dolce bellezza

Lent. And, A Blogging Break.

2012-02-22T07:17:00.000-06:00

photo credit here

Every year, I ponder seriously what I will give up for Lent. One year it was any kind of shopping, other than food for the table and gas for my car. Last year it was reading any book other than the Bible. This year, I'm going to give up blogging.

Lent lasts from Ash Wednesday, which is February 23, until Easter Sunday, which is April 8. 46 days. That doesn't seem like too long, I hope. Yet if it isn't hard to do, why sacrifice it?

I have a few commitments which I shall not break. I promised to review Enchantments by Kathryn Harrison on March 8, and Butterfly's Child by Angela Davis-Gardner on April 4, so I will put up those two reviews. I also promised to read Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie with Arti and Mrs. B., so I will put up my post for Book One on March 31 as we'd planned.

Other than that? I'll see you when I'm officially back, right around Easter Sunday. Until then, God be with you.

Restless

2012-02-19T22:03:00.001-06:00

The books which I've abandoned since January are almost too numerous to count. At the top of the list are:

The Wings of The Dove
The Book of Unholy Mischief
The Savage Detectives

I pick them up, and lay them down again, unable to fully engage with anything right now. The only thing that captures my interest is the classic Pinocchio, which I'm reading aloud to my class, and that is probably because my children beg, "No! Don't stop!" at the close of every chapter.

Classics, or cheap trashy romance novels. I'm begging something to speak to me. Anything.

My husband just shouted up the stairs that Masterpiece Theater, as Season 2 of Downton Abbey has concluded, will begin next week with Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop. Perhaps that's the book to start tonight.

Literary Blog Hop Give-Away (February 18-22)

2012-02-18T00:00:00.000-06:00

It's time for another literary hop give-away, and what am I giving away? A charming novel, which is autographed by author Laurel Corona, and fits the Venice in February Reading Challenge to boot:

click here to find out more about the novel

Simply leave a comment, along with your email address, telling me you wish to be considered for the drawing (US only, this time). The hop will end on Wednesday, February 22, so come back on the 23rd to discover the winner.

Sponsored by Judith of Leeswammes, here is a list of all the blogs participating in the Literary Blog Hop Give-Away:

Congratulations to Audra, of Unabridged Chick, whose number was chosen by random.org!

The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins

2012-02-17T07:18:00.002-06:00

The Haunted Hotel, by Wilkie Collins, is a short gothic romance set in Venice. A mere 140-something pages, it elicits much of the mood he so successfully created in The Woman In White. We are introduced to the same kinds of mysterious women, one with an extraordinarily pale complexion, one with an especially tender heart, who play out their roles within a palace in Venice which had been converted to a hotel.

This is not to say there are no men in this novella. It's just the men are quickly disappearing, and therein lies the tension. What has happened to the Baron Rivar? To Lord Montbarry? To the courier, Ferrari, who has disappeared shortly after arriving in Venice to work for Lord Montbarry? And, what lies within the secret compartment revealed when the statues adorning the mantel are pushed in a certain way?

I can see now, after reading this novel, The Comfort of Strangers, and Don't Look Now, how Venice has become the perfect setting for the mysterious. The dangerous. Those lost in love. Because it is a city of great beauty, to be sure, but also a city which seems to defy reason. How can it exist, set as it is on a lagoon? How can the characters in these stories escape an imminent danger we sense as soon as we read the first page? I'm ready for something lighter now, but Wilkie Collins never seems to disappoint even if he does write of things darkly mysterious. Like the human soul.

(I made a collage of covers, sorely lamenting my own lack of one, as the novel is available for free to those of you who own a nook. Now I can vicariously enjoy what Penguin and other publishers have used to present Collins' novella.)

Three Posts From My Corner of The Blog-o-sphere That I Especially Heart

2012-02-14T19:24:00.001-06:00

(a rather dim photo of the white chocolate buttercream cake which ended our dinner tonight)

While it was a truly lovely day with my class (what can top homemade cards, decorated envelopes, and the joy of opening warm thoughts from one's classmates?) I read three posts this morning which I liked so much I had to share them with you.

The first was from Parrish, who wrote a poem for his love. It can be found here, and it will surely move you.

The second was from Andi, who wrote of books which broke her heart. My favorite from her list was Room, but check out her thoughts on other moving novels.

