A Work in Progress

Short Story Sunday: Chanel

On to the next story in Francesca Marciano's The Other Language.  Literary voyages are part of the attraction reading has for me.  Last week it was a small Greek village and this week, Venice.  In her short story, "Chanel", Marciano has struck several chords with me.  I love an author who can write about the seemingly mundane experience, yet do so with a poignancy and understanding that is conveyed so simply.  My life may not resemble that of Caterina's but the emotions, desires and disappointments she she shows are not so very far off from my own. 

In "Chanel" a woman buys a designer dress that costs well beyond her means and it serves as a sort of indicator for her of success, a dress she buys as a celebration but never wears.  How many of us have done something similar?  Bought something we thought was so wonderful and with so much anticipation for using later that it might in some way change our lives.  Maybe that is stretching things a little, but something special and out of the ordinary.  Maybe so out of the ordinary that it doesn't live up to expectations.

Caterina is in Venice with her friend Pascal, a film she made having been nominated for a David Award (the Italian version of the Oscars).  It's almost a given she is going to win, though she is one of four different directors to receive a nomination.  Granted it's only for a short, a documentary she made about a group of synchronized swimmers preparing for the Olympics.  Still, it's cause for celebration.  She and Pascal take in the art and film scene in Venice.  Drink overpriced cappuccinos and sub par sandwiches and generally soak in the atmosphere.  They decide that money will not be an issue for the weekend as it's a time for celebration.  Caterina's name is in the papers for the award and Pascal is on the cusp of being discovered as an actor.  The sky is the limit.

When they have had their fill of the cultural side of Venice they decide to take on the shopping.  Pascal is a true connoisseur of all things beautiful, and he has affected boredom down to a science.  They go into the priciest stores and try on the most expensive clothes with an air of being the wealthiest of the wealthy and then know just when to make their exit.  They end up in the Chanel store, Caterina's turn.  The last dress she tries on, just for fun though the clerks haven't a clue, is utterly divine.  And Caterina looks stunning in it.  It's that moment of the right dress on the right body and Pascal tells her she must buy it.  It's from their cruise line and the cheapest of the dresses she's tried on (keeping in mind a Chanel dress that doesn't even have a price tag and if it did would run into four figures.  She knows she can't afford it, but she does it anyway.  Cobbles together the funds to buy this dress that she imagines she will be wearing when she walks onto the stage to accept her award.

And then the ceremony is moved from night to day.  And it won't be televised live.  Budget cuts.  A strange off year.  From the most sparkling affair it turns into a grunge ceremony.  Wrinkled linen suits and flip flops.  The nominees showed a sort of "fuck you and your pathetic award ceremony" attitude.  And so the dress goes into its storage bag and into the closet.  Caterina takes it out for every other major event in her life, but it seems never to quite fit the moment.  Too nice for the ordinary.  And Caterina has never made another film, is a mother of twins and a wife and so life is now all about the ordinary.

Yet another slice of life that Marciano captures so well.  In a way (and here is me reading into the story), the dress is about expectations and waiting for that perfect moment to wear it, that perfect moment in life that is important enough but otherwise remains zipped up in its bag in the closet.  Waiting.  And maybe it should have been pulled out and worn to the supermarket and who cares if it verges on the eccentric.  It's a lovely story and a reminder on how life should be lived.

I like stories like that.  That take the mundane and transform them into something more.  Something universal and relatable to my own experiences--even if on an entirely different level.

* * * * *

The November 10 New Yorker story "Primum Non Nocere" (Latin for "First, do no harm) is about an adolescent girl who comes face to face with one of her mother's patients.  Her mother is a therapist who seems to be more attuned to those outside the home than her own daughter.  I began my NY short story reading this year with another of Nelson's stories, "First Husbands".  (She's the only author so far to have a second story appear in the same year!).  Apparently "rebellious teenagers" is one of Nelson's common themes in her stories.  You can read the full Q&A here, where she writes about her influences (Carson McCullers and Eudora Welty to name just two--must look for her suggestions now).  The full story can be read here.

I'm definitely going to continue on with the Marciano collection, but I might take a slightly different short story path for the rest of the year.  I have a special collection of stories that I have been waiting to dip into.  Check back next weekend to find out what it is!

November 26: Weekend Reading Notes

Ah.  It's finally here.  The anticipation is over (as are those last two difficult days at work) and now stretched out ahead of me I have five days to myself (more or less).  I always have a bigger eyes than a stomach to contain what I want, but that won't stop me from thinking about all the reading possibilities ahead of me. 

