Rebecca Moll's Blog, page 2

When the World Goes Quiet by Gian Sardar, A Book Review by Rebecca Moll

Some say a dream is an aspiration, an ambition, or an ideal, something of the future. But as complex thinking, feeling, and spiritual beings, dreams are so much more than a future item for the calendar. Just our ability to dream, to yearn, speaks to our past and present. We can only dream because of what we were and are today. What was once our childhood fantasies filter over into our adult lives adding understanding and dimension to our everyday choices, whether in conviction or regret our successes and failures become our hopes and dreams. And as life rarely sails the straight course, these visionary aspirations tack us along the way, course-correcting for sudden squalls and errant tides, lee winds, and sunny skies and thus, the evolution of our hopes and dreams, our human experience.

But what if, just as you just step into your long-anticipated adult life, your most ardent dreams, ambitions at the core of your very self-worth, all is suddenly railroaded by one of the worst events in recent human history?

Beautiful Bruges. Belgium. 1918. WWI. Evelien, at the cusp of life, the love of her life, art. Dreams of Paris and painting. Freedom from the expected social trappings of the turn-of-the-century woman. But, rarely does life follow dreams. First, marriage, an off-to-war husband she loves only like the childhood friend he is, then, the need to care for aging in-laws, then, obligatory employment for a family that once loved her as their own. Occupation brings destruction and debilitating hunger. Needs trump all, starvation, shelter, and warmth more than the day can abide. Evelien’s dreams lay shattered, thousands of tiny pieces upon the floor where the heavy tred of war effort threatens to defeat the soul.

Danger, uncertainty, and obligation bring her to the brink of disaster in a personal request from the Resistance. A list of names in her employer’s possession. Her high-ranking German employer. As Evelien crosses the hire-wire of survival, her shattered dreams become a refuge for a soul that refuses to give up or to give in.

In an abandoned building, a mere shell of its former grandeur, Evelien steals away, one shattered piece at a time. There, a place to draw. There, a place to plant, nurture, cultivate, forbidden food for a starving family. Sunlight streams from above, shadows vanish. With pencil to paper Evelien pours forth her soul into image and likeness of all things possible and impossible. Even, love. True, passionate love.
And in this refuge, the world goes quiet. Time and space bring to birth what eyes cannot see, ears cannot hear, hands cannot touch, what must only be felt: HOPE.

Beautifully written, painted with imagery, heartbreak, and thousands of tiny pieces of hope, Gian Sardar opens a window into a young woman’s soul. A great read for historical fiction lovers. A must read for dreamers.

When the World Goes Quiet, what do you dream?

Gap Creek by Robert Morgan, A Book Review by Rebecca Moll

Some books you forget as quickly as you finish, their characters melting into the backdrop of information absorbed throughout life. Others, like Gap Creek, stick with you, like mud to your shoe, the characters clinging to your thoughts, if not for their vitality, persistence, and tenacity, then for the mountains of adversity they not only forged but climbed, and climbed, and climbed.

“When you have to climb, there’s nothing to do, but pitch into it. The only way to climb is slow and steady, to not wear yourself out at the beginning.” ~Julie, Gap Creek

Perseverance. Steadfast. Fortitude. Patience. Grit. Grim. A boot straps kind of trust. A Jack-in-the-pulpit kind of hope. Qualities that only the edges of life can engrain.

Set in the Carolina’s during the last years of the 19thc, an era that brought than enough hardship in just meeting the day, Julie more than meets her fair share. Newly married, far from home, Julie sets her mark upon a world that could just as easily defeat her. Meeting challenges head-on, she works as hard as any man, and more so, as hard as her husband, Hank. Chronicling their first year of marriage, Julie tells all, the tragedies, their resourcefulness, despair, loss, and glory. And in doing so, comes full-circle with life’s lesson that she is not the only one who needs to carry the load, that sometimes the only way to save someone is to allow yourself to be needed. One must be needed to be strong. And it wasn’t just Hank that Julie needed. Pride aside, Julie finds a place for her faith.

Throughout the book I was reminded of time and how different things are today. Back then, letters were posted, weeks, sometimes months before a reply arrived, if at all. Going to work was a two hour walk each way. Dinner took all day to prepare, as did laundry, livestock, and farming. Birthing babies was no different, arriving on no one’s time but their own. Seasonal chores garnered all resources, slaughtering pigs, rendering fat, planting, cultivating, and reaping crops. Canning, salting, and drying. Lives revolved around sunup and sundown, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. Time. Time. And more time.

