A Work in Progress

December Prompt: Dear Diary/Dear Friend

Last prompt of the year.  Can you believe it is December?  This has been the strangest year for obvious (and maybe not-so-obvious) reasons and I will not be sad to say goodbye to 2020.  We all just need to hang in there a little longer and make safe choices and I hope 2021 will bring happier days.  To wrap up my year of prompts I have a genre I love to choose books for.  I love diaries and books of letters and it has been some time since I last dipped into either kind of book--nonfiction or fictional.  I have chosen a small stack of novels that are either told via diary entries or in a couple of cases through letters and other forms of memoranda.

She Goes to War by Edith Pargeter -- "When Catherine, a teleprinter operator in the WRNS, is posted to the war-torn city of Liverpool, she meets Tom Lyddon. The usual stages of courtship are dispensed with, and the two begin an affair. But their idyll is soon to be shattered by the realities of war."

The Diary of Emily Dickinson by Jamie Fuller -- '"A workman stumbles upon Emily Dickinson's journal in a crevice in her conservatory, a diary that reveals Dickinson's views on God, family, nature, death, love, poetry, fame, her role as a woman in a patriarchal society, and the trials of her everyday life."

Mrs. Tim of the Regiment by D.E. Stevenson -- "Vivacious, young Hester Christie tries to run her home like clockwork, as would befit the wife of British Army officer, Tim Christie. However hard Mrs Tim strives for seamless living amidst the other army wives, she is always moving flat-out to remember groceries, rule lively children, side-step village gossip and placate her husband with bacon, eggs, toast and marmalade. Left alone for months at a time whilst her husband is with his regiment, Mrs Tim resolves to keep a diary of events large and small in her family life. Once pen is set to paper no affairs of the head or heart are overlooked." I think there is a quartet of these Mrs. Tim novels!

Henrietta's War by Joyce Dennys -- "Spirited Henrietta wishes she was the kind of doctor's wife who knew exactly how to deal with the daily upheavals of war. But then, everyone in her close-knit Devonshire village seems to find different ways to cope: there's the indomitable Lady B, who writes to Hitler every night to tell him precisely what she thinks of him; the terrifyingly efficient Mrs Savernack, who relishes the opportunity to sit on umpteen committees and boss everyone around; flighty, flirtatious Faith who is utterly preoccupied with the latest hats and flashing her shapely legs; and then there's Charles, Henrietta's hard-working husband who manages to sleep through a bomb landing in their neighbour's garden."

Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man by Fannie Flag -- "Sassy and irreverent from the get-go, Daisy Fay takes us on a rollicking journey through her formative years on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. There, at The End of the Road of the South, the family malt shop freezer holds unspeakable things, society maven Mrs. Dot hosts Junior Debutante meetings and shares inspired thoughts for the week (such as “sincerity is as valuable as radium”), and Daisy Fay’s Daddy hatches a quick-cash scheme that involves resurrecting his daughter from the dead in a carefully orchestrated miracle. Along the way, Daisy Fay does a lot of growing up, emerging as one of the most hilarious, appealing, and prized characters in modern fiction."

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman an Jay Kristoff -- "Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the worst thing she'd ever been through. That was before her planet was invaded. Now, with enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra are forced to fight their way onto one of the evacuating craft, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit. Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents--including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more."

Another difficult choice as they all look good and in some cases intriguing.  Most of these books are older titles that have been on my shelves for years.  I am finding lately that I am turning to my own books, older books, over new releases.  I have had to let several promising new library books go due to due impending due dates and in a couple of cases I was already reading them but knew I could not finish them fast enough, so back they went.  As with everything else this year--it is the year of an upended reading, slow going and not always very steady.  But what I am managing I am enjoying and surely that's all that matters in the end.

March 12: Reading Notes

I have two books to tell you about today, if only briefly--two stories worth looking out for and both very enjoyable if for slightly different moods.  It's possible you might not have come across these; I did only haphazardly. 

I think I have the Stella Prize to thank (though by way of a rather circuitous route) for this first book.  I was ordering titles from the longlist for work and I came across a recent release from Black Inc. Books, The Unexpected Education of Emily Dean by Mira Robertson.  I found a copy through Amazon fortunately, though it was a bit of a splurge as Australian books, and this a paperback, are not cheap--if you can even find them here in the US.

The novel is a coming of age story set in rural Victoria, Australia during WWII, though the war is only happening peripherally.  This is a homefront story as seen through the eyes of fourteen-year-old Emily who is sent to her grandparent's property or station (she's not to call it a farm!) while her mother is away (away being hospital but the hints are it is less for an illness than for psychological reasons).  She's meant to be gone only a couple of weeks but fears the weeks may stretch longer and she fights against the possibility, not wanting to be sent off alone.  

