A Work in Progress

The Moor by Laurie King

A fictional story about a fictional character from another fictional story.  And a real author who is a fictional character in same said story.  But when you are reading, it does of course take on a life of its own and all feels quite real.  It's kind of circuitous and I like it.  As a matter of fact I like Mary Russell especially, a fictional character who I would love to meet if I could.  To be honest I have never been especially drawn to Sherlock Holmes, but I must say I really like Laurie King's mystery series featuring Sherlock Holmes and his partner Mary Russell (though in my mind Mary totally gets top billing).  I'm only up to book number four, The Moor, which seemed a perfect RIP reading choice and how fitting that a novel about a spectral coach and accompanying hound is one I finish on Halloween night (getting one more RIP read in just under the gun). 

First a bit of catching up.  Last time around Mary and Sherlock investigated the death of a woman who had visited them in Sussex but was the victim of a hit and run accident in London shortly after.  That was in 1923 and a mere month later Mary is called away from her scholarly studies once again.

"To say I was irritated would be an understatement.  We had only just pulled ourselves from the mire of a difficult case and now, less than a month later, with my mind firmly turned to the work awaiting me in this, my spiritual home, Oxford, my husband and longtime partner Sherlock Holmes proposed with this peremptory telegram to haul me away into his world once more."

It is often with affectionate exasperation that Mary refers to Holmes's 'peremptory telegrams'.  It's not the first time he's done this.  Typical Sherlock!

"RUSSELL NEED YOU IN DEVONSHIRE.  IF FREE TAKE EARLIEST TRAIN CORYTON.  IF NOT FREE COME ANYWAY.  BRING COMPASS."

The moors of Devonshire are not the most hospitable of places and less so when it's rainy and cold and you find yourself walking two miles on a wet and moonless night to get to Lew House where a friend of Holmes lives and who has asked him to look into the matter of spectral sightings on the moor and a death of one of the local tin miners.  The fact that the body of the deceased was found on soft ground that also showed the impression of pawprints of a very large hound is worth noting.  It all hearkens back to a case Sherlock Holmes solved many years prior--one which took him to Baskerville Hall.  Ring a bell with you?  Curiously, Lew House is not so very far from the Baskerville family seat.  There remains just one Baskerville-a young woman who has moved into town and sold off the hall to an American being unable to pay for the upkeep of her once stately home.

Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould of Lew House is an old friend of Holmes.  A parson who also happens to be a writer and folklorist (and based on a real man, too) has taken to his bed, fragile in his old age.  There was a time not so very long ago that he was as spry as Holmes but ill health has laid him low.  He helped Holmes all those years ago with the first hound of the Baskervilles and now once again hears of numerous sightings of a ghostly coach with a woman inside and on occasion yet another hound.  And then this death and now Holmes comes to Gould's aid.  Is this one real--hound and coach?  It would seem so by the many stories the locals tell.

"I cannot deny that the old man's words brought a finger of primitive ice down my spine.  A loose dog chasing sheep is a problem, but hardly reason reason for superstitious fears.  However, the night, my fatigue, and the stark fact that this apparently sensible and undeniably intelligent old man was himself frightened, all came togetherto walk a goose over my grave.  I shivered."

So Mary and Sherlock begin their investigation--questioning locals, following up questionable leads and then separating to look for evidence on the moors of a coach--a real one that is being used fraudulently--perhaps to draw attention away from something else more sinister?  Once again this is a puzzle that must be pieced together through a combination of observation, deduction, lots of questions and then a second body is pulled from a lake complication matters even more. 

This is what I love about Mary.  She is Sherlock's intellectual equal (even if they don't always see eye to eye on respective scholarly interests--for Holmes this means his dabbling in the spy world of his brother Mycroft, and for Mary her Talmudic studies).  She isn't afraid to get her hands dirty (and will wear men's trousers in the process) and even puts up with a skittish mare who throws her at every opportunity while looking for clues on the moor.  But most importantly she knows how to look at the bigger picture and spends hours in Baring-Gould's library researching local history (volume after volume after volume) until she has made the connections she needs to shed light on these 'ghostly' sightings and the subsequent real deaths of two men.  It all comes together in one wonderfully climatic final scene on the moor when all the various threads twine into one very good solution.  And another emotionally draining case for the pair. 

Shh.  Don't tell, but I think Mary Russell has surpassed Maisie Dobbs as my favorite heroine (though I will always love Maisie, too, and for many of the same reasons I like Mary so much).  She's got a wonderful with--dry humor mixed with intellect and savvy and a certain fearlessness when fearlessness is needed.  I want to keep reading and will be picking up O Jerusalem next (will start reading this weekend as a matter of fact).  The Moor takes place directly after Letter to Mary, but with O Jerusalem the story goes back in time to 1918 before Mary and Sherlock's marriage where they are sent to British Mandate Palestine at the request of Holmes's brother Mycroft. 

There are a dozen Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes mysteries and one on the horizon for 2015, so I have my work (happily) cut out for me.  I've not done this for ages, but I feel like just reading through the rest of the books in one fell swoop.

Prior books include The Beekeeper's Apprentice, A Monstrous Regiment of Women, and A Letter of Mary.  And then there is Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles, which I think neither Holmes nor Mary was especially happy about. 

Yet another most satisfying read!

