Maureen’s Comments (group member since Mar 02, 2009)

Maureen’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

nice quote, dan. but then it seems that cather is almost infinitely quotable. lord knows i had a quote from her in my old email signature for ages and i hadn't even read her yet. :)

kerry! glad to see you haven't given up on us! that's interesting about selah, and it reminds me of how little the grandfather actually says and does in the book but yet, how strongly one feels his influence on jim, and in the book. i think cather really hit the mark in providing enough information about characters: people move in and out of this book and i don't resent them leaving. generally it seems they stay as long as they're needed, and they toddle on through, and i don't wish them back again.

Gloria wrote: "I pet trees too. Go figure... :)

Thanks for the heads up on Ebenezer. Looks great. Added to the list.

I like Stephen Crane's short stories best. Not sure why.

I like Fitzgerald, I really do. ..."

i think we're all strings on a fret board of art, in this case, writing, and we all vibrate to the strumming differently.

i did that same thing with fitzgerald, i don't know how many years ago. i had always loved gatsby (i adore the derailed jay gatsby -- all his ambition for himself lost to a woman who only truly cares about herself)and then i picked up the beautiful and the damned, couldn't believe people didn't like it, and went to town on everything i could get my hands on. i remember being horrified by racism in some of the short stories, but i think fitzgerald's reputation is really well deserved.

as for stephen crane: i read the poems before anything else, and when i came to read his fiction i liked it but it wasn't what i'd hoped for. i wanted long stories about demons who ate their own tasty hearts because they were so deliciously bitter. :)

god that ebenezer le page. it's one of the few books i won't loan out because i have to have it near me. it's a comfort. :)

gloria! i did the comparison and it turns out we agree on quite a few things (like we both really didn't like middlesex, for example), and then i saw you gave gatsby a three star review while i gave it a five -- i had no idea when i used daisy as an example. :)

Gloria wrote: "Case in point, just finished rereading Wendell Berry's Jayber Crow. THAT is gorgeous. You wanna sob on the subway, read that."

everyone should have an appreciation of trees. i like to pet them, myself. :)

and thanks for the recommendation! i can't say i'm actively seeking books to make me cry on the subway -- it just happens way too often. i'm a bit emotional. :P last year ben pointed me in the direction of The Book of Ebenezer Le Page which is one of the most beautiful books i've ever read. you might want to pick that up -- i would rank it up there as one of the best ever ever. of course, i'm not sure where our tastes coincide yet -- i should do one of those "compare books" things with you. i did see that you liked stephen crane's novels better than his poetry whereas i'm the complete opposite. :)

i only know that johnny grew up there and there were a lot of fields. i figured that was why he liked golf so much. :) but i guess i didn't realize it was quite so barren! i've only ever lived around lots of trees!

yes, i think i will be reading death comes for the archbishop as well.

do you normally like this memoir style of writing?

okay, i'm done!

there's not really a plot.

i really liked the book -- i wasn't sure if crying by page fifteen was going to bear out, but i found i really like cather's writing, period. she accomplishes a lot in straight forward memoir as narrative, and i like the sense of nostalgia that permeates the book. i have read that cather was friends with sarah orne jewett, author of the country of the pointed firs (fantastic book - thanks ben? patty?) and the two share a lot in style and approach with vignette/chapters that all stand on their own. but while i adored the pointed firs, and think for me, it is a superior book, for all its stillness it didn't have an antonia. and i'm going to compare antonia to daisy buchanan in gatsby, or faulkner's caddy, or helen of troy. she's that girl, that dreams are made of. gloria, that's how i am picturing your problem with her characterization -- this stock ethereal beauty that is perhaps sometimes a little too diffused, a little too remote -- i've been frustrated by characters like that in the past. sometimes you feel cheated at the slightness of the character for the impact they bestow. but for me, antonia was an infusion, she was like the river that jim so loved, threading herself into his story so that even when he is away from her they're merged in my mind, they've imprinted upon each other so much that i can't really think of him without her, and i think that some epic characterization -- cather is a vivid and powerful writer, really adept at description, who seems capable of writing a story that seems a perfect memory perfectly recounted. it feels very much as if this really happened (as indeed it may have) but you are there, in the days before radio, tv, movies sitting as enthralled as the other children listening to her tell the story.

highlights: when tony recalls the story of the tramp.
also, the whole weirdness with krajiek and the axe! the story of the russian bride! i really loved the little gothic moments, the secrets of neighbours, and the barely suppressed violence of life the underbelly of society just springing up in the place johnny carson grew up -- his show was the first i ever heard of nebraska, when i was knee-high to a grasshopper writing him letters on my kermit the frog stationery. :)

phew! i sure blathered on a lot. i should probably steal some of this for my review. :P

gloria, i loved that quote you pulled about the trees. several times i stopped and read over a sentence or two, thinking i had to write that down, because it was so perfectly laid out, and so wise. :)

well, i started reading it last night, and i'm only a few pages in, but i choked up on the subway, when jim and antonia meet and she grabs his hand and then just go off to play, and everything's very vivid at that moment, very real. i can see them in the sunshine, the sister playing with the bug. so of course, i didn't progress very far, trying to keep myself composed because it wouldn't do to have see me crying fifteen pages or so into a book. that's just not done. :P

Gloria wrote: "Maureen wrote: "i keep forgetting to read a western trilogy by a canadian named guy vanderhaeghe -- the first book is called
The Englishman's Boy: A Novel, followed up by [book:The L..."

gloria! hurray! happy to help! people have been telling me about guy v. for years but i just kept forgetting to add him to the list -- it's such a long list! let me know when you get round to it and i can try to time myself appropriately. :)

Adrian wrote: "

Plush Yoda says, "Read a novel about Nebraska frontier I will not. Herh herh herh!"

