A Work in Progress

Teaser Tuesday: Talking About Detective Fiction

Under pressure from a closely approaching library due date I picked up P.D. James's Talking About Detective Fiction this past weekend.  It's a slender little book and a fast reader could probably easily tackle it in an evening, but I tend towards slowness so it'll take me a few sittings to make my way through (but I should easily manage it before I have to return it to the library at the end of the week).  She seems such a charming person, I'm enjoying her writing about a topic that is obviously very dear to her heart and a subject I find myself drawn to as well--detective fiction.  Besides, it's nice to learn a little bit about it from someone who is so well versed in not only reading it but in writing it as well. 

I seem to want to mark every other passage as something to remember, but as this is not my book I will have to content myself to share a couple of things here.  I have a feeling that if I like the rest of the book as much as what I've already read, I will end up buying a copy to keep (which happens on occasion with a library book I particularly enjoy). 

She starts out getting a working definition of just what detective fiction is and talking about its origins.  I hadn't considered Jane Austen's Emma as a mystery, but as the reader doesn't exactly know who is going to end up with who in the story and some of the pairings end up a bit of a surprise it makes sense.  But a true detective story is one that at its heart has a crime, most often murder.  She mentions Graham Greene's Brighton Rock as a novel with no detective and no clues.  The reader will learn not who did it, but the fates of those involved.  What I wanted to share, though, is less about the detective element of the book and more about how such stories are viewed by critics.

"The novel adumbrates Greene's preoccupation with the moral ambiguity of evil, which is at the heart of his creativity; indeed, he came to regret the detective element in Brighton Rock and his own division of his novels between 'entertainments' and those presumably which he intended should be taken seriously.  I'm glad Greene later repudiated this puzzling dichotomy, which picked out certain of his novels for disparagement and which helped promote the still prevalent habit of dividing novels into those which are popular, exciting and accessible but, perhaps for these reasons, tend to be undervalued, and those in a somewhat ill-defined category which are granted the distinction of being described as literary novels.  Greene surely couldn't have meant that, when writing an 'entertainment' he took less trouble with the literary style, cared less for the truth of characterisation and modified the plot and theme to accommodate what he saw as popular taste."

I'm always cheered when someone with literary merit defends mysteries against the notion they are somehow less important or less worthy than a novel.

And I find it interesting to read what James considers a proper detective story.  This is probably all very basic to detective fiction fans, but still a nice working definition. 

"Although the detective story at its highest can also operate on the dangerous edge of things, it is differentiated both from mainstream fiction and from the generality of crime novels by a highly organised structure of conventions.  What we can expect is a central mysterious crime, usually a murder, a closed circle of suspects, each with motive, means and opportunity for the crime; a detective, either amateur or professional, who comes in life an avenging deity to solve it; and by the end of the book, a solution which the reader should be able to arrive at by logical deduction from clues inserted in the novel with deceptive cunning but essential fairness."

She also goes on to say that the mystery should be solved by the end of the book satisfactorily and logically based on the clues dropped (the author can give honest clues but in a deceptive manner, however) rather than by good luck or intuition.  This is sad to say since I love mysteries so much, but I am not always the most observant reader.  I almost get more caught up in the story than in trying to piece together the crime--at least in a conscientious manner.  As next month I'll be reading a cozy or two for the Classics Circuit I am going to try and approach the books in a more logical manner.  We'll see how that goes.  I will be reading Mignon Eberhart and perhaps an Agatha Christie as well.  I'm already looking forward to them, so Talking About Detective Fiction is going to be a good primer for next month!

The Rose of Sebastopol by Katharine McMahon

When I first met Miss Mariella Lingwood she seemed nothing more than a dull and obedient Victorian daughter in her tightly bound corset and never questioning attitude, but by the end of the story she had become someone independent and courageous and I liked her very much indeed.  I think I like flawed characters, whose actions you might question along the way (or in the case of Mariella, her excessive caution), but in the end they surprise you and make you rethink their motivations.  I've noticed Katharine McMahon carefully constructs her heroines who over time grow and become more enlightened. I set out reading The Rose of Sebastopol with a little hesitation, as I had read some very tepid responses to the story, but I had a hard time putting the book down once I started, so my worries were unnecessary.  I think I can see where elements of the story might not have worked for all readers, but it all clicked nicely for me.

