are sometimes terrible, sometimes hilarious, and always heartbreaking.
Propping up the story like a cold steel bar is its central plot conflict: the unsolved murder of Jennifer's neighbor and best friend, Amanda. The investigation of Amanda's death is never far from anyone's mind, except Jennifer's, who has to be told over and over that Amanda is dead. Their history unfolds in fleeting memories that knit together to show a complicated, often adversarial, relationship between two intelligent and strong-willed women.
I am in awe of a writer who can combine a complicated topic that demands extensive research with a classic murder mystery, present it in a jarring, atypical format using the voice of an unreliable narrator, and still create a multi-dimensional story of fully realized characters in a mere 300 pages. I can't wait to see where Alice LaPlante takes us next.
The novels that stir your passions, either in disgust or contempt or in delight and amazement, are the easiest to review. It's those in the middle gro...moreThe novels that stir your passions, either in disgust or contempt or in delight and amazement, are the easiest to review. It's those in the middle ground- the *meh* reads- that prove the most difficult to comment on, if only because you have to rouse the will and the words to write.
The Inverted Forest was such a read for me. It did not disappoint, per se, but neither did it inspire. The subject matter was original, profound, disturbing, and fascinating. Wyatt Huddy, a young man suffering from a rare genetic condition, a shocking physical appearance, and the public perception that he is retarded as well as disfigured, is selected as a youth camp counselor at an idyllic resort in the Ozarks. The counselors, all young people not long out of their teens, assemble at the camp in an early summer in the late 90's. The counselors bound with physical and sexual energy. One counselor in particular stands out. He is the lifeguard, a beautiful, enigmatic, and ultimately sinister creature.
These counselors learn soon after arriving that their first two weeks will be spent minding a group of adults from the state mental institution. Having spent a summer working at a camp for adults with severe developmental disabilities, I can attest to the strength of Dalton's honest, humanizing, sweet, and uncomfortable portrayal of the campers. It is far and away the highlight of this novel- he does not spare a bowel movement, a touch, a slap, an affect that is annoying and hilarious- even in the privacy of your own thoughts you will feel shame and guilt when you laugh and cringe at the behavior of campers and counselors alike.
Something wretched occurs in the final days of the two week session, which I will not reveal. The last quarter of the book takes place fifteen years later, i.e., in the present day, as two of the camp employees seek to discover the truth of and to make amends for the tragedy that took place so many years before.
All of this would make for an amazing story. But it just doesn't. Although this story takes place in the late 1990's, the behavior of the camp employees feels anachronistic, out-of-place- not at all of the time of Dalton's setting. Time and space are wasted at the end as an irrelevant character enters the main frame of the story, contributing a disjointed and slightly hysterical coda to the principal narrative.
The plot is like a Joyce Carol Oates over-the-top emotofest. In contrast, Dalton's writing style is somnambulistic. His characters' points-of-view are detached, his tone dull and simplistic. The most intriguing and insightful character, the camp nurse, keeps the story on a believable keel until the flash-forward at the end. Then the novel takes an inexplicable turn that left me feeling manipulated and creeped out.
As I complete this review, I see that this book did stir a reaction well beyond *meh*. But I cannot get behind a strong recommendation, as both substance and style were significant let-downs.
I love being drawn in and surprised by a great story. And when the writing is as beautiful as Ms. Adamson’s, a celebrated Canadian poet, it becomes an...moreI love being drawn in and surprised by a great story. And when the writing is as beautiful as Ms. Adamson’s, a celebrated Canadian poet, it becomes an all-too-rare treat: a book I must tear myself away from as the clock ticks into the start of my work day.
The text of The Outlander is followed by a conversation between the author, Gil Adamson, and the writer Michael Ondaatje. Ms Adamson describes an image that came to her unbidden, one which she set to paper. She saw a young woman in a black dress fleeing an unseen pursuer. The image became the opening scene of this powerful historical suspense.
This is a thriller, not a mystery. We know who committed the crime, and as the story unfolds, we learn why. But the chase grabs us from the first sentence and holds us to the story’s final words, “Find me.” At times the followed become the pursuers; at times they become the left behind. The thrills are woven into a rich and deeply satisfying tale set in the Alberta Rockies at the turn of the 20th century.
