Devon Trevarrow Flaherty's Blog, page 52

Book a Day: The Pearl

[image error]I just had no idea what was coming, when I picked up this book. Nothing at all.

(Note: I actually read this before The Bridge of San Luis Rey, but when I took my week off, I forgot to review it.)

What would you think if you were about to read The Pearl, by John Steinbeck? I had general feelings of classic American literature, mixed with what I remember of my high school assignment to read The Grapes of Wrath. (I think I was also looping in some Pearl S. Buck, in my mind, too.) While in hindsight I can understand The Pearl as part of the same author’s body of work, I just was so not expecting a book titled “The Pearl” to be what it was.

So you don’t get sideswiped: The Pearl is based on some ancient Mexican folk tales about the Pearl of the World, which was found and then lost again. It tells the story of one man and his small family, poor and exploited, who find the pearl and what happens to them because of it. It is tremendously like more modern stories about someone winning the lottery or suddenly becoming super famous, and it has the same sad twists as these stories. But through the lens of a much older Mexico.

This little book (aka novella) is so full of strife and disappointment. Don’t even bother to be all looking for a silver lining. When studied in school, teachers talk about “evil” and also about a man versus himself, man versus man, and man versus society. The main characters are so vulnerable in their initial naivety, but are quick to learn. We just want to reach out and protect them, but it’s really us who are learning from this story about harsh reality.

It’s a good book. It’s tense and realistic, it’s clear and concise. It’s interesting and you really start pulling for the characters. It might not be the subject matter I would choose, but it’s tremendously well-written. A classic, for sure.

Other books by John Steinbeck:

The Grapes of Wrath
Winter of Our Discontent
East of Eden
Cannery Row
Travels with Charley
Tortilla Flat
and others….

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QUOTES:

I’ll have to do these later, because once again I read a book and promptly lost it. It’ll turn back up on the bookshelf under “S” in fiction.

 

Book a Day: The Bridge of San Luis Rey

[image error]In case you noticed, it has been over a week since my last Book a Day post. That is because I took a week off to renovate the school room. Since the school room is part of the dining room and kitchen, at the heart of our home, I thought it would be best to gut it all at once and then work like mad and have it back online in seven days. It worked, but I had to basically go on break from everything else in life, including laundry and reading.

Unfortunately, I stopped right on a book that was hard for to me to finish, so getting back up to speed was an effort. At any rate…

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I was really surprised at the book, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder. It won a Pulitzer. It was written by one of the great American writers (Thornton Wilder, who eventually become more prolific with his plays than his novels, but okay). It was given to me and my husband after 9/11, when people were turning to the book for answers in the face of tragedy. And the voice is very deep, beautiful prose. So why[image error] have I had such a hard time with it?

Furthermore, it sounds almost like something that Gabriel Garcia Marquez could have written, and I love Garcia Marquez. (I read somewhere that Garcia Marquez had read Wilder before writing at least some of his stuff. Personally, I think he was influenced, but managed to lighten–while maintaining some denseness–and refine the technique.) It was so South American in style that I had forgotten it was written by an American. It just feels Peruvian, right down to the bones.

I find one of the key words in the paragraph I just wrote. This book is dense. It is also subtle. And frequently the denseness and subtlety collide and you wonder where you are and what just happened. (I mean this literally. You ask, “Was that two weeks or two years right there?” or “Did she say that aloud?” or “Am I still reading about the Perichole? and what the heck is a perichole?“) So while the language may be fairly beautiful, it is not very clear.

I also found that while I think that the idea and literary approach to the subject are interesting (not to mention ahead of their time), I found the execution a bit dull. Here’s the idea: a bridge collapses and five people die. A monk is disturbed by the event and turns all of his efforts to riddle out why it was those five people who perished. The bulk of the book is divided into three sections (flanked by the bits about the monk), which concentrate on three of the five people, while also scooping up the other two into them. The characters’ sections end up bleeding into one another, as the stories in them weave unexpectedly together. I love this idea, but…

Not to mention that the book is just plain bleak. Its reading of humanity is, I suppose, probing and real, but it is also so negative. Looking over the things I underlined, this is none too plain.