Mariella Lingwood is the ideal of Victorian womanhood.  She is a dutiful daughter who rarely questions things including the reasons why England's sons are fighting in the Crimea.  Her understanding of the war is formed by the ever optimistic articles in the newspapers and the maps she draws to paste into her scrapbook.  She is proper and ladylike, "utterly content in her world and selfless in her service to others."  An expert seamstress, she is rarely without some handiwork to keep her moments occupied and filled.  Her cousin Rosa, similar in age and appearance, is almost her alter ego.  Rosa, however, is a freer and more vibrant young woman who questions everything.  She's is reminiscent of Charlotte Bronte's Shirley, another young Victorian woman interested more in doing good works than in finding a husband.  Her heart breaks for the impoverished families living on her stepfather's estate.  Beautiful and well intentioned but ultimately undisciplined she desires nothing more than to serve as a nurse in the Crimea with Florence Nightingale to aid the sick and wounded.      

While perhaps not happy to sit back and wait, Mariella understands her place and patiently looks forward to the day when Henry, a brilliant surgeon will propose to her.  Mariella and Henry grew up together.  After the death of his mother and abandonment by his father, he was taken in by her parents.  Mariella idolized Henry, and despite their differences in age and circumstance they came to be close friends.  Henry's progressive ideas about cleanliness and hand washing in the medical wards as well as new beliefs on when it's appropriate to amputate limbs means more than a few eyebrows are raised by his more esteemed and experienced colleagues, but they entrance Rosa.  She sees Henry as her way to gain knowledge and help those in need.

It's not surprising then that Mariella is left behind when first Henry goes off to help set up and organize hospitals in Sebastopol and then Rosa travels east to offer her skills as a nurse.  Once frequent letters soon slow to a trickle and then to nothing.  When Mariella learns that Henry has become deathly ill she does the unthinkable and travels to Italy with a chaperon to go to him and hopefully find Rosa.  A passionate reunion between Mariella and her beloved fiancé is ruined when in a state of delirium he calls out the name, Rosa.  Rosa and Mariella were inseparable from the moment they met.  Rosa always fearless and Mariella willing to go along but afraid to break the rules, there has always been a bond between the two that is now broken.  She thinks perhaps she finally understands her silence, though she doesn't want to believe it.  So she takes one more daring step and goes in search of Rosa at Henry's request.

The Crimea will be Mariella's making, as strange as that sounds.  She discovers just what she is capable of, though it's not a journey without difficulties and one she undertakes with much trepidation and balks at initially.  She only very slowly comes around, but once she does she's determined to see things through.  McMahon uses a lot of imagery in her writing to do with sewing and stitching (maybe in part why I loved the story so much?), and in a way it felt like a metaphor for Mariella's development.  In the beginning her creations were elaborate concoctions with frills and ribbons and all things beautiful.  She talks about

"disguising the human form with my frills and lace, my crochet, appliqué and embroidery.  I had cut yard upon yard of fabric and shaped it with gathers, darts and seams until I had turned myself into a walking gown with head and hands."

In the Crimea she is forced to take care of her maid who has fallen ill, and it has unraveled her and stripped her down bare before Mariella could bind her up again.  And she herself must change from a properly made up and tightly corseted Victorian woman to something altogether more practical, as she trims away all that is superfluous and unnecessary in her life.

The Rose of Sebastopol is as much a mystery as novel of self-realization.  And the mystery isn't just finding Rosa but trying to see into and understand the ways of the human heart.  Not every question is answered and not every thread is carefully tied at the end.  The Crimea is paradoxical to Mariella.  In some ways worse than she imagined, but in other ways surprising in its normalcy.  But after the intensity of the battlefield where much of the later story takes place, an entirely happy ending would have seemed strange to me.  McMahon leaves  much to the imagination of the reader at the end and I found that completely satisfying. 

I like Katharine McMahon's style--she knows how to tell a complex story grounded firmly in it's historical framework, and in this case she weaved together past and present deftly, yet it took a little flipping back and forth to orient myself until I had a rhythm established.  I've got several more novels to choose from, and I'm not sure how long I'll be able to hold off until I pick yet another up.  My favorite still remains The Crimson Rooms, but I expect I'll like the rest of her books as much as I've enjoyed this one.  Although it crossed my mind, I didn't flip to the end of the book this time either--an improvement, don't you think?        

Starting Anna Karenina . . .

I have officially transported myself into the world of Anna Karenina, though I've yet to formally meet her.  I'm still not sure how much I am going to try and read every week, though maybe it's better to just see where I meander to and finally arrive at every Sunday.

First things first.  There seems to be a large cast of characters, or maybe it just feels large because everyone has either a really long name or a variety of diminutives that are used as well.  Let me orient myself.