Plush Yoda always has an attitude. I may reread Death Comes For The Archbishop and add inappropriate comments..."

adrian! i want the plush yoda though truth be told, he seems more like a felt yoda. i like his cthulhu toes. :)

patty also loves Death Comes for the Archbishop so if i like this one, i'll be adding it to my list and wait with glee for the snark:

yay that kerry and dan might be joining us -- have you dug out/found the book yet -- labour day is this weekend!! :)

i keep forgetting to read a western trilogy by a canadian named guy vanderhaeghe -- the first book is called
The Englishman's Boy: A Novel, followed up by The Last Crossing and the last is called A Good Man and it comes out september 20th. :)

p.s. when I was adding the first book to my "to-read" list, i saw this list, and not sure we have everything on it, on ours: http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/98...

hey kids:

i added this to my to-read list after patty (hi patty!) gave it to me this past weekend and found that patrick and gloria wanted to read it as well. i suggested we might have a group read but then realized how slender the book is, so we've agreed (along with kerry! yay!) that we will convene here after labour day to discuss the novel. :)

if anybody else would like to join us or chime in with their thoughts, feel free to join us!

p.s. that was what michael said in essence. i'm paraphrasing. :)

they won't stop because it's their job, and they need the money, and this is the only thing they know? maybe?

i mean, i've complained about it myself, the lesser books from great writers but really? sometimes it's worth it to me to see snatches of brilliance in something perhaps derivative of an author's previous work. and as michael said to me as we stood in the lobby of his hotel: almost every wonderful book has some unutterable audaciously bad sentence in it. :P

Sean wrote"just finished Ian McEwan's SOLAR....curious what other people thought.... ":

hey sean: i haven't read one mcewan book yet, so i'd be happy to put it on my list. i always get him confused with ian rankin who i have also never read. meanwhile, i'm reading mr. peanut for a second time, because i'm convinced i have it figured out now. and i keep thinking about how joseph o' connor has schooled me with his style. :)

i haven't read it yet but i'm betting it's awesome on the strength of mr. peanut: adam ross' short story collection Ladies and Gentlemen is something i've been anxiously anticipating. i just have too long a list. but i really think he's somebody to watch: my two new favourite contemporary novelists are ross and joseph o' connor who has now kicked my ass with two books. those, obviously aside from people i actually *know* ;)

nope, worked fine for me. tracy, maybe try again?

cool that you have somebody to cheer for, neil. :)

Chris wrote: "One day I may have to use one of these as an epigraph."

ha! i am not going to say which one i've pegged as one you might have chosen. :P

ha! well, mike, as it happens, disappointed in my viewings of satyricon, and caligula in terms of roman-themed erotica, i bought that book the year after it came out, but had read the primary sources already so it was a bit of a disappointment because there was nothing nude -- er new. happily, at the same time, i purchased Games of Venus: An Anthology of Greek and Roman Erotic Verse from Sappho to Ovid which introduced me to some great translations (that still weren't precisely sexy, but still) including my favourite translation of Sappho 31! here's a sampling (mostly Greek actually):


Once more, like a blacksmith, Eros battered me with his huge
axe, and doused me in an icy torrent.

***

Thracian filly, why do you eye me with mistrust
and stubbornly run away, and think that I'm unskilled?
Rest assured, I could fit you deftly with a bridle
and, holding the reins, could steer you past the end posts of our course...

***

Boy with the girlish glance
I pursue you, but you won't listen,
you don't know you hold the reins of my soul

- Anacreon (i'll note here there's a lot of horse-back riding metaphor and imagery in ancient erotic poetry)

Boy, your slutting around has wrecked my affection,
you've become a disgrace to our friends.
You dried my hull for a while. But I've slipped out of the squall
and found a port as night came on.

***

A young woman isn't right for an old man,
she won't respond to the the rudder like a boat,
anchors won't hold her, she'll often break
the ropes, find another harbour in the night.

***

No you didn't fool me -- wandering down the road
where you used to ride, defrauding our love.
Get out! The gods hate you, men can't trust you.
That snake in your lap turned out to be shifty and cold.

- Theognis (also boats)

I wish I were the wind, and you walking along the shore,
would bare your breasts and take me as I blew.

(Anonymous Epigram)


As on a straw a Thracian man or Phrygian
sucks his brew, forward she stooped, working away.

***

His cock, like that
of a crop-gobbling dokey from Priene, overflowed.

- Archilochus

and finally, a short fragment that's beautiful -- another favourite discovered here, there are actually many such but i was focussing on the dirtier ones. :)

Eros, that slackener of limbs, twirls me again --
bittersweet, untameable, crawling thing.

- Sappho

i second that emotion. i love you too, patty! and kerry, and moira, and martyn. :) oh it's a big love-in here at the fiction files.

moira: i sort of did high school my own way -- i mean i went part of the time and pretended i was on "independent" study the other half. but even when i was there, i had trouble following rules that didn't make sense to me. one teacher once mentioned that they talked about my stubborn streak in the staff room which i thought was a little indiscreet, to say the least.

so, back to Rome: i don't know that i realized we had this interest in common. when you say ancient, are we talking prior to Tarquinius Superbus? are you a big fan of Boudicca? I would love to be the gal that picked the lint from Sulla's toga -- one of my very favourite details... and one of my favourite books ever is suetonius' twelve caesars. :)

Gloria wrote: "I might as well confess it now, I'm a Louis L'Amour junkie. I know he's not considered all "literary," but he's a damn good storyteller-- which, in that genre, is precisely what I want. Hondo is g..."

gloria! i have never read a louis l'amour, but i've read several of the other seminal works listed above. what would you suggest as a good starter l'amour?