It felt historical (and some of it is based on historical people), which is another way to say that it didn’t read like a novel. While there were aspects of drama in the story, they were not presented in a very dramatic fashion, and dialogue, etc. were kept at a minimum, since the story was being recounted as history. While this works as a gimmick, I found that it dampened the story. I wasn’t swept up into anything, at all. My imagination did no running.

I still don’t know what to make of this book, after many years of it being on my shelf. I don’t love it. But I don’t want to write it off, either. I’m afraid to criticize it, but I find it has its faults. What are its good qualities? Nice prose. An interesting set-up. Memorable characters (whom I found distasteful). Thoughtfulness. Innovation. And the recommendation of many other people and critics.

I am not going to discourage you from reading it, but I think that when I return to Wilder I will try out Our Town and The Eighth Day.

I have not watched the movie, although I almost did.

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QUOTES:

“…the notation of the heart. Style is but the faintly contemptible vessel in which the butter liquid is recommended to the world” (p17).

“…though her love for her daughter was vast enough to include all the colors of love, it was not without a shade of tyranny” (p18).

“But soon a belief in the great Perhaps would surge up from the depths of her nature and she would fairly run home to renew the candles above her daughter’s bed” (p35).

“She had never brought courage to either life or love. Her eyes ransacked her heart” (p41).

“Pleasure was no longer as simple as eating; it was being complicated by love” (p49).

“…many people would not have fallen in love if they had not heard about it” (p50)

“…if it can be said we ever sacrifice anything save what we know we can never attain, or what some secret wisdom tells us it would be uncomfortable or saddening to posses” P55).

“‘We do what we can. We push on, Esteban, as best we can. It isn’t for long, you know. Time keeps going by. You’ll be surprised at the way time passes” (p71).

“He had read all the literary of antiquity and forgotten all about it except a general aroma of charm and disillusion” (p91).

“…whether the soul can be seen, like a dove, fluttering away at the moment of death…” (p93).

“Even the busiest mother stands for a moment idle-handed smiling at her dear and exasperating family” (p98)

“There is no such thing as that kind of love and that kind of island. It is only the theater you find such things” (p100).

“Such love, though it expends itself in generosity and thoughtfulness, though it give birth to visions and to great poetry, remains among the sharpest expressions of self-interest” (102).

 

Book a Day: Marvel’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

[image error]In our home school (officially Avonlea-Potter Academy), we have a library day for history, about once per week. This week, my son had little to no interest in scanning the books about the Byzantine Empire and we ended up in the graphic novel section. I have been wanting, for years, to read more graphic novels, but I’ve really read only a handful (partly due to their price and the speed of the read.) I figured it would be a good opportunity–during my “Book a Day” series–to pull a few graphic novels into the fold. And I was feeling like I could handle library books–in other words, not purchasing them–this week.

There wasn’t a whole lot to choose from, and I’m not sure I found any from my TBR, but I came home with four. Marvel’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was the one I was most reluctant about, but since L. Frank Baum’s Wonderful Wizard of Oz is on my TBR, I thought I would give this a shot.

Here’s something I know about me and illustrations: I don’t like scratchy ones. By “scratchy,” I mean the kind that use several lines to create one line, almost like a sketch. They feel messy to me, and almost always carry a darkness. Plus, with ADHD, it’s already hard for me to follow a graphic novel on the page, and the scratchy illustrations add visual noise that I can’t really afford. It confuses my eyes.

[image error]Obviously, I say this because the style of the illustrator–Skottie Young–is “scratchy.” It’s not the scratchiest I’ve seen, but I still found myself at odds with the illustrations, wanting them to be much cleaner. Otherwise, the illustrations are fanciful and I thought the colorization worked, although I think the style of coloring also contributed to the busy-ness on the page.