The third is from Arti, who wrote of Graham Greene's The End of The Affair because it goes without saying that not every Valentine's Day can be filled with love.

I wish a late Happy Valentine's Day to you, friends, one and all. Cyber kisses from me to you, even though at this late hour my lipstick is rather faded. xoxoxo

p.s. Just visited this lovely site brought to my attention by Shoreacres. Thank you, Linda!

The Passion

2012-02-12T01:02:00.000-06:00

Writing a review of The Passion seems as elusive as the emotion itself. While ostensibly it's clear: Henri loves Napolean in his own way, before he meets Villanelle whom he truly loves; she in turn has had her heart stolen by another woman who is married. All this, in the setting of lovely Venice whose streets are as tangled as our characters' hearts.

Favorite quotes on Venice:

This is the city of mazes. You may set off from the same place to the same place every day and never go by the same route. If you do so, it will be by mistake. Your bloodhound nose will not serve you here. Your course in compass reading will fail you. Your confident instructions to passers-by will send them to squares they have never heard of, over canals not listed in the notes.

Although wherever you are going is always in front of you, there is no such thing as straight ahead. No as the crow flies short cut will help you to reach the cafe just over the water. The short cuts are where the cats go, through the impossible gaps, round corners that seem to take you the opposite way. But here, in this mercurial city, it is required you do awake your faith.

With faith, all things are possible. (p. 49)

on passion:

When passion comes late in life for the first time, it is harder to give up. And those who meet this beast late in life are offered only devilish choices. Will they say goodbye to what they know and set sail on an unknown sea with no certainty of land again? Will they dismiss those everyday things that have made life tolerable and put aside the feelings of old friends, a lover even? In short, will they behave as if they are twenty years younger with Canaan just over the ridge?

Not usually.

And if they do, you will have to strap them to the mast as the boat pulls away because the siren calls are terrible to hear and they may go mad at the thought of what they have lost.

That is one choice.

Another is to learn to juggle; to do as we did for nine nights. This soon tires the hands if not the heart.

Two choices.

The third is to refuse the passion as one might sensibly refuse a leopard in the house, however tame it might seem at first. you might reason that you can easily feed a leopard and that your garden is big enough, but you will know in your dreams at least that no leopard is never satisfied with what it's given. After nine nights must come ten and every desperate meeting only leaves you desperate for another. There is never enough to eat, never enough garden for your love.

So you refuse and then you discover that your house is haunted by the ghost of a leopard.

When passion comes late in life it is hard to bear. (p. 145-146)

Read this book for the thoughts on Venice, the thoughts on love, the magical realism, and the Biblical references. For that is what it's comprised of.

An Origami Kiss for Valentine's Day

2012-02-11T08:29:00.000-06:00

Last year, I gave each of my students a Valentine bookmark. This year I'm giving them a kiss. If you want to give your Valentine such a kiss, here are the directions:

Fold a sheet of square paper diagonally, with the color inside.

Fold the triangle into approximate thirds along the bottom so that the overall shape resembles a house.

Fold the outermost point up to the top point of the flap. Do this on both sides.

Fold each point straight down. Do this on both sides.

Make little triangles off to the sides,

then fold each point sticking over the edge into a tiny triangle of its own.

Now carefully unfold the entire sheet of paper, but don't press it flat. You'll need the creases for subsequent folds.

Find the little triangle at the top of a corner and fold it down.

Now fold the sides down on the existing creases. This can be a little tricky, so play with the folds gently until you have them just right.

Do this on both sides.

Turn the paper over, and fold up on the horizontal line. Do this on the opposite side as well.

Pinching the two "lips" together, fold the whole thing in half while keeping them tucked inside

like this.

Leaving it slightly open, fold one point in.

Then, do the same for the other side.

Fold in half again on each side.

You're done! By gently opening and closing the card, you can see the lips give a kiss.

Such a fun valentine!

Room

2012-02-10T20:09:00.000-06:00

Five year old Jack is read by Michal Friedman, whose voice is so unbelievably that of a boy I had to look her up. It's hard to imagine that a woman could bring such a likeness to a child that the story is almost unbearable to listen to.