Prince Stepán Oblansky, or Stiva, Anna's brother, is a government official.  When we first meet him, and he is our introduction into the novel, it's revealed that he has cheated on his wife with their French governess.  Dolly, his wife, is unhappy with the situation and ready to leave, but she finds that she still loves him.  Stepán seems quite good-natured, and despite his infidelity is quite popular with others.  Guilt may weigh on him, but it doesn't exactly show as he is a handsome man.  Poor Dolly, though, has lost her looks, and why shouldn't she with five children to care for.  She's not remarkable for anything except as a kind mother of a family, we're told.

Dolly is the oldest of the three Shcherbátsky sisters.  Her youngest sister, Kitty, is the object of Levin's matrimonial desires.  Levin is an old friend of Stepán's who has just arrived in Moscow from the country where he lives to propose marriage to her.  The houses of Shcherbátsky and Levin are both noble families and have long been friendly with each other.  Unfortunately Kitty is not interested in Levin as husband material.    

Enter Count Vrónsky, Levin's rival.  An imperial aide-de-campe, he is "one of the finest examples of the gilded youth of Petersburg."  He's rich and handsome with excellent connections.  On top of that Stepán tells Levin that Vrónsky is not only sweet and nice but cultivated and intelligent.

Somehow the story just got all the more interesting when I read that.  I've yet to formally meet him either, but I'm looking forward to it.  He sounds rather attractive, doen't he?  Whether he'll live up to expectations is yet to be seen.

As Anna is coming to visit her brother and Dolly, she should be arriving soon, and I should get back to the story now.

So far so good.  As much as I liked War and Peace, I think I am going to like Anna Karenina more.  I like the intimacy of the story and think it will be more about relationships between this cast of characters and Moscow society than battlefield scenes and politics.

The reading is not hard going--it's just long and Tolstoy takes his time telling the story and describing the scene adding all the little details, which I am finding interesting.  Not too much in the way of politics in Anna Karenina so far.  I only wish there were footnotes rather than notes in the back of the book as I hate flipping back and forth (though I know some people find the notes on the bottom of the page intrusive).    

Anna Karenina has become my bus book (and I pick it up at other times, too), which means it is a nice little weight to carry around with me.  At least it is a paperback.

Not quite fifty pages in, but I am enjoying it so far and expect it to get better as I go.  Has anyone else been reading?  If so, what are your experiences so far?

Edited: I'm happy to see so many people are reading along-this should make things fun and much more meaningful to get different perspectives.  I wasn't going to suggest how far anyone read during the week, but I wonder if it might be good to have some loose plan if only so we can discuss roughly the same sections together?  It doesn't matter at all if you decide to read ahead or read slower, but I'll try each week to let everyone know about how far I am so we can avoid or warn about possible spoilers in case we're not all in the same place.  I think I will aim for 50-70 pages a week, but that may be adjusted if life becomes hectic.  Happy reading everyone (whether you are reading Anna K or not). 

Going Out for a Walk by Max Beerbohm

I'm afraid limited reading time this week has sent me in search of a short essay to read.  The nice thing about essays is they seem to come in all shapes and sizes, and lengths.  It looks as though Max Beerbohm is going to oblige me, a known author who is yet new to me.  I've got a copy of Zuleika Dobson on my shelves, which Philip Lopate calls Beerbohm's "zany novel", as yet unread I'm afraid.  Lopate notes that he was an accomplished essayist and helped revive the form in England after it had fallen out of favor for several generations.

"As Beerbohm's writing evolved, he abandoned the Edwardian contortions and formal mannerisms that he had so deftly practiced earlier for a more direct, streamlined, modern prose style.  In other respects he shunned the modern, tweaking the solemn speed and spirit of the age.  Beerbohm often took the role of the curmudgeon (a role he took on for this particular essay).  He exercised stunning control of a persona that veered between modesty and impudence, tenderness and spite.  He was above all a master of scale, not making any piece bigger or louder than it needed to be.  His concise writing style  achieved comic effects with the spin he put on individual words, with sudden shifts in diction and the puncturing of sentimentality.  Underneath his light, playful manner there is at times considerable thoughtfulness and wisdom."

Sorry, that's a longish quote, but I like getting an idea of an author's style, and Phillip Lopate always offers such great brief introductions.  I have to say I've been feeling rather curmudgeonly lately, too, so think I have an at least momentary affinity with Beerbohm.  His essay "Out for a Walk" was written while he was out for a walk--very fitting.  The thing is he's not really much of a walker, which is where the curmudgeonly part comes in. 

"It is a fact that not once in all  my life have I gone out for a walk.  I have been out for walks; but that is another matter."