This is a wonderfully told story of one young woman's education of the world and how to be an adult and it is not always an easy education.  It is gently told however.  While bad things occur and she must contend with prejudices and some violence, it is not an uncomfortable story to read.  She admires her prickly aunt, her father's sister, and must come to terms with her uncle who returns from the war damaged psychologically and physically having lost a leg, and she interacts with the Italian POW who is working for the family.  It is all a trial of sorts--her aunt has secrets and is rather brash and direct.  Her uncle is angry at the world and despondent over his life.  She crushes on the POW who she fears is a Communist and perhaps in a secret relationship with her aunt (even as she waits for her betrothed to return from the battlefield).  But nothing is really as it appears.  As a young woman who has a certain naivete of how the world works, she sees only part of the truth of each person or situation.  

The Unexpected Education of Emily Dean is a debut novel and I hope more books will be forthcoming from Mira Robertson.  You can watch a short introduction to the novel here by the author.  In the meantime I'm going to work on that Stella longlist (I have a few books on my reading pile from the list) and check out the publisher's other fiction offerings.  Lately I am on the lookout for books by Australian writers of books about the country or novels/mysteries set there. 

I'm also in the middle of a short crime novel--Hubert Monteilhet's Return from the Ashes published in 1963 and translated from the French by Richard Howard.  I really wanted to buy a copy of this to own, but it is out of print and used copies are quite expensive, so interlibrary loan has once again come to the rescue.  Here's the circuitous route this book took to reach me--I recently read a review in the NYRB Magazine about the forthcoming movie, Transit (I read the book a few years ago).  In it, they mentioned a previous movie by the same director, Christian Petzold, called Phoenix, which I saw a few years ago as well.  The movie was based on a novel (which I did not know at the time), so I had to go in search of it.

Monteilhet's very short novel is actually an epistolary novel told through diary entries.  The premise is really interesting and unusual and from what I recall of the movie fairly close in the telling of the story.  A Jewish woman has survived the camps of WWII and has returned home (in the book the setting is Paris, but the movie is set in Germany).  Months have passed from the opening of the camps, and her husband and daughter believe she perished as no one has told them otherwise and so much time has gone by without any word from her.  They assume the worst.  Not only did she have a very healthy bank account, but none of her family survived the war and all their money would be inherited by her had she lived.

Do you see where this is going?  Her husband is happy to receive the monetary benefits of his deceased wife, but she is in a sort of limbo--not having returned and claimed her rightful place yet no death certificate or body confirming her demise.  She only wants to return to her husband when she has regained some if her health and looks but no matter what she does her body and face are irrevocably changed.  When she does contrive a meeting he does not recognize her as his wife, yet she reminds him of her.  And then he lays out a plan to make them both rich.  If she will assume the identity of his dead wife they can reap the rewards of cash.  Twisty eh?  How does a woman impersonate herself!

I am hoping to finish reading the book in the next few days.  Although I know how the movie ended I am curious to see how the story in the novel will play out.  The woman has been presented with the scheme to get the money, and it is likely she will take him up on it.  While she feels like her appearance has changed too much from the war, she finds she loves him more than ever.  When I saw the movie I didn't give the title much thought--but now thinking about the title of the book and what happens to her--a phoenix rises from the ashes renewed--much like the woman in the story--she rises from the ashes of her death--to become a version of herself once again.  I think he wrote other books and perhaps I will see what I can get my hands on when I finish this book.

Library Holds, Epistolary Novels and Links

Haul #1 of library holds.  I had to leave a couple of books behind as I walking home and can only carry so many at once.  I have to say this is a really good haul and I want to start all of them right now and how will I decide which comes first (considering I already have one library book on the go and another new book that needs to be read soon for book club!).

Where should I start?

Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson -- "In Denmark, Professor Anders Larsen, an urbane man of facts, has lost his wife and his hopes for the future. On an isolated English farm, Tina Hopgood is trapped in a life she doesn’t remember choosing. Both believe their love stories are over. Brought together by a shared fascination with the Tollund Man, subject of Seamus Heaney’s famous poem, they begin writing letters to one another. And from their vastly different worlds, they find they have more in common than they could have imagined. As they open up to one another about their lives, an unexpected friendship blooms. But then Tina’s letters stop coming, and Anders is thrown into despair. How far are they willing to go to write a new story for themselves?"

