A Work in Progress

A Bookish Mishmash of Misc. Items

This week a really cool book on the art of paper cutting crossed my desk at work.  I couldn't bring it home as it goes to a special library collection that is noncirculating, but I have a couple of cool books myself that I bought earlier in the year on the same topic.  I don't think I ever got around to sharing them.  The designs/projects are pretty amazing, but I have not done more than look and wishfully think how much I would love to try my hand at it.  I've got Paper Cuts: 35 Inventive Projects by Taylor Hagerty and The Art of Paper Cutting by Henya Melichson on my reading (or perusing as the case may be) pile.  I really don't need another hobby, but it doesn't hurt to look.  Maybe someday.

Did you see the Washington Post's Top 10 Books of the Year list?  Serendipity!  By chance I have two of the books on their list checked out from the library at the moment.  Both look good, and I mentally moved both books to the top of my reading pile.  One is a novel and one biography.  As I am planning on reading books about WWI next year, P.S. Duffy's The Cartographer of No Man's Land would fit in perfectly.  I may have to get back in line for it however as I have a feeling I cannot renew it (and I've had it at home for a week now . . . sadly sitting unopened).  It is set in part in Nova Scotia, though the author grew up in Maryland and now lives in Minnesota.

Jill Lepore's Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin also crossed my desk last week, but it is one I could check out and so I snapped it up.  I had thought it would be fun to go grab a book about or by Benjamin Franklin (but I talked myself out of it--seeing as I have my end of year reading planned out already).  Is it really bad of me that so often I prefer to read about the women behind the men--rather than about the famous man himself? 

Both books will get a little attention from me this weekend, if only to "try them out".  Maybe I'll like them both so much I'll end up just buying them to add to my own book collection.

I've decided to continue on and renew my NYRB Classics subscription, and my freebie book for renewing early came in the mail yesterday.  Yay for bookish mail.  I knew it was coming, but I didn't expect it so soon.  So the question is . . . do I keep going with this year's subscription books (will definitely finish the one I've started), or do I incorporate the 2013 books into my reading piles and begin fresh (and try and stay on track a bit better next year?).

The freebie book is by Alfred Hayes, My Face for the World to See, which is set in Hollywood.  In Love by Hayes was a previous NYRB selection from just a few months ago and I do think I'll try and read it before I pick up My Face . . .   I'm excited to think of the bookish treats coming my way over the course of the new year. 

Anticipation for the New Year's reading!  Yesterday I brought home Cicely Hamilton's William: An Englishman for my WWI reading next year.  It is the January/February book, so I thought I might as well get a copy to keep close at hand and perhaps begin reading it a little early.  On the shelf next to the book I also found a biography of Hamilton, The Life & Rebellious Times of Cicely Hamilton: Actress, Writer, Suffragist by Lis Whitelaw.  She led quite an active and interesting life.  I'm not sure I'll read the biography but I will at least dip into it and get a little background on the author.  Some women lead such amazing lives--it makes me realize just how staid and boring my own is. 

As it has been very quiet around here this week and I suspect the next couple of days will be even more so--I am taking a little break myself to enjoy the holiday, which I will be spending with family, and hopefully get in some extra reading time.  I'll be back on Sunday with a short story (or two!).

For those of you celebrating Thanksgiving--have a safe and happy holiday.  Have a great rest of the week everyone, hope you get in some good reading time, too!

Teaser Tuesday: Journal of Solitude

A book to read slowly and savor.  That would be May Sarton's Journal of Solitude, which I am reading along with my friend Cath.  Earlier in the year we read Gift from the Sea together and chatted about it along the way.  I thoroughly enjoy reading alongside other readers (no matter how near or far--though it's been many years since I've belonged to a in person bookgroup, so it's usually far rather than near), as they always offer a different perspective, some little seed to plant in my mind and let grow as I read.  And I thoroughly enjoy reading diaries, so am happy to kick start my diary reading once again (something I hope to include in my normal reading on a regular basis).

I've got a little catching up to do, but there is no hurry with the book as I suspect we will be reading it into the new year.  Diaries are the perfect format for dipping into--keeping next to the bed and reading a few entries each night or morning.  I've got a few of May Sarton's journals, though this is the first I'll have read.  I did read Sarton's novel set in academia, The Small Room, a few years back and quite enjoyed it always meaning to pick up something else by her.

The timing for this book is perfect.  I've been sort of struggling with some things in life lately--I like solitude, but there is a difference between solitude and being alone.  My life has lacked a good balance between a satisfying work, home and social life.  I seem to have more stresses of late than really happy moments, though I think I am looking more for contentment (how many people are really truly happy all or most of the time?) than anything else.  A journal on solitude should be quite illuminating, I think.  I think the pursuit of happiness/contentment is an ongoing struggle, and I am always looking for different perspectives and experiences. 