The Lover by A. B. Yehoshua

Have you ever read a novel where you thought 'this is a story that could only happen within the pages of a book'?  Of course I'm not counting the obvious choices like science fiction or dystopian novels where you know you are in an imagined world.  I'm thinking of a story set firmly in the here and now (or the here and now of when the book was written) that is made up of both the realistic and the slightly fantastical.  I've spent the last week immersed in the world of A.B. Yehoshua's The Lover (Ha-Me'ahev in Hebrew and translated by Philip Simpson).  Maybe it was the intensity of the experience, but once again an author has floored me. 

Yehoshua is an amazing writer.  I wasn't exactly expecting to like him, but I always appreciate a well written story.  He's one of Israel's most important 20th century literary figures whose works have won awards and whose views have stirred up controversy.  While I can't tell you much about his personal life (and isn't a work meant to stand on its own?), I can say how impressed I am by his storytelling abilities.  It's been a while since I have been so lost in a story that when I came up for air I felt completely disoriented in the real world.  It's taken me a day or two to even engage with another book, with some other story.

Published in 1977 The Lover was Yehoshua's first book, and it was also the first novel written by a Jewish author portraying an Arab character speaking in first person.  The story takes place against the backdrop of the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and is actually narrated by six characters, each with a very distinct and engaging voice.  It took a little time and effort to separate each 'voice' and keep everyone straight, but once I did, there was literally no turning back.  I am not sure I could have picked up this book five years ago, or even one year ago and enjoyed it as much I did now.  But the time is apparently ripe for such a 'dreamy' sort of story. 

Dreamy may not be the right word.  For me there was a dreamlike quality to the story, however.  The Lover of the title is an Israeli man who has been living in Paris for many years.  He hears his elderly grandmother is dying and has returned 'home' (can a country still be called home when one has lived away for so very long that his home now feels foreign to him?) to collect his inheritance, part of which he expects will be a 1940s Morris automobile.  The car is rusty and in need of tuning.  He thinks a simple screw needs to be replaced and takes it to a auto repair shop.  It's a far more complicated job and by the time the car is up and running the bill has risen to astronomical proportions.  The owner of the garage takes pity on him and brings him home with the idea that he can perhaps work off part of the bill.  He begins doing translation work for the owner's wife, who is a teacher.  The inevitable happens and the two begin a love affair.  While not especially discreet, it's presented quite subtly.

And then war breaks out.  Egypt and Syria attack Israel on their most important and holiest religious holiday, Yom Kippur.  The country is taken entirely by surprise and immediately soldiers go to join their units.  Every capable man is expected to go.  And what of the Lover who is Israeli by birth, even if not any longer by choice of residence?  He is urged to go and sort things out with the military, not expecting to have to go and fight.  But against all expectations he is sent to the front lines and falls of the map and disappears.  Surely he has not died in combat.  Where is he, however?  That is the question, or one of them at least, at the heart of this novel.  It's almost a mystery that must be untangled.  It is the garage owner, the husband who brought (however unsuspectingly at first) this Lover home to his wife.  And it is the husband who goes in search of him--a seemingly inexhaustible search. 

Yes, I mentioned the novel is a fair amount of realism mixed in with the fantastical.  Or better to say the hyper-real?  Would this ever happen in real life?  Would a man become so utterly obsessed with locating his wife's lover?  The saying goes--truth is stranger than fiction (which makes you wonder what people's provate lives are really like after all).  It's a testament to the author's skill and talent that even with such an unusual plot, it could still be so wholly absorbing.  But that is only skimming the surface.  It's how he achieved what he did that impressed me.  Yes, there is this strange quest, but what I liked most was the picture of life in Israel ca. 1973.  This is a place that has always been a mystery to me.  A place of filled with so many contradictions and complexities of people and attitudes and religions and ideologies.  Perhaps it is these complexities that has made me shy away from reading about it.

But in the space of some 350 pages and through the voices of six (often disparate) characters you get a view into this world.  Each voice mostly moves the story foward, though, sometimes the narrations overlap or tell the same scene from varying perspectives shedding light on how people think and feel, what they believe (for good or bad), how they see each other and themselves.  It felt to very authentic.  And this is what floored me.  In case you're curious--the voices (I feel like telling them to please come forward, stage center and take a bow, so real did they become for me) are Adam (the husband), his wife (Asya), her Lover (Gabriel), their daughter (Dafi), an Arab boy who works in the garage (Na'im--perhaps my favorite character), and Verducha (Gabriel's grandmother).

I could say so much more about this story (maybe more about the historical significance of the events portrayed, or the characterization of persons and their personalities and perceptions, or perhaps the construction of the story and writing style--all impressive--but this post is already too unwieldy).  So, I'll just leave you with this--if you want a challenging but very rewarding read, one that might just floor you, too, do give A.B. Yehoshua's The Lover a try.

German Lit Month: Reading Possibilities

It's not too soon to begin thinking about next month's reading, right?  As November is Caroline and Lizzy's German Literature Month, it needs a little thought and planning.  Or, I just like making lists of books and thinking of where my reading is going to take me in the coming weeks. 

I think last year I only managed to read one or two books (at least during the actual month) as well as a number of years into Christa Wolf's very long One Day a Year: 1960-2000.  I think I read up to 1980.  I am sort of having an urge to pick the book up and read another decade or so.  Since she wrote the diary over the course of four decades, why not read more now?  Considering how fragmented my reading seems to be this year, it isn't at all strange that I have had such a long interim of not reading the diary.  I was enjoying my reading, but I know I grew a little weary of it, too, since I am not all that familiar with the literary milieu she was writing about.  Maybe it will be my Sunday reading instead of short stories.  Or maybe I'll find some stories in translation to read.  Suggestions on short stories?  I'll have to see what my library has, or browse Stefan Zweig's books, of which my library has a fair few. 