Living in London, he writes, gives one the assurance no one will want to come out for a walk.  The noise, the smoky air, the bustle and squalor all detract from any possible enjoyment.  Now, visiting the country is another matter.

"People seem to think there is something noble and virtuous in the desire to go for a walk."

Excuses must be carefully thought out.  Usually "I have some letters to write" works well in most situations, but it isn't entirely satisfactory.  People tend not to believe you, you must then get out of your comfy armchair to get your paper and pen and start writing, and the excuse falls through on a Sunday, when there is no post until evening.  (Imagine getting mail on a Sunday!).  So then when you are dragged out for a walk you have to put up with the "walkmonger's" (as Beerbohm calls them) inanities, and Beerbohm is sure his companion must think him the dullest man to go on a walk with.

The thing is he doesn't actually have anything against walking in theory. 

"I am not one of those extremists who must have a vehicle to every destination.  I never go out of my way, as it were, to avoid exercise.  I take it as it comes, and take it in good part."

He just doesn't want to be forced into it.  I think I like Beerbohm's style and he isn't really all that curmudgeonly, just a touch.  This was a nice, light-hearted essay, entertaining enough, though I think I'd like to seek out Zuleika Dobson next.  Has anyone read it?

April 15: Reading Notes

I would probably have fewer books on my night table (and I have a seriously large stack of books on my night table at the moment) if I stopped reading book blogs.  The thing is I often cave in when I read a good review of a book rather than just writing down the title in my notebook for later.  Of course part of my problem is working in a library where I can read about a book at night and then the following day check the catalog and see if we have it. 

Well, in the case of Ann Bridge, we happen to have several of her novels--almost a whole shelf worth.  As a matter of fact I had checked out Illyrian Spring over the Christmas holidays as it had come highly recommended by Rachel .  I started it, but as so often is the case it came due and I hadn't finished it, so it went back.  After reading Rachel's post on Peking Picnic I thought it was time to go back and pick up where I had left off.  There was a small snag, as the book was listed as available in the catalog, but not anywhere on the shelf.  

Fine, I'll bring home Peking Picnic even though Illyrian Spring sounds like the slightly stronger read and is what I really want at the moment.  The thing is once I set  my mind on something, it drives me a little nuts until I get it or solve the problem.  I had this feeling that as good as Ann Bridge's books are, that since she was writing in the 1930s and onwards, it wasn't likely that her books were circulating a lot.  Judging by the date the book had be returned to the library I figured it was likely me that last returned it.  So where had it gone in the last three months? 

At one point I had two of my coworkers scanning the shelves thinking I was simply not seeing it or it had been shelved incorrectly, but it just was not there.  Purely by chance I took one last look and decided to look on the other side of the range out of curiosity.  I noticed a group of books by Rumer Godden, which made me think of how much I had enjoyed reading her at the end of last year and really must do so again soon, happened to glance down, saw an orange spine (I knew the book cover was orange) and voila.  There it was.  Sandwiched between two books with PR6013 call numbers was a lone Ann Bridge novel, call number beginning PR6029!  What luck.  I have no idea how it ended up there.  Either one of our shelvers was really tired when they put away that book, or a patron pulled it off the shelf to look at and then randomly put it back (which is why we always ask our patrons to please Not reshelve materials). 

So the saga ends happily, and now I am off to read Ann Bridge's Illyrian Spring.  And this time it's not going back until I have finished it.  By the way, both books are really nice--the perfect size that fits comfortably in the hand and not too heavy.

A few other quick bookish notes.  I've also got Nebraska author Mignon Eberhart's The Mystery of Hunting's End checked out from the library in anticipation for next month's The Golden Age of Detective Fiction on Tour for The Classics Circuit. 

I'm hoping to finally read along with Cornflower's next book group read.  She has chosen Daphne du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel.  I read it years ago and recall enjoying it, so I'm really looking forward to rereading it.  A good du Maurier novel sounds just the ticket I think.

And the Slaves have chosen their next read, also for the end of next month, Lorna Sage's Bad Blood: A Memoir.  It won the Whitbread Biography Award and looks very good.  Please consider joining us for our discussion!   

Oh, and no worries.  I have no plans of stopping reading book blogs, so you'll just have to put up with me talking about having too many good books to choose from. 