And just like climbing, the only way is slow and steady, not to wear yourself out at the beginning.

Two generations descended from such hardworking, God-fearing, self-reliant forefathers; I can put face to fact in what such a life may have been. Grandma and Grandpa Sawyers, the old home, the pantry floor-to-ceiling with canned goods, the big barn, fields, a rambling creek, the mountain out the kitchen window. And although I see a simplicity, even beauty, in living off the land without recourse and the strength of character and faith it requires, I meter this with a good dose of reality. Life is pretty darn good in today in the good old USA.

Regardless of time, life is a mountain.

If you like stories that transport you back in time, lend authenticity and reality to a bygone era, characters that speak the truth, then Gap Creek is a good pick for you. Strap on your trusty boots, tuck tight your Jack-in-the-pulpit kind of hope and get ready to climb. No worries, you’ve got plenty of time. Let Julie do the talking and you’ll be just fine.

Kindred Hearts by Rebecca Moll

As I pass by the countryside,
A house upon the hill,
I wonder ‘bout the lives inside,
That shutters time in stills.

A kitchen light,
A frosty night,
A barn so deep in snow,
Footprints lay,
Like broken clay,
For future yet to know.

Decades old,
Stories untold,
Asleep within the hay,
Like babes-to-be and old grannies,
They circle back to stay.

What renders there for us to know?
A lesson learned?
A bit of sage advice?
Perhaps a friend or foe?
Or just a kindred heart that pines,
And beats and beats to know.

Cast in time I leave behind,
A postcard on the hill,
And lives and hearts and seasons part,
As time does not stand still.

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, A Book Review by Rebecca Moll

How many have struggled in the aftermath of tragedy, begged for answers that shape-shift and disappear, intangible and eluding as mountain mist of early morn? Our minds seek reason, meaning, some shred of understanding to grasp, to hold, to right us in a world that has turned upside-down. In our vertigious limbo, our minds run wild while our hearts sink, unable to bear the weight of loss.

The death of a child. The disappearance of a loved one.

What minds cannot fathom, what the heart inherently knows, is that what saves cannot be grasped or held, cannot be reasoned, or even understood, but transpired. Much like the elusive understanding we so desperately seek, it is invisible this saving grace, a transpiration of love between hearts, a re-connection to others and the world around us: wind, water, earth, and fire.

And in such connections, covenants are made.

A generational novel, The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, steps back in time to tell a story of connections, a covenant that not only defines family lines, but at the same time, destroys and delivers. That which brings us to the brink has the power to save.

Just what is this covenant, this promise of water? This constancy that defies time, two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen, this life-giving necessity? So much more than mere sustenance or survival, this element of nature, this compound of chemistry, cleanses, saves, and redeems, a baptismal binding generation to generation to generation. Just like the families of Travancore, this constancy of water, flowing from river to sea, the binding of past and present, this multi-generational covenant comes full circle and continues, evermore.

I have read Verghese’s first novel, Cutting for Stone, several times, each reading better that the last. And although his second novel, The Covenant of Water, required 2 checkouts from our local library, the interval in-between was of no consequence. Picking up where I left off three weeks before, the story continued seamlessly, a testament to the very characters themselves. Big Amachi, Philipose, Unni and Damo, Baby Mol and JoJo, Digby, Elsie, Mariamma, Lennon, and all the families of Parambil are there, printed upon the page, alive and thriving in my right-brained memory. It was a pleasant reunion.

Beautifully written, Verghese’s love of medicine, man, and God is the very ink with which he writes, the color with which he creates. Metaphors that not only catch your breath, but send you head-first, your thoughts, your life, your very self between the lines. And although fiction, there is a lasting connection, a glimpse of understanding, a hint of hope, and perhaps, even, a covenant.

A must read. One for my permanent shelves. I look forward to my second reading, third, hopefully fourth. And maybe, just maybe, meaning will show its face, a fleeting gift. Like the mountain mist of an early morn, it is there, this meaning of life, if only for a moment.

Carpe diem.

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather, A Book Review by Rebecca Moll

To what soil do you toil?

There is something romantic about a sparse and forbidding landscape, a simple life lived in the silence of the desert, within the forces of nature. A life lived for the glory of God, one where living by example leads to a legacy of meaningful change.

Add the aura of history and suddenly we dream in sepia of a time gone by, of lives gone by.

Even today, areas of America’s Southwest remain raw and unforgiving, the elements unapologetic, breathtakingly beautiful. There is no pretense, no mirage, no false motives. The sun rises and sets in all its glory, the very earth a brilliant wash of yellows, reds, and browns.