In the author’s gorgeous prose, the awesome and dreadful beauty of the setting is revealed. We are presented with a host of vivid, unforgettable characters: grim, ginger-haired twins bent on revenge; a Jeremiah Johnson-like recluse who runs from the shelter of love; a pugilistic preacher and an enterprising dwarf who provide moral guidance and whisky to exhausted miners; and the protagonist, Mary, a beautiful runaway, driven nearly mad with grief and terror. Her Odyssey through the mountains and plains of central Canada holds us captive. We shrink as she slowly starves, we soar when she is saved by strangers, we will her to survive as tragedy crushes her hope.
There are dark and terrible images, balanced by sweet moments of humor and grace. Ms. Adamson has created a thing of magic in The Outlander- a literary Western deeply connected by careful research and intricate details to the history of its setting that is also a wonderfully imaginative thriller you cannot put down. (less)
As I turned the final pages of this rare and magical read, I was filled with melancholy and longing. Ordinary life seems so, well, ordinary. I ached t...moreAs I turned the final pages of this rare and magical read, I was filled with melancholy and longing. Ordinary life seems so, well, ordinary. I ached to remain a rêveur - a devotee of Le Cirque des Rêves - lost in the black and white gloaming of this circus of illusion and wonder.
This is a story for romantics. It is about the power of magic over fate, of love over destiny, of community over individual will. It is told in a dream-like narrative that unfolds within the vault of your imagination as it intersects with Morgenstern's vivid descriptions. The third person omniscient voice and the present-tense setting work in deliberate contretemps, as you move both with the action and yet above it all. Morgenstern also shifts the setting between chapters (the story takes place in lush, late Victorian Gothic between 1873 and 1903, with present-day making a cameo appearance), allowing sleight-of-hand foreshadowing and memories to tilt her parallel worlds even more off-center.
The book jacket description is deceptive and is perhaps partly to blame for the perceived weakness of the story: that this is a book of settings, not plot. The action is muted, the competition between the two skilled "illusionists" slow to unfold and rarely heated. Do not embark upon this journey thinking you will see sparks fly between dueling wizards, or swoop into a tundra with angels and polar bears chasing mad scientists, or follow the quest of elves and hobbits seeking a cursed ring. You will, however, be mesmerized by a world that seems sinister and pure at the same time.
Morgenstern's allegories do not have the weight of Lewis, Pullman, or Tolkien nor does her story have the addictive immediacy of J.K. Rowling's creations. At times she lets slip a modern colloquialism that rings trite, but on the whole her writing is enchanting. She pays homage to the greatest literary fairy tales and fantasies in her own fashion, creating heroes out of ordinary folk, making burdens out of gifts, and allowing her characters just enough free will to undo what nature has set in motion. It was a joy to lose myself in her beautiful writing, in her unique and colorful world, and in the souls of her tender characters. This was a reminder of why I love to read: for pleasure, to be delighted, to wander away from reality. Too bad I have to be jolted awake. There are some dreams you wish would never end.
It would be easy to begrudge Elizabeth Bard her lovely life. As New Yorker living in London in the early 2000's, she met a nice French man at a confer...moreIt would be easy to begrudge Elizabeth Bard her lovely life. As New Yorker living in London in the early 2000's, she met a nice French man at a conference in Paris. They had lunch and fell in love. Ten years on, she is married to that French man and they split their time between a Parisian pied-a-terre and a home in the south of France. In between, Bard became fluent in the French language and French cookery, penned a best-selling memoir/cookbook, her husband launched a successful digital film company, and they have a beautiful young son. Her blog is rainbow of food porn, lit by Provençal sunshine and Parisian lights. Scroll past vivid photos of heirloom tomatoes, fresh figs, haricots verts, cheeses weeping from their casements and naked beasts ready for roasting and you will be seduced by a life that seems the stuff of dreams. Envy as green as those fresh beans would be perfectly understandable.