In catching up with comments I have mentally added (thanks to conversations with other readers . . . ) Daphne du Maurier, Elizabeth Taylor (okay so that one came along with no help from anyone else), one of the Matthew Shardlake mysteries by C.J. Sansom (or some other book or mystery set in Medieval times--or thereabouts) to my list of books I feel like dipping into.  I will try and refrain from adding more books to my pile, but it is still nice to think about, and then, you never know . . .

But for a more practical reading plan this weekend I *am* going to finish Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd.  I must say that I have had quite a variety of emotional responses to Bathsheba, Sgt. Troy (oh, especially him), poor Gabriel Oak and silly Boldwood.  You know, I am never quite sure about Hardy.  I want to love him.  I always look at the books by him I own and think I really must read more of them, but then when I read him I have such conflicting feelings about him.  Well, maybe I can work through some of those soon, as I am hoping to finally write about the book in the coming week or so.

Now, you know what happens next?  I know I should say I will quietly move on and pick up another half finished book from my pile, but you know what I want to do, right?  It's time to think of a new classic to read--because I want and need to read more classic literature.  So, what am I really in the mood for?  I have been leaning towards Charles Dickens.  Specifically A Tale of Two Cities.  Then again, I sometimes have the same response to Dickens as I do Hardy.  Maybe it's time to get back to the Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy (I have the whole set of books, but I think I was only on the second one)?  What classic have you read lately?  I want something really good, really absorbing.  Will have to go and scan my bookcase I think. 

I'm also hoping to finish reading Ron Leshem's Beaufort, which I have been reading for my class (was interrupted by another class book which I just finished--whew--lots of good reading for my class and am almost caught up with it).  It is a soldier's story about the final days of the Israel/Lebanon conflict of the late 1990s.  It is really well done and has a very engaging narrator, but war stories always slow me down. 

Of course I will make a little progress on Elizabeth Jane Howard's Marking Time (stately progress is okay--progress being the word here), and finally (after carrying it around with me for a few days) starting C.J. Sansom's Dominion.  I have been wanting to start it for so long, I do hope I fall into the story as easily as I have hoped and expected. 

And one more.  I will be picking up Jacqueline Winspear's The Care and Management of Lies from the library today.  I have been in line for it for ages now.  I hope the moment of wanting to read the novel has not passed (that is a common problem with me and library books--waiting so long to get something popular that the moment passes--does that happen to you, too?).  Oh, and thanks to Linda for the reminder that there is a new Maisie Dobbs novel soon to be published (March 17, 2015 to be specific).  It is called A Dangerous Place and here is a little description:

"Four years after she set sail from England, leaving everything she most loved behind, Maisie Dobbs at last returns, only to find herself in a dangerous place . . .  "

"In Jacqueline Winspear‘s  powerful story of political intrigue and personal tragedy, a brutal murder in the British garrison town of Gilbraltar leads Maisie into a web of lies, deceit, and peril."

It is set in Spring of 1937.  Something to look forward to!

I'm also off to see the new Conservatory at the Lauritzen Gardens this afternoon.  Members get to see a little preview of their annual holiday Poinsettia Exhibit (and there will be festive treats I hear).  I hope to share photos in the next day or so. 

But now I am off.  To stop by my favorite used bookstore (in search of books by Karen Armstrong) and then to the library and later to read!

For those celebrating the holiday tomorrow, have a lovely Thanksgiving.  And I hope everyone else has a great weekend!  And many happy hours of reading, too, everyone!

Teaser Tuesday: One Old/One New

So I have a long weekend now stretching before me, and as yesterday was one of "those kinds of days" (the kind where everything you do goes wrong and you just really want it to end) and I had already been toying with the idea of picking up one of my languishing books and maybe starting something else new, I decided to go ahead and treat myself with a little kindness and give in to whim.

Whim this time around comes in the form of two books I have been thinking of often.  One to pick up once again and continue on and another that I keep eyeing but never give myself permission to actually start. It is rather chunky and maybe just the tiniest bit intimidating.  So rather than adding the 'new' read to my sidebar, I'll give a try and see how it goes.  A little teaser from each.