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss -- Why does this make me think of Shirley Jackson?  "A taut, gripping tale of a young woman and an Iron Age reenactment trip that unearths frightening behavior."

The Red Address Book by Sofia Lundberg -- "When Doris was a girl, she was given an address book by her father, and ever since she has carefully documented everyone she met and loved throughout the years. Looking through the little book now, Doris sees the many crossed-out names of people long gone and is struck by the urge to put pen to paper. In writing down the stories of her colorful past—working as a maid in Sweden, modelling in Paris during the 30s, fleeing to Manhattan at the dawn of the Second World War—can she help Jenny, haunted by a difficult childhood, unlock the secrets of their family and finally look to the future? And whatever became of Allan, the love of Doris’s life?"

The Light Over London by Julia Kelly -- "It’s always been easier for Cara Hargraves to bury herself in the past than confront the present, which is why working with a gruff but brilliant antiques dealer is perfect. While clearing out an estate, she pries open an old tin that holds the relics of a lost relationship: among the treasures, a World War II-era diary and a photograph of a young woman in uniform. Eager to find the author of the hauntingly beautiful, unfinished diary, Cara digs into this soldier’s life, but soon realizes she may not have been ready for the stark reality of wartime London she finds within the pages."

I mention epistolary in my blog title as I think that is going to be the next task I tackle on the Read Harder list.  I have been thinking of possible reads for a while now and it dawned on me, purely by chance I am reading a book right now that would work nicely already.  I have been reading Jami Attenberg's Saint Mazie and it is made up of diary entries and clippings and anecdotal bits by people who knew Maizie.  I know the book is based on an actual person and I plan on reading about her in due time as well.  

Now, not only is Maizie working as an epistolary novel choice, but of the four library books I brought home, three of them also include diaries or letters.  So, I think that is one task I will be able to line of very quickly.  I am trying (very loosely) to cross of two tasks a month, which should complete the challenge by the end of the year very easily.

*****

I have to pass on some links since it is the end of the week.  There is always so much that ends up in my inbox.  I skim a lot and mean to go back to lots but some are lists or quick reads.  Here are a few of those that caught my attention in particular.

I think this is the first book to screen list of adaptations I have seen this year and I feel just sort of tepid about them.  I do want to read Where'd You Go Bernadette, and if The Woman in the Window ever comes out in paperback I want to read that as well (only hoping it is not another Girl on the Train sort of story?).  I go back and forth about reading Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, but as I do have it in a smaller mass market size book (it is a chunky one) I should really give it a go.  Another version of Little Women?  Then again, it is Greta Gerwig directing so I'll likely see it (so far off on the horizon, though, as it is not coming out until next December!).

The Edgar Award nominations have been announced.  I am not familiar with quite a few titles on the list so there is lots to explore.  I think I have heard of the Leftys (Left Coast Crime Convention), and they have also announced their nominees.  Yet more to explore.  

I'm excited to see this new imprint--American Mystery Classics published by Otto Penzler Publisher (W.W. Norton).  They are reissuing classic American mysteries-vintage titles.  I have already ordered two of the books!

As you can see with the Edgars and the Leftys we are approaching the start of book prize season! The 2019 Pen Award finalists have been announced.  I'm excited for the Stella Longlist, however.  The Stella Prize is the Australian women's literary prize, and there are always some really interesting books on the list that I find I want to read.  It is a little harder to get my hands on some of those books, but often they are just the thing to get me out of my reading comfort zone.  The list is not just fiction but also includes nonfiction and short stories.  And there are always #ownvoices (indigenous) authors included.  The list will come out February 7 and about a month later we'll get the Women's Prize Longlist, too.  Ahh, the anticipation!

So, I leave you with two easy questions.  Have you read any of the books in my library pile?  Any that are absolutely not to be missed?  And I have been avoiding reading thrillers for a while now.  There is a sense of samey-ness to some of them and I have been feeling really jaded by that.  I've been binging on traditional detective stories (and shall keep on with Kinsey Millhone), but I am feeling ready to get back to a good thriller.  Have you read one lately that is especially good?  Recommendations always welcome!

January 17: Notes-Letters and Diaries

I've been thinking about the Read Harder Challenge.  It's not as though I am not already immersed in a number of really, really good reads.  I am as a matter of fact.  But if I am not actually in the act of reading I like to think about what I am going to read next.  We all do that, right?  (Or am I just more OCD than everyone else, which is entirely possible).  