So a beginning.  I've just read the first few passages, and thought I might share a few excerpts/teasers today.

"I am here for the first time in weeks, to take up my 'real' life again at last.  That is what is strange--that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life unless there is time alone in which to explore and to discover what is happening or has happened.  Without the interruptions, nourishing and maddening, this life would become arid."

******

" . . . sometimes one has to simply to endure a period of depression for what it may hold of illumination if one can live through it, attentive to what it exposes or demands."

"The reasons for depression are not so interesting as the way one handles it, simply to stay alive.  This morning I woke at four and lay awake for an hour or so in a bad state.  It is raining again.  I got up finally and went about the daily chores, waiting for the sense of doom to lift--and what did it was watering the house plants.  Suddenly joy came back because I was fulfilling a simple need, a living one.  Dusting  never has this effect (and that may be why I am such a poor housekeeper!, but feeding the cats when they are hungry, giving Punch clean water, makes me suddenly feel calm and happy."

"Whatever peace I know rests in the natural world, in feeling myself a part of it, even in a small way."

I'm convinced it is the small things that makes one happy.  But you know how it goes--so easy to buckle under the normal stresses and frustrations that seem to build up over the course of days and weeks.  So, I try and find balance and keep things in perspective.  Now that is truly a work in progress.  I am looking forward to reading what May Sarton experienced and what her "journey" was like.

Reading Notes: End of the Year Books

The last week of November and then December is going to fly by.  So, it's probably best to have a plan.  I've done this in years past and I think I'm going to try it again this year, though in the past I've started thinking of whittling my current reads pile much earlier in the fall.  Now there are only five weeks left in the year and not much time to clear off the reading table in anticipation of a new year.  But I can at least try and finish a few 'in progress' books that are already well underway.  

I'm going to be optimistic, however.  A dozen books to finish off the year.  None of these are new books, and I am going to try and limit any new starts to just a very few (and there will be a few new ones, I'm sure).  If I set myself the task, perhaps I will stick to it and actually finish a few that have been languishing.  In no particular order here are my last books of the year to be read/finished:

1.  The Metamorphosis by Kafka

2.  Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk (carried over to 2014)

3.  The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly

4.  The Quincunx by Charles Palliser

5.  Fenny by Lettice Cooper

6.  The Middle Window by Elizabeth Goudge DNF

7.  The Death of the Adversary by Hans Keilson DNF

8.  The Shooting Party by Isabel Colegate (saved for later)

9.  The Bridge of Beyond by Simone Schwarz-Bart (saved for later)

10. Perdita by Hilary Scharper (carried over but will I choose a different Canadian book now?)

11. The Lewis Man by Peter May

12. Ruth & Gisela by Elizabeth Wix (will finish in January 2014)

13. A Commonplace Killing by Sian Busby

 If nothing else this will help me decide which books go into my bookbag every morning (always an agonizing choice what to take with me to work as silly as that sounds).  And now I know what I should be reading over my long weekend, too.  I'd say I have my work cut out for me (though keeping in mind I am well into most of these books--even past the midway mark in many of them).  Still, wish me luck (and lots of reading time).

One Day a Year: 1978-1980

The things I find most interesting in Christa Wolf's One Day a Year are her references to her reading and writing.  There are other things too, of course, like small comments she makes about living in the GDR (though I get the sense that she was able to come and go much more freely than others--or maybe I have a misapprehension of what life was really like behind the Iron Curtain?), the bits about her family or most especially just about life and living and getting older.  Once again I thought this week I would share the most interesting bits that I marked or dog eared the pages.

I hope this isn't all too random, since I am taking it out of context.  Then again there's not a lot really that is fully explained.  So much of what she writes about is random or particular to her daily life and concerns, and all this three decades ago.

1978: "I note in my diary a sentence that does  not come from me: Today begins the first day of the rest of my life.  To live as if it were the last day.  What could I do?  Do differently than usual What and how would I write?"

*****

"Ingeborg A. asked me what I am working on now.  I said, since I had the 'Günderrode shit' behind me now, I would write something 'for me' and then something else only for me--in order to find out if I could be honest.  When you write for publication, you are not dishonest, of course, but something always gets shoved between your head and your hand, and it is very good to find out now and then if you can still get rid of that intermediate layer (it is, of course, only one of the reasons for 'writing for myself', but nonetheless one).

*****

1979: "I try to call Annette.  Briefly hear Franci's voice, but the connection is very bad, and when I try again I do not get a connection.  Our telephone--chapter in itself.  Sometimes I think:: Perhaps they are not listening in on us here.  The letters mailed in the German Democratic Republic arrive quickly and appear not to have been opened.  I almost do not want to believe it."