This is the pile I have going so far.  I know I will once again only manage one or two, but it is always nice to have a good stack to choose from.  I have more books on hand translated from German, so I might share those a bit later in the week, but these are the books that caught my eye this past weekend.

Stefan Zweig's Fear.  I love Stefan Zweig and have read a number of his books and have liked all of them.  He is someone I could (and should happily reread).  Fear is a novella about a woman who is being blackmailed by a former lover.

I think Red Uhlman's Reunion was written in English, but I have left him in the pile as he was born in Germany and remained there until he was in his 30s.  This novella is about an intense friendship between two young men just as Hitler is rising to power.  This was a favorite book of my friend Cath and she passed a copy on to me, so I am very interested in reading it.

I have actually read Adalbert Stifter's Rock Crystal, but I don't believe I ever got around to writing about it.  Another novella that is perfect for holiday reading as it is about two children visiting their grandmother in the Alps at Christmas who get lost on their walk home.  Thomas Mann gave the novella high praise.

Peter Handke is a writer that my Austrian friends (he is Austrian) have always urged me to read.  I look at these books often but never seem to pick them up.  I have Short Letter, Long Farewell which is called a "love letter to America".  I also have A Sorrow Beyond Dreams about Handke's mother who committed suicide.

I think I am going to start with Viola Roggenkamp's The Spectacle Salesman's Family as it is set in post-World War II Germany about a Jewish family.  As it would be a good companion of sorts for the reading I am doing in my Israeli Lit class it seems a natural choice.  This is a Germany of the 1960s--a world of "student protest, beehive hairdos, Israel and the Six Day War, politics, religion, revolution . . . and the promise of love."  It sounds perfect to me.

I will also be picking up Joseph Roth's Flight Without End as it is next month's Literature and War choice.  It's about a soldier's return from WWI to a changed society.

Herta Muller's The Hunger Angel is about the deportation of a young man to a camp in the Soviet Union.  Muller won the Nobel in 2009.  She is a German speaker who was born in Romania, though now she lives in Germany.  I think she is someone I really must read.

And another book I am very keen to read and may start as well, Sabine Gruber's Roman Elegy.  Did you know that many Northern Italians speak German as their native language?  I knew some girls a long time ago who were from a small town on the border with Austria and spoke German rather than Italian as their first language.  This is a story of three women living in or traveling to Rome in the 1970s.

Ah, the promise of new reads.  Makes my fingers all tingly in anticipation of cracking open the book and beginning to read . . .  (You do know what a dilemma I have just presented with myself this is, don't you?  I want to read all of them!).

Ghost Story Sunday: The Veldt

Ray Bradbury is wonderful, isn't he?  I already knew that from the books and short stories I've read and the audio versions I have listened to, but once again I am reminded that he was a superlative storyteller and not just of stories purely for entertainment (though he is always entertaining, too).  He was ahead of his time, doin't you think?.  How did he know which direction we would be moving in when it came to technology--and how it has the potential to take over our lives in not so helpful ways?  Thanks to Janet for the heads up on Flavorwire's 50 Scariest Short Stories of All Time, and for pointing me in the direction of Ray Bradbury's short story, "The Veldt" (originally published as "The World the Children Made") which definitely rivals "There Will Come Soft Rains" (though for me the latter just barely edges out the former--by just a smidgen).  "The Veldt" appears high on the Flavorwire list.

"The Veldt" first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in September 1950 and was later published in the collection The Illustrated Man.   I suppose you might consider it a cautionary tale.  It's what happens when we rely too heavily on technology to make our lives easier--when it takes the place of normal human contact and interaction and how it has the potential to dehumanize us, make us less empathetic towards others.  And the story is just downright creepy and deadly, too.

Computers wouldn't have been a new concept to Bradbury in 1950, though imagine how strikingly different they were then to what they are now.  "The Veldt" reminds me a little of Fahrenheit 451.  Remember those scenes in the book where entire walls in a home were like TV screens and Montag's wife would sit and watch "entertainments"?  It's not so different than today's reality TV--where people sit quite passively in front a box and watch other people live their lives (however fabricated they are on reality TV).  

In this week's story, George and Lydia Hadley and their two children live in a Happylife Home.  Soundproofed, sensitized to their every whim and desire and a steal at $30,000!  They needn't lift a finger--just step into a tube and be lifted away to their bedrooms, think of food they want to eat and it appears on the table, and it rocks the family to sleep at night.  It even takes care of the children.

"The nursery was silent.  It was empty as a jungle glade at hot high noon.  The walls were blank and two dimensional.  Now, as George and Lydia Hadley stood in the center of the room, the walls began to purr and recede into crystalline distance, it seemed, and presently a African veldt appeared, in three dimensions, on all sides, in color reproduced to the final pebble and bit of straw.  The ceiling became a deep sky with a hot yellow sun."

All so real.  Hot sun above shining down and making the couple break out into a sweat, so real.  Even the dry smell of grass and a whiff of wild animal.  And oh, the cries.  The roars.  Somewhere off in the distance the lions are roaring, they are attacking their prey and having their meal.  You can almost reach out and touch them.  The thing is, the nursery ("forty feet long and thirty feet high"--it cost half as much as the rest of the house, but then nothing is too good for their two little darling children) almost takes the place of the children's parents.  Whatever the children can imagine, whatever they desire is reflected on screen.  What a wonderful educational tool.  You almost think you are really there--at least Lydia and George feel as though they have been dropped into the middle of the veldt when they go into the children's nursery.