Mark of the Lion by Suzanne Arruda

So, after all is said and done I stuck it out and finished Suzanne Arruda's Mark of the Lion.  After dragging my feet I ended up enjoying it and was even a little sad when I turned the last page.  It's a nice, breezy sort of read, and was just perfect for the weekend actually.  I do still have reservations about various aspects of the story--it felt like a first mystery and it seemed as though the author was laying the groundwork for stories to come, which often means there's lots of additional information to sort through to get things going (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).  Some of the characters felt a little flat and I think the plot relied too much on coincidences, as well the resolution of the mystery might raise a few eyebrows with some readers.  I had the twist figured out well ahead of time, so was just curious to see how the murderer would be caught.  But criticisms aside (and hopefully I don't sound too harsh), I liked Jade del Cameron and her friends and found the exotic setting and time period fascinating.

Jade is the real draw of the story, especially if you like independent minded and intelligent, and in this case fearless, heroines.  Raised on a ranch outside of Cimarron, New Mexico Jade is used to rough conditions (you have to love a woman who will swear--"spit fire and save matches!") and from an early age learned how to handle herself in a male environment.  She's a crack shot and handy with a toolbox.  She volunteered to drive ambulances in France after the Great War broke out and carries with her mental scars from the war and the horrible things she saw.  She is unconventional, but considering where she started and where she ends up (the American west and the African bush), she can get away with it.  Thanks to her Spanish ancestry her olive coloring causes the occasional stare, but perhaps the fact she wears her black hair short and slightly unruly and likes to go about in jodhpurs has something to do with it.  It is 1919 after all.   

During the war romance blossomed with an RAF pilot, but his early death meant their relationship was cruelly cut short.  Before he died he made Jade promise to find his brother, which sounds reasonable until she discovers David had only recently learned of his existence.  With only a set of rings and the knowledge the brother was born in East Africa to go on, Jade has her work cut out for her.  Like so many men of the period, David's father had gone to Africa to make his fortune but fathered a son there unbeknownst to his family in England.  Only a packet of papers along with a map remains, and as David's father died under questionable circumstances there's no one to turn to for information.  Unfortunately the war began before David had a chance to undertake the search himself.  So now it falls on Jade's shoulders and it's one she doesn' t take lightly.

After the war Jade's work for a travel magazine means she can write as well as begin her search for David's brother and look into their father's suspicious death.  Colonial East Africa is an interesting place and Jade is soon befriended by a young British couple who have emigrated to Nairobi to start a coffee bean plantation.  There's a stark contrast between the natives and how they live and what they believe and the British expatriate community.  Whereas the Colonials will always come up with a reasonable and rational way of explaining things, the various African tribes are not afraid to blame strange occurrences and unexplained deaths on witchcraft.  There is fear that a laibon--a witch doctor--has set his sights upon some in the community and when Jade shoots a hyena, what we might think of as a witch's familiar, she's thought to be in danger, too.

Mark of the Lion is not a traditional mystery, though in a way it is a cozy mystery.  You could almost consider it a locked room mystery as the climax comes when Jade and a group of friends and locals go on safari that's been arranged as part of her writing assignment.  It's more than likely that the murderer will be one amongst the party.  Really this is as much an adventure story as a murder mystery.  You get a sense of what it must have been like to live there in the 1920s.  The land is equally beautiful and dangerous, so it's not strange for people to carry their rifles about with them and Jade quickly learns to be on the lookout for twitching ears in the long grass as an unexpected run in with a lion might happen if caught unaware.    

I suspect this is going to be another case of a mystery series I follow more for the characters and sense of place than for the detective work that goes on, which is just fine.  Mark of the Lion was an entertaining comfort read and I do plan on picking up the next book in the series, Stalking the Ivory, at some point (I very optimistically had the first three books on my shelves expecting to like the series).  However I've just started reading Elizabeth George's Careless in Red, which got very mixed reviews, though I'm keeping an open mind and so far she has me turning pages in much curiosity.  She has a new book coming out this month, Body of Death, so I thought I had better get reading so I could catch up.  The Lynley series is one of the few that I've followed from the very beginning.  So I've gone from Colonial East Africa to contemporary Cornwall in just a couple of days.  Variety is good.

Teaser Tuesday: A Homemade Life

If you've seen the movie Bridget Jones's Diary, you might remember the scene where Bridget has a dinner party for her friends.  She shops for fresh veggies at market and spends all day in the kitchen and the meal ends up consisting of blue soup and marmalade jam for dessert, or something to that effect.  Not what you might call a successful meal, but entertaining even so.  That's almost (almost mind you) the sort of cook I am.  I don't do badly when it comes to baking, but cooking really isn't my thing.   I think I'd enjoy cooking if it wasn't (in my case anyway) such a solitary activity.  Maybe if I was cooking with friends, and even if the meal was a disaster but we had fun and it ended up being all a lark, I would look upon it as something to enjoy rather than dread.  But my experiences are more along the lines of cooking for unappreciative and critical audiences.  Not so much fun.