Jack and his mother are kept by Old Nick in Room, an outdoor garden shed which he has converted into a prison for them, while at the same time Jack's mother makes it into a wonderful place for him to be. They have a routine. They have toys, such as Snake made out of eggshells with a needle tongue. They make rhymes, and read books, and consequently Jack has a vocabulary which is far beyond his years.

But while he knows words, and how to read, and how to pray to Baby Jesus, he knows nothing of Outside. For each of his five years has been spent only in Room. Only with his mother. Dreading the nights in which the door goes, "Beep! Beep!" and Old Nick enters their space.

This book was incredibly imaginative and incredibly heartbreaking. There is hope, to be sure, but like I was told of sin as a small child in Sunday School: when a nail has been hammered into a board, you can pull it out, but you can never remove the hole it created.

Such is how I imagine Jack's life, and his mother's life, to be. Even when Old Nick is gone.

The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan

2012-02-03T19:05:00.000-06:00

Colin wheeled around on her, incredulous, exasperated. "That wasn't our first day," he said loudly. "Now you're completely confused It was seeing the queue that made us decide to go to the beach, and we didn't go there till the third day." Colin had stopped to say this, but Mary kept on walking. He caught up with her in skipping steps.

"It might have been the third day," she was saying as though to herself, "but this is where we were." She pointed at a doorway several yards ahead and, as if summoned, a squat figure stepped out of the dark into a pool of street light and stood blocking their path."

I have only known McEwan's work through Atonement, Saturday, and On Chesil Beach. In that order. With each successive read, however, I was less impressed. Still, I opened The Comfort of Strangers for the Venice in February Challenge; largely, perhaps, due to the cover on the Vintage edition.

This little book, only 127 pages, was written in 1981. Long before McEwan's fame was firmly established. I find very little in it reminiscent of anything he's written before, but quite a lot of this novel is on a parallel with Daphne du Maurier's Don't Look Now.

An unmarried couple, Colin and Mary to be precise, are vacationing in Venice. They seem rather malcontent with each other, the whole relationship rather humdrum, until one evening a stranger steps out of a darkened doorway and beckons to them. After a lurid evening spent together, Colin and Mary are eager to escape his presence.

They leave with what seemed to be a lucky chance, and find themselves insatiable for one another. All they can do is sleep together, over and over, and then? They go back to the stranger's home with disastrous results.

The Comfort of Strangers is actually anything but comfort. It is a shocking psychological novel which even now I can't say that I liked. It isn't the sort of novel one likes. It's the sort of novel which nestles into one's mind and stirs up questions. Questions which might have different answers depending on the reader.

Penguin's Great Love Series: Lusting After These With All My Heart

2012-02-02T19:32:00.003-06:00

Deviant Love by Sigmund Freud
Something Childish But Very Natural by Katherine Mansfield
A Mere Interlude by Thomas Hardy
Forbidden Fruit by Peter Abelard
The Virgin and The Gipsy by D. H. Lawrence
Mary by Vladimir Nabakov
First Love by Ivan Turgenev
A Russian Affair by Anton Chekhov
Bonjour Tristesse by Francois Sagan
Doomed Love by Virgil
The Woman Who Got Away by John Updike
Of Mistresses, Tigresses and Other Conquests by Giacomo Casanova
The Broken Heart by Giovanni Boccaccio
The Seducer's Diary by Soren Kierkegaard
The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy
Magnetism by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
Bodily Secrets by William Trevor
Cures For Love by Stendhal
Eros Unbound by Anais Nin

Penguin's Great Love series. Found here. 20% off the complete set until July 31, 2012 or while supplies last.

Heaving a great sigh...

Birthday Week in Naples, FL

2012-02-01T19:17:00.001-06:00

While Romney was winning the nomination in Florida,

the unconcerned birds were preening,

the waves were crashing onto the shore,

the fountains were gurgling,

the sun was setting,

and birthday girls were enjoying their treats.

The Savage Detectives. Group Read Sans Moi

2012-01-27T19:05:00.000-06:00

I tried. I really did. But, I abandoned The Savage Detectives on page 216. The first part grabbed me, at least better than the second part which had more or less random people giving snippets of their encounters with the central characters. Part One tells of Juan Garcia Madero, a seventeen year old poet relating his escapades with the two "visceral realists", Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, who walked into his literature class one day. He is entranced by them, as any seventeen year old would be, but that doesn't make them any different than others who entrance him. Especially the Font family with daughters Maria and Angelica. Or, any other female for that matter.