"Walls, Lydia, remember, crystal walls, that's all they are.  Oh, they look real, I must admit -- Africa in your parlor -- but it's all dimensional, superreactionary, supersensitive color film and mental tape film behind glass screens.  It's all odorophonics and sonics, Lydia,"

as George reminds his wife.  Silly of her to have gone off screaming at the approach of those lifelike animals that seem to be just feet in front of them.  But something is not quite right.  Something is missing in their lives. 

"That's just it (Lydia tells George).  I feel like I don't belong here.  The house is wide and mother now, and nursemaid.  Can I compete with an African veldt?  Can I five a vath and scrub the children as efficiently or quickly as the automatic scrub bath can?  I cannot.  And it isn't just me.  It's you.  You've been awfully nervous lately."

When the pair decide that for the sanity of their children they must lock the nursery and give them a breather, concentrate more on real life, it is a decision that is not warmly received by their children.  As a matter of fact, when they discuss the problem with a psychologist they realize they have relied too much on their Happylife Home and the nursery . . . well, I'll let you discover for yourself what happens next.  You can read the story here.  Gentle nudge, nudge.  Just one short story this RIP season, you won't regret it.  Next to the Shirley Jackson, I think this is one of my favorite short stories this year!

With RIP IX coming to an end this week, I'll be reading something entirely different in November for my short story Sundays.  Maybe some German translations?  Or maybe back to my Jane Gardam collection.  Something entirely different?  Well, we'll see.

* * * * *

As for this week's New Yorker (October 13 issue) story, I read Haruki Murakami's "Scheherazade" and am happy to say we're back on track for a story that is tantalizingly good after a series of stories I didn't get on as well with as I would have liked.  It's a story within a story of sorts.  I have never read Murakami before, so I have no idea how this story compares to his other work. I always imagined his stories to be unusual.  Not necessarily experimental but not exactly straightforward either.  Maybe imaginative and creative and pushing the limit in some way. 

There was a subtle quality to "Sheherazade" that I really liked, a deftness of touch.  A middle aged woman, a nurse, comes to the house of Habara twice a week to check on him.  Leave his groceries, make a list of what she needs to bring the next time, switch out his library books and DVDs.  He cannot leave his home, though we are never told why.  After all the regular tasks are accomplished the two repair to the bedroom for some rather perfunctory sex, which is followed by a story which she tells.  He keeps a diary, though not explicit in any way.  It has just some small notation to remind him of the day and the story.  She tells him of a story from her youth and a mad crush she had on a boy in her class and the time she "broke into" his house just to be near him and would take some small token and leave something in return. 

It's a brilliantly done story.  The reader, at least I was, is equally as caught up in her stories as Habara was.  And the subtlety, not all questions are answered, the story never fully told.  Habara waits in anticipation for more, and so do we.  It seems like it would be unfinished, but I liked that there were unanswered questions, things left to the imagination.  It felt just right--what I think a short story should be.  I wonder if all his writing is as good as this was? 

You can read Murakami's Q&A here.  A most excellent reading weekend thus far (good short stories and good novel reading, too), and something new on the horizon for the next.

The Curious Gardener: October

What a novel idea.  I've read the October installment of The Curious Gardener--in October!  And even with and entire week to go still.  October is filled with the usual mishmash of items ranging from apples (my favorite) to the irritation of cell phones in public gardens (bad cell phone behavior being a pet peeve of mine as well).  Another month of easy and entertaining reading along with a bit of the 'down to business' stuff as well. 

One of the main topics of this month's reading is--soil.  I know I have mentioned it before, as has Anna Pavord, because as the title of this mini essay says, "The Answer Lies in the Soil".  This is one of those things I will take with me from the book, even if I don't always recall all the variables she writes about that make up good soil.  I am sure I will remember that the perfect soil to strive for is "fabled" loam which falls somewhere in between soil that is either acidic or alkaline. 

"Soil is a mixture of bits of rock, water and organic matter such as rotted leaves.  Sandy soils are made from relatively large bits of rock, clay soils from small particles.  One is called light, the other heavy.  The essence of success in gardening lies in getting the right balance between the two, the right structure.  For that, you need the proper ratio between earth crumbs and air pockets.  On heavy clay soils, there is  not enough air.  Plant roots keep bumping their noses on the underground equivalent of brick walls.  On light, sandy soils, there is too much air and the fine hairy rootlets that absorb nutrients are unable to clutch at what they need."

I wonder what kind of soil I have.  And I bet the soil in my pots also has a lot to do with how well (or how poorly) my houseplants do.  In nature the soil takes care of itself more or less through the dying and decaying leaves and vegetation and animal droppings.  For the rest of us--it's compost, compost, compost.  Is it weird that I dream of having my own compost heap?  I really do, and someday I am going to create one.  Maybe that will be next year's project.  And a good hint she shares--never spend time doing work that others can do for you.  I like the idea of frost breaking up clods of earth and worms creating air pockets to improve the soil.  It's sort of weird (but then, not really) to think of what the soil in your garden/yard means. 

I'm envious of the vacations Pavord takes.  Often the destinations are so exotic, but sometimes, too, they are close to home.  Do you want to know what the view was like from a cottage in the Scottish Highlands?

