In bed at night I’ve been reading a few pages of Mark Twain’s Roughing It, an account (mostly true) of his journey through the Wild West in the 1860s. I can only read a few pages at a time because to continue longer would almost certainly be to drive my poor husband out of the room—I cannot help laughing out loud. Two, three times a paragraph. It’s ridiculous. The laughing, I mean. Scott is wonderfully understanding about my ongoing love affair with Twain; it helps that Huckleberry Finn is one of Scott’s own favorite books, and we agree that it contains one of the finest moments in American literature.
(Longtime readers of Bonny Glen may recall that Huck was a very serious contender for the actual, real-life name of my youngest child. We made it his blog name instead. Which means, now that I think about it, more people call him that than the name on his birth certificate.)
Anyhow, Roughing It. Twain at his best: capturing a landscape and its people in the most vivid, lively manner—and hilariously, but that goes without saying. Here’s one of the passages that made me giggle—in this case, not so much because of the manner of expression (usually it’s his turns of phrase that slay me) but because of the unbelievable (and yet apparently true) ridiculousness of his having followed through on the impulse to commit what he calls a ‘boyish prank’ and a court of law might very well term ‘reckless endangerment’:
On the summit we overtook an emigrant train of many wagons, many tired men and women, and many a disgusted sheep and cow.
In the wofully dusty horseman in charge of the expedition I recognized John —. Of all persons in the world to meet on top of the Rocky Mountains thousands of miles from home, he was the last one I should have looked for. We were school-boys together and warm friends for years. But a boyish prank of mine had disruptured this friendship and it had never been renewed. The act of which I speak was this. I had been accustomed to visit occasionally an editor whose room was in the third story of a building and overlooked the street. One day this editor gave me a watermelon which I made preparations to devour on the spot, but chancing to look out of the window, I saw John standing directly under it and an irresistible desire came upon me to drop the melon on his head, which I immediately did. I was the loser, for it spoiled the melon, and John never forgave me and we dropped all intercourse and parted, but now met again under these circumstances.
We recognized each other simultaneously, and hands were grasped as warmly as if no coldness had ever existed between us, and no allusion was made to any. All animosities were buried and the simple fact of meeting a familiar face in that isolated spot so far from home, was sufficient to make us forget all things but pleasant ones, and we parted again with sincere “good-bye” and “God bless you” from both.
Whyyyy do I have such difficulty committing to the next-book-to-read? It’s the embarrassment of riches, isn’t it: too many choices, too much beguiling me. My pile is scandalous. Green Dolphin Street came in via interlibrary loan; I have three weeks (no, two and a half, now) before it must go back, no renewal possible, so it is the clear and obvious first choice, yes?
But the print is so tiny and my attention wanders, much as I long to fall in. This is a problem more and more, even with reading glasses. I’m utterly spoiled by the enlargeable fonts on my Kindle. Scott teases me about the billboard-sized letters I favor.
But oh, this pile of books beside me! Lovely, whispery, papery books! And then about fifty of ’em on my Kindle. Egad. I’m almost at the point of stabbing blindly at the touchscreen and pledging myself to whatever tome I land on.
Can you call them tomes when they’re made of digital sparkle?
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This was meant to be my June booklist roundup. Obstreperous thing, it says No, I think I’ll be another post entirely, thanks.