*****

These next two quotes are in reference to a reading/discussion of her work that she was invited to take part in.

"Another librarian, perhaps forty years old, a very attractive woman, brown hair, slender, a striking face, tastefully dressed, said something deeply touching.  While reading such books as mine, she feels that they, the readers, actually lack words when dealing with their deepest concerns, and that what they could not say is expressed here."

"I try to explain some of the problems of the role into which an author, who has to speak as the representative of other, silent people, can very easily be forced.  We come to the desired concept of 'dialogue.'  The knowledge remains that in our country literature must often serve as a replacement for other opportunities for self-realization that are withheld."

1980: "We then talked for a long time about the question that I brought up, of whether the literature of the German Democratic Republic had actually produced enduring accomplishments.  We arrived at names like Bobrowski, Müller, Braun, Mickel, sarah, and perhaps Kunert; we spoke of pets and dramatists--but in prose narrative?  Did this reality not offer enough for writers of prose?  Has it forcedthem into provinciality?  Does the disastrous tie to ideological restriction make itself visible in prose in an especially disastrous way?  We sought names that were comparable to Böll, Grass, Arno Schmidt, even Lenz und Koeppen, Johnson, Andersch--found none except Seghers--the earlier Seghers--and then Bobrowski again.  Fries, all right.  Strittmatter in his respectable third Wundertäter: provincial nevertheless.  He simply does not 'create' this country as he had once undertaken to do.  The others, people who work journalistically, bring problems to light, but they, too, do not create a new literary landscape.  But there's the problem.  We have been overburdened with problems and conflicts all these years and have not had out minds and hands free."

*****

An interesting discussion that--just who are the famous, respected and well-known East German writers?  I know only Anna Seghers, Christa Wolf and Caroline recently wrote about Sarah Kirsch.  I don't recognize most of the writers Christa Wolf writes about (and that is one of the challenges with this book), and I don't know the authors on the Wikipedia list (save a very few, again another through Caroline).  Wolf mentions Bobrowski twice and a cursory look through Amazon tells me there is at least one book of poetry by Johannes Bobrowski available.  Curiously the library where I work owns nothing by Bobrowski, but we own a book of criticism about his work.  I may have to investigate some of these other writers further--if only to be familiar with names and books.  Of course the other problem is whether these authors have been translated into English and if so, whether their books are still readily available. 

I'm afraid my reading of One Day a Year got sidetracked this week--life has a way with interfering with my reading sometimes.  Now my thoughts are turning to end of the year books and I have to consider what I have a real chance of finishing and which books will get carried over to the new year (though a fair amount of culling from my current reading pile is likely to occur, too, before the year is out.  I suspect Christa Wolf may end up being carried over.  Then again I do have a long weekend coming up.  But you know how those best intentions go sometimes.

This is my last Sunday of Christa Wolf posts (unless I carry on into December), as I had hoped to get back to my short story reading (several collections have been calling to me, and when a book beckons, it can be hard to ignore it).  The dilemmas of reading an infinite number of books in a very finite amount of time. 

New and Notable: Forthcoming Titles

My wishlist is once again growing to epic proportions!  A lot of the books catching my eye at the moment seem to be spring (or beyond) releases.  It's hard to think so far ahead to sunnier days (when yesterday we just had our first snow of the season), but I guess it will be here sooner than I think (considering how quickly time seems to pass these days).  I think it's time once again to share a few that look particularly tempting.

Milk Fever by Lisa M. Cowen - "Milk Fever is a rich and inspired tale set on the eve of the French Revolution- a delicious peek into this age's history. The story explores the fight for women's rights and the rise in clandestine literature laying bare sexuality, the nature of love and the magic of books to transform lives."

We That are Left by Juliet Greenwood - "Elin lives a luxurious but lonely life at Hiram Hall. Her husband Hugo loves her but never recovered from the Boer War. Now another war threatens to destroy everything she knows. With Hugo at the front, and her cousin Alice and friend Mouse working for the war effort, Elin has to learn to run the estate in Cornwall, making new friends - and enemies. But when Mouse is in danger, Elin must face up to the horrors in France herself. And when the Great War is finally over, Elin's battles prove to have only just begun."

The Lie by Helen Dunmore - "From the award-winning author of The Siege, Helen Dunmore, comes The Lie; a spellbinding tale of love, remembrance, and deception, set against the backdrop of World War I."