"Out of the back door of the cottage stretched fifty miles of hill with nothing in it except red deer, heather, golden eagles and orchids.  No houses.  No roads.  No aeroplanes.  No people.  Absolute silence."

Sounds divine, doesn't it?  The only thing to improve this picture is a stack of books close at hand. 

But the highlight of the chapter for me, happens to also be my favorite fruit--apples.  I eat an apple a day (sometimes two).  My favorites are Macintosh (didn't find too many this fall, but I am hoarding a few in a bag), Honeycrisp (much better at this time of year than the other months--more flavor and the apples are on the smaller side), and Pink Ladies (what I eat when Honeycrisp begin losing their yummy, tart flavor).  Galas, Fujis and Braeburns are good in a pinch.

I'm afraid I don't know anything about British or European apples, but I do like the sound of some of these names: Egremont Russet, James Grieve, George Cave, Discover (a modern variety), Worcester, Beauty of Bath (doesn't the name of this one even sound delicious) and Laxton Epicure.  I'm not sure how common some of these apples are, but perhaps some of them can only be had in an orchard.  Pavord writes about some of the apple trees she has had and which have the sort of apples you need to eat directly from the tree, the sorts that you need to put a mattress of straw underneath for those varieties that have the habit of "falling rather suddenly off the perch", and the sorts that drop their fruit just at the moment it is ready that you had better be there to catch lest the slugs "beat you to the feast".

Don't read this section on an empty stomach or you'll begin craving apples (but I seem to crave them in any case).  The descriptions she gives some of them are literally mouth watering--the colors, scents and flavors.  You know how some people go on wine tasting tours?  I would happily go on such a thing as an apple tasting tour, if I found one!  I will leave you with a reading suggestion (I plan on getting a copy of this myself!): Edward Bunyard's Anatomy of a Dessert, which was published in 1929 (maybe foodies are already familiar with it?).  "He does not tell you how to grow fruit, but gives you a thousand reasons why you should." 

"When we think of dessert, our mind’s eye sees cakes, pies, and pastries. Yet the truly creative palate imagines things even more tempting, decadent, and, yes, sinful. So claims Edward Bunyard in this delectable paean to the wonderful fruits of the vine, from apples and apricots to gooseberries and strawberries, from pears to the grapes that give us wine." 

That is from the book description.  A book not just to borrow but to own, I think!  Yum.

Ten New Books to Look Forward To

Well, since I have thrown all caution to the wind and picked up two new reads, why not share a few (random) new books that are on my wishlist to look for in the coming months.  A few I am already in line for at the library and the rest I will watch for.  In no particular order:

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins -- "Compulsively readable, The Girl on the Train is an emotionally immersive, Hitchcockian thriller and an electrifying debut."  All you need to say is Hitchcock and you have my attention!

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro -- "Sometimes savage, often intensely moving, Kazuo Ishiguro's first novel in nearly a decade is about lost memories, love, revenge, and war."  There is not much of a description for this one, but I love his work and so am sure I'll have to give this one a go.

The Dream Lover by Elizabeth Berg -- Another writer I have not read in years!  This one is about French novelist Georges Sand.  "Brilliantly written in luminous prose, and with remarkable insights into the heart and mind of a literary force, The Dream Lover tells the unforgettable story of a courageous, irresistible woman."

A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler -- Seeing as I have never (yet!) read her work I should probably not so enthusiastically add this to the list (and should pick up one of the many unread books by her I already own).  But . . .  "Brimming with the luminous insight, humor, and compassion that are Anne Tyler's hallmarks, this capacious novel takes us across three generations of the Whitshanks, their shared stories and long-held secrets, all the unguarded and richly lived moments that combine to define who and what they are as a family."

Offcomer by Jo Baker -- "Against the backdrop of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, recent Oxford graduate Claire is a mess. She’s trapped in a disastrous relationship with a young academic, working a dead end job, stunned by the emergence of secrets from her mother’s past, and seemingly addicted to self-destructive behavior. But like the ceasefire that has brought renewed hope to Belfast, Claire too is afforded an opportunity to reflect, gradually learning to accept herself and to discover her sense of self-esteem and self-worth."

Adeline: A Novel of Virginia Woolf by Norah Vincent -- "From a New York Times best-selling author, a boldly imagined portrait of Virginia Woolf that sheds new light on the events that preceded her fatal immersion in the River Ouse in 1941."

The Night Falling by Katherine Webb -- "Puglia, 1921. Leandro Cardetta, born into poverty, emigrated to America to make his fortune and has returned home to southern Italy a rich man, accompanied by his glamorous wife, Marcie, an ex-showgirl fighting middle age. Now Leandro has money enough to hire renowned English architect, Boyd Kinsgley, to renovate a crumbling palazzo into an Art Deco statement of wealth, and host Boyd's teenage son and his diffident young second wife, Clare, for one extraordinary summer."

The Land Where Lemons Grow: The Story of Italy and Its Citrus Fruit by Helena Attlee -- "The Land Where Lemons Grow is the sweeping story of Italy's cultural history told through the history of its citrus crops. From the early migration of citrus from the foothills of the Himalayas to Italy's shores to the persistent role of unique crops such as bergamot (and its place in the perfume and cosmetics industries) and the vital role played by Calabria's unique Diamante citrons in the Jewish celebration of Sukkoth, author Helena Attlee brings the fascinating history and its gustatory delights to life."

The Voices by F.R. Tallis -- "From Edgar nominee F.R. Tallis, a new novel of psychological suspense that reinvents the classic haunted-house tale."