My first task completed was to read a Manga comic, which I did.  It's not my usual genre, but I enjoyed it.  I was contemplating continuing on with the series, but there are so many other books pressing for me to read them now, that I want to move on to those instead.  I am in the middle of Death in the Air by Kate Winkler Dawson, which I mentioned before, am thoroughly enjoying and will work for the book by or about a journalist.  

So, what next?  There is so much to choose from at this point I can easily pick up any number of books, but I am in the mood for something of an epistolary format.  So do I choose a novel written in letter form?  A book of actual letters?  Can I fudge a little and chose a book that uses diary entries instead, or an actual diary (I have loads of those).  Is an epistolary novel only made of letters?

I've been doing a little browsing and thinking about what I already have on my shelves (and I had really wanted to try and only read from my shelves, but if a library book would fit better I am not averse from choosing that instead).  

Some books that have come to mind--Vanessa and Her Sister by Priya Parmar about Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell has long been on my TBR (so long as a matter of fact that I had to have it when it came out and so have a cloth copy).

I could pick a classic and one that is not in my usual comfort zone period-wise and read Murasaki Shikibu's Diary of Lady Murasaki.  It's less than 150 pages, but slight does not always correspond with easy reading.

If I wanted to opt for more letters in a more formal format there is In Tearing Haste: Letters Between Deobrah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor, though it is rather chunky.  Or a book I have long wanted to read, Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Bring Me a Unicorn: Diaries and Letters 1922-1928, which is the first of a number of collections by her.  I wonder how What There is We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell reads?

I have the first of The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: 1903-1917, but you know I would then have to read some of her stories, too.  And also long on my shelves Song of Love: The Letters of Rupert Brooke and Noel Olivier, 1919-1915.  

I know I have a book of letters between Abigail and John Adams and I am almost sure I have one or two collections of letters from World War I.  

The more I think about what might be on my shelves the more expansive my choice seems to become.  And there is this list that I can easily dip into (and I have a  number of the books unread on my shelves, too).

The appeal of choosing a book of letters is knowing I could keep the book on my bedside pile and read a few every night and just work my way slowly through.

Such is the dilemma now of choosing.  Have you read any of these books of letters?  Or is there some other you read and found riveting?  Ah, the pleasure of thinking about a new book to add to the reading pile.

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

I like the word play on Rainbow Rowell's novel Attachments.  It could mean something you attach to your email.  It could mean the attachments we make with friends.  Or it could mean something of a more romantic nature.  All of which come into play in her debut novel.  I'm very remiss as Rainbow Rowell is a local author and it has taken me far too long to read any of her books.  I remember when she was a columnist for our city newspaper and now she is known worldwide and has a string of successful novels behind her.  I heard her speak several years ago and she is just as amiable and humorous as the characters in her novel.  Attachments is a charming story, great fun in the telling and even more appealing since the setting was a thinly veiled Omaha circa 1999--just before the Y2K worries and lots of local happenings too, all of which I remember quite vividly.

This is a novel with a "meet cute" moment written all over it.  When the characters do finally come together, and you hope and expect they will, it just has to be a meet cute or it would be too disappointing.  The thing about this story is the characters "meet" but sort of unbeknownst to each other and only virtually.  It's once of those "truth is stranger than fiction" occurrences.

I love the premise of the story.  The setting is the offices of a local newspaper.  Two young women work as staff writers in different department and they have a tendency to email each other rather humorous and perhaps slightly too personal emails.  Beth and Jennifer have this wonderfully witty and amusing friendship and their affection for each other comes out in their epistolary conversations.

Lincoln, who works at night, is saddled with a job that is mindless easy but one which he has mixed feelings about.  He was hired as a security officer in the technical department, which means he essentially has carte blanche to read the employees' emails.  The security software marks questionable emails, which he must go in and check to make sure there is nothing inappropriate going on virtually.  Beth's and Jennifer's lighthearted banters get the occasional checkmark, so Lincoln must follow up.  He should be calling them out on their non-work-related emails, but he so enjoys their lively conversations he can't bring himself to take them to task.

Jennifer is happily married and contemplating starting a family.  Her husband wants nothing more than to have a child, but Jennifer is uncertain.  Beth is in a settled relationship with a highly attractive musician.  It seems a dream relationship as the two are comfortably together, but the relationship seems to lack the spark that Beth wishes for.  On top of that she has to be a bridesmaid in her sister's wedding and must endure wearing the worst and most unattractive dress ever.  The two commiserate and laugh and try not to cry and it is easy to see how Lincoln would get absorbed in their lives. 

You see where this is leading, don't you? 