So when I heard of Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life: Stories from My Kitchen Table I figured it would probably be fun if that was your sort of thing, but cooking not being my sort of thing I'd just give it a pass.  It seems to have come recommended by so many people, I had to finally break down and see for  myself, and you know after just starting it, I think I'm going to like it.  Besides, you don't have to actually be able to do whatever the author happens to be writing about to appreciate it, right?  I've read books on mountain climbing and heaven knows I'll never get around to doing that.  Besides Wizenberg has such an informal, yet intimate voice it's hard not to warm up to her stories.  She makes me wish I had that sort of upbringing or curiosity about food and cooking, and then maybe I might look on the whole affair as something very different.

So my teaser this week is from the introduction to her memoir.  She writes about how her father loved home cooked meals the best, and that it wasn't necessarily that the food was always the best, but the company was.  They weren't in an anonymous place served by people they didn't know; her family simply grew up around the kitchen table.  She spent a lot of time in the kitchen and learned to cook by a sort of osmosis rather than any special training.  Since she loved it so much, she thought perhaps becoming a chef would be the best way to "make something of it", but she didn't like the discontinuity--seeing only one aspect of the whole endeavor and not being able to see where the food ended up or who was eating her food.  So she studied instead.    

"All along, something kept calling me back to the table.  Every time I opened my mouth, a story about food came out.  In July of 2004, I decided that I had to listen.  I left my PhD program with a master's degree instead.  In an effort to make something of my madness, I started a blog called Orangette, a space where I could store all my recipes and the long-winded tales that spun from them.  I named it for one of  my favorite chocolate confections--a strip of candied orange peel dipped in dark chocolate--and started to fill it with my favorite people, places, and meals."

"I wanted a space to write about food.  That's all, really.  But what I got was something much better.  I got an excuse for long afternoons at the stove, and for tearing through bags of flour and sugar faster than should be allowed by state law.  I got a place to tell my stories and a crowd of people who, much to my surprise, seemed eager to listen and share.  What started a lonely endeavor came to feel like a conversation: a place where like-minded people could swap recipes and dinner plans, a kind of trading post where cakes and chickpeas are perfectly valid currency.  I'm not the only one, I learned who believes that the kitchen, and the food that comes from it, is where everything begins.  What started as a simple love for food grew yo have a life of its own--and a life that, in turn, has changed mine."

Strangely, for someone who doesn't like cooking, Orangette was one of the first blogs I found (non-book blogs I should say) when I started blogging myself and has been on my sidebar since the beginning, though more from admiration of something I can't do and someone else does really well, than as a desire to swap recipes (my recipes are pretty unswappable!).  So it seems only fitting that I finally read her book.  And this is not actually the first food-related reading I've done this year.  I had a run in with MFK Fisher already.  Cooking may not be my thing, but I'm happy to wash dishes in exchange for a good meal!      

The Glass Room by Simon Mawer

I can't think of another novel I've read recently that has been so full of ideas and symbolism, literally brimming with them, than Simon Mawer's The Glass Room.  Mawer's handling of the story seems somehow fitting when the centerpiece of the novel, perhaps you could even call it the stage, is an ultra modern house that serves as a sign for a new, more modern era and a progressive way of thinking. 

In 1930 German architect Mies van der Rohe completed the Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czechoslovakia.  An elegant structure with an open and airy floor plan, it was constructed of modern materials and included a stunning room enclosed on two sides by plate glass windows with a translucent onyx wall as the backdrop.  The setting sun would hit the wall and bathe the room in a glow of changing colors.  The Tugendhats were a Jewish family who fled Czechoslovakia in 1938 before the Sudetenland was annexed by Nazi Germany.  Mawer surely found in the Villa Tugendhat his inspiration for The Glass Room.

I think what I find so fascinating and exciting about the interwar years in general were the vast, sweeping cultural and social changes that had an impact on nearly every aspect of people's lives.  In The Glass Room Viktor and Liesel Landauer are proponents of these progressive ideals.  The Landauers are comfortably well off, as Victor is the owner of a car factory producing sleek new models of the future.  On their honeymoon in Venice they meet architect Rainer von Abt who will put form to their ideals creating for them a house like no other.  He's not just an architect who build walls, floors and roofs, but he "captures and encloses the space within." 

"Yet it was in this enchanted fortress, among the ormolu lamps and velvet drapes, beneath ornate plastered ceilings and chandeliers of Murano glass, that they pursued their ideal of a modern house that would be adapted to the future rather than the past, to the openness of modern living rather than the secretive and stultified life of the previous century."

