Connie ’s Comments (group member since Nov 11, 2013)

Connie ’s comments from the Reading with Style group.

Louise Bro wrote: "I'm considering reading Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier for 10.3, does anyone know if it would fit for 20.2? Is the house a creepy backdrop or more of a character?"

It's up to the mods, but the house is very important. The first sentence sets the mood: "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." The former inhabitant is the deceased Rebecca who still wreaks emotional havoc with people's lives.

15.2 Reading Globally

Set in France

The Portrait by Antoine Laurain

Task total: 15
Season total: 220

20.2 The House

Grief Cottage by Gail Godwin

Eleven-year-old Marcus is orphaned when his mother dies in a car accident, and his great-aunt Charlotte is appointed his guardian. Charlotte is a reclusive artist who lives in a beach cottage on a South Carolina island. Marcus is curious, exceptionally intelligent, and willing to help out around the house so he will not wear out his welcome. Charlotte shuts herself up painting in her studio all day, fueled with bottles of red wine, so Marcus has a lot of time on his hands for exploring the beach.

Hurricane Hazel roared through the South Carolina coast in 1954. Three family members staying at the old cottage at the end of the beach vanished during the storm. The cottage soon fell into disrepair, and the beach people called it "Grief Cottage". When Marcus explores the property, he feels a strange connection and thinks he sees the ghost of the boy who had been swept away by the hurricane fifty years earlier. One wonders if Marcus is more emotionally available to the paranormal since he is overcome with grief and other losses. He stops by the "Grief Cottage" every day to try to make another connection to the ghost boy. Marcus devotes his summer to learning more about the history of the abandoned house and the hurricane victims.

This is much more than a ghost story since there are many other interesting, complex characters that offer friendship to Marcus. Some of the supporting characters are also dealing with their own deep emotional issues that are slowly revealed. The story is about loss, grief, love, and making connections. Readers who like character-driven literary fiction will find this to be an especially rewarding story.

+20 task
+10 review

Task total: 30
Season total: 205

20.7 Single Word

Taps by Willie Morris

In this Southern coming-of-age story, narrator Swayze Barksdale looks back to an important time in the small town of Fisk's Landing, Mississippi. It's 1951 during the Korean War when Swayze and his friend Arch are asked to play "Taps" at the graves of the fallen soldiers. Swayze's father had died six years earlier, and Luke from the VFW post assumes a big brother role--talking about life and death, teaching him poker, and helping out at the military funerals. Although the veterans were not perfect people, it was heartwarming to witness their sense of community and the steady support they offered each other. This is also the year when sixteen-year-old Swayze experiences first love with all its complications, the teamwork and commitment of playing varsity basketball, and sees the path to being a man.

The writing is as languid and lush as a hot summer afternoon in Mississippi. The author is a former editor of Harper's Magazine, and it's obvious that he loves language and unusual words. It did not bother me that the book was a slow read because I liked the main character, Swayze. Willie Morris based the setting on his hometown of Yazoo City, and he captures the small town feeling well. Morris' wife finished writing "Taps" after the author died in 1999, and the book was published posthumously in 2001.

+20 task
+ 5 combo 10.8
+10 review

Task total: 35
Season total: 175

Deedee wrote: "Hi all -- well, I'm excited. My son's wedding date is set for Dec. 27, 2017 -- my daughters & I are going to do the wedding planning as they are overseas until Dec. 23 -- they want a small wedding ..."

What an exciting time for your family! I hope all the wedding planning goes well.

20.5 Old

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Cora is a slave on a Georgia cotton plantation with a brutal master. She feels his eyes on her and fears his next move. When another slave tells her about the Underground Railroad, she agrees to his escape plan. They travel to another state, but the slave catcher Ridgeway is on their trail.

Colson Whitehead uses magical realism by writing about a secret railroad located underground in dirt tunnels. He also plays around with the time and location of events, pulling many important events from black history into the places along Cora's escape route. It was a clever and imaginative way to present the types of challenges and the cruel people that an escaped slave would encounter. Some of the horrors depicted, especially early in the book, were so brutal and inhumane that I could only read a few chapters at a time.

The book has a large number of characters since Cora is meeting new people as she moves from state to state. In the beginning of the book we get a good understanding of how Cora is feeling. But between the third person point of view and so many characters, the spotlight was taken off Cora many times as the book progressed. The reader was not inside Cora's head, experiencing the terror she must have been feeling under the circumstances or her emotional reactions to the other characters. Cora's experience was sometimes sacrificed to tell the general African American experience. It may have been the intent of the author to make the racial history the priority.

The story starts with Africans being loaded into slave ships, and ends with some hope as some slaves escape to the north and west. While things are better today, there is still a segment of the population that shows extreme prejudice against people of color. "The Underground Railroad" reminds us that African Americans have experienced a horrific history. Colson Whitehead's inventive presentation of that history has nudged people to discuss an important topic.

+20 task (set in the 1850s)
+10 review

Task total: 30
Season total: 140

I'm very sorry for your loss of your beloved dog, Karen.

15.1 Reading Globally

Setting: Korea-Democratic People's Republic (North)

Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite by Suki Kim

Task total: 15
Season total: 110

20.2 The House

A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline

Andrew Wyeth spent his summers painting in Cushing, Maine and he was especially drawn to the Olson House and its occupants. Siblings Al and Christina Olson lived in their old ancestral home which had no modern conveniences--no electricity, and no indoor plumbing other than a hand pump in the kitchen. The book is named for Wyeth's famous painting "Christina's World" which depicts a field of yellowed grass and a woman in a pink dress crawling up the hill, heading toward a farmhouse in disrepair. Wyeth is showing Christina, who had a debilitating neuromuscular disease, as a woman with many qualities. Fragile, vulnerable, longing, strong, and persistent are adjectives that come to mind, and every viewer will see something different in the painting.