The story almost verges on the slapstick.  If it was a movie (and why has nobody scooped this one up?) it would be a rom-com.  There is this guilty voyeurism going on on both sides.  Lincoln, unhappily single, begins to fall for Beth--a girl he has never actually met.  Beth is unhappily paired and sees this rather cute guy around the building.  She talks about him in her emails to Jennifer.  Lincoln reads the emails and then . . . Neither is never quite sure the other is talking or thinking about the other.  So it is a matter of missed opportunities and missed signals and conversations (maybe even the kind that go on in the privacy of your own mind) spoken at cross purposes.  

See?  Meet-cute.  This is a thoroughly enjoyable and mostly light-hearted story filled with just a bit of drama.  The biggest voyeur is, of course, the reader.  I mean you read over the characters's shoulders.  You know they have to meet, but how can it be pulled off without coming out a little predictable and cheesy.  Rainbow Rowell manages it quite nicely.  I thought there might be a stumble on the unraveling of the drama, but she is never tripped up.  The story comes together quite nicely in the end, but you shouldn't take my word for it.  If you've not read this yet, I can warmly recommend it.  This was my September prompt, "dear diary, dear friend", a perfect modern take on the epistolary novel.

September Prompt: Dear Diary, Dear Friend

I'm so happy to put August behind me.  It has been a long hot, sticky summer and I welcome cooler weather (even though I know there are still warm days in store).  I finished my August book in plenty of time and now it is time to choose a new book.  September's prompt is "Dear Diary, Dear Friend" so a novel written in diary or letter format or a nonfiction book about either.  I love epistolary novels and am really looking forward to this.  

I only took a quick look around my shelves, so my pile is actually pretty small.  Sometimes having too many choices only makes the decision harder, but I am hoping that I can read two books this month rather than one.  My choices:

The Diary of Lady Murasaki by Murasaki Shikibu -- "Told in a series of vignettes, it offers revealing glimpses of the Japanese imperial palace - the auspicious birth of a prince, rivalries between the Emperor's consorts, with sharp criticism of Murasaki's fellow ladies-in-waiting and drunken courtiers, and telling remarks about the timid Empress and her powerful father, Michinaga."

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell -- "Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder know that somebody is monitoring their work e-mail. (Everybody in the newsroom knows. It's company policy.) But they can't quite bring themselves to take it seriously. They go on sending each other endless and endlessly hilarious e-mails, discussing every aspect of their personal lives.  Meanwhile, Lincoln O'Neill can't believe this is his job now- reading other people's e-mail. When he applied to be "internet security officer," he pictured himself building firewalls and crushing hackers- not writing up a report every time a sports reporter forwards a dirty joke.  When Lincoln comes across Beth's and Jennifer's messages, he knows he should turn them in. But he can't help being entertained-and captivated-by their stories."

Dead Letters by Caite Dolan-Leach -- "Caite Dolan-Leach’s debut thriller is a literary scavenger hunt for secrets hidden everywhere from wine country to social media, and buried at the dysfunctional heart of one utterly unforgettable family." 

Love Lessons by Joan Wyndham -- "August 1939. As a teenage Catholic virgin, Joan Wyndham spent her days trying to remain pure and unsullied and her nights trying to stay alive. Huddled in the air-raid shelter, she wrote secretly and obsessively about the strange yet exhilarating times she was living through, sure that this was ' the happiest time of my life'."

Frances Donaldson: A Woman's War by Rose Deakin -- "Female farming in "The War". A laughing, crying, gripping, writer-to-be's letters to her husband through five long years of separation. She, a famous playwright's daughter from high society turned farmer, responds with candour and can-do to male dominance in the cowshed and the realities of the woman's land army volunteers. A moving must-read of feminism two generations before its time coupled with the real smell of Britain before and after Dunkirk. The fear and the relief."-- Robert Boyd.

I am leaning heavily towards Rainbow Rowell's first novel as I like the idea of the story being told through emails.  just out of curiosity, do you have a favorite epistolary novel?

Three Floors Up by Eshkol Nevo

In an interview with author Eshkol Nevo, he notes that as he was writing Three Floors Up (published in Hebrew as Shalosh Komot in 2015 and translated by Sondra Silverstein), a book he wrote in "five explosive months", he was not in love with his characters, that they were flawed and as he wrote he found himself resenting them.  Resenting them, yet also "understanding them deeply."  I found Nevo's earlier novel, Homesick, utterly engaging, yet I struggled with his latest book.  Stylistically it reads quite smoothly, but I found it hard to engage with his characters and briefly thought of setting the book aside.  Life is messy and their lives are at times very messy, and I could not quite connect with them. 