And in the mid-19th century this natural wonder remained much unchanged. There were the Castilian Spanish, the Moors, and the Mexicans. They came. They went. And the land remained unchanged. There were the Native Americans, their homes carved high within cliffs. They lived. They died. And the sands blew over their forefathers, rendering their footprints dust to dust.

And then came the French Missionaries.

Willa Cather draws upon her love for history and the American Southwest, its barren and hostile terrain, its varied peoples, to plant a seed of truth. That love grows. Even in the most inhospitable places. And like a flower unfolding in a wasteland of sand, there is beauty in the miracle of its very existence.

Father Jean Marie Latour arrives on the scene in 1851, a newly appointed Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. Little does he know the distance from France to his new home, a trip seemingly to the ends of the earth, will pale in comparison with the thousands of miles he will traverse to spread the word of God. Faced with a vast and disconnected land, a myriad of customs and beliefs, a gaggle of renegade priests, Father Latour has a lifetime of hard labor ahead of him. Together with Father Vaillant, a true champion of the poor, they begin the work, one step at a time, one day at a time, one seed at a time.

Finding solace in his daily office, toiling in his beloved garden, meeting and ministering to his people, Father Latour battles the elements within and without, meeting a landscape of adversity and his own loneliness with the constancy of grace and faith. For almost forty years he cultivates and plants the seeds of love. And like the Juniper tree, with just a sprinkling of water, a handful of sand, roots forge new life.

For me, it was Father Latour’s gentle and peaceful disposition, his living within the forces of nature rather than upon that bent the winds of change. It is said that real change takes time. That the mending of hearts and minds is a slow process. I could agree with this, yet for the power of love. For in the great scape of time, forty years is but a moment. And from a moment springs a legacy of meaningful change, a legacy of love.

Death Comes for the Archbishop is a love story. Love of God, love of people, love of land. Beautifully written, Cather jump starts your heart and feeds your soul. Life need not be complicated. There is satisfaction in simplicity. Ardor in adoration of creation. Compassion in the ministering of others.

And in the end, death comes, the cathedral bell tolls, knees fall upon shifting sands, and seeds cast to winds find new purchase. For love grows.

One for my permanent shelves, I look forward to reuniting with Father Latour when the occasion arrives.

One step. One day. One moment. One page at a time. To what soil do you toil?

Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen, A Book Review by Rebecca Moll

It is an American prerogative to claim the pronoun, I. “I graduated from UCLA.” “ I ran a marathon in 3:38.” “ I published my first book at twenty-three.” And yet, we do not live in a vacuum. There are those that must be given their due and events that must be afforded credit in the molding and shaping of our lives, not to mention plain old luck, good and bad.

And there is nothing more molding or shaping than an older sister, especially when she is perfect. Backdrop this against the city that never sleeps, where everything and everyone can shape-shift right before your eyes and the effect is almost hypnic. Is she really perfect?

The problem with hypnosis is that eventually, you must wake up. No, silly, she’s not perfect. Rise and Shine.

I credit my place on the family staircase, an often-antagonistic older brother, a low-key little brother, and wow, nine years later, a baby sister with my first lessons in negotiation and self-assertion. I learned young to listen, first, then rehearse, then, speak. Hardworking grandparents, a set-the-world-on-fire father, a loving and ever-present mother, and older, a devoted husband and three beautiful children have added color and design to the fabric of me I now claim to have woven. And, of course, I would be nothing without Him.

It is Bridget, the younger, less-perfect sister in Quindlen’s Rise and Shine who not only gives due credit but sees the hypnosis for what it is, at least she thinks she does. It is Bridget who offers the inside view into their sibling-sister dynamic and all its fallout.

Successful, but too-caught-up-in-the-limelight older sister. Struggling, but good-hearted younger sister, always a step or two behind perfect, big sister Meghan. Meghan the hard-hitting reporter, Meghan America’s favorite. Two against the world from the time they were kiddies. No one knows the real you better than your sister. And yet, Bridget finds herself at a loss when her sister’s pedestal suddenly tips and the world turns ugly.

Someone snaps their fingers, and in a second, you realize you were under a spell.

Quindlen tells one hell of a story with razor sharp wit and bull’s eye metaphors. Funny and insightful the pages turn quickly, the characters warming their way into your heart. Meghan or Bridget may not be your sister, Leo may not be our nephew, but you know the feeling, can relate to the craziness we all call family.