The book is really Christina's story written as a fictional memoir of her life with her parents, her grandmother, and three brothers. She was an intelligent girl whose dream of becoming a teacher was taken from her when her parents needed her at home to do chores in the farmhouse. Her hope of love and marriage never worked out. Christina was a resilient worker at home, caring for her sickly parents and her siblings. She always had a stubborn streak, and refused to use a wheelchair as her mobility decreased. Andrew Wyeth treated Christina with a cheerful acceptance, and his presence was welcomed by both Christina and her brother. Al and Christina had a strong sibling connection--two people facing life together under difficult circumstances, both with dreams that were never realized.

I loved Christina Baker Kline's writing in this story. The author conveys so much understanding and warmth in her complex portrayal of Christina. The book transported us to the first half of the 20th Century, to a time of simple pleasures, hard work, and the unforgettable Christina Olson.

+20 task
+10 review

Task total: 30
Season total: 95

I wanted to get approval for A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline. The Olson House and its occupants were painted for years by Andrew Wyeth. The history of the house was important in the story. Christina, who had a debilitating disease, became more reclusive in the house as she lost her mobility. Here's a review of the book:
http://rheller.bangordailynews.com/20...

Ed wrote: "I'm planning to read The Invention of Curried Sausage by Uwe Timm. It's on Boxall's 1001 Books You Should Read Before You Die List."

Ed, you deserve a prize for coming up with the most interesting and unusual books.

I thought that Pat Barker's Regeneration was an excellent book.

Here are a few more if people are looking for ideas:

The Confusion of Languages by Siobhan Fallon

Love and Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford

The Midwife's Confession by Diane Chamberlain

Absolution by Patrick Flanery

The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World by Andrea Wulf

The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland

Strange Fits of Passion by Anita Shreve

Sam wrote: "Has anyone read Year of Wonders? I'm wondering if the rector features enough to be a main character."

Yes, the rector is a very important character. I read it with a book discussion group recently and we all loved the book.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "I loved Mrs. Dalloway. But I don't understand why it's on the list. Because it takes place in one day? (Oh look - there is a task for that this season!)"

I can read books with some stream-of-consciousness, but not if it goes on for hundreds of pages. There are a few other stream-of-consciousness books on the list, so I'm guessing that's the criteria for the list. But I'm not familiar with most of the books, so that's just a guess.

(As far as I know, we're not contemplating offering this as a task, so you can breathe a sigh of relief.)

I got through Mrs. Dalloway because that was a short book, but can't imagine tackling Ulysses, Elizabeth.

20.10 Uncommon Letter

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Published in 1924 after the Russian Revolution, "We" is an early dystopian novel that influenced Orwell's "1984", and Huxley's "Brave New World". It is set a thousand years in the future in the totalitarian OneState where people are identified by numbers instead of names, and wear identical uniforms. OneState is ruled by the Benefactor, and the Guardians spy on the citizens who live in superglass apartments. The only time the blinds can be drawn is during assigned hours for sexual activity. OneState is a rational world where the people live like machines and have no individual freedom. It is surrounded by the Green Wall that separates the glass world from the natural world where there are a few surviving humans.

The protagonist of the novel is D-503, a mathematician and the builder of the INTEGRAL, a spaceship that will carry citizens of OneState to colonize other planets. He meets I-330, an independent woman who shows him that he has a soul. The back of his hands are covered with atavistic hair which shows that D-503 may still have a few genes left from the primitive society that existed earlier. His lover, I-330, shows him things from the ancient world that are rooted in emotion, beauty, imagination, and nature. Like Eve tempting Adam in the Garden of Eden, I-330 is tempting him with freedom of choice. I-330 tries to convince D-503 to use the INTEGRAL spaceship for another purpose.

The important theme running through the novel is the collective "We" versus the individual "I". The Benefactor resembled Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor (in "The Brothers Karamazov") where society has a choice between freedom and happiness. OneState chose happiness by ridding society of any temptations so people have no reason to be discontent. Of course, not everyone will want a society without freedom of choice so rebels like I-330 exist. This was an interesting dystopian novel that had a great influence on later authors who pointed out flaws in totalitarian regimes.

+20 task
+ 5 combo 20.7
+10 review
+10 oldie pub 1924

Task total: 45
Season total: 65

10.8 Double Letter Names

Setting: USA

The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende

Alma Belasco, now an octogenarian living in a retirement residence, is telling the story of her life to her grandson Seth and her immigrant care worker Irina. Alma met Ichimei Fukuda, the son of her family's Japanese gardener, when they were children. Their instant connection eventually turned into a lifelong love affair which is recounted through letters and flashbacks. The Fukuda family was sent to an internment camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II, and lived under terrible conditions in the Utah desert. Ichimei and Alma started corresponding at that time. Alma was a Jew from Poland who had been sent to relatives in the United States as the Nazis invaded her country, so she had also been a victim of prejudice.

The book has a large number of characters and covers many social problems, tragedies, and important events in the 20th Century. There were humorous passages about growing old, and the romance was a sweet story. But it seemed that we got to know a lot of characters in a superficial way. I would have cared more about their outcomes if the book had gone deeper into the emotions of the main characters, and found it took a while to warm up to them.

+10 task
+10 review

Task total: 20
Season total: 20

Thanks, Elizabeth.

Do subtitles count in this task? I might be reading Taps: A Novel.

Congratulations, Karin!