Time and again, however, I have learned that a little perseverance with a 'difficult' text (or difficult characters) will in the end offer its own rewards.  Although I never quite warmed up to the people living in this apartment building in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, I was impressed by the way the story was created and told and the interconnectedness of lives so independent of each other yet also so aware--like planets orbiting each other and sometimes crossing paths and shedding light and then bouncing off back into their own worlds none the wiser. 

The novel is made up of three stories, literally and figuratively--each one set on a different floor of the apartment complex.  Each story is told in a confessional style, which I found intriguing.  Each character narrating his or her story to someone we never meet.  There is no judgement and no conversation between the 'confessor' and the 'listener' (maybe the reader is more than just a reader/observer but literally the listener and maybe even 'judge'?), so the reader never hears a response, but must connect the dots from listening to these inner monologues and hints that other characters on other floors might drop in their story. 

It wasn't until the third story where things began to fall into place and the structure of the story came into focus and gave me that little moment of enlightenment and appreciation.  The last narrator brings Freud into her internal conversation and mentions the id and the ego and superego "containing all our impulses and urges".  Freud and his theories dividing the psyche into three floors much like this apartment complex mirror each other nicely.  No worries, as Freud only offers a hint or nudge, and then the action moves on.  With each new story and as the reader moves up each floor, things become more clear and in the end there is a satisfying resolution.  So, while the narratives are only loosely connected, each new one moves things along creating a whole picture.  There is something nicely satisfying in the symmetrical telling of the story and the progress towards a tidy ending that gave me a better appreciation of the struggles of the characters.

No two lives are ever the same and each floor, each story was different and compelling.  On the first floor lives Arnon, a retired officer who served in the First Intifada, and his family.  He is obsessed with the idea that one of his neighbors has abused one of his daughters.  The obsession begins to take over his life and affect his relationships with those around him.  "Talking about this stuff is unpleasant" he tells his friend, a writer, so he will just spill it out as long as it doesn't end up in a book.  There is no happy ending for Arnon, and his life and relationships are in left in a muddle.  He wants his friend to give him a happy ending, to sort out his life and the reader is left wondering what will happen to Arnon and his family. 

Up a flight of stairs and we meet Hani whose husband travels frequently abroad leaving her alone with their young family.  You can feel the tension in Hani's narration.  She has no one to talk to.  While her husband's world is broad, Hani's seems to become increasingly narrow being always at home with no one to talk to.  Her story is told through installments in a letter she is writing to a friend who is living in the US.  It feels real, and maybe for Hani it is, but as her story is revealed the reader questions if what she is telling her about her life is actually happening.  There are glimpses of Hani's life in the third story through vague interactions, but it's never quite resolved if what she thought happened really did.

Finally it is Devora, a recently widowed retired judge, who will bring the story full circle.  She had a strong relationship with her husband who was also a court judge, but one that perhaps needed all her effort and energy and which suffered in their disagreements over their only son.  One day she comes across an old answering machine from earlier in their life together that has his voice on the outgoing message.  A link to him and their happy life, she begins talking into the machine, as if to him.  Through her short messages the reader finds that their life was perhaps not so happy and comes to understand why her son severed all ties with his parents.  She finds peace and resolution through political activism, through the rallies and protests happening outside her windows.

For me, this is a novel that I have come to appreciate more after finishing and allowing time to let it percolate.  I love Nevo's storytelling style, even if some of the reading was a bit uneven.  It's very cleverly presented and quite rich in retrospect.  He is a writer I will definitely be revisiting.

Writing Letters & Reading Letters

If a month of letter writing is inspiring me to send off a daily card or letter, why not read some letters, too? 

Seeing as Chekhov was on my list of reading ideas to begin the new year, and I have not one but two books of his letters, this seems a perfect place to start.  And as it is for February and a month of letter writing, why not love letters, too.  So I have pulled Dear Writer, Dear Actress: The Love Letters of Anton Chekhov and Olga Knipper from my shelves.  Seeing as Chekhov is known not only for his short stories as for his plays, it is no wonder that the love of his life would be an actress.  

"He was Russia's greatest playwright. She was the leading actress in the Moscow Art Theater. But they were more than artistic collaborators. From 1899 until his death in 1904, Anton Chekhov and Olga Knipper were friends, lovers and, finally, husband and wife. But her work and his health caused them long separations. Revealed through their letters, this was one of the most extraordinary love stories in the history of theater."