I found myself a little bored with this story because, let’s face it, I’ve heard it too many times before. I wasn’t waiting around to find out if Dorothy would make it back to Kansas, so that might have taken away from the story-telling. On the other hand, there were some twists and turns that don’t follow the movie. (They may follow the book–I haven’t read it yet.) So that added some interest. The narration was sometimes choppy. Occasionally I lost the flow of the word balloons. But I really enjoyed the sweet, new and improved (and younger) Dorothy, since some of the characters from the old movie get a little lost in time-translation.

Didn’t like the blank eyes or ugly characters, but did enjoy some things. It won’t waste your time, but I wouldn’t rush out to get it, either.

There are more books in the graphic novel series by Eric Shanower: The Marvelous Land of Oz, The Emerald City of Oz, Road to Oz, Ozma of Oz, and Dorothy & the Wizard of Oz.

 

Book a Day: The Stranger

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Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Read a pillar of great European literature in the last two days…

I actually read this book the first time through in college. With my first foot in the door at my alma mater, I was enrolled in a freshman prerequisite which explored a few major, modern worldviews. This book–despite the author’s adamant objections to the contrary–represented existentialism. I don’t recall especially enjoying any of the books from that class, although the discussions were lively and interesting and the teachings insightful. I think we also read Siddhartha.

While it is often categorized as existential, Albert Camus was a philosopher who was writing about absurdism in this novel. Turns out that novel, which wasn’t expected to be much, would become a giant of literature, and is often listed on best books lists around the world. I’m sure its inclusion is pretty polarizing.

It’s short. It’s straight to the point. It’s a portrait of one man over a couple years, but zeroed in on just a handful of days: his mother’s funeral; the beginning of an affair; a beach trip; a murder; the trial… Even after reading the back of the book, none of this should surprise you. The real suspense in the novel is just uncovering who this character is and how he responds to the world around him.

Meursault, the main character, is pretty despicable. Yet, he’s not as guilty as the world around him judges him, and in that set-up is the absurdity. Meursault almost stands alone in the world of literature. His atheism/”apatheism” is supposed to come across as detached, but he struck me more like he had a learning disability or, at times, so intuitive that he was more like an animal than a person. Everything about him is based on physicality and everything else is burned away. I suppose he is the ultimate hero of the absurdist worldview, and yet he is so distasteful. You know what he really reminded me of? A Vulcan. A Vulcan with no hope to ever grow an emotion. He constantly sees eyes through a lens a normal human can hardly recognize, and he comments on the most bizarre things which we take for granted. To an extent, I think his character subverts the whole absurdist current of the book’s plot, which is maybe why it comes across as more existential.

Having to spend only two days with him, I found Meursault interesting, but was already pretty frustrated by the time the forty-eight hours were up. He was, at the same time, both innocent/childlike and so cold that you leave the book freezer-burnt. Like scary cold. You’re almost with the jury because, while you see the truth of the story, you also see the scary side of his personality, which could, at the right time and place, become psychopathic.

I also thought that a few of the scenes were confusing. I had to re-read a couple paragraphs to make sure I knew what just happened, and one time I even had to go to the internet to verify I was right. Of course, you also have to put some of the story in its historical context to grasp everything without resorting to the modern American wail of “offensive.” There is a bit of France v. Algeria, Frenchman v. Arab–not to mention casual domestic violence–caught up in the whole thing, which can tend to shock the Millennial and/or Hippie in us, but we wouldn’t want it to stop us from seeing truth.

Perhaps I’m missing the point a bit, or losing something in the (literal) translation. If you are interested in philosophy or worldview or even religion, it’s an interesting book–or rather character–to ponder. But I hated being there in that world where the five senses encompassed everything, and cold, hard precision severed the joy (or pain) from even the simplest of things.

I read the translation from the French by Matthew Ward.

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QUOTES:

“When I was first imprisoned, the hardest things was that my thoughts were still those of a free man” (p76).

“…as if familiar paths traced in summer skies could lead as easily to prison as to the sleep of the innocent” (p97).

“In a way, they seemed to be arguing the case as if it had nothing to do with me. Everything was happening without my participation” (p98).

“But I couldn’t quite understand how an ordinary man’s good qualities could become crushing accusations against a guilty man” (p100).