When I heard the word savage in the title, I assumed it mean savage as in fierce. I didn't equate it with savage as in undisciplined. I found it impossible to continue with a novel containing characters for whom I have neither respect nor interest. Reading about life in the '60s and '70s, the wild antics of teens who know no boundaries and have no goals, reminds me too much of the fools with whom I went to school. What's so noteworthy about the lost souls of a few troubled decades?

I do respect that this is considered one of Bolano's greatest oeuvres (although I far preferred Monsieur Pain and I'm very much enjoying The Third Reich). I do respect that he is paying homage to Latin America and avant garde poetry. I did find great interest in this particular passage:

Joaquin Font, El Reposo Mental Health Clinic, Camino Desierto de los Leones, on the outskirts of Mexico City DF, January 1977. There are books for when you're bored. Plenty of them. There are books for when you're calm. The best kind, in my opinion. There are also books for when you're sad. And there are books for when you're happy. There are books for when you're thirsty for knowledge. And there are books for when you're desperate. The latter are the kind of books Ulises Lima and Belano wanted to write. A serious mistake, as we'll soon see. Let's take, for example, an average reader, a cool-headed, mature, educated man leading a more or less healthy life. A man who buys books and literary magazines. So there you have him. This man can read things that are written for when you're calm, but he an also read any other kind of books with a critical eye, dispassionately, without absurd or regrettable complicity. That's how I see it. I hope I'm not offending anyone. Now let's take the desperate reader, who is presumably the audience for the literature of desperation. What do we see? First: the reader is an adolescent or an immature adult, insecure, all nerves. He's the kind of fucking idiot (pardon my language) who committed suicide after reading Werther. Second: he's a limited reader. Why limited? That's easy: because he can only read the literature of desperation, or books for the desperate, which amounts to the same thing, the kind of person or freak who's unable to read all the way through In Search of Lost Time, for example, or The Magic Mountain (a paradigm of calm, serene, complete literature, in my humble opinion), or for that matter, Les Miserables or War and Peace. Am I making myself clear? Good. so I talked to them, told them, warned the, alerted them to the dangers they were facing. It was like talking to a wall. Furthermore: desperate readers are like the California gold mines. Sooner or later they're exhausted! Why? It's obvious! One can't live one's whole life in desperation. In the end the body rebels, the pain becomes unbearable, lucidity gushes out in great cold spurts. The desperate reader (and especially the desperate poetry reader, who is insufferable, believe me) ends up by turning away from books. Inevitability he ends us becoming just plain desperate. Or he's cured! And then, as part of the regenerative process, he returns slowly-as if wrapped in swaddling cloths, as if under a rain of dissolved sedatives-he returns, as I was saying to a literature written for cool, serene readers, with their heads set firmly on their shoulders. This is what's called (by me, if nobody else) the passage from adolescence to adulthood. And by that I don't mean that once someone has become a cool-headed reader he no longer reads books written for desperate readers. Of course he reads them! Especially if they're good or decent or recommended by a friend. But ultimately, they bore him! Ultimately, that literature of resentment, full of sharp instruments and lynched messiahs, doesn't pierce his heart the way a calm page, a carefully thought-out page, a technically perfect page does. I told them so. I warned them. I showed them the technically perfect page. I alerted them to the dangers. Don't exhaust the vein! Humility! seek oneself, lose oneself in strange lands! But with a guiding line, with bread crumbs or white pebbles, and yet I was mad, driven mad by them, by my daughters, by Laura Damian, and so they didn't listen." (p. 185)

This is one of my favorite passages, ironically penned by a man within an asylum. But, it was simply not enough to cause me to continue, laboriously, through a book I found with little or no meaning to my life. Richard gave me permission to abandon it if it didn't work for me. So begging his forgiveness, I threw in my towel, frustrated with my failed attempts to appreciate The Savage Detectives.

(There will be many more thoughts about this book throughout the weekend, but I'll be in Florida and unable to update my post with fresh links or respond to comments left here. For now, let me link to Caroline's from Beauty is a Sleeping Cat.)