As form follows function, Abt uses the most sumptuous and modern materials, but with the barest ornamentation ("ornament is a crime").  And the Landauers are happy in their glass house, raising their children--who will be brought up as "citizens of the world"--entertaining their friends and sponsoring cultural gatherings.  Or at least they appear to be.  The glass room is the heart of the house.  It is a place of transparency, where no one can tell lies.  But of course we all know how messy real life can be and it's impossible to see into the human heart and what darkness lies there.  Even Viktor admits he needs to learn how to lie in this transparent glass house. 

Storm clouds form on the horizon and its not hard to see which way the political wind is blowing.  Although Liesel doesn't want to leave their home and friends, Viktor is a Jew, if only in name.  He begins moving their funds and assets out of the country, preparing for their own departure, first to Switzerland and then on to America.  The Landauer House remains, a witness of sorts to the horrible events that follow, evolving or adapting to each new owner for each new use.  First the Germans use it as a scientific facility where they test their theories on genetics and race.  Later during the Soviet era it becomes a children's gymnasium where young polio victims receive physiotherapy.  Eventually the story will come full circle.  Though the Landauers are not always center stage, they are not far away, and by the story's end they and the story will come full circle.

Mawer divides the story into sections, though the bulk of the time is spent with the Landauers.  However disparate the stories may seem, they run parallel and many of the same themes emerge over the course of the story's (and house's) sixty odd years.  The glass room may be open for all to see inside, but the lives that pass through are defined more by their lies and deceptions than by the progressive ideals they think they are living.  The Glass House is a study in contrasts--light vs. darkness, the rational vs. the irrational, transparency and clarity vs. deception and betrayal. 

And Mawer uses language to great effect exploring these themes and bringing out the subtleties of the character's motivations and intentions.  Having a large German minority meant many Czechs spoke both languages and how the languages were used and to whom they were spoken had varying meanings and showed social position or conveyed different attitudes.  And he often plays with words revealing nuances we don't have in the English equivalent.  The glass room is not only a Glasraum, or glass space, but it also becomes the Glastraum, or glass dream.  Conversely the use of the Czech words, skleneny pokoj, means it isn't just a glass room, but also the Glass Tranquility, which throws yet more light on the meaning, however ironic it may be. 

I've intentionally skimmed over many of the details of the plot.  Besides not liking to give too much away to those who haven't read the book yet, I know this has been much written about and dissected thanks to Mawer's appearance on the Booker shortlist last year (and have read a few too many reviews myself to know now what exactly to share with you).  Although the story plays out against the war years and I think it needed to, I don't see it as a "war story".  I don't think Mawer is exploring history's effect on these characters, rather something more personal or internal that happens to work well against the backdrop of this period in time.  As much as I love modern art, I do sometimes think some of it can be a little cold and sterile--something you look at and appreciate from a distance rather than wish you could wrap yourself in.  And as much as I liked this book, and I did like it very much, I sort of felt the same way about it.  I felt a little too distanced.  It's a novel I can appreciate for what Mawer is trying to do but maybe not one I can wholeheartedly love.  Still, it's a worthy read with lots to think about, and I suspect the story is going to linger in my mind.  It's definitely one to look for if it sounds at all appealing to you.

I only wish the publisher would have carried over the cover art from the cloth edition to the paper, as to me it better conveys the tone and texture of the story.  I do have Mawer's The Fall on hand and look forward to reading it and will be curious to see how it compares.    

Reading: Anna Karenina!

It was a difficult decision, but I think it's going to have to be Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.  Many thanks for all the input and excellent suggestions, and of course I will continue on with my classics reading (hopefully including some of those recommendations), but the time just feels right to start Anna K. 

I've got the lovely deluxe Penguin edition translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, which comes highly recommended by Eva at A Striped Armchair, and since she studies Russian, I'll take her word for it.  Also I found my copy in a used bookstore for less than half the original price, so that's an added bonus.

The story: "Anna Karenina has beauty, social position, wealth, a husband, and an adored son, but her existence seems empty.  When she meets the dashing officer Count Vronsky she rejects her marriage and turns to him to fulfill her passionate nature--with devastating results.  One of the world's greatest novels, Anna Karenina is both an immortal drama of personal conflict and social scandal and a vivid, richly textured panorama of nineteenth-century Russia."

I plan on starting today and hopefully posting each Sunday on my progress.  The chapters seems quite short, so I think I should easily be able to read a bit each day.  I'm in no rush to finish the book, and with 815 pages in my edition I expect I'll be reading it for a while.  If I spend all summer with Anna, that's fine by me.  And if I find I can't put the book down and fly right through it, that's fine, too.  So, no schedule, no huge expectations, just hopefully many happy hours spent in the company of Anna Karenina and her Russian society.