Fair and Tender Ladies by Chris Nickson - "1734. A young man arrives in Leeds searching for his missing sister - and ends up dead, his throat slit. Then the girl the young man came seeking is dragged from the river, drowned. Constable Richard Nottingham finds himself investigating two killings where nothing is as it seems."

The Ghost of the Marie Celeste by Valerie Martin - "In 1872 the American merchant vessel Mary Celeste was discovered adrift off the coast of Spain. Her cargo was intact and  there was no sign of struggle, but the crew was gone. They were never  found.  This maritime mystery lies at the center of an intricate  narrative branching through the highest levels of late-nineteenth-century literary society."

Philosophy in the Garden by Damon Young

Palmerino by Melissa Pritchard  - "Welcome to Palmerino, the British enclave in rural Italy where Violet Paget, known to the world by her pen name and male persona, Vernon Lee, held court. In imagining the real life of this brilliant, lesbian polymath known for her chilling supernatural stories, Melissa Pritchard creates a multilayered tale in which the dead writer inhabits the heart and mind of her lonely, modern-day biographer."

Dispute Over a Very Italian Piglet by Amara Lakhous - "This multiethnic mystery from the author of Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio pays homage to the cinematic tradition of the commedia all’italiana as it probes the challenges and joys of life in a newly multicultural society."

I Shall Be Near to You by Erin Lindsay McCabe - "An extraordinary novel about a strong-willed woman who disguises herself as a man in order to fight beside her husband in the Civil War, inspired by a real female soldier's letters home."

The Sun and Other Stars by Brigid Pasulka - "Set in a seaside village on the Italian Riviera, this irresistible new novel by PEN/Hemingway Award-winner Brigid Pasulka tells the story of a widowed butcher and his son whose losses are transformed into love."

Under the Wide and Starry Sky by Nancy Horan - "From Nancy Horan, New York Times bestselling author of Loving Frank, comes her much-anticipated second novel, which tells the improbable love story of Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson and his tempestuous American wife, Fanny."

Fear by Gabriel Chevallier - "Acclaimed as 'the most beautiful book ever written on the tragic events that blood-stained Europe' for five years, prosecuted on first publication as an act of sedition, Fear appears for the first time in the United States in Malcolm Imrie’s poetic and prizewinning translation on the hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of World War I, the conflict with which the twentieth century came into its own."

The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress by Ariel Lawhon - "A tantalizing reimagining of a scandalous mystery that rocked the  nation in 1930—Justice Joseph Crater's infamous disappearance—as seen  through the eyes of the three women who knew him best."

Vienna Nocturne by Vivien Shotwell - "In the tradition of Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife and Laura Moriarty’s The Chaperone comes a sweeping historical love story and a portrait of an age. Vienna Nocturne is a deeply moving debut novel that brings to life two extraordinary figures—a thirty-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and a young English soprano, Anna Storace, who was his muse—in prose as spirited, timeless, and touching as Mozart’s greatest compositions." This one is out just after my birthday--I foresee a little gift to myself! 

The Secret of Raven Point by Jennifer Vanderbes - "Reminiscent of Pat Barker’s Regeneration, The Secret of Raven Point is a war saga capturing the experiences of soldiers after the battles have ended. And as few novels have done, it depicts the ravages of war through the eyes of a young woman."

Carthage by Joyce Carol Oates - "A young girl's disappearance rocks a community and a family in this stirring examination of grief, faith, justice, and the atrocities of war from Joyce Carol Oates, 'one of the great artistic forces of our time' (The Nation)."

Oh yay, new books.  They make me feel all warm and tingly inside.  What do people who don't read do with their time?  I couldn't live without stories!

A Midweek Mishmash

Just a very few miscellaneous items today.  I've been dealing with some cat issues--mine was just diagnosed with pancreatitis.  She's feeling very unwell at the moment and we're trying to get things back under control (after a very frustrating month of trying to get her to feel better and find out what was making her sick).  I'm trying to learn more about what causes the illness, what it does to the animal and most importantly how to treat it in order to go forward, but first she needs to be stabilized.  Keep your fingers crossed for me that we can quickly get things under control now that she is taking medication.  We've both been having a very rough last few weeks.

As I've been spending time every day taking care of Chispa, cleaning up accidents and just attending to normal everyday chores, my reading has gone a little wonky (then again when is it ever quite normal--this has been such a weird year for me).  So, something easy today.

Have you seen the new Harry Potter stamps?  I think they have caused a few raised eyebrows, but I think they are fun and will be ordering a few books to use in my correspondence. 

Speaking of which--something that has suffered from lack of free time is my Postcrossing mania.  I've had to curtail things quite a bit, but I am still keep in touch with friends.  They can expect to see some of those fun new stamps (and a few other new/holiday ones...I've just got an order of stamps in the mail today as a matter of fact).