Crossing The Bridge of Sighs by Susan Ashley Michael and Give-away

2012-01-25T17:24:00.001-06:00

As I walked around the city, I let my eyes wander upward to a world of rooftop gardens, frescoes, friezes, and family crests that I'd never before noticed. That is how one morning I discovered Saint Martin carved in high relief above the door of a priest's home close to the San Martino Church. The soldier was stained by time, his sword and foot broken off and lost. But he was on horseback and didn't need his foot. And someone had cared enough to patch the white marble with resins to prevent further cracking. It was true: Every day something was lost in Venice. There was always something to be retrieved, cleaned, mended, and cherished. Once upon a time I wanted everything to be perfect and in order, but life isn't like that. Life is like Venice.

When travel writer Claire discovers her husband has been unfaithful with his Parisian lover, she leaves him to discover her own life in Venice. The scene of her throwing his elegant clothes into the lagoon from the side of the gondola is redolent of times that I, too, have wanted to rid myself of the past. As if simply throwing away someone else's belongings will purge that person from one's life. It isn't that simple, because in the process of forging ahead, we must also examine our own hearts. Our own wants. Our own imperfections.

Fortunately, Claire has friends in Venice. Her dear friend Josie not only bakes her delightful cookies (fregolata, the recipe for which is included with other Italian delicacies in this book) and makes her thick, creamy cups of cappuccino, she secretly writes a personal ad in the hopes of finding someone who can heal Claire's heart.

It is an unsuspecting Claire who thrills to the meeting of Max, with whom she quickly becomes entranced. And the more mundane Michael who introduces himself after seeing her on a landing dock? Who seems to truly love her? He is appreciated, but not adored, as he seems rather dull in comparison to the charisma of Max's passionate style. Whom will Claire choose? With whom will she find an answer to the fulfillment she seeks?

In her book, Crossing The Bridge of Sighs, Susan Ashley Michael reminds us to seek the truth in all things and beware of false beginnings. She also shows us the lovely parts of Venice which makes me ache to return to this city containing, amongst its many bridges, the Bridge of Sighs.

The Random Sequence Generator, from Random.org, has chosen number 8 for the winning entry. So, Ally, you are the winner of Crossing The Bridge of Sighs. However, there will be several more give-aways during the course of the Venice in February reading challenge. Thank you to everyone who participated!

A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar

2012-01-23T00:21:00.007-06:00

I feel like I've just been living in Kashgar, an Islamic city located within the People's Republic of China, with Millicent, Lizzie and Eva. I've eaten the dates, apricots, melons and bread, drunk the tea, and admired the women who are wives of Mohammed living under his 'care' as long as they obey.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) and Evangline English have come to Kashgar in 1923 with Lizzie's friend, Millicent, to be missionaries. Millicent has brought her Bible, and strong intentions; Lizzie has brought her Leica camera to photograph their story, and Evangeline has brought her diary for it is her plan to write a book, A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar, which Mr. Hatchett has promised to publish.

On the way to their destination, in the very beginning of the book, these women come upon a young girl giving birth. Millicent is able to help in the birthing process, but the severing of the umbilical cord is construed by the bystanders as a murder. Now they must hide away, in Kashgar, until it is decided what should be done with Millicent.

And the baby? She is taken by Eva, named Ai-Lien, and loved with all of Eva's heart.

Interspersed between this story, are chapters in present day London telling of Frieda, a young girl with a sorrowful past. Her parents have been 'victims' of the 1970's: believing in free love, freedom from possessions, freedom from religion, and consequently find themselves free from nothing. Frieda feels herself being pulled away from the romance she has shared with married Nicholas, and drawn toward the stranger, Tayeb, whom she has found sleeping outside her door one night.

This novel contains everything I love: a multi-layered story line, a puzzle to sort through, travel to exotic places, and the issues of adoption, faith, and love. It is absolutely beautifully written, a novel that I read in 24 hours because I could not put it down. This novel will not be available until July, 2012, so I thank Bloomsbury publishers for sending it my way. I cannot suggest it strongly enough, and I know it will surely be one of my favorite reads for the year.

You can visit author Suzanne Joinson's blog here and her website here.

Sunday Salon: Looking To The End of January. And Beyond.

2012-01-22T00:00:00.000-06:00

photo credit here

The close of January brings many things. My birthday on the 30th. My mother's on the 31st. The end of the Japanese Literature Challenge 5. Basically, there are 9 days left to read that one book of Japanese literature which qualifies you. Or, if you've read one book perhaps one book more...