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Freshman year of college—tiny liberal arts school dominated by its conservatory theater program, in which I was enrolled as an acting major—a required course was “Focus on the Fine Arts,” an amorphous art appreciation concoction involving short rotations with art, music, theater, and dance professors. It culminated in a grand production written, set-designed, choreographed, composed, and performed by the entire hapless freshman class—including the nursing majors, the business majors, the future journalists and psychologists and historians. Our assignment was to write a modern adaptation of Faust. The thing was a hot mess, and we all knew it—what could we do? Everyone was assigned a role outside his or her specialty, the theory being that this would “stretch” us. It was decreed that the area in which I needed most stretching, literally and figuratively, was in dance. Our choreography was rather freeform, only my form wasn’t terribly free. It would take a generous definition to call my ameoba-like oozings “dancing,” but in fairness to my poor uncoordinated limbs, it must be said that it was another vast stretch to call our accompaniment “music.” Much of my group’s star dance number took place against a backdrop of voices (each of them presumably selected because singing was the area in which they needed most stretching, so you see the difficulty we were all up against) chanting—relentlessly, ceaselessly, tonelessly—Choi-ces, choi-ces… Two notes, low high, over and over. Choices. Choices. Those words, those notes, burrowed deep into my psyche and chew at my brain to this day. I rummage through the book pile, lifting one, flipping through another, and in the back of my mind, those voices are chanting. Choi-ces. Choi-ces. Is it any wonder I flail and contort, performing graceless mental gyrations in my efforts to settle upon one single solid choice? I’m an amoeba, oozing my way around the pile, enfolding them all, unswallowing one here and there, absorbing, pouring myself in six directions at once. Forget Faust, this is Hamlet I’m playing, stuck pondering the options, vulnerable to outside forces thrusting a choice upon me at last.
All of which is to say, I can’t decide what to read next.
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A hyperdeveloped sense of justice compels me to add that I carried some memorable connections away from that class, ridiculous as its extremes were. It was there I first met Liszt and Klimt, and there I encountered more of Handel’s Messiah than the Hallelujah chorus. And, well, I did read Faust.
***
On the other hand, in our “adaptation” (a generously applied word), the devil’s name was Mimi Tofless. Mimi. I ask you.
This one’s going to take me a little while to find words for. I don’t know how to write about it, and I don’t know how not to. I was fifty or sixty pages in when I turned to Scott and said—I felt breathless—I think I found my favorite book. I knew I would probably enjoy it; I love Elizabeth Goudge’s writing; I’ve loved Linnets and Valerians more each time I’ve read it. But The Scent of Water went even deeper, burrowed right into the center of me. I kept thinking, I didn’t know, I didn’t know.
For now, while I’m sorting out why, I’ll let Elizabeth do the talking. Never in my life have I marked so many passages in a single novel.
“…a silver tankard of lilies-of-the-valley stood on an oak chest. The flowers and the polished silver gathered all the light to themselves…”
That one comes early, and I marked it not knowing how important the objects, and the gathering of the light, were going to be—in that first encounter, it was the sheer beauty of the image that made me gasp. I started the book a few weeks ago and then set it aside, and all through those days this line kept repeating itself in my mind. The flowers gathered all the light to themselves. What a poet she is.
The piercing clear deep ringing and ringing seemed thrusting through her almost intolerably. She believed she had not heard such birdsong since she was a child; yet every year they had been singing like this in the tall woods of England…
The poets did at least put it into words for you and ease the pain of it.
I have at least thirty more quotes marked but the evening has run away with me—as usual! I can’t possibly type them all out, anyway. I need to read it again. Soon. The night I finished it, I dove right into Linnets and Valerians to ease the pain of parting, and now I’m onto The Bird in the Tree. I have nearly her whole body of work ahead of me. Such riches!
I didn’t mean to reread The Blue Castle again, but then I never do plan it; I just seem to tumble into it on a regular basis. Somehow it gets better, richer, every time. I feel like I could walk out my back door and be in Muskoka, watching the moon over the lake. You wouldn’t think it possible Montgomery could make any place sound as lovely as Prince Edward Island, but oh, those woods, those views.
I love LMM’s character transformations, and Valancy’s arc is one of her best—as satisfying as Jane’s, and despite a plot heavily dependent on coincidence, even more believable than Jane’s character arc. Montgomery does repressed, emotionally abused young women painfully well. I love watching Valancy shed her chains, coil by coil. One line in particular jumped out at me this time:
“Meanwhile she was giving herself such freedom of thought as she had never dared to take before.”