And always one to pair off my reading if I can, and as I have been 'collecting' Chekhov's works, I have tentatively pulled his one novel (at least I think it is his long full-length novel), The Shooting Party, off the reading pile as well.

"When a young woman dies during a shooting party at the country estate of a dissolute count, a magistrate is called to investigate. But suspicion descends upon virtually everyone, for, as we soon learn, the victim was at the center of a tangled web of relationships with her elderly husband, with the lecherous count, and with the magistrate himself. One of Anton Chekhov's earliest experiments in fiction."

Drama, love, murder, mystery, aristocrats, Russia . . . what's not to love?

And one slightly related side note that I forgot to mention last time.  Did you know the Letter Writers Alliance has a book club (because you can never have enough opportunities to read along . . .)?  It looks like they have been active for a while and the group is managed via Goodreads.  I think I will have to join the group!  Past selections look letter-writing- or just author/writing-related, and next up is Joanna Rakoff's My Salinger Year.  It was on my list of books to explore, so explore I just may!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

The People in the Photo: A Novel

Hélène Gestern's novel, The People in the Photo (Eux sur la photo), is a shoe-in for my 'best of' reads list for the year.  I picked it up to read in honor of Women in Translation Month.  This is a first novel by French author Gestern and it is beautifully translated by Emily Boyce and Ros Schwartz, and I have to put in a little plug for the publisher Gallic Books as well.  Their tag line is "the best of French in English" and as I am reading another of their titles at the moment (and enjoying it immensely, too), I have to say I concur.  It has the added bonus of being written in an epistolary format, which I love, and is a mixture of contemporary drama with a dash of mystery to it and even some romance, but I use these descriptions lightly as it is a weighty story, too.  It is a meditation on memory really--a story of families and the lies they tell each other, or rather the truths that they keep hidden for the pain they have caused.  There is also a thread of sadness and melancholy that runs through the story as well. 

An ad appears in the newspaper Libération in February of 2007.  An anonymous Parisian has placed it looking for information on three people, two men and a woman, in a photograph taken in the 1960s in Switzerland.  The woman is likely the Parisian's mother, there is a name given for one man, but the other man is a mystery.  What is the connection between these people?

"The three figures in the photograph are frozen for ever, two men and a woman bathed in sunlight.  All three are dressed in white and holding tennis racquets.  The young woman is in the centre; the man on her right--who is quite tall--is leaning towards her as if poised to tell her something; the second man stands on her left at a slight remove, bending his knee and leaning on his racquet in a playful Charlie Chaplin pose.  They all look about thirty, but the taller man is possibly a little older.  The tree-covered Alpine slopes in the background are partly blotted out by a sports centre, and the snow-capped peaks on the horizon lend the scene an unreal picture-postcard feel."

Hélène Hivert had all but given up any hope of finding someone who might know the people in the photo when Stéphane Crüsten, a Swiss biologist, responds that the unknown man is his father, a friend of the playful 'Charlie Chaplin' leaning on his tennis racquet.  Thus begins a correspondence between the two as they piece together the mystery of their parents--how did they meet, what was their relationship and what was their shared secret?  Hélène's mother died when she was very young and she was raised by a father who would not speak of her and a stepmother who raised her as her own though complicit in the secret.  Now as a middle aged woman she wants to fill in the gap that all but blotted out her mother's life.  She has only vague recollections of her mother speaking Russian and hazy memories of what she might have been like.

Stéphane, however, has vivid memories of his own father and mother and is still in contact with his father's friend-the second man in the photo.  While he remembers his father well, he was still a solitary man, slightly taciturn and always preferred to spend time in his studio or outdoors as he was an ardent and talented photographer.  Beyond that he knows little about his father's past.  Hélène and Stéphane begin piecing together the story of their parents' shared past, though not everything they discover is happy or welcome knowledge.

Throughout the story photographs are introduced and described and then letters follow filling in the details of what Hélène and Stéphane know and what they uncover as they delve into the histories of Nathalie and Pierre.  Their growing correspondence brings them closer together at the same time as their parent's stories threaten to tear them apart.   At first the letters are formal and matter of fact, but over time the two become closer and a natural affection grows out of their joint interest in uncovering their parents' secrets.

Gestern has managed to convey so very much through a series of letters, postcards and emails.  Hélène and Stéphane emerge as fully formed characters and even though Nathalie and Pierre are present only in memories and photographs they come across vividly complete with all their shortcomings and failings.  Not every story in this novel is a happy one, but Gestern provides a most satisfying ending.  This is a literary page-turner and I was riveted to it throughout.  I hope Gestern writes more!