I never seem to read as much as my fellow participants. Still, I'm pleased with what I was able to finish for my own challenge this year:

Strangers by Taichi Yamada
Inspector Iminishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto
Villain by Shuichi Yoshida
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata
Paprika by Yasutaka Tsutsui
The Buddha in The Attic by Julie Otsuka

How can one pick a favorite? Impossible! I loved Villain and Inspector Iminishi Investigates for their wonderful mystery, Thousand Cranes and The Buddha in The Attic for their mood, Strangers for the thought-provoking quality that still has me puzzling out the meaning. For that matter, so does 1Q84 which remains my least favorite of Haruki Murakami's books.

If you so choose, please leave me the title of one or two of your favorite Japanese books. I'd like to add them to the suggested reading list for the Japanese Literature Challenge 6 which will begin in June, 2012, as well as have them for my own reading pleasure.

Speaking of reading pleasures, are you ready for February?! That is when the Venice in February Challenge 2012 begins which I am co-hosting with Ally of Snow Feathers. It was her brilliant idea, and I'm so enthused about it I've already read Death in La Fenice by Donna Leon, Across the River and Into The Trees by Ernest Hemingway, and most of Pictures of Italy by Charles Dickens. When it officially starts, I'm looking forward to reading many more books and hosting a few give-aways. Also, Frances is going to join me in reading Henry James' The Wings of The Dove. We're going to read it in our own time, and post about it at the end of the month. Please feel free to join in!

Saturday Snapshot

2012-01-21T09:01:00.003-06:00

I stepped outside to see how much snow had fallen in the night and found mysterious tracks adjacent to my reading child statue (left). I loved how they were caught in the snow, just my reader and some scurrying creature who passed her in the night.

(Also, the bella donna is back in my header. I missed her far too much to replace her afterall.)

You can find more Saturday Snapshots at home with books.

Death At La Fenice by Donna Leon

2012-01-17T07:14:00.002-06:00

Commissario Brunetti is such a likable policeman.

Brunetti, for his part, earned slightly more than three million lire a month as a commissario of police, a sum he calculated to be only a bit more than what his father-in-law paid each month for the right to dock his boat in front of the palazzo. A decade ago, the count had attempted to persuade Brunetti to leave the police and join him in a career in banking. He continually pointed out that Brunetti ought not to spend his life in the company of tax evaders, wife beaters, pimps, thieves, and perverts. The offers had come to a sudden halt one Christmas when, goaded beyond patience, Brunetti had pointed out that although he and the count seemed to work among the same people, he at least had the consolation of being able to arrest them, whereas the count was constrained to invite them to dinner.

And, he works in such a beautiful city.

Brunetti walked up toward the hotel, still lighted, even at this hour when the rest of the city was darkened and sleeping. Once the capital of the dissipations of a continent, Venice had become a sleepy provincial town that virtually ceased to exist after nine or ten at night. During the summer months, she could remember her courtesan past and sparkle, as long as the tourists paid and the good weather held, but in the winter, she became a tired old crone, eager to crawl early to bed leaving her deserted streets to cats and memories of the past.

But these where the hours when, for Brunetti, the city became most beautiful, just as they were the same hours when he, Venetian to the bone, could sense some of her past glory. The darkness of the night hid the moss that crept up the steps of the palazzi lining the Grand Canal, obscured the cracks in the walls of churches, and covered the patches of plaster missing from the facades of public buildings. Like many women of a certain age, the city needed the help of deceptive light to recapture her vanished beauty.

This was a wonderful novel of mystery, uncovering the reasons behind the death of a famous maestro, who was discovered bent backward from poisoning after the intermission of Traviata. Donna Leon writes of her characters vividly and her mystery masterfully. I especially enjoyed the vicarious trip to Venice upon each page.

I highly recommend this for the Venice in February Challenge to come.

Even though the kitties were ready

2012-01-16T11:17:00.003-06:00

to help take down Christmas, I was not.

I'm thinking that the origami I made from the printed word could quite possibly be snowflakes for January...

if you use your imagination.