First the book I am returning to after a little hiatus.  I'll be giving the first few chapters a skim, but as I have read it before and this is a second go, I think that should suffice to refresh my memory.  Marking Time is the second of the Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard.  I reread The Light Years a few years back and it is definitely time to get back into the story of the Cazalet families.  Britain is on the cusp of the Second World War.  I left off with Louise visiting a friend in London where she wants to pursue an acting career.  In my teaser she is thinking back to the Christmas holiday, which was the same as always but not the same at all.

"When she thought about Christmas she felt uneasy--sad.  It had been spent, as it always had been, at Home Place, and although everybody made efforts to make it seem the same, it hadn't been, although it was difficult to say that anything (that really mattered) was different.  They had all had stockings--although there was no tangerine in the toe and Lydia had wept because she thought they had simply left hers out.  No tangerines and no oranges--no lemons, so no lemon curd tartlets on Boxing Day, one of the Duchy's traditions--all details but they added up.  But the house seemed colder, and there was hardly every any hot water because the range took so much coke and the Duchy had changed all the light bulbs to a lower voltage to help the blackout, she said, and use less electricity."  

I've not forgotten how good these books are, but beginning to read Marking Time again reminds me how much I enjoyed them the first time around.  Perfect vacation reading I think.

* * * * *

I think C. J. Sansom's Dominion has the potential, too, to be a good absorbing holiday read.  It is another WWII story (technically a post-WWII story) set in England, but this time it is an alternative history.  This is a 'what if' story.  What if Churchill had "lost to the appeasers" and Britain had surrendered to the Nazis after the loss at Dunkirk?

I'm going to begin reading it in earnest later tonight, but I will skip the prologue momentarily and go to the opening chapter to give you a taste of the story.

"November 1952"

"Almost all the passengers on the tube to Victoria were, like David and his family, on their way to the Remembrance Sunday parade.  It was a cold morning and the men and women all wore black winter coats.  Scarves and handbags were also black, or muted brown, the only colour the bright red poppies everyone wore in their buttonholes.  David ushered Sarah and her mother into a carriage; they found two empty wooden benches and sat facing each other."

And a bit later in the chapter . . .

"Hitler had looked in seventh heaven, beaming, flushed and rosy-cheeked, his dream of an alliance with the Aryan British at least fulfilled.  He smiled and waved at the silent crowd, but the King had sat expressionless, only raising a hand occasionally, his body angled away from Hitler's."

I read Sansom's Winter in Madrid several years ago and liked it very much.  I suspect I'll like this as well.  And I still need to give his Matthew Shardlake mysteries set in Tudor England a go.  I have the first of the series and may have to dig it out of its hiding place in the next few days. 

Ah, lots of bookishness both here and behind the scenes to look forward to in the next few days.  More about that later.

Last Year at This Time . . .

This is what happens when you sit idly in front of the computer trying to think of what you want to chat about but not finding many ideas.  I could tell you about what I've been reading in my class, but I think I'll wait until I finish the last two books and then give a little overview.  I should tell you about novella I recently finished by Stefan Zweig that I liked very much, but I'm not feeling very inspired at the moment, and he definitely deserves a little inspiration.  I really need to do a series of mini reviews for all the books I read this year but never got around to writing about, but ditto on that inspiration thing.

This is what happens.  In those idle moments I decide to go back into my archives from last year and see what was on my mind on and around November 24.

Forthcoming Books!  Let's see, out of the sixteen (pretty impressive) books I had my eye on, I actually managed to read two and a half--Helen Dunmore's The Lie, and Valerie Martin's The Ghost of the Mary Celeste, plus part of Gabriel Chavallier's Fear.  I bought Amara Lakhous's Dispute Over a Very Italian Piglet and as a matter of fact it is within arm's reach of me right now!  I really liked his Divorce Islamic Style by the way.

Ooh, avert your eyes.  See I go through this every year.  Last year's end of the year reading pile, which I managed to read much more of than this year's pile (though we still have another month and a half to go).  Of the 'carry-over' books I finished Elizabeth Wix's Ruth & Gisela (and am glad I did!).  Wow, has it really been so long since I started Herman Wouk's Marjorie Morningstar?  I actually recently picked it back up again so am not quite yet prepared to abandon it. 

And a book I finished and loved--May Sarton's Journal of Solitude.  I shared a teaser last year about this time.  Maybe for my serial read next year I should pick up another of her journals rather than a nature book?  Surely there must be one that is divided over the course of a year and can be read in monthly increments?  Will have to investigate that now.