The power of one is nothing but itself. Every second of every day we influence and are influenced by others, hopefully in a positive manner. Even a cat knows mere observation can afford effect, thanks to good old Schrödinger. And who knows, maybe Quindlen’s Rise and Shine will put a knit in your fabric, offer a change in perspective, or, perhaps a wee bit o’ understanding?

Good books tend to do just that. Read up and wake up. Rise and Shine.

Divine with Thine

Someday,
When the world is quiet,
Voices gone silent,
Once again,
Your wonderful laugh I'll hear.

Somewhere,
On the other side of night,
Of wrong and right,
A beautiful sight,
Once again,
Your smiling face I'll see.

Somehow,
When all is done,
And time stands still,
Beyond idyll,
Once again,
Your hand I'll feel in mine.

And then we'll fly,
Throughout the skies,
And paint the world anew.

For two it takes,
A rhyme to make,
His love the underscore,
And time enshrined,
We'll come to find,
The truth – Divine with Thine.

This Shall Be a House of Peace by Phil Halton, A Book Review by Rebecca Moll

From the ravages of war rise the ravaged of war…

In this haunting novel, Halton delivers the truth unclothed, gnarled, and beaten, desperate and emaciated. War torn Afghanistan is finally Russian free, but what remains is barely beyond survival. Years pass and men prove over and over a baseness true to human nature. But out of the ashes rises hope, the resurrection of a way of life, the way of life for those who follow Allah.

One man, a former mujahedeen now Mullah, shepherds the boy orphans and establishes a madrassa high upon a hill, an abandoned, crumbling village. Upon this lofty precipice, recitations of the Quran fill the skies and hearts of young boys with love, hope, honor, and praise. Their days, once scrounging the barren landscape for food and shelter, vulnerable and victimized, now have structure and meaning. Soon, other men seeking peace follow, too.

Turning the world away, this mullah, reaches out his long, strong arms to protect the faithful and build a future. But the ugly world will not stay away and survival becomes appropriated with the will of God.

There are subtle, yet intriguing, allegories to the betrayal of Christ, the sacrificing one’s life for the sins of all, a shepherd who gathers the lambs in his arms. There is the offer of salvation to all who are true Muslims, even the most unlikely convert. But, most of all, there is the truth that this could happen anywhere, to anyone and finally, that it is happening, this world, right now.

A window into the Afghanistan Pashtun culture from a westerner with first-hand experience, this novel offers unanticipated take-aways. Admiration for an ancient culture, its inherent reverence for respect, even in the face adversity and atrocity. A simple greeting, infused with banter of blessings and well-wishes, a clever and practical stepping-stone to uncovering motives, establishing mutual understanding, but above all acknowledging the good in each other as faithful followers of Islam.

“Asalaam aleikum,” said the farmer respectfully.
“Wa Aleikum salaam,” said the man. “I hope you are well. I hope that your house is strong. I hope that your family is well. May your health be ever good.”

Compelling and very readable, this heart-breaking novel ends with the door to the madrassa and its future wide open. What lies ahead? A history with many different tellings, the Afghanistan people is widely known but, as for the truth, little understood.

What will emerge from the ashes of Afghanistan? The answer lies in little boy eyes.

Returning to Earth by Jim Harrison, A book Review by Rebecca Moll

Entwined in circles of light our lives take flight...

Upon typing Returning to Earth into my search bar, a variety of images appeared. Not exactly the returning to earth I had envisioned reading Jim Harrison’s novel about life, death, and finding redemption, the title invoking an ashes-to-ashes image, the cover, two ravens, one in flight, the other looking back over his shoulder, as if, remembering. As I contemplated a screen full of earth from space images, I began to wonder, perhaps, dying is less like us as ashes becoming earth and more like us as spirits becoming space.

I do hope the final experience of this life offers such out-of-this-world beauty, such vast perspective, such absolute freedom, and most of all, the open arms, come-back-to-me love and understanding of benevolent father-creator. Understanding is in many ways acceptance, even if only to a small degree. Isn’t that what we all really want – to be understood?

Understanding leads to forgiveness, forgiveness to absolution, and absolution to deeper understanding. Kind of like a full circle, back to the beginning, returning to earth concept. But, this time, this very last time we circle mother earth, perhaps we will see so much more than that from whence we came, galaxies and galaxies, light years, and light years. Oh, what a beautiful sight!

Returning to Earth is a beautiful and heart-wrenching novel about love, loss, and the healing powers of redemption. It’s about loving and accepting your family, your friends despite their failings, despite your failings. It’s about the first recalcitrant steps of understanding. It’s about finding a way amidst grief, your way, in honor and memory of their way.