Sunday Salon: The Library Phantom

2012-01-15T10:27:00.001-06:00

Thanks to my good friend Kevin, I was alerted to the fact that there has been a library phantom at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh. Apparently, a librarian was walking through a reading room when she came upon this:

followed by this:

with these words:

"'This is for you in support of libraries, books, words, ideas...' said a note, addressed to the Library by its twitter name "@ByLeavesWeLive". There was no artist signature, no one to thank. The staff, totally nonplussed, asked on their blog if anybody knew who made it. They described the gift as a "poetree" and waited. Nobody claimed authorship."

Then, at the National Library of Scotland, there appeared this:

"The scene was carved from a book, a mystery novel by Ian Rankin, one of Britain's bestselling crime writers. It seemed like a visual pun, because the book's title was Exit Music."

The mystery deepened when in one of Edinburgh's local movie theaters there appeared these:

Next, there was a dragon at the Scottish Storytelling Centre:

then two more scuptures at the Edinburgh International Book Festival:

The final scupture was found at the Central Lending Library:

Perhaps one of the most interesting things of all is that the artist's identity remains a secret. A fitting solution to a perfect mystery, in my opinion.

(Of course, don't forget to view the Joy of Books animation here.)

The Savage Detectives...Do Not Be Discouraged

2012-01-13T09:18:00.003-06:00

If you're like me and want to read like Richard, Parrish, Stu and Frances when you grow up, you might have to obtain some books which are beyond your general purview. Books like A Void by Georges Perec. Parallel Stories by Peter Nadas. And The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano.

I was all excited when I found The Savage Detectives in our local library. I went out late in the night to get it, as a matter of fact, while still on Christmas vacation. I eagerly opened the first page, read about ten more, and threw up my hands in despair. Stymied, again. (Like the first time I read something by Haruki Murakami.) Faced with terms I couldn't define (such as visceral realism), countries I've never visited, and authors or poets I've never read before, I felt at such a disadvantage that I put the book on my return-to-the-library pile and hoped to forget about my failure.

Until Richard emailed me back. Among other comforting words, he left me this paragraph which helps immensely:

Anyway, the first and third parts of The Savage Detectives (the ones written in a diary format) are kind of traditional in the sense that they become plot-driven with a more or less linear trajectory. The crazy cast of characters and all the writer talk is often over the top, so it may be hard to decipher at all times when Bolaño is mocking or telling truths through the narrator. One important thing to be aware of is that the narrator is a teenager who is in effect describing a certain time period in Bolaño's own life in mid-1970s Mexico City. The Belano and Ulisses Lima characters are fictionalized versions of Bolaño and his best friend, the poet Mario Santiago, who along with many of the other characters in the novel, belonged to a group called the infrarrealistas; these poets, dropouts, artists, etc. terrorized poetry readings much like the visceral realists do in the book. This was a generation of bohemians still influenced by '60s youth culture, and the story the narrator tells is in large part a coming of age story set against this countercultural environment.

I picked up the novel again last night, determined to proceed, and now find myself near page 100 eager to get back to the story tonight after work. So:

Thank you, Richard.
Don't be discouraged other readers, if you were, because there's hope.
I'm now looking forward to the discussion at the end of the month.

Mailbox Monday

2012-01-09T07:08:00.001-06:00

Reamde by Neal Stephenson: "If you are a Stephenson fan who believes “Snow Crash” and “Cryptonomicon” (1999) are his greatest novels, “Reamde” will come as very good news, for in many ways it can be read as a thematic revisitation of those excellent precursors. Once again Stephenson is asking us to think about virtual worlds and information storage; once again, by God, he makes reading so much fun it feels like a deadly sin." ~New York Times

Ugly to Start With by John Michael Cummings: "Ugly to Start With punctuates the exuberant highs, bewildering midpoints, and painful lows of growing up, and affirms that adolescent dreams and desires are often fulfilled in surprising ways." amazon.com

What did you get in your mailbox? Find other mailboxes at home with books.

Me Before You by JoJo Moyes

2012-01-08T13:34:00.000-06:00

'Some mistakes...just have greater consequences than others. But you don't have to let that night be the thing that defines you.'

It's hard to type a review with tears in your eyes, and on your cheeks, and falling into the keyboard, but I'll try. Because I just finished Me Before You and I have to write about it now.