But instead you just want to curl up on a sofa with Elizabeth to share a pot of tea, nibble her chocolate chip cookies, and giggle like schoolgirls over the photos of Daniel Craig in Le Figaro: Madame. She writes with unselfconscious charm and honesty that makes Lunch in Paris pure pleasure. It is like reading a series of letters from a dear friend.
This is not always a light-hearted memoir, though Bard's breezy style often belies the very serious nature of her acculturation to France, the challenge of a cross-cultural marriage, and the loneliness of living in a city without friends or gainful employment. I have a sense that she made a deliberate decision to put the most positive "atta girl" spin on her period of solitude as she learned her way around the French language and culture and said goodbye to the career of her dreams for the man of her heart. She allows sparks of frustration and anger to glow brightly when she writes of the diagnoses and treatment of her father-in-law's cancer and of her determination to see her husband succeed in his business venture.
There are a few jangly notes, mostly around the issue of money. Although Bard takes pains to show that the advantages she enjoyed in childhood were the result of a resourceful mother, she has the means to attend graduate school in London, then to travel every weekend from London to Paris in the year before she moves to Paris for good. Her mother and stepfather visit frequently from New York and she to see them. At one point, she withdraws around $20k from an ATM (Her stash? Her parents?) to make a down payment on an apartment in the 10eme arrondissement. It's a bit of perspective that sets her apart from your average late 20s/early 30s-something single gal.
Bard centers her memoir around the theme of food and cooking as a means of discovering and falling in love with a country- hardly new ground, particularly when the country in question is France. But her bright writing keeps this well free of cliche territory. Bard does a lovely job of addressing her attitudes toward eating and body image, in a land where women maintain slim physiques on petite frames well into middle age. She uses gentle but candid humor and relates some painful stories of fitting her curves into French expectations. I have since read an essay Bard wrote for Harper's magazine about her struggles with her weight and emotional eating, a struggle that seemed to dissipate in a culture that regards food and mealtimes with reverence.
The recipes at the end of each chapter will make this book a permanent part of my cookbook library. She offers up an array of French home cooking, culled from her imagination, from meals at favorite restaurants and from French friends and in-laws who readily shared their culinary traditions.
I am now addicted to Elizabeth Bard's blog. Seeing her happy life unfold in living color makes my dreams seem full of possibility.
**spoiler alert** The book jacket describes State of Wonder as provocative, ambitious, and thrilling. Ambitious it is without question, provocative an...more**spoiler alert** The book jacket describes State of Wonder as provocative, ambitious, and thrilling. Ambitious it is without question, provocative and thrilling it is at times. This is a good book that misses being a great book in perplexing ways. Ann Patchett is a supremely gifted writer and I wanted so badly for all elements of this novel to reach the heights of the writing she attains, but does not sustain.
State of Wonderis an irresistible read, fulfilling my desire for any piece of fiction: a good story. But it is like watching a terrific movie and catching a glimpse of the camera dangling at the top of the screen, or listening to a skilled actor bungle a regional accent- you wonder why the director and editor allowed such gaffes and flaws to remain, jarring the viewer out of the story.
I struggle to define the theme and purpose of State of Wonder. Is it an indictment of the pharmaceutical industry, which exploits vulnerable societies for money and power? This theme runs as an undercurrent throughout the second half of the book, at times bubbling to the surface, but mostly it trickles along just out of earshot.
Is it a romance, in the classical sense? It is rich adventure, complete with an Odyssey-like journey, mythical beasts, enchanted children, knights in shining armour (who drive taxis and pontoon boats instead of powerful steeds), witches, and magic mushrooms. But the energy of the adventure stalls often as its heroine, Marina, searches aimlessly for direction.
Is it a character-driven story, one that allows the reader to see character transformation through a series of defining events? There are critical events a-plenty, but the main character, Marina, remains a passive observer who simply follows orders until the book's final scenes. Her most independent and assertive act results in a moral catastrophe, but Patchett's closing scene implies that Marina made the right choice. I can just hear the book club discussions now..