I'm actually reading one of the books that appeared in last year's mishmash of items.  I bought Jill Lepore's Book of Ages about Jane Franklin and have been enjoying it very much.  See, sometimes I really do read the books I buy!

Two years ago in 2012 I was in the midst of another German Literature Month and in the middle of reading Romantic Fairy Tales (not romance Romance, but as in the Romantic movement), which I recall liking but being somewhat challenged by some of the tales.

Back in 2011 I was revamping my reading pile (I do that a lot, don't I?).  Hah.  I was in the middle of a reread of the Cazalet Chronicles.  Hmm.  Maybe I should get around to finishing those books sometime?  Especially since the fifth book was released this past year and I really want to read it (but should refresh my memory about the previous four books).

Okay, so just one more year.  Now I am very curious.  I must say this is very illuminating and I see a pattern emerging here.  My old standby--reading notes!  (It's about time for a reading notes post before the long weekend, too).  Shaking head and chuckling to myself.  It's almost always about reading possibilities here.  I had lots of them and actually do recall the one book of the group that I finished, Judith Lennox's The Heart of the Night.

Looking back sort of makes me weirdly nostalgic for some of those unfinished books.  I'm thinking I might pick a new book to read (one from my shelves that I haven't talked about here--definitely need some fresh blood here, I think) and maybe an old, from the in-progress but set aside pile, book to read for my holiday weekend.  One more (long) day to go and then all that free time to look forward to. 

Mentally counting down and contemplating how to optimize my reading time!

Short Story Sunday: The Other Language

I wish I had noted where I read about Francesca Marciano's recently published short story collection, The Other Language.  I've decided on a new 'rule' for my sidebar of in progress books.  Nothing gets added as a current read until I have passed the fifty page mark, and I know I am sufficiently 'into' a story and that I plan on continuing on (all part of my 'digging out from under' and getting control of my reading planning).  Maybe this will help alleviate some of the pressure of those piles of books and the (silly) guilt I feel when I set a book aside.

I've read the first story and find that both the writing style and the subject (so far) appeal to me, so I am going to keep going.  Either it is up for an award or was simply mentioned somewhere as being an exceptional 2014 book.  Whichever the case, I think it is going to be good and I'm glad I came across it.  Where was I last spring when it was published? 

This is not the first time I have encountered Francesca Marciano's work.  In my pre-blogging days I read her novel Cassa Rosa, which I still have good memories of.  It is a book I think I might happily reread sometime.  I also have The Rules of the Wild on hand and think I might add The End of Manners to my next book order.  It always feels good when you click with a book and you discover your reading has taken on a new trajectory, don't you think? 

The collection contains nine stories.  I'm starting at the beginning with the titular story "The Other Language".  It's sort of a slice of life, coming of age tale, slightly melancholic in tone which really resonated with me.  Not necessarily the actual events but the emotions the narrator went through--the expectations we have as adolescents and the way life generally takes us in entirely different directions than we want or expect.  It was nicely done and she captures that youthful desire--those moments of embarrassment and confusion so well. 

For some reason I thought Marciano was American and only living in Italy.  I could find no notation of who did the  translation, but as it turns out, she was born in Italy, lived in New York City for a decade in the 70s and writes in English.  In a PW interview she says "that writing in English frees her—'there are no witnesses if you write in another language'. As for English, she adds, 'I grabbed the language. I wanted it'."  I find that fascinating to think about and see bits of the author in the character who tells the first story (reminding myself that you have to be careful about reading the 'personal' into a story).

The story is set in a small Greek in the 1970s.  An Italian family, newly bereaved after the death of the wife/mother, has come to have a vacation.  It's later revealed that the vacation is to give time for the aunts to remove all (or almost all) trace of the mother without the children there to watch.  The children, two girls and an older brother are on the cusp of adolescence.  It's the first time the father has had to take care of the children in this manner--away from home and entirely on his own.  It's obvious that this is new terrain for them all and they fumble about a bit, but the village with its single street and sandy beaches is just what the children need.  The son begins a friendship with a Greek girl who has arrived from Athens, and Emma who tells the story, becomes fascinated with the sons of a very bohemian British family who have taken residence in the town's 'villa'.  

While Luca seems to be able to find common ground with the girl from Athens despite not sharing a language, Emma is unable to communicate with these boys she watches from afar.  A year later the family returns, as do the other visitors from the previous summer.  Much has changed, including the two older children who are beginning to lose that childishness of shape and attitude.  The children, the father, all seem to be moving in new and different directions.