Since I am on the subject of other (non-reading) hobbies, I am looking forward to doing some stitching over the Thanksgiving holiday (I'm taking an additional day off on the following Monday).  I'll have five whole days free from work (ah, the anticipation!).  I'm in the middle of a small project at the moment.  I also just came across two very tempting classes/needlework clubs.

So you know all about book subscriptions?  How about something similar with needlework?  I'm very tempted by this.  I'm curious what the kits/designs look like, but I do like Colonial themed needlework.

My favorite needlework magazine is Sampler & Antique Needlework Quarterly.  I've just received the Winter issue and on the back was an ad for Thistle Threads.  They offer online emroidery classes, which sound really cool.  Maybe next year instead of picking a massive chunkster of a book (and I've not done well with them this year at all), I should pick out a nice big, ongoing needlework project.  I certainly have plenty to choose from in my stash (the online classes might be a little too rich for my budget at the moment).

Two other projects for 2014, but of the bookish variety: I like the sound of the Vintage Mystery BINGO Silver and Gold edition.  I do love a good  mystery and had a binge of them earlier this year.  Maybe I'll do the same next year, too.  Last year, although I don't think I officially joined, I attempted to read only from my own stacks for the first part of the year.  The Triple Dog Dare would be a good thing--no new books for the first three months of the new year?  I certainly need to pay a little more attention to those towering TBR piles, that's for certain!  The year has been flying by, hasn't it?  I must admit that while I still have lots to finish this year, a new start sounds kind of refreshing at the moment.  I've been thinking of reading plans already, though I will try not to go overboard . . . (easier said than done!).

Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather

It speaks to Willa Cather's talent as a writer that she manages to bring so much meaning to so slight a story.  Alexander's Bridge is Cather's first novel, in this case a novella, written in 1912.  She was not yet forty and still had all her best work ahead of her.  As a matter of fact Alexander's Bridge is quite unlike her later work and some criticize her as writing as being too much in the vein of Henry James and Edith Wharton.  She later called the story a "youthful mistake"and described herself as an "inexperienced writer", though she had been working as a journalist, had already been published and had traveled abroad. 

Although she would find her footing with her next novel, O Pioneers, there are still glimpses of her skill as a writer.  Her prose is crisp and clear and the story tightly controlled even if the symbolism feels a little heavy handed and perhaps the story is a little too tightly controlled?  This is a story, if not exactly of drawing rooms filled with elegant Society, then certainly one of cosmopolitan cities, lost loves and regrets.  It's the story of a man hitting midlife and finding life hasn't turned out quite how he expected, or at least not fulfilling in the way he wants it to be.

Bartley and Winifred Alexander appear to be a happily married couple.  Winifred is a woman of distinction, tall and elegant who carries herself beautifully and proudly.  She's matched well by her husband Bartley, a successful engineer famous for his bridge-building.  She brings to the marriage a fortune, and he his skills as a bridge builder.  It was through his work that the two met--when he built an important bridge in Canada, sealing his fame.  Bartley has rugged good looks, tall and glowing in his strength and cordiality.  "He looked like a tamer of rivers ought to look."

It's his former teacher, Professor Lucius Wilson, who first notes cracks in Bartley's perfect facade.  He has come to Boston to visit and can't help but feel that "there were unreasoning and unreasonable activities going on in Alexander all the while."  As the two converse Wilson tells his student that he's changed, that he seems to want "leave some birds in the bushes" when before he wanted them all.

"I still want a good many," he [Bartley] replies gloomily.  "After all, life doesn't offer a man much.  You work like the devil and think you are getting on, and suddenly you discover that you've only been getting yourself tied up.  A million details drink you dry.  Your life keeps going for things you don't want, and all the while you are being built alive into a social structure you don't care a rap about."

When Bartley travels to London on business he encounters a former love for whom his youthful passion ignites once again.  Hilda Burgoyne is an actress who has never married and has followed Bartley's career. 

"Remembering Hilda as she used to be, was doubtless more satisfactory than seeing her now--and, after all, Alexander asked himself, what was it but his own young years that he was remembering?"

The two fall in together once again, but for Bartley his ardor is dampened by the thought of his wife for whom he still cares deeply.  Yet he cannot quite seem to extricate himself from what he feels for Hilda either.  Although very subtly depicted the two have a passionate affair that moves from London to New York with hints that Winifred is aware of Bartley's indiscretions.

(Spoiler alert in the following paragraph).