“Mounting the scaffold, going right up into the sky, was something the imagination could hold on to. Whereas, once again, the machine destroyed everything: you were killed discreetly, with a little shame and with great precision” (p112).

“If something was going to happen to me, I want to be there” (p113).

“Whether it was now or twenty years from now, I would still be the one dying” (p114).

“Everybody was privileged. There were only privileged people. The others would all be condemned one day” (p121).

Book a Day: Bridge to Terabithia

[image error]When I saw this movie with my kids, a few years ago, I was really expecting something like The Spiderwick Chronicles or The Chronicles of Narnia. Perhaps the absence of “Chronicles” in the title should have been a sign, but this book (and movie) are nothing like either of those books/series. Terabithia–despite its fanciful name–is not even fantasy. I left the movie feeling oh so very sad.

Left the book, the other night, feeling the same way. Why is this otherwise delightful book so extremely depressing!?!

I think that if the pacing were something different, and the foreshadowing a little heavier, this book would sit better with me. But because the pacing is very fast and the darkness in the book up until the end is largely of the poverty and bad parenting and bullying type, you really don’t see the grave ending coming. Especially since it happens in contrast–on purpose–to “The Perfect Day,” leaving both you and the character it involves unmoored and reeling.

In some ways, I feel that this book captures the side-swipe that tragedy usually carries in a way most books don’t. And the trauma justifies why this story would have been retained and told (like from the character’s standpoint). And there has to be book for children dealing with loss, right? I experienced childhood trauma, and found a “friend” in the movie My Girl.

But this book is so tragic! The reader ends up desperate to see it end any way but the way it did. But enough about that.

[image error]Despite the precipitous emotional drop you will experience at the end, you should read this book. It is nice. Delightful even. The setting is beautiful, the characters well-drawn and engaging, and the story, enough. It is mostly a character story, and you find yourself really loving and rooting for these people, even the ones who are broken and dysfunctional. You’ll have to wait until your kids are old enough to handle literary scars before reading it aloud, but the read is worth it, as its Newbury Medal proclaims from the cover.

My only real problem with it is the pacing. I appreciate that it is short, but there are areas of tension and build-up that should have been stretched much taughter. Occasionally, the reader experiences plot whiplash.

Wonderful language, superb characters. A quaint and thoughtful read.

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QUOTES:

“…his feelings bubbled inside him like a stew on the back of a stove–some sad for her in her lonesomeness, but chunks of happiness, too” (p76).

“Sometimes it seemed to him that his life was as delicate as a dandelion. One little puff from any direction, and it was blown to bits” (p77).

“Lord, it would be better to be born without an arm than to go through life with no guts” (p93).

“She had made him leave his old self behind and come into her world, and then before he was really at home in it but too late to go back, she had left him stranded there–like an astronaut wandering about on the moon” (p114).

“‘Its like the smarter you are the more things can scare you'” (p123).

 

Lessons in Unusual Places

I am in the middle of a blog-blast, reading a book a day (read: one-two days) and blogging about the books. I took a day off because I was using up my whole evening to attend a local reading, and I figured that had to count for something. Plus, I couldn’t reach my house without buying four books, so that’s writing work, right? Anyhoo…

I hate to add more work to my list, which is growing and growing with no real reprieve on the horizon, but I wanted to somehow sum up what happened to me at the reading last night. You can come to your own conclusions about how I got there.

And I know it’s going to be difficult. The lesson I learned seared deeply, but remains largely on the gut level. I’ll be able to explain only so much.

Now, I went to this reading because it featured a famous author, one whom I had heard–as a local–so much about over the years and–as a magic realism author–had been intending to read forever. I was aware that he would be only one of four readers, and that the others would be unpublished and that the whole point of the thing was his name drawing attention so that we could notice these budding authors. Cool. Fine.

It was a full room, which was probably both exciting and terrifying to the readers (except for Daniel Wallace), and I sat way in the back because the rain was getting me down and I was pouting that my husband had to work and my friend moved away like six years ago. The whole thing lasted an hour and a half and was mostly just the first three readers reading. But somewhere between my awkward circles of the bookstore waiting for someone, anybody, to please sit down so that I could too, and my hasty escape out into the dark with copies of The Book Thief and The Buried Giant under my arm, something had grown inside of me until it was glowing.