After the War is Over by Jennifer Robson -- "The International bestselling author of Somewhere in France returns with her sweeping second novel—a tale of class, love, and freedom—in which a young woman must find her place in a world forever changed."

I think I've got a little bit of everything there.  Plenty to look forward to and certainly more than enough to keep me busy.  What are you looking forward to this winter?

Teaser Tuesday: Two New Reads

I can't help myself.  I am truly trying to be a good reader and finish some of my in progress books before starting anything new, but I'm afraid I've succumbed to the temptations of two new (or new to me anyway) books.  I usually like to share teasers only when I have properly started a new book and have something to say about it, but in this case the two new books are very new.  As a matter of fact as soon as I finish here I am off to go begin reading them.

First up is one for my Century of Books list.  Remember I mentioned that rather than trying to fill slots from the earlier part of the century I would try something different and complete one of the decades where only a few open places remain?  As I am nearly finished with the 1980s and 1990s I decided to pick a book from one of the two decades.  I have long wanted to read Penelope Lively's Moon Tiger, so now is the moment.  It begins:

"'I'm writing a history of the world,' she says.  And the hands of the nurse arrested for a moment; she looks down at this old woman, this old ill woman.  'Well, my goodness,' the nurse says.  'That's quite a thing to be doing, isn't it?' And then she becomes busy again, she heaves and tucks and smooths--'Upsy a bit, dear, that's a good girl--then we'll get you a cup of tea'."

Is it just me or do you feel like the nurse is being just a tad dismissive of the old woman.  I think that happens a lot to the elderly.  We forget that just because older people are old and infirm and seem so delicate and fragile that they actually had full and vigorous lives in their younger years.  Imagine what they might have done.  I know Claudia Hampton had a rich full life and I can't wait to read about it.  She goes on in the next chapter:

"When I was about nine I asked God to eliminate my brother Gordon.  Painlessly but irreversibly.  At Lindisfarne, as it happens, to which we had been taken not to reflect upon the Viking raids of which probably Mother had never heard but to walk out to the island along the causeway and have a picnic thereon.  And Gordon and I raced across that spit of land, and Gordon being one year older and quite a bit faster was all set to win, of course.  And I gasped up this prayer, in fury and passion, meaning it--oh, quite meaning it.  Never again, I said will I ask You for anything.  Anything at all.  Just grant this.  Now.  Instantly.  It is interesting to note that I had to demand Gordon's extinction, not that I should be made a faster runner.  And of course God did nothing of the kind and I sulked throughout a glorious windswept sea-smelling afternoon and became an agnostic."

I like this one!  This is a story with potential and I begin it with high hopes (which I expect shall definitely be met).

The second book is one I came across when I was at the library this weekend.  Despite having a stack of books on hold waiting for me, I couldn't resist at least glancing through the new mysteries on display.  Laidlaw by William McIlvanney is one of Europa Editions World Noir titles.  I always mean to (rather like the Lively book which I always mean to read . . . ) give more of those World Noir titles a try.  Now's the moment.  The book was originally published in the 1970s but has only just now made its way across the pond (or maybe it is a reissue?). 

Anyway, this is the first book in a trilogy which I read has been credited with being the founding books for the Tartan Noir movement.  Jack Laidlaw is apparently "the original damaged detective".  I've had good luck with other Europa World Noir titles (Jean-Claude Izzo is amazing and I really need to get back to his books, too). 

The story begins with a prologue:

"Running was a strange thing.  The sound was your feet slapping the pavement.  The lights of passing cars batted your eyeballs.  Your arms came up unevenly in front of you, raching from nowhere, separate from you and from each other.  It was like the hands of a lot of people drowning.  And it was useless to notice these things.  It was as if a car had crashed, the driver was dead, and this was the radio still playing to him."

The crime in this story is the murder of a young woman and in his investigation Laidlaw will confront "Glasgow's hard men, its gangland villains, and the moneyed thugs who control the city."  As for Laidlaw:

"Laidlaw sat at his desk, feeling a bleakness that wasn't unfamiliar to him.  Intermittently, he found himself doing penance for being him.  When the mood seeped into him, nothing mattered.  He could think of no imaginable success, no way of life, no dream of wishes fulfilled that would satisfy."

A little bleakness for October perhaps.  Good thing it's going to be a sunny, warm week.  Now I am off to get acquainted with these intriguing characters.

Every Eye by Isobel English

Serendipity!  Have you ever reached for a book purely on whim, started to read, not been able to put it down (or simply been drawn to it again and again) and when you turned that last page realized what a hidden treasure you had sitting there on your bookshelf so very unobtrusively?  Do you know what motivated me to pick up Isobel English's Every Eye?  Earlier this month when I was thinking about my Century of Books progress and contemplating potential reads to fill in empty slots, I turned my gaze to a stack of Persephones sitting next to  my bookcase.  A pile of perfect contenders of Twentieth Century literature, surely.  On the top sat the English.  A slim book that when I first ordered it I was excited to begin reading no doubt.  Ages ago, of course.  But I sort of forgot what it was about the story that made me buy it.  Pull it off the pile, turn to the first page, begin reading.

"I heard today that Cynthia died, last Friday afternoon at the Ipswich County Hospital, just after a cup of tea."

"This news has affected me in a way that I did not expect.  One minute I was all set with my resentments close-knit and compressed, and the next it was as if a great wave had suddenly crashed shorewards undercutting and breaking into the very foundations of my life."