There are millions of love stories out there but few that get to the core of what the couple means to one another, a meaning beyond physical attraction and personal fulfillment. But the story JoJo Moyes has written of Will Traynor and Lou Clark goes exactly there.

We meet Will when he is a successful businessman, leaving his gorgeous girlfriend to go to his high powered job. It is a brief introduction, for on the second page he is struck by a motorcycle. From then on, we see him as the quadriplegic he has become.

Enter Louisa Clark, who's lost her job at the Buttered Bun cafe. She is employed by Will's mother to be his caretaker, although she has had no experience with the medical needs of a quad. What she does know, however, is how to be witty, how to be colorful, how to bring more than a spark of joy into Will's life.

What she doesn't know is that Will has promised his parents only six months until he goes to Dignitas in Switzerland, a place where he can die because he cannot bear the life he is forced to live. It is a life with no control, no capabilities, no choices left but one.

This is a complex novel, examining much more than the love between two people. It also examines how our lives can enrich one another, and how we can reach beyond our fallibilites and limitations to show how much we truly care. It is very powerful and deeply moving.

Many thanks to Penguin Books UK for sending me Me Before You by JoJo Moyes.

Read JoJo's blog here.

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie: Group Read Invitation

2012-01-07T18:08:00.000-06:00

So glad that I saw a post on Mrs. B's blog, The Literary Stew, about reading Rushdie's Midnight's Children. She and Arti, of Ripple Effects, have decided to read this most worthy work beginning in March. Having never read anything by Salman Rushdie before, this book seems the perfect place to start.

Synopsis from the Man Booker Prize site: Born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, at the precise moment of India’s independence, the infant Saleem Sinai is celebrated in the press and welcomed by Prime Minister Nehru himself. But this coincidence of birth has consequences Saleem is not prepared for: telepathic powers that connect him with 1,000 other “midnight’s children” – all born in the initial hour of India’s independence – and an uncanny sense of smell that allows him to sniff out dangers others can’t perceive. Inextricably linked to his nations, Saleem’s biography is a whirlwind of disasters and triumphs that mirror the course of modern India at its most impossible and glorious.

Accolades: Midnight’s Children, was published in 1981. It won the Booker Prize for Fiction, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction), an Arts Council Writers’ Award and the English-Speaking Union Award, and in 1993 was judged to have been the ‘Booker of Bookers’, the best novel to have won the Booker Prize for Fiction in the award’s 25-year history.

Also, Midnight's Children is being made into a film for October, 2012.

The reading plan is as follows, with a post for each of the dates below:

March 31 -- Book One
April 30 -- Book Two (Part A ending with 'Alpha and Omega')
May 31 -- Book Two (Part B starting with 'The Kolynos Kid')
June 30 -- Book Three

Won't you join us? We'd love to have you!

Christmas Past

2012-01-06T07:43:00.001-06:00

It's the last day of ~~Winter Break~~ Christmas Vacation for me. I wish I had a lovely photograph of snow to put above my post, but we've had what my husband called "a Tennessee Christmas": lots of gray, rainy weather. It hasn't dampened my spirits.

This was such a lovely two weeks off. They began with my mother and I baking Christmas cookies together while listening to the radio playing glorious music like Handel's Messiah. And each day after that was more special than the one before, from Christmas Eve services with lit candles (I hope they never stop doing that in church, the whole sanctuary holding real flames atop real candles which always seem to burn your hand no matter what holder they're stuck into) to praying for my son's safety on New Year's Eve.

I was able to read so many books! I read Across the River and Into The Trees by Hemingway, Believing The Lie by Elizabeth George, Loving by Henry Green, The Buddha In The Attic by Julie Otsuka, The Bastard by Kim Novak, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin, Shutter Island by Dennis LeHane, and now I'm finishing up a new book from Penguin UK called Me Before You by JoJo Moyes. Then I will be concentrating on The Savage Detectives for Richard's and Rise's group read.

There's not much you can give me in the way of presents beyond time to read and time with family. I spent every minute I could with my parents before they left for Florida; then last night my son and I went to see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol before having dinner at Stir Crazy. My boy, my 21 year old man son, sitting across the table from me with a Bud Light. Weird, but wonderful, to see him growing up.

"What are you doing tomorrow, Mom?" he asked.

"Sitting and reading," I replied. "You know, on my 'island', alone with a book. My favorite thing to do."

And from