"They looked at each other.  Emma felt a terrible loneliness overcoming her all at once.  She and Luca had been drifting apart all summer to the point of becoming almost estranged.  She understood something frightening was happening.  Without their mother, there was no center, no focus to hold them together.  Pulled by an unknown centrifugal force, they were all breaking away from one another.  Nadia, Mirella, the English boy, were only the beginning of this disintegration."

The story is told in the here and now of those summers spent in Greece, but then also many years later from time and distance and experience.  It's interesting how those childhood experiences begin to shape us and set us on to paths that may take us so far from where we thought we might end up.  For Emma, the encounters she had with these boys, the desire to be able to communicate with them in English is the 'other language' she learns and sends her off in a place she might not have gone had she not had that experience. 

* * * * *

I'm a little behind in my New Yorker short story reading, though I really liked Jess Roy's story "The Empties" from the November 3 issue.  It's a little disorienting and disturbing and all too plausible, which is really pretty scary.  It's set in the not too distant future of "End Times" or "E.T." as people have taken to saying versus "B.E.T." (or Before End Times).  The story is told, is written down actually by J. and she captures well that eerie feeling of waiting for the electricity to come back on, but it never does.  And the foreboding. 

I'm glad my lights are on.  And there is heat and a telephone.  

You can read the Q&A with the author here, and the story is online here--give it a go!  I had not heard of Roy before this story, but he has two collections out and just recently published his first novel, Your Face in Mine.  Another new author to keep an eye out for.  I am hoping to catch up with my short story reading over the upcoming long weekend and have already embarked on the next story in The Other Language. 

Unfinished but Not Forgotten: A Thursday Thirteen

Is it sad that I have a stack (well, stacks maybe) that has more than thirteen unfinished books in it.  I have books that I have abandoned and quietly slid back into their places on my bookshelves.  And then I have a stack of books, some years old, that I have a fondness for in some weird way but can't seem to return to the shelves.  What to do with these.  In some cases if I wanted to get back to the book I would need to start from the beginning, but in others I think I could just pick up the book and skim just a bit and then continue on.  

Many thanks for all the input in my desire to clean the slate for 2015.  I can see I am not the only one that finds such bookish questions a never ending dilemma.  I am likely going to do as I mentioned and try and read more from my own shelves and piles and read without a particular plan in mind.  But I still have ideas of which direction I will at least start the new year out in, and am contemplating how I will approach my reading and just what I want to get out of it.  Mostly I want to break my bad habits and read a little more thoughtfully and not do everything so pell mell. 

I will start the year with a clean slate in one way or another, and I think I will do a good cleaning out of my 'set aside but not completely abandoned' books.  There are some, however, that I think I want to give another go with.  Here are the top thirteen (in no particular order and not all shown in photo):

Enemies: A Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer

The Meaning of Names by Karen Campbell

Decision at Delphi by Helen MacInnes

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

The Lie by Petra Hammesfahr

Lumen by Ben Pastor

The Faces of Angels by Lucretia Grindle

Light of the Moon by Elizabeth Buchan

History: A Novel by Elsa Morante

Lee Miller: A Life by Carolyn Burke

Marking Time by Elizabeth Jane Howard

Westwood by Stella Gibbons

Save for one of these books, there was nothing actually wrong with any of the stories.  In some cases I was thoroughly enjoying the book but got caught up in other books and these just got set aside through no fault of their own.  A couple are fairly recent additions and really shouldn't be there except for a lack of reading time.  I will admit that one was a bit of a slog, but I was so far into it and wanted to know how it turned out that it has been left on the pile.

I now have a burning urge to pick one of these up and begin reading it once again.  In any case, this is what I want to avoid next year (either finish or put it back) and I think I might pull from this pile over the course of the year to do a little clean up. 

I'm a firm believer that timing is everything!  I'm in countdown mode now, only three more work days for me until I get an extra long weekend--and Thanksgiving holiday just a week away.  I have visions of long stretches of uninterrupted reading (and maybe writing and even stitching) time. 

A Cat After My Own Heart

I am meandering my way slowly through Seven Lives and One Great Love by Lena Divani and read this great quote.  I had to share it and I have a feeling you will appreciate it, too.  This is what goes through Sugar Zach's mind as he goes exploring his new home--a cat after my own heart:

"First of all, I went about the place scouting.  The house would prove more forthcoming than either of my new housemates.  I sniffed out every inch of the bedroom:  The books had long overflowed from the bookshelves and were scattered in profusion on dressers and on the floor.  On her side, especially, a red dresser like a piece of kindergarten furniture was packed with two or three piles of unread books.  It was her mini bookshop from which she nightly chose a reading that suited her mood."