Now, excuse me if I get all authentic here, but I am a Christian, and I turned NPR off and had a good ol’ prayer on the way home. I was just so struck by this glowing thing inside of me, and I couldn’t believe I had never seen–or felt–this way about it before.

I know I’ve said I have a gift, when it comes to writing. I know that I often proclaim that I was built to be a writer. But I have realized now that all these years of thinking of writing as a career (which is okay), I was missing something. It has something to do with that cheesy, “I write because I have to,” except that it’s not that cheesy. I have a gift! Why on earth would I sideline the one thing in this world that I am best at, the strongest thing I have been given? It’s like being given the Sword in the Stone and propping it in the corner while going about years of housework and carpentry. Not that I can’t or shouldn’t do other things, and I would be the first to tell you that motherhood and even wife-ing is a calling that I am one-hundred-percent committed to. But then what?

Sure. I’m a good cook. A good painter. I enjoy hiking and camping and decorating my house. But when you’ve been given a surprising gift, it’s really best not to sideline it. Even if it doesn’t make you famous or make you money. It’s best to be thankful and to spend as much time using the gift as possible. Anything else would be a pitiful waste, a distraction, shadow puppets.

I told you I wouldn’t be able to explain it properly, at least not yet. But I had better hop to it. I only have like forty-sixty years left to me. Learning is slow, hard work and responding can be even harder.

Book a Day: The Practice of the Presence of God

[image error]This book, as you can probably tell by its title, is deeply religious. (Although some people would argue with that word, religious, we’re going to stick with it.) If you have no interest in Christianity, it probably won’t interest you, however, it is a quick read that can inspire peace, devotion, and discipline, even in unlikely people. It is unapologetically Christian, as well as historical.

This little book is not a novel. It is a compilation put together by the author’s friend(-slash-interviewer), which includes a few interviews, several letters, and some personal writings. Brother Lawrence was a monk in 1600s Paris. He was, in all other aspects, just a normal guy who didn’t have any sort of claim to fame. His quite wisdom was noticed by the higher ups in the church, however, and they sent someone along to interview him. He gave four short interviews, which would become the beginning of a small published work which would inspire Christians around the world for hundreds of years.

He was a cook in the monastery, and his teaching is all centered on “practicing the presence of God,” or living life as a continual prayer or communion with God. He had learned (and practiced long and hard) to do every little thing in every day for the love of God. That’s pretty much the whole thing in a nutshell.

And it’s not a very big nutshell. If you are a Christian, it is an essential read, and could be an occasional re-read throughout your life. The concise and simple writing just mean that the message is straightforward and that each sentence has tremendous gravity. You have to read it with a clear mind and an open heart, reading slowly and meditatively.

I will be re-reading it again sometime.

(NOTE: I am aware that this book took not one, but three days. I am going to count it as two, though, because I was at a reading on the third night. Which means I am averaging about one book per day and a half.)

 

Book a Day: The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the Moon Marigolds

[image error] This book–which is really a play–could write the book on 1970s theater. After all, it won the Pulitzer. But more than that, it just reeks of 1970s theater coolness, and I do mean that “in a good way.” If you enjoy reading plays, especially plays from around that time period, you–well, you’ve probably already read it, but–must read this right now.

When I read this as a highschooler, I think it struck me as too depressing. (I was also made to read The Pigman, also by Paul Zindel, but I did not like that.) I suppose it is depressing, a bit, but that’s not predominantly how I read it now. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it, from the writing to the characters to the story (almost anti-story) that unfolds. I also loved the imagery and symbolism, which you can’t help but notice even though it’s done subtly: we’re not talking about gamma rays here; we’re talking about something else toxic that’s radiating.

It is, as all good 1970s literature is, about messed up relationships and bad parenting. But it also has a certain amount of sympathy, even for the mother. You want to hate her, but you see yourself in her. Well, at least I do, because I’m not a perfect mother, or person, because it wouldn’t have to be a mother, here. Not exactly.