Perhaps Patchett is striving for all of these, but she stretches logic and manipulates circumstance to such an extent I had to suspend disbelief to enjoy the story in its moment. The author fills space with irrelevant characters, such as the Bovenders; implausible relationships, such as Marina's with Mr. Fox; she drags the reader's heels in Manaus and through Marina's Lariam-induced nightmares; she manufactures a super-secret research facility deep in the heart of the Amazonian jungle which appears to be under the sole purview of a renegade researcher, but is surprisingly and inexplicably populated with a handful of lucid, relatively stable scientists engaged in morally-suspect experimentation.
There were many illogical details that gnawed at me like a persistent mosquito: that in decades past Dr. Swenson travelled frequently from Johns Hopkins on a Thursday evening to spend a long weekend at the research facility deep in the Brazilian rainforest, returning in time to teach her Monday morning class - a trip that even today requires multiple flights and a trek down the Amazon; that Marina would be foolish enough to pack vital gear in her checked bags, like a hapless tourist; that a pharmaceutical company would have limitless, unquestioning resources to support a team of researchers without a clue of who was doing what, where, and how; that the researchers have regular access to boats traveling to Manaus (such that Dr. Swenson maintains a box at the Manaus opera), but couldn't get Anders out of the camp at the first sign of serious illness; that Dr. Swenson, an exacting woman who does not suffer fools, would put her trust, possessions, and her "secret" location in the hands of idiotic opportunists.
Several reviewers have compared State of Wonder to Joseph Conrad's classic Heart of Darkness. Without a doubt, Patchett brings vivid, pulsing, claustrophobic, seething, and frightening life to the jungle. It becomes the narrative's most compelling character.
But the novel that came to my mind was John le Carre's tremendous The Constant Gardener. Here is a book that succeeds in where State of Wonder does not: it is at once a riveting thriller, a scathing revelation of the morally-corrupt pharmaceutical industry, an adventure story set in the challenging terrain of eastern Africa, and a love story with characters that you ache to know and understand. Le Carre is able to weave together multiple themes while telling a powerful, relevant story. Patchett offers elements of greatness, but doesn't succeed in connecting plausibility to wonder.(less)
"Le plaisir...it is something so much more definite and more evocative than what we mean when we speak of pleasure...To the French it is part of the g...more"Le plaisir...it is something so much more definite and more evocative than what we mean when we speak of pleasure...To the French it is part of the general fearless and joyful contact with life. --Edith Wharton
I adore France. Adore it with complete abandonment. It's a love affair that began in September 1990 when I boarded an Air France flight in Chicago as a 21-year old college student, embarking upon a year abroad. Each time my husband - also a Francophile who spent a year with Cognac-producing family -and I return we feel a quiet sense of homecoming and belonging in this superlatively seductive place. After our most recent trip to the Languedoc and Paris this past spring, we vowed that someday- even if it means waiting another 25 years until we retire- we will make a home in France again, together.
Yet, for all the love of France and affection for the French, I do not delude myself that I could become French, or even more French-like. Living in France, I would embrace my inherent inelegance, native naïveté, and congenital clumsiness as part of my foreign charm; even if I mastered a Béarnaise sauce and the imperfect subjunctive, bought fresh flowers daily and took care of my cuticles, I could never achieve the effortless style of the French.
What makes the French that tantalizing combination of raffish and refined, how they achieve a quality of life that is more gracious and passionate than any I have known remains a mystery to me. So Elaine Sciolino's book La Seduction: How The French Play The Game Of Life piqued my curiosity. For years, I have enjoyed Ms. Sciolino's stories in The New York Times and her tremendous book, Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran moved me. But La Seduction was a tremendous disappointment.
This is not a book about France and the French way of life. It is a book about the Parisian intellectual elite, a narrow class of French citizens born into wealth and privilege. It is about a very particular way of life, limited to certain residents who can afford to partake fully of a beautiful city that is the emblem of all things sensual, elegant, urbane, and exclusive. As another expatriate living in Paris states "...much of the book is as representative of France as the Hamptons and Martha’s Vineyard are of the United States" (Stephen Clark, The New York Times, 6/15/11).