Only two or three piles of unread books?  The rest must be scattered about surely.  I swear Sugar Zach is not my cat, but he could be describing me and my bedroom to a 'T'!  This book is a delight.  Not to be rushed, which is good as I can't seem to move very quickly through anything these days. 

A Clean Slate and Other Miscellanea

While I am not trying to speed the year along (would prefer time to slow down to be honest), I won't be sad to see this 'reading year' come to an end.  There have been lots of things about it that I liked, new book discoveries and a class I am enjoying immensely.  It has also been a frustrating year for me and a disappointment in many ways, too. 

I've decided I need to seriously revamp and rethink my reading style.  I have been contemplating the one book at a time method, but I think it won't work for me.  In theory it sounds really good--immersing myself in one story and not coming up for air (so to speak) until I come to the very end.  When I do read this way it is a very different reading experience than the chipping away at a story method over many days and weeks (or sadly, years).  But in reality I know I will come up against a book I am not willing to immerse myself in quite so intensely.  I'll be tempted by some other book or lured away by library books that cannot be renewed and then find myself in exactly the same situation as this year.  I definitely need to bring my reading piles under control.  As a matter of fact I think I am going to try and begin 2015 with a clean slate!

I'm not going to finish all my in progress books, so either a very few get to 'carry over' into the new year or more likely, unfinished and untouched (of recent) books will be going back to the bookshelves or book piles for later consumption.  I am always loathe to do this as my fear is I won't get back to the book ever.  And I hate the idea of being perhaps hundreds of pages into a story and then letting it go.   All that time and effort and then the book gets set aside permanently.

Sometimes letting go and starting with a fresh slate is a good thing, though, don't you think?  There was a time, not so very many years ago, that I might have read about fifty books over the course of the year (on a good year I can now read close to 85-90, but not this year), read maybe two or three at most at one time and happily spent lots of my free time (or my breaks at work where I get in extra reading these days) doing needlework (some years--really good ones--I might finish 25-30 small projects).  And then along came blogging.  A huge and happy discovery, but it also changed how I go about things.  In many ways this has been good, but in other ways maybe I have become too obsessive?

For next year's reading plan I want to not have a plan.  I have been thinking instead that I might explore a few different subjects (reading lists and ideas to come in a very unplanned and organic way--and nothing set in stone).  I want my reading to be serendipitous and to read as much from my own bookshelves as I possibly can.  Maybe a little less accumulation of new books, too.   No reading challenges (except one or two I enjoy each year).

And this is the tough one--to keep my current read pile down to a very, very, very low roar.  I used to have just a few categories of books on the go at once--a novel, a nonfiction, a mystery and a classic, and then maybe one or two other miscellaneous books--a library book perhaps or book from a special project I might be working on.  If I take another class in the spring (fingers crossed as I hope very much it will work out to take another class), maybe whatever novels we are reading would be the other miscellaneous book.

Hmm.  Maybe even that is too much planning and too many books at once?  I wouldn't mind starting off the new year with some direction in mind, but lots of room for that serendipity.  I need to figure out how to get back to a less self-conscious mode of reading--not worrying about what I am not reading or accomplishing (or finishing or finishing fast enough) and just enjoying what I am!  (Sorry, this seems to be a common theme on my posts this year).

Easier said than done?  Maybe by the end of the year I will have it figured out and will have a clean night stand, with just four or five books to share with you.  Six weeks to think about it. 

Do you read without plan or forethought?  Or do you obsess?  Do you abandon books without a trace of guilt?  Or read to the bitter end irregardless.  Do you read just one book at a time or a whole pile, and if the former, how do you not let yourself be tempted by something new?  Can you tell I am looking for a little reading inspiration, hoping to learn a few tricks to keep my own reading in check?  Advice and suggestions welcome.  Of course it always comes down to simply enjoying whatever book I have in hand and not worrying about the small stuff. 