It never struck me until now how much Montgomery does with that notion of ‘freedom of thought’ being vital for a character’s happiness and growth—we see Anne thriving under the most miserable circumstances in her early childhood because of the saving power of her imagination; and Jane escaping her grandmother’s tyranny and general misery via her nightly ‘moon sprees’; and Valancy, finally, at age 29, giving herself free rein to evaluate her relatives’ behavior and make her own plans. Hmm, there’s an essay to be had there. Probably someone has written it already. 🙂
Must run, but if you want to gab about this much-beloved book in the comments, I won’t complain…
I imposed these restrictions on my reading about two years ago and it’s had the most fantastic results. Unfortunately it requires some discipline. Â My self-imposed reading rule was: only one book at a time. Â Take the book with you everywhere, christen it – it’s the book you are currently reading. Â Stick with it until the end. Â Read at least an hour a day, then and only then can you move onto magazines and other reading material. Â This might sound sort of silly, these self-imposed rules, but it had dramatic results. You see, I was really lazy and promiscuous about my book reading. I would read a third of this book, lose it in the house, and then move onto a third of another book. It never added up to anything and I wasn’t finishing anything.
I am in the middle of a ridiculous number of books right now. And by “right now,” I mean “at all times.” Cybils judging has helped me focus: I’m reading AND FINISHING several books a week (but I need to step up that pace in a hurry). This is one reason I like participating in the Cybil Awards, and why I always prefer the nominations round of judging: I work best under deadline pressure, and it means I absolutely HAVE TO read a whole bunch of books.
Speaking of which, I fell head over heels in love with Allen Say’s Drawing from Memory. I’ll write a proper post about it, but don’t wait for that—go put it on hold at your library. You won’t be sorry.
I’ve decided I must never have read the Riddle-Master trilogy in its entirety at all. Maybe I only got as far as the story about Deth frightening the inhospitable man to death, and that’s why that bit stuck in my mind so vividly.
I most certainly did not remember, if I ever knew at all, that this is one of those “trilogies” that is really one long book split into three parts. I began to wonder, with some quiet anxiety, as I headed into the final ten pages and the story seemed clearly to be building to a grand final confrontation without space enough for grand or final, nor even much room for confrontation. And indeed, it ends on a cliffhanger. I’m dangling by my fingertips here.
McKillip’s worldbuilding is lush and layered, quite captivating. You can smell the rich soil of Hed, the sea tang of the Wind Plain, the crisp piney air of Isig. The characters are more distinct in their outer qualities—powers, homes, appearance—than in their voices, their personalities, but this is not a weakness; the outer details are sharp and vivid, and the prose is gorgeous. I like Morgan’s indecision and stubbornness; it’s funny how the Hed characters—even the ones who only appear in the opening of the book—have the most distinctive personalities. Mostly, though, this is a tumble-me-along story, plot-driven: I’m desperate to know what happens next.
Which is somewhat maddening, since today brought the magical surprise that A. S. Byatt has written a book called Ragnarok based on, yes, the gods of Asgard—but tied somehow to WWII Britain—and a review copy winged its way to my Kindle this afternoon, and my eagerness to dive into this book is roughly equivalent to the irresistible temptation experienced by the kids in the marshmallow experiment. It’ll take me the rest of the week, at least, to finish the other two Riddle-Master books. I’ve got to know what happens to Morgon and Raederle. But…Ragnarok! Byatt!
The view from our window on the runway in Atlanta, where we sat for over two hours. And consequently missed our connection in Phoenix. Sorry, Mom & Dad & kids. I’m writing from the hotel where we spent the night. We’re on our way back to the airport to catch an early flight home.
(Incidental note. Unable to concentrate for longer spans, yesterday all I could read were the beginnings of things—first chapters I’d downloaded to my Kindle. The new Rob Lowe autobiography; Tina Fey’s Bossypants, which had both Scott and me in giggles; A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan; Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses; and Melissa Coleman’s This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone.)
Updated to add: I forgot my favorite of the first chapters! The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O’Connor McNees. It is off to a most intriguing start. If I’d had a 3G connection at the time, I’d have been sorely tempted to click that “Buy the book” button.)
I read it first on New Year’s Eve, and then again immediately the next day, and I keep returning to sections of it, have found it difficult to shake off. It was strange to find myself completely incapable of committing to any other book for over a week after reading this one.