I realize many/most of you are already loaded down with your own reading plans, so I will only say that if anyone wants to read along with me that would be wonderful.  It would be nice to have a few people to talk about the book with and help keep things on track.  And if you've already read the book, please do check in as I am sure I will have questions and comments.

So, to start:

"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." 

Blindness by Jorge Luis Borges

This is going to sound terrible, but I didn't realize Jorge Luis Borges was so interesting.  He ranks up there with the other modernist (or maybe he's closer to postmodern?) authors who I know I should read, but I'm a little too afraid to do so, because I have this often (erroneous) idea that I just won't get what they are trying to do with their work.  Not always, but often I am proven wrong.  I may not necessarily 'get' things, but I can usually at least work my way through the novel, or in this case essay.  I knew Borges was one of those pivotal writers.  The sort where if there wasn't a Borges there might not have been a Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  I find these links in literature so interesting, and Borges himself was really interesting.

Borges was born in Argentina in 1899 into an educated middle class family that was reasonably comfortable but not wealthy enough to live in central Buenos Aires, so they settled for a poorer suburb.  His parents were able to speak and write English (one of his grandmothers was an Englishwoman), so he grew up bilingual and I read somewhere that as a child he didn't even realize Spanish and English were separate languages.  He was reading Shakespeare at twelve, which is perhaps not overly surprising since his family library held over one thousand volumes. He received his Baccalaureat in Switzerland where his father was receiving treatment for his vision.  Borges's blindness was hereditary and his sight would also fail over time.  Philip Lopate writes:

"Jorge Luis Borges was one of the most original and influential of modern writers.  Enormously learned, he seemed to draw inspiration more from books than raw experience; consequently, he has become one of the heroes of the school of metafiction.  His major works show a penchant for fantasy, fiction about storytelling, and genre hybrids and laid the groundwork for literary postmodernism."

Lopate notes his essay, "Blindness" is in the form of a lecture, and in case you're a little intimidated by Borges like I am, do at least try his this essay.  It's very accessible and really quite lovely.  Last week I read Annie Dillard's essay "Seeing", and while blindness is the subject of Borges's essay, it's really in its own way about seeing, too. 

Borges called blindness a gift.  He also called his blindness modest as it was a gradual dimming, or "nightfall", over the course of his life.  He could distinguish some colors but others like red and black were denied him.  The most pathetic moment came in 1955 when he had lost his sight--his reader's and writer's sight.  It was at this time he had been named the director of the National Library, a place he had many fond memories of since childhood.

"Little by little I came to realize the strange irony of events.  I had always imagined Paradise as a kind of library.  Others think of a garden or of a palace.  There I was, the center, in a way, of nine hundred thousand books in various languages, but I found I could barely make out the title pages and the spines.  Those two gifts contradicted each other: the countless books and the night, the inability to read them."

Did you ever wonder where that famous quote came from?  There you go.

Perhaps Borges found his inspiration in others whose blindness did not deter them.  Two previous library directors had been blind also. As had Homer (whether he really existed or not he was assumed to be blind), as well as Milton, and great of greats James Joyce.  They created in darkness.  And Borges was given opportunities as well.  If he could write thirty poems in a year, his editor promised to publish them, so blindness was not a total misfortune.  While blindness caused him to lose the visual world, it helped him recover another--the world of his distant ancestors.

"I made a decision.  I said to myself: since I have lost the beloved world of appearances, I must create something else.  At the time I was a professor of English at the university.  What could I do to teach that almost infinite literature, that literature that exceeds the life of a man, and even generations of men?  What could I do in four Argentine months of national holidays and strikes?  I did what I could to teach the love of that literature, and I refrained as much as possible from dates and names."

He and a group of female students decided to study Anglo-Saxon literature and the literature of those who conquered England.  His blindness is not something to be pitied and he never asks for sympathy.  He sees his blindness not as something to endure or to overcome but as an opportunity. 

"A writer, or any man, must believe that whatever happens to him is an instrument; everything has been given for an end.  This is even stronger in the case of the artist.  Everything that happens, including humiliations, embarrassments, misfortunes, all has been given like clay, like material for one's art.  One must accept it.  For this reason I speak in a poem of the ancient food of heroes: humiliation, unhappiness, discord.  Those things are given to us to transform, so that we may make from the miserable circumstances of our lives things that are eternal, or aspire to be so."

And yes, I will be looking for more of Borges's work.