Visualizing Literature: Maus I & II

I love the idea of graphic novels but for some reason I rarely read them.  When I discovered that my local art museum not only has a quarterly bookclub, Visualizing Literature, that crosses art with books and that they were reading Art Spiegelman's Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History and Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to read along.  I'm so glad I did--both to read a classic of the genre as well as a prize winning story (Spiegelman won the Pulitzer for the second book--the first graphic novel to do so) but also to compare the book with artwork that is on display in the museum.  How cool be able to enjoy and appreciate two things I love most.  And as art and literature are in so many ways related and intertwined anyway the experience of both is all the more rich. 

The group met last week and as it has turned bitterly cold here so quickly, there were only a few readers in attendance but the discussion was a good one.  Maus is such a groundbreaking book (rather set of books) in so many ways.  Spiegelman began the comic strip in the late 1970s.  I believe he published a shortened version of his father's experiences during the Holocaust in comic book format in order for him to come to terms, to try and understand what his father went through as well as try and understand his own emotions.  It seems as though Art had a somewhat rocky relationship with his father, and that is quite apparent from the 'characters' in the story.  Is this purely biography?  That is how it seems to be categorized, but with so much nonfiction I think surely there must be other fictionalized elements in the storytelling as well.   I say characters, but they are based on actual people, but using animals to depict the various groups of individuals.

The comic strips were serialized and published as an insert in Raw and then later published as a book and then a sequel in the 1990s.  I think it must have been one of the first graphic novels--and perhaps one of the first to be used as a text in schools.  Now graphic novels are commonplace and are a thriving genre of their own.  It was noted in our discussion as we were looking at the artwork on display that graphic novels differ from comics in that the story is complete in itself.  It tells a full story, whereas comics are serialized with each brief story ending in a cliffhanger in order to draw the reader back again and again.

I suspect I am coming to these books very late in the game and many of you will already have read the novels or be familiar with them.  Maus covers the period just before WWII and as the war began.  His father was born in Poland and had a thriving business when war broke out.  He was married and they had a child, a son.  For some time they were able to continue their lives but as the war continued it became increasingly impossible for Jews to live any sort of life.  The Spiegelmans tried to hide but eventually were caught and sent to concentration camps. 

In Maus II the years they spent trying to survive in the camps and their lives after are the subject.  The telling of the story by Art is part of the story, his search for answers to what his parents went through.  So this is almost a story within the story.  He captures everything so well--his own confusion as the son of a survivor, and the son of a man with a difficult personality.  The two often clashed.  And I don't think I am giving anything away--Art was also trying to come to terms with his mother's suicide.  He captures it all so very well--those uncertainties, the horrors of the war, how his parents managed to survive against all odds.   He moves between past and present, telling the story of how he tried to learn about his parent's history, his writing of the 'cartoons' and the struggles he had with his father. 

It must have been an unusual way to tell a story of the Holocaust when it first came out, but it is also a very accessible way as well.  The visuals add to the storytelling, and it's all the more telling in the animals he choose to represent the people--the Jews as mice, the Nazis as cats, non-Jewish Poles as pigs and so on.  Those visuals tell a story in themselves.  It's a perfect book to choose for a bookclub as there is so much about it to discuss and think about.  The lady who led the discussion had read parts of MetaMaus: A Look Inside the Modern Classic, which is the story behind the books, which added to the discussion.  Now, of course, I have to get my hands on that book as well.

I suspect it was planned, but the discussion coincided with a current exhibit that just opened at the museum, Bam! It's a Picture Book: The Art Behind Graphic Novels.  I took more pictures (I stopped by the museum over the weekend to spend more time checking out the whole exhibit) than I can share here, but I do have a few highlights.

All the graphic artists in the Bam! exhibit are great, but I have to share Jarrett J. Krosoczka's wonderful Lunch Lady series of books which feature a crime fighting lunch lady and as you can see in the upper photo, one of the stories takes place in the school library.  I thought you would appreciate that one! (You know I'll be checking these books out).

Next we moved on to some works in the permanent collecting starting with John Steuart Curry's 1931 painting "The Manhunt".

And compared and contrasted it with Grant Wood's very idyllic 1930 "Stone City".

And then on to a sculpture I have walked past many, many times but must admit have never stopped to look at properly, Solon Borglum's 1901 work "Our Slave".  (I think I have always thought this one was so painfully sad which is why I don't stop to spend time with it).

And finally to Roger Shimomura's 1985 "Untitled", which I believe is a fairly recent acquisition and is one of my favorite (and I have several and often go "visit" them) works.  We talked about how each related in different ways to Art Spiegelman's books--either because of theme and subject matter or style and technique.  