It’s gotten a lot of buzz, so maybe you know the set-up: it’s the story of five-year-old Jack and his mother, who have been imprisoned in one small room for Jack’s entire life. Even longer, for his brave, broken, amazingly persevering mother.
“We have thousands of things to do every morning, like give Plant a cup of water in Sink for no spilling, then put her back in her saucer on Dresser. Plant used to live on Table but God’s face burned a leaf of her off. She has nine left, they’re the wide of my hand with furriness all over, like Ma says dogs are. But dogs are only TV. I don’t like nine. I find a tiny leaf coming, that counts as ten.”
It’s Jack’s voice that cuts my heart to bits: I don’t think any book I’ve ever read has fostered such a strong visceral, emotional response in me—what I mean is that I kept having to put it down and go scoop up one of my children. The overwhelming tenderness. The ache.
I’m yearning to talk about it but I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone, so if you’d like to discuss it in the comments, I’m there.
Memento Mori by Muriel Spark. What a peculiar book. I mean that in the best way. Maud Newton’s enthusiasm for this novel spurred me to read it. An assortment of elderly folks are being disturbed by anonymous phone calls—the caller’s voice varies—addressing them by name and saying “Remember you must die.” The narrative has a kind of deceptively Agatha Christie flavor, but it’s quite rich literary fiction, not pulp; and you’re never quite sure if you’re reading a mystery or a meditation. I loved that about it. The characters are so finely drawn I felt as if they were people I knew, which sounds like a book-review cliche but it’s one of those observations that is widely used because it matters, and when an author manages this feat, it’s an accomplishment worth noting. But really the only thing familiar about these people is that they’re so specific and unpigeonholeable. Real people never do fit perfectly into literary archetypes; we’re too inconsistent and layered. Spark’s characters are like that.
Shark vs. Train by Chris Barton, illustrated by the great Tom Lichtenheld. There’s a genre jump for you! This is a picture book—a perfect picture book, I tweeted the day I read it. “A perfect marriage of art and text” is another reviewer’s cliche but by golly it’s no overstatement in this case. Two little boys run for a toybox and brandish their selections in triumph and challenge. Shark vs. train—who wins? It depends…what’s the competition? Pie-eating? Diving? Marshmallow roasting? The stakes keep escalating, to hilarious effect. Rilla and Wonderboy sit and pore over the art, which is sharp and comic and enchanting. I find myself wishing my nephews and nieces hadn’t all grown up so much: this would be my birthday book of choice this year.
A Long Walk to Water by Newbery medalist Linda Sue Park. I received an advance review copy of this middle-grade novel—a digital galley, actually, the first review copy I’ve read on my Kindle. It’s a book I’ll be passing on to my 9-and-up kids. The narrative weaves back and forth between the tragic (and true) struggles of a Sudanese boy, Salva, separated from his family in 1985 and, like so many of Sudan’s “Lost Boys,” cast into a dangerous landscape in search of asylum, and a contemporary (2008) Sudanese girl, Nya, who spends her entire day making a long trek to a muddy, bacteria-ridden pond to fetch water for her family. I won’t give away how the two narratives intersect. It’s a true story, deftly told, and it’s a story—a real and present hardship—I want my children to know about.
Similarly, Mitali Perkins’s new novel, Bamboo People, both moved and edified me, and I handed it to Jane the moment I finished. Before this book, I had only the haziest understanding of what’s going on in Burma: teenage boys being conscripted into military service, forced into the jungle to hunt down ethnic minorities they are taught to hate and fear. This novel, too, is told by two voices: there is studious 15-year-old Chiko, horrified to find himself torn away from his home and thrust into a military training camp, and young Tu Reh, a Karenni boy whose village has been destroyed by the Burmese government and who longs to join his father in the fight for freedom and revenge. When their paths intersect, the tension ratchets higher. What I love about Mitali Perkins’s writing is that she draws her characters with such tenderness and blunt honesty. These boys are in an ugly situation and both fervently want to do the right thing, but in these horrific circumstances the “right thing” isn’t always easy to define.