Donald, a Grizzly bear-sized Chippewa-Finnish man, patriarch, is the stable, loving, and steadfast father, husband, friend. He is strong, loyal, and everlasting. He is down to earth, his very blood, tied to mother earth in both practice and beliefs. But Donald is dying. His wife Cynthia, brother-in-law David, son, daughter and nephew struggle with reality, his short time left on earth, their anguish and despair opening old wounds, eroding foundations, resurfacing insecurities, unanswered questions.

And in his absence, they try to make meaning, to understand, each their own way, in honor and memory of his way, to forgive and to absolve not just those they love, but themselves as well.

Set in the beautiful and rugged Upper Peninsula, this story will both tear your heart and heal your soul. A master story teller, Harrison navigates life’s most difficult complexities with ease and grace, the only way such a story could be told, from the characters themselves, each of their accounts entwined with that of the others. Perhaps, there are a multitude of circles? Imagine, a universe lit with the millions and billions of entwined circles of light, what is now and forever shall be, world without end.

Oh, what a beautiful sight!

The first of Harrison’s I’ve read, on the heels of this, today I begin a second. Need I say more?

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, A Book Review by Rebecca Moll

Writing fiction has inherent freedom in that, as long as, it is plausible, it does not have to be necessarily possible. Non-fiction, however, requires the fine line of truth, a treacherous high-wire kind of line. One misstep and the fall is deadly, a whole crowd of gawkers who will call out the obvious, your faux-paus and grand transgressions that apparently were not so obvious at the time of writing.

I’ll stick with fiction, thank you.

John Berendt not only walks the fine line, but in doing so, lays open the vast landscape below, a wide-window into Savannah, one of America’s oldest cities. Slightly antiquated, this both charming and conflicting city defines itself by its own rules. Press upon the sill, lean farther for a better look, for it is the characters, the very real, living, breathing people of Savannah that push and pull at reality.

Serena Dawe s, the Faulkner-like Antebellum aging princess. Joe Odom, the con-artist/thief you must mistrust but can’t help love, beg for just one more trip up and down those ebony and ivories. Jim Williams, antique dealer, the good guy or is it bad guy? Minerva, the living ghost of unsettled departed souls, root digger you do not want to cross. The Lady Chablis, exotic, glamorous, outrageous, two halves that don’t necessarily make a whole. Out of control, beautiful Billy Hansen. The frightening Luther Driggers that needles your hairline each time you turn on the tap. And of course, Mercer House, just as much a character as the rest, the walls do talk, or better yet, sing, Baby It’s Cold Outside, Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive, and of course, Personality. Who doesn’t love Johnny Mercer?

Having recently visited Savannah for the first time, I decided to read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil for the second time. I can see a third reading somewhere in my future.

Black, white, rich, poor, sane, kind of sane, far from sane, plotters and plodders, this swirling, whirling mix known as Savannah holds a high court. Proud, but not so loud, she turns a cold shoulder on the outside world, happy to be as it was and ever will be, whatever she decides it will be, thank you very much.

What better setting for a murder?

But, before you delight in solving this crime, remember that high-wire line, that Daniel Lewis Hansford was a real person, one who is forever mourned by loved ones, so much more than just a victim, a character in one story’s telling. That Lady Chablis deserves understanding, Jim Williams forgiveness, Joe Odom just one more song, Serena Dawes a few old rules of civility, Luther Driggers, an empty plate at breakfast, and Minerva, many more midnights in the garden of good and evil.

Turn to page one and step back in time and place, Mercer House, 429 Bull Street, Monterey Square, Savannah. Get your tickets early, the tour fills up fast for this opulent Italianate Villa Style mansion. Look but don’t touch and remember your manners. Her highness Savannah is a most gracious host for those who walk the fine line.

And for those who misstep, take pleasure in her faults, laugh at her fragility? There’s always a boat waiting patiently in the middle of the river to cross to the other side, a few handfuls of dirt, and one or two remaining items of the late Dr. Buzzard.

Take heart should all this talk of death get you down. Get out your old vinyls and spin a few oldies but goodies. Johnny Mercer or maybe Duke Ellington, the very two who indirectly launched a little unknown lady with a big, big voice, the one and only Aretha Franklin. Who else could cover the greats while Laughing on the Outside?

R-E-S-P-E-C-T…find out what it means…R-E-S-P-E-C-T…just a little bit…just a little bit…just a little bit…re- re- re- , read on!