Bartley has been working on what is going to be his biggest coup of bridge-building--the largest and most complex he's yet created.  He decides he must call off his affair with Hilda, but the damage has been done.  Such strength and character is crushed and comes tumbling down, the bridge collapses taking with it both workers and Bartley himself.  It lacked the integrity needed, the solid foundation to carry its own weight and anything traveling from one end to the other.  And so you see Bartley's true character, which crumbled, too.

(End of spoiler). 

There is much to think about in this story.  It's a particularly strong character study.  Bartley is filled with regrets.  Regrets for the way his life has turned out.  Regrets for what he is doing to his wife.  Regrets even for his success.  He remarks that the bridge that made his success, the one for which he is known for, has given him the least satisfaction.  The money his wife brought to the marriage has become more of a burden than something freeing.  And now the dead calm of middle life confronts him and he is not ready for it.  Bartley is a man of action and not reflection, but his renewed affair with Hilda offers him a different sort of excitement.  It gives him the opportunity to "renew old experiences in imagination."  What man facing midlife does not want to reach back into his youth and snatch back that happiness?

There is a brief mention of Alexander's Bridge in Hermione Lee's biography of Cather which was most interesting to read.  She calls it "awkward and immature" and an imitation of (no doubt what Cather considered) "civilized East Coast writers" which goes agains the grain for Cather.  "But it is more revealing of strong personal feeling than she would ever acknowledge."  Cather uses the framing device she is so fond of--the learned professor as the keen observer at the beginning and end of the story.  Lee calls Lucius Wilson the "wise Aristotle" to his student Alexander who creates his own empire.  I thought that pretty clever actually.  I suspect I have barely touched the tip of the iceberg with this one.  See, even in a novella, her first novel, look what Cather is capable of!

Although not my favorite book by her, I'm still impressed by the skill she shows in telling her story.  I read it along with Stefanie at So Many Books (you can read her thoughts on it here), and we chatted a bit about it when we finished.  It's always so helpful to get a different perspective on a story, as well as helping me keep focused on my reading (and finishing in a timely manner).  I do love Willa Cather and found this first book quite interesting and very good in its own way.  I will most definitely be reading more of her work in the coming year.

Great War Theme Read: version 1.0

Next year is the centenary anniversary of the start of World War I.  I've already seen a number of new books (mostly history titles) come across my desk at the library where I work.  I should really be making a running list of titles and will likely begin to do so.  The Virago Modern Classics Group at Library Thing is commemorating the anniversary by doing a year long themed reading project and have set up a Wiki page to organize it.  I think I will follow their lead and plan my own reading accordingly.  It seems a little strange to think about reading in 2014, but as there are only about six weeks left in the year (yikes) perhaps I am not getting too ahead of myself.  (And I have some other reading ideas in mind for next year as well, but more about those later).

I like how they have set up their reading year--one book for every two months to a particular aspect of the war, which doesn't seem too overwhelming.  I will also be reading along with Caroline for her Literature and War Readalong and I believe she will be choosing books with the anniversary in mind as well.  I tend to read about this era quite a lot already, so the books I choose may not be exactly the same as the group has picked out, but there seems to be plenty of room for flexibility. 

So this is my 'Version 1.0' of the project.  I'm in the thinking about reading stage right now and toying with possible books (will do this in lieu of coming up with a 'baker's dozen' of books to read in 2014--maybe I'll have better luck actually reading all the books on the list?) to fit in each category.  If you have a favorite book that would fit nicely, do let me know as I am open to suggestions.  The books with the asterisks are those chosen by the group to read together.

This is what I have in mind so far:

The Beginning of the War (January and February):

**William: An Englishman by Cecily Hamilton
Golden Miles by Kathleen Susannah Pritchard

Fighting: On the Frontline and on the Homefront (March and April):

**One of Ours by Willa Cather
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Under Fire by Henri Barbusse
Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger
My Dear I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young

Dealing With The Human Cost: Nurses and others who cared (May and June):

The Forbidden Zone by Mary Borden
We That Were Young by Irene Rathbone
**Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Kenneally
The Roses of No Man's Land by Lyn Macdonald

Ambulance Drivers, Pacifists & Conscientious Objectors (July & August) :

**Not So Quiet by Helen Zenna Smith
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
One Man's Initiation: 1917 by John Dos Passos

The Consequences of War (September & October):

Home Fires in France by Dorothy Canfield
The Deepening Stream by Dorothy Canfield

Free Choice/Books you Missed (November & December):

Penguin Book of First World War Stories
Regeneration by Pat Barker (I have never read her trilogy of books about WWI and really must do so!)

I'm sure I'll be adding to my lists.  And no time like the present to start reading.  I picked up Anita Shreve's newest novel from the library yesterday, Stella Bain, about a woman who wakes up in a field hospital in northern France with no memory, wearing a British Nurse's uniform but speaking with an American accent.  I've already started reading.  No time like the present, right?