Have you noticed that Persephone books don't tend to have very detailed story descriptions on the jacket?  There may be something about the response to the book when originally published (in this case--John Betjeman's quote, "Sometimes, but not often, a novel comes along which makes the rest one has to review seem commonplace.  Such a novel is Every Eye.") or an excerpt from the text, but often you don't necessarily know much about the plot going into it--(which honestly I sort of prefer). 

I only knew that Isobel English used an unusual technique in her writing.  Not so unusual is moving from one period to another using parallel voices, but in this case the main protagonist is the narrator of both sections (alternately told) but using both present and past tenses.  I found it not only intriguing but engaging as well.  Reading the same voice both living in the moment and looking back at events in her earlier life had a pleasing rhythm for me.  Of course it all comes together at the end and meets up in a climatic revelation.  That 'aha!'  moment that you wait for and is so satisfying.  I could easily turn back to the first page and begin reading again and likely it would be an even richer read than the first go and equally enjoyable.  So typical of a Persephone novel (shaking head at the thought of how critics have dismissed so much of women's writing--always so perplexing to me in the face of stories such as this one), this is a story that has hidden depths belied by the slimness of the book.

In Every Eye, Hatty Latterly spends her youth dealing with a lazy eye.  As a young woman it is her older lover who pays for her to have an operation so it can be corrected.  She cannot see the world straight on but always at a slant.  Despite having the problem fixed she feels she carries the infirmity with her always.  Maybe not so curious that it's Hatty who finally sees the hidden lives of those around her by story's end.  I like the play on seeing yet not being able to see perfectly.  There are a number of striking and creative juxtapositions in this novel. 

In the present, Hatty has recently married a much younger man, and is soon off to Ibiza on her honeymoon when she gets news that her uncle's wife, Cynthia, has passed away.  It's Cynthia who first told Hatty about the place she will shortly be traveling to.  This news about a woman she had not seen for six years begins her reminiscences of the past.  Cynthia will have a huge impact on Hatty's life and leave an indelible mark.  It's through Cynthia and her uncle that she meets Jasper with whom she has that first love affair.  Jasper is a man whose life is surrounded by mystery.  Ultimately the two part ways leaving Hatty to age on her own, and it is not until much later when Hatty is nearing dreaded spinsterhood that she meets and marries a much younger man.  There is something circular about this story, things move in parallel casting light on present and past depending which Hatty is speaking--the youthful or more experienced.  It's almost as if parts are told in B&W and others in vivid color so rich are some of the descriptions--some observations clearer than others. 

Every Eye is such a beautifully crafted story and written with real elegance.  Tone, description and style all play off each other nicely making this one of my great finds of the year.  Surely she wrote more novels than just this one, but according to the biographic information she wrote only three books between 1954-1960. 

After all that my 1956 slot, when this book was published, had already been taken, but I don't mind a bit.  In search of my next (serendipitously) good read . . .   

Ghost Story Sunday: The Daemon Lover

I knew I could depend on Shirley Jackson.  I love my short story reading, and last week's installment by Joyce Carol Oates was good, but lately I've been feeling a little 'meh' about some of them.  "The Daemon Lover" by Jackson, which appears in Night Shadows: Twentieth-Century Stories of the Uncanny edited by Joan Kessler is a page turner.  It's  nicely ambiguous and you can probably interpret things more than one way.  Finishing it leaves a nice feeling of uncertainty in mind--a story to mull over and leave you just a little unsettled.  Just how a good ghost story should be.  In my mind this is vintage Shirley Jackson.  She never fails to please it seems.

In the brief introduction to the story the editor notes that Jackson has a genius for storytelling and isn't that the truth?  She notes that her stories are "masterpieces of psychological horror, in which the supernatural and the shadowy recesses of the psyche are inextricably intertwined."  She shows that so adeptly in this story. I don't know that there is much of the supernatural in this story.  If so, it is so subtly done as to not even notice it, but there is certainly a downward spiral into the unknown, a loosening of reality.

The story was first published in 1949 and a first impression is that things for the narrator are quite ordinary despite a night of restless sleep and too many cups of coffee and not enough sustaining food.  Is it just the lack of sustenance that sets her on edge as the story progresses?  This is her wedding day.  It's to be a small and simple affair from the preparations she is undertaking.  No white dress, no bridesmaids, no family.  Just she and Jamie, her fiancé, who is to come pick her up at her apartment at 10:00.  She's thirty-four and Jamie just a few years younger, though maybe he doesn't know as she lied about her age on the license.  Simple as the ceremony is to be, she has taken care in cleaning and getting the apartment ready.  Each time she uses a towel she replaces it with a new one and won't eat any of the food she has bought for the two to begin their lives together.

Ten o'clock comes and goes.  And then eleven o'clock.  A half hour later and she knows she must get some food from the drugstore downstairs.  Surely he'll be there by the time she gets back.

"Now, suddenly, she was frightened.  Waking without preparation into the room of waiting and readiness, everything clean and untouched since ten o'clock, she was frightened, and felt an urgent need to hurry.  She got up from the chair and almost ran across the room to the bathroom, dashed cold water on her face, and used a clean towel; this time she put the towel carelessly back on the rack without changing it; time enough for that later.  Hatless, still in the print dress with a coat thrown over it, the wrong blue pocketbook with the aspirin inside in her hand, she locked the apartment door behind her, no note this time, and ran down the stairs.  She caught a taxi on the corner and gave the driver Jamie's address."