I was glad I was able to read this one, in a day. I think you should, too.

Book a Day: Tuck Everlasting

[image error]I’ve been meaning to read this one for the past few months, since my daughter had to read it for school, but I have been unable to keep up with her reading (as her speed has increased and my duty as a reading mother has gotten a little out of hand). When we chatted about it, I told her that I remember it being sad. And beautiful. Or maybe I said, “well-written,” but “sad and beautiful” would have been more accurate.

It’s a classic, and it deserves to be. It is billed as a children’s book, but that seems a little weird to me. I think it’s an Everyone book, but I suppose the bookstore doesn’t have that sort of section. “Family.” That might do it. I just think that anyone from middle grades up through senior citizens stand a fair chance at enjoying this book.

It is sad, and I’m not necessarily referring to the ending. The book is–as I said about Ethan Frome–atmospheric, and part of that bright, deeply natural, lazy, antiquated atmosphere is the sadness. There’s just something about the way the place is portrayed. Any yet, if you read the book a certain way, it is still hopeful.

Not familiar with it? It’s a book which sort of covers around 200 years, through the 1800s and 1900s, but it is really about a few days which are most sharpened, in the middle of that time. It’s about an isolated girl whose life intersects with a small, isolated family. The family claims immortality, and not all is happy about it, either. When I was a kid, it made me think about the repercussions of immortality. As an adult, I more just enjoyed the literary ride, thinking more about choice and the finity of our earth-bound lives.

You could read this book without really surrendering to it, but that would be a mistake. Even just the language makes it worth the read, but there is so much more there. Certainly, it’s a great one for study, as well as enjoyment. And it’s suspenseful enough to keep those pages turning.

Big ol’ recommend. Even if my daughter was far from loving it.

Book a Day: Ethan Frome

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Unofficially, I have moved from reading one book a day to a book every other day. I’m just too scheduled in the evening to have time to snuggle down before bed and finish a novel each night. (And I know you’re there, too.) So the first two books took me a day each, but then the next three took me two days each. Still going at pretty good clip.

I have read Ethan Frome before. Before I began blogging as The Starving Artist, I had a paper copy of a list of a few hundred books that I wanted to read, and Edith Wharton played into it somehow and she was randomized to the top. Or something like that. Because I don’t know how I got from her more well-known stuff (House of Mirth, Age of Innocence, etc.) to Ethan Frome. Maybe it was a book club? This was quite some time ago.

What I do remember is being impressed by Ethan Frome. (My husband remembers me making him watch the movie.) So when it was standing there all skinny on the shelf, I was happy to be able to re-read it and write a review.

Ethan Frome is what I call “atmospheric.” It is darker and more depressing than I usually enjoy, but this classic is just done so well. The tension throughout is amazing, and it takes Wharton so little time to draw a very memorable story people with memorable characters. Her language is beautiful, and her scene setting is admirable. If you are one of those contemporary-only readers, this book will fall outside of that (having been written in a taking place in the 1800s.) I’ll talk more about the author when I get to her larger works and I’m not reading a book a day.

I believe I enjoyed Ethan Frome the second time as much as I did the first. There’s nothing about this book that’s very happy, and you get caught up in this isolated 1800s town of hard work, poverty, and deep, deep snow, but you’re sitting on the edge of your seat watching the tragedy unfold. The suspense doesn’t come from wondering if it will be a tragedy–that is spelled out in the introduction–but in how it will go down. And it is a doozy.

Speaking of the introduction, it is unabashedly old-fashioned, the way Wharton sets up the book. (In fact, it reminded me of The Scarlet Letter so much in this way, which I have also read in the last several months. Review forthcoming.) As a modern reader, you could skip it. We’re too sophisticated for the guy-finding-out-the-story-and-telling-it-to-us-a-la-Wuthering-Heights. I get it. Just move on the story, if that’s how you feel about it.

So obviously, I recommend this quick read, and I can’t wait to try some other Edith Wharton novels.