One Day a Year: 1970-1977

The thing about reading a diary (and Christa Wolf's One Day a Year: 1960-2000 is a diary of sorts) is that so often the life of the writer is very ordinary.  Christa Wolf wanted to show "how life happens" over the course of years and in this case decades.  In her case, though, she happened to be a writer and a famous one, so I think her life falls more into the 'extraordinary' category.  She lived through some interesting times and seemed to be omnipresent in the literary scene in not only East Germany but to some extent Europe as well. 

Mixed in with the daily activities of an ordinary life, there are also references to what she's writing, what she's reading, who she's talking to, places she goes, films she watches--a different kind of minutiae than that of the purely domestic side of life . . .   It's all very interesting in a mundane (and sometimes not so mundane) sort of way.  Although she does touch on the domestic side of life, hers was also filled with writing, publishing her work and being part of the literary milieu.  Reading One Day a Year sometimes feels as though I am getting a view into a literary 'who's who' of post-WII (and thereafter) Germany.  I only wish I was more familiar with the people she talks about.  

This week, rather than summarize what I've been reading (which is too hard to do in any case--so many bits and pieces), I thought I might let Christa Wolf speak for herself.  I'm still behind the "Curtain" so to speak and am looking forward to seeing how her life changes when the Wall falls.  There are still lots of references to Tinka's birthday, but Annette is now married and living with her husband.  Wolf mostly talks about her work as a writer, the literary side of Berlin, but also the sorts of things everyone does every day.  A little randomness in an ordinary life:

1969: "Recently, at the boring Potsdam literary ball, a young woman journalist from the Liberal Democratic Party said to me: We Really don't want to have everything poured into skulls.  We do want to think for ourselves . . ."

1972: "The sheet of paper for the first page of Patterns of Childhood is still in the typewriter from yesterday, but I do have to start over again.  I write a good page and a half that I intend to let stand for now without knowing whether that will help me at all.  For I cannot work for weeks on every page of the manuscript as I have done with this beginning.  I am temporarily in a better mood because I seem to succeed in putting together a few sentences that were, for the most part, completed previously, but with regard to the whole I am and remain disconsolate and hopeless."

1973: "We drove to the Ermeler Haus restaurant, refined quiet, coolness, draft; until nearly closing time we are the only guests in our little nook.  All of the waiters in tails.  We are served by a young one with a child's face and a child's curls.  We order veal steak au four, Gerd an exotic duck dish.  (During the hour and a half we begin to freeze.)  At the end little pancakes filled with pineapple, which are baked and filled at the table.  All of it (a cognac, a vodka, and a juice in addition) for ninety marks in the end."

"Table conversation: exchange of information about Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov (we agree that Sakharov, though his appeal to the Chilean junta with respect to Neruda, hurt himself and proved to be politically naive.)"

1974: "Listening to the news in the morning is a kind of addiction."

*****

"So I am writing in my diary, and I do not mean this report.  The mail.  Nothing special.  Newspapers.  As always, I leaf through them in ten minutes.  In Die Junge Welt is says that I recited the Neruda poem 'Insomnia' at the Neruda tribute in the Congress Hall ('In the middle of the night I ask myself: What will happen in Chile? What will happen to my poor, poor, dark country?') with personal perplexity.  I am perplexed!"

*****

"In the evening I read more in the diary of Anais Nin, slept from eleven on, but woke up at five because of my inner disquiet.  Continued to read.  Also found comments about the fact that a woman who is creative is plagued more severely by feelings of guilt than a man: because she takes something away from the man, to which, according to her innermost belief, he is entitled (and from the children: how well I know that feeling!).  And because she feels more guilt with respect to the people that she describes in this or that form.  Apparently it is more difficult for women to 'invent' their figures than it is for men--Now that very thing, of course, is my--one of my--problems at the moment."

1975: "And again and again: Jana [C.W.'s granddaughter].  How should we protect her so she does not suffer too much because of her parents' divorce.  How to relieve Annette, who is now too heavily burdened: living alone with a child and her profession.  How to help her find joy in her life again.  Now that we have spent a night there, her apartment, which was so difficult to obtain, seems unreasonable to me.  At  night you begin to sweat, you cannot open the windows because of the street and construction noise.  Jana screamed every hour or two.  These tracts of new buildings are anti-human, not built for people with their different needs, but for well-functioning worker bees.  And they are worker bees--I ask myself if I am perhaps developing into a mother who exaggerates things in her worry about her children and her children's children . . ."