It was such a different way of reading a book and thinking about meaning and how an author expresses him or herself and how it relates to our culture and beliefs and ideas.  Needless to say I really enjoyed this experience!

The museum has all sorts of excellent cultural events and I try and take part in them as often as I can.  In March the bookclub will be reading Tom and Jack: The Intertwined Lives of Thomas Hart Benton and Jackson Pollack by Henry Adams and I will definitely be reading in anticipation for the next discussion.  I've been looking for a way to incorporate my interest in art with my reading and this seems a perfect way.  I might even look for other 'extracurricular' books to read in the interim.

Have you read any good art-related books lately?

Words and Their Meanings: Spinster

I'm afraid my regularly scheduled short story post is being preempted.  After a busy week it's been a busy weekend and not much reading has been done (not even as much as I dare).  I am in the middle of a New Yorker story (very interesting one by Jess Row) though a little on the long side.  The next Stefan Zweig story is also quite log, so I am not sure I'll read it next or skip around a bit in my collection.  This is how it starts:

"Grey mist lay low over Antwerp, enveloping the city entirely in its dense and heavy swathes.  The Shapes of houses were blurred in the fine, smoky vapour, and you could not see to the end of the street, but overhead there was ringing in the air, a deep sound like the word of God coming out of the clouds, for the muted voices of bells in the church towers, calling their congregations to prayer, had also merged in the great, wild sea of mist filling the cit and the countryside around, and encompassing the restless, softly roaring waters of the sea far away in the harbour."

Shall I keep reading?  Hmm.  I hope to catch up on my short story post later in the week.  In the meantime I have been reading Stefan Zweig's novella, Fear, which I am finding very good going.  Mostly though, I have been working on this week's class reading, Ron Leshem's Beaufort which reminds me a lot of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, which is one of my favorite books.  The Leshem book is so far, very good as well.  

I do, however, have something of interest to share in the meantime that I came across in my reading this past week.  I already mentioned how much I am liking Jill Lepore's Book of Ages, and both of the Franklins.  What I love about reading nonfiction (one of the things anyway), is all the things I learn about people and places and history.  Things I sort of knew (sometimes didn't know at all, too) peripherally.  Lately I have been coming across words that are long established in my own vocabulary but that I have never thought of in terms of where they came from.  Their own histories and hidden meanings.  I keep meaning to jot them down and make note of them, but mostly I file the information away somewhere to retrieve at a later date.

Today, though, I make note of the word here.  I've always known the word spinster means an unmarried woman--normally of an age where she is not so very marriageable anymore.  Have you ever wondered where the word got its meaning?  In one of Benjamin Franklin's letters to his sister, written when he had just turned twenty-one he told her he wished to send her a gift.  "I had almost determined on a tea table but when I considered the character of a good housewife was far preferable to to that of being only a pretty gentlewoman, I concluded to send you a spinning wheel."  According to Lepore this was a joke.  A tea table would have been a huge extravagance, the sort only posh ladies would have.  But he wasn't about to send her a spinning wheel either.

"Whether a girl warranted a gift of a tea table wor a spinning wheel was a measure of her virtue.  The table was a symbol of female vanity, the spinning wheel a symbol of female chastity.  'Who can find a vertuous woman?' asks Proverbs 31.  'She layeth her handes to the spindle, and her handes hold the distaffe'."

At the time Benjamin was living in London and leading a somewhat decadent lifestyle.  Did you know that the "wanton tea table" and the "virginal spinning wheel' were the subject of early eighteenth-century satire?  In a 1702 poem by Edward Ward the city madam is:

. . . ripe to be undone
Loosing at last, so little in her Care,
Her Virgin Treasure on a Founder'd Chair

(Because she does not spin)

. . . bred,
Scarce knowing Hemp from Flax, or Yarn from Thread

While the virtuous country maid spends all her time spinning:

Her Needle, Bobbins, Knitting Pins, or Reel,
Some new Device, or the old Spinning Wheel
Are still Employ'd, and with Content Caress'd

So, a woman who spins is a virtuous woman, a virgin.  A Spinster!  I never thought of a woman who was an 'old maid', an unmarried woman as being one who spent her time in such a virtuous activity as opposed to those adventurous ladies with decadent tea tables and their intrigues!

Interesting, I thought!  Something new tomorrow, however.  (Though this is not the end of my fascination with the world Lepore is writing about I suspect).  And short stories later in the week.