And it is the strangest thing.  His apartment has no identifying name.  His name doesn't appear by the bell or the mail box.  As it turns out the place he was staying was lent by a couple who have only just got back in town.  Stranger, there is a feeling that they didn't even know him very well.  What has he down?  Why is she here?  You know how you catch movement out of the corner of your eye, certain there was someone there a minute ago?  That's the sense you get as the narrator begins her search for Jamie.  He's just on the periphery.  Someone saw him here and maybe he bought flowers there.  Yes, indeed.  The uncanny.  Did someone see him?  Was that really him who bought flowers this morning ...?

Well, you really must look for this story and read it.  Then come and tell me what you think, please?  Gosh, even now thinking back on the story I get goosebumps. It was a very creepy and unsettling read.  I loved it.  I love Shirley Jackson and maybe I will revisit the idea of not picking up any new RIP books and introducing them to my reading pile at this point.  It doesn't have to be a RIP read per se.  I will only say that I think Shirley Jackson is brilliant. 

It's definitely a story to reread.  In this same collection is Elizabeth Bowen's story, "The Demon Lover" (published only a few years prior to Jackson's).  The two are not similar in plot, structure or tone, but they both take their titles from the same ballad.  The editor does note that the two use the "uncanny force (in the form of shadowy, unpredictable male) which preys on a woman's vulnerability, ultimately shattering all that is reliable in her existence."  Perhaps that will be next week's story.

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I'm feeling sort of ambivalent about this week's New Yorker short story, "Story, With Bird" by Kevin Canty.  The last few New Yorker stories seem to have been about, or somehow has been featured fairly prominently in the stories--people's addictions.  First meth, and then cocaine and now alcohol.  It's a bit unfair to lump the stories under that description, however.  This story is really about those last days of a relationship. It's about those moments where the two have almost already moved on yet are still together.  The pair in this story are together, the drinking is almost incidental, and you wonder whether the drinking on the part of the man (though the two have both given up alcohol in the start of the story) is what drives the two apart or has kept them together so far.  Curiously there is this bird who manages to get in to the apartment disrupting their lives.  The story is very short and quite melancholic.  You can read the Q&A with the author here, which I always find illuminating!

Weekend Book Notes & Other Miscellanea

So, were you curious which new needlework project I decided to stitch?  Here they are!  The first few stitches in two new Halloween projects.  They are even small enough that I have a chance of finishing them before the end of the month.  We'll see if I can squeeze in some good stitching time between now and the 31st.  Both are Prairie Schooler designs.  The top one will be quite tiny--I liked the blackbird (maybe a crow?).  It will measure less than 2" square.  I am going to look for some fun Halloween fabric (or just nice neon-ish colors--maybe lime green and purple) and make it into a tiny pillow.  The bottom project might end up as a 'mattress pincushion' with the back side being the haunted house on the same chart.  Mattress pincushions have edging that could have some fun design, though I don't know what yet.  Or maybe I can find some orange and black pins and tack on some ribbon.  I'll be contemplating that as I go.  Hopefully there will be an update soon.

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The spring 2015 course catalog has been posted at the university where I work.  Unfortunately (once again) the class I had hoped to take (a Contemporary Israeli Literature class) is being offered off campus.  The only time I regret not owning a car is in this sort of a situation--it is nearly impossible (as Omaha has such a hugely deficient public transportation system) to get to the location by bus.  The same professor as I have now is teaching the class, but he will also be teaching a writing course on campus.  I am contemplating taking that.  It will depend on whether it is pure creative writing or if there is some reading component to the class.  I am not a writer and I think I would do horribly in a writing course.  Of course it is always good to expand your mind and try something new and surely working my writing skills might not be such a bad thing.  So, well see.  I have lots of time to decide, but I can't help getting excited about the prospect of taking another literature class.  I am also looking at a class that studies King Arthur tales through the ages.  It is, however, an Honor's class and I am not sure they can be audited.  If all else fails, there is always yoga . . .

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In my desire to be more frugal (not so much a choice as an absolute necessity considering the year I have had) I am going to cancel my Audible subscription.  I had six tokens that had to be used first, though.  Otherwise I lose them.  I think I have settled on the following audio books:

A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen (loved the first Lady Georgie mystery--serious--no, wait not so serious at all- fun!)

Crooked House by Agatha Christie (a dramatization)

Moonfleet by J.Meade Falkner

Night and Day by Virginia Woolf (I read the book some years ago)

The Noel Coward Collection (six comedies performed--should be fun--will read the plays after the fact . . . or maybe before?  What do you think?)

The Complete Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (BBC dramatizations-can you believe I have never read these?)

I might trade one in for something different--a novel by Erica Jong, but I can't decide.  Lots of listening pleasure, eh?

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I have been looking for some sort of local bookgroup to join.  As of yet I have not found one to suit my tastes, but my local art museum offers "Visualizing Literature" and they will be reading Maus I and II in November.  There is a discussion and then the books are linked to artwork in the museum.  It could be a really cool way to experience a novel, so I am going to try and read along and attend the discussion.  Will I be brave enough to drop in?

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I'm hoping to finish a book this weekend.  I have read my New Yorker story and am deciding between a couple of possibilities for my ghost story. I've got a stack of library books to pick up and this weekend will be the last for the local farmer's market.  A little work in the yard (time to start raking leaves) might not be remiss.  And then I am thinking of starting a new book . . .

So much to do and so little time (which will fly by in any case).  However you spend your weekend, I hope it is a sunny one!