Ms. Sciolino portrays herself as the American ingenue, stumbling her way into encounters with Paris's political and cultural elite. In reality, she has lived in Paris for many years as a well-regarded journalist, along with her husband- the only American attorney in a Parisian law firm. She likely had little difficulty arranging interviews with Paris's version of Hollywood's A-list, from celebrity-philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy to celebrity-first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. I have no doubt of the charismatic power of these intellectuals and artists- their fame is dependent upon their ability to seduce readers, voters, viewers, and diners. But are they representative of modern France?
In her attempt to define what makes French culture so alluring and enchanting, Ms. Sciolino knocks the life out of the very joie de vivre that she seeks to explains. She promulgates the stereotype of the wandering lover by highlighting French politicians' philandering. She devotes incongruous and perfunctory chapters to French gastronomy, fashion, and perfume. She paints French women in a singular color of siren red, focused solely on attracting and holding the attention of men.
Ms. Sciolino understands, and posits early on, that the French way of life is focused on taking pleasure in the process, not the outcome. The French are enamored of hierarchies, procedures, classifications, systems, echelons. Their love of how over what does explain their love of debate, of long meals, of romance, of gardening, of movies without discernible plots, of bureaucracy, of cycling, of museums, of trains, of wine, of history, of cradle-to-grave social security. It also explains why they look to the past for direction and regard the future with wry scepticism.
But she misses the most seductive quality of all: confidence. The most appealing women and men I know are those who are completely comfortable in their skin. France is like a beautiful woman who develops and refines her seductive qualities for her pleasure alone. Their cultural pride is not "We're #1!" American bravado or Japan's hidden mistrust of anything not Japanese. It is an internal ardor. The French cherish France and take very good, jealous care of her.
The theme of the seductive power of French culture is fascinating and relevant to anyone who has fallen under its spell. But one does not need to rub elbows on the Champs-Élysées with cognoscenti from Sciences-Po, dress in Hervé Leger or dab Guerlain behind one's ears to discover the magical art de vivre. Simply get out and engage with these warm, kind, funny, determined people and explore this gorgeous place that is thick with history. Easy to do on pristine highways or high-speed trains, from the seat of a wobbly bicycle or in hiking boots. Just don't think you'll understand it better after reading Elaine Sciolino's book.
Two years ago I read Hamill's epic love story to New York City, Forever. It was sweeping in scope, covering three hundred years of history with a rauc...moreTwo years ago I read Hamill's epic love story to New York City, Forever. It was sweeping in scope, covering three hundred years of history with a raucous, bewildering narrative that included a lovely supernatural touch.
Tabloid City is yet another Hamill ode to Gotham, but as hardboiled and literal as Forever is epic and ethereal. It covers a twenty-four hour period in the life of a cruel and unforgiving city, the final twenty-four hours in print of one its iconic newspapers: New York World.
Tabloid City reads like a graphic novel looks: a collection of images, of snapshots with thought bubbles or brusque dialogue that run together with the semblance of a story. We spend snippets of time with a host of characters whose lives- some knowingly to them, some not-run together in the classic Manhattan-esque six degrees of separation. Some of the converging characters and storylines, notably that of World editor Sam Briscoe and socialite Cynthia Harding, of NYPD detective Ali Watson and his son Malik, of Consuelo Mendoza hold promise of a deeper, richer plot. Others are either meaningless -I'm thinking of fugitive Myles Compton- or so manipulated, such as amputee Iraq war veteran Josh Thompson - that you feel drained by the distraction. You spend so little time with any one character or story line that it is difficult to develop empathy for them or the trajectory of their lives beyond the confines of the paragraph.
But really, the pace, the coincidences, the Law and Order feel would work well for me had there been some variance in the characters' voices. They all thought and spoke and behaved in the same staccato, film-noir, Elmore Leonard-like cadence. I have to think this was deliberate- Hamill is too sophisticated of a writer- but the result was very mono-tonal to me.
One of my favorite books of 2010 was Tom Rachman's The Imperfectionists. It too dealt with the death of a print newspaper, had a host of characters that flitted in and out of the narrative, and even included bizarre backstory that could easily have swallowed the principal plot. But it works- it was fresh and clever. Tabloid City takes itself so seriously that you, as a reader, feel a bit beat over the head. With a wet newspaper. (less)
Loading...