Lady Susan by Jane Austen

Although I've been dipping into collections of letters here and there, I've not done a very good job at actually reading/completing many of them for Melwyk's Postal Reading Challenge.  I did finish and quite enjoyed Mary Hocking's Letters from Constance.  I could use another book like that I think, as nonfiction letter collections only seem to bog me down right now (though in theory I do love them).  Serendipity then that one of my most recent Meville House novellas has turned out to be Jane Austen's Lady Susan, which is an epistolary novel.  I read it five or six years ago, so perfect timing for a reread (and a second book read for the challenge).  Jane Austen is an author I will happily revisit any time. 

Lady Susan was written early in her career, about the time that she was working on Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey.  Lady Susan is her only epistolary novel, though Sense and Sensibility started out as an epistolary novel as well.  It is thought she initially wrote it in 1793-94 and was transcribed in 1805.  Her later works definitely move forward from this, and she seems much more at ease in her later works--much more like Jane Austen than someone writing in the style of the eighteenth century (if that makes sense).  The novel is made up of 41 letters and a conclusion.  You can read the novel online here, and there is also a helpful family tree, which isn't included in the Melville House edition.

The letters fly fast and furious back and forth (well, as much as they can in the 18th century, which actually now that I think of it, might be even faster than today!) between Lady Susan and her friend Mrs. Johnson, and between Mrs. Vernon (Lady Susan's sister-in-law) and her mother Lady de Courcy, and to a lesser extent between Lady Susan and her brother, and Sir Reginald (Lady de Courcy's husband) and his son.  It didn't take long to get into the rhythm of the letter writers'missives and be able to differentiate their "voices", and of course it's sort of a delicious feeling to look over one's shoulder and read their correspondence though maybe a little bit intrusive, too.  There's the feeling of being a fly on the wall to scenes you aren't and maybe shouldn't be privy to.  And you get both sides, both perspectives of an event--however slanted each one is.

Lady Susan--she's quite a concoction.  Although she is really quite wicked, she comes off as worldly, intelligent and polite.  We know nothing of her past--only that she was married and has a daughter of 16 called Frederica who is away at school.  She calls her daughter stupid and is trying to marry her off to an utter bore of a man, which of course Frederica wants no part of.  She has little money and is traveling back and forth between friends and family trying to work out a monetarily beneficial and comfortable future for herself.  Lady Susan is definitely not your usual Austen heroine (though I suppose in a way she is, since she is at the mercy of others in trying to marry well--just not as appealing and charming as Austen's later creations).  She seems more like an anti-heroine.  She is manipulative and just wants her own way and knows how to get it.  She is having an affair with a married man and flirts with her sister-in-law's younger brother while at the same time trying to win her over by fawning (insincerely I might add) over her children.  Of course Mrs. Vernon sees through it all.

If nothing else you have to admire Lady Susan for being a strong character--if not a particularly nice one.  Even Mrs. Vernon gives her her due when it comes to looks, and notes how excessively pretty she is and so few women are as lovely or have such grace.  Her manner and coversation are studied and admired.  She knows how to play a room you might say.  But she's awful towards her daughter.  You never really get to know Frederica, and I felt rather sorry for her and wouldn't have minded getting to hear the story more from her perspective as well.

I do like epistolary novels, though I can see what their limitations can be.  You don't always get all the details you'd like, though Austen really did quite an admirable job in conveying her story.  Only once or twice did she give lengthy dialogs in the letters, which do feel a little artificial, but who cares as reading letters in the form of a novel is great fun.  She ties up nicely the loose ends, though it felt a smidgen abrupt.  Of course this was a novel she decided she didn't want to publish.  It makes you wonder what she might have done with the story had she gone back and edited it for publication.

Next up is Thomas Hardy's The Distracted Preacher, which I've only just started and must admit it's an odd little story, though it's early days yet.  Not the Hardy I am used to since this has decidedly comic overtones.  I am now fully four books behind in my Art of the Novella subscription!  Three of the books are by Russian authors so maybe in July I'll have a Russion (novella) literature festival; The Enchanted Wanderer by Nikolai Leskov (who I look forward to reading as he was influential for Chekhov, who I hope to eventually make a reading project out of), How the Ivan's Quarrelled by Nikolai Gogol, and The Eternal Husband by Fyodor Dostoevsky.  And I have Willa Cather's Alexander's Bridge--yay, another woman author.  Although all the Russian authors do intimidate me the tiniest bit I look forward to reading all the novellas as I love this form of writing.