*****

"My thoughts continue to flow during the quiet breakfast and reading the newspaper.  'Magnificent Beginning for the Nineteenth Berlin Festival' 'Five Franco Opponents are to be Executed Today' 'Gathering of the Berlin Combat Group Commanders' 'Antifascist Resistance Against Franco Regime Increases' 'Immediate Freedom for Luis Corvalan' 'Meetings with the Builders of the Western Section of the Baikal-Amur Railway'."

For a student of social sciences or someone studying Christa Wolf in depth this book is a veritable treasure trove of information.  For the bits about life in the GDR (as opposed to the West) the reader needs to dig a bit, or read between the lines, as she doesn't necessarily write about things explicitly.  Some familiarity of life at that time behind the Iron Curtain wouldn't really be amiss. 

Although I am still finding the reading fascinating, the book is not exactly as I was expecting it to be.  Christa Wolf does write about an ordinary life, but a very particular kind of life.  I wouldn't have minded reading about a 'truly ordinary' woman's life in the GDR to be honest.  Though there are glimpses of the world as it was  This is turning out to be an interesting reading experience--even if it is one that hasn't quite met my expectations.  I do think I need to read some of Wolf's fiction alongside this, however.  Somehow I think it would round out the reading experience.  So one road leads to another, I hope. 

By the way--if I keep reading at the pace I am going (which isn't really all that fast), I can still finish the book by the end of the month as long as I read (roughly) two yearly entries every day.  Can it be true--me finishing a long book this year?  I am going to remain optimistic.

November 14: Reading Notes (German Literature Month Edition)

I, very optimistically, thought I would be writing about Kafka's Metamorphosis today, but I'm afraid I'm just starting it. I did recently listen to the story on audio, though it was a little disjointed and I was at times distracted, so reading it will be a good thing.  And hopefully reading it closely.  I am not sure what I was expecting, but the story was not really what I imagined it would be.  You might already have read it, or know more or less what the story is about--one morning Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman who lives with his parents and sister, wakes up to find that he has been changed from a man into a large monstrous insect.  I've checked out from the library the Norton Critical Edition of the book in order to read a little criticism alongside the text.  Elias Canetti considered the story "perfection" and called it Kafka's best work--that nothing else he wrote could surpass it.  I'm curious to learn why.

My Christa Wolf reading continues.  I'm still trying to keep up with reading one entry a day, though I think I will have to step things up just a bit if I want to try and finish by the end of the month.  More optimistic thinking, but you never know.  I also have a biography I am hoping to dip into over the weekend.  I think knowing a little more about her would only make my reading experience richer in this case.  

I've just barely started reading Hans Keilson's The Death of the Adversary.  It's going to be my gym book, which means it'll get an hour of my undivided attention most days, and from what little I've read so far, I think it is the sort of book that calls for a little steady reading (I'm notorious for trying to squeeze in a little reading of a lot of books whenever I can--no matter how short the length of time!).  I've seen this book called a classic, a stimulating read, and "a profoundly affecting exploration of the inextricable nature of love and hate, friend and enemy."

And for something a little different--"lighter" if you will, I've been listening to Nele Neuhaus's Snow White Must Die on my MP3 player.  I've been listening to it on my walk home from work.  The story begins with a man being released from jail after spending more than a decade incarcerated for the murders of two young women.  In another thread of the story the body of a young woman has been found in a storage container that was buried in an abandoned building.  And then a spooky scene--an unnamed man appears to be keeping the embalmed (?) body of a woman (reminiscent of Sleeping Beauty . . .), who he likes to come visit.  I have a feeling this is not going to be a terribly highbrow sort of story, but it is an absorbing one that certainly passes those fifteen or twenty minutes during my evening walk.  

I mentioned those tiny books published by Readux Books?  Three of them have been translated from German.  I am going to start with In Berlin: Day and Night in 1929 by Franz Hessel.  The book includes two brief essays about the city of Berlin as viewed by a "flaneur" (I think I understand what that means but will be looking it up).  I've also got The Marvel of Biographical Bookkeeping by Francis Nenik, which is "a formally innovative book" that explores the life stories of two poets.  City of Rumor by Gideon Lewis-Kraus a "thought-provoking essay explores the ways in which we are burdened and freed by our environments in general, and why Berlin demands our attention again and again."  The longest of the three is a mere 60 pages, so they should be easy to incorporate into my reading.  

I've added a couple of "just in case" books to my pile.  You never know when/if the urge will arise to pick up another book entirely.  Léon & Louise by Alex Capus is set at the end of WWI about two lovers separated by war and then circumstance.  I'm eager to read Viola Roggenkamp's The Spectacle Salesman's Family, which is set in post-WWII Hamburg about a Jewish family.  

It's going to be a busy reading weekend.  You can see which books will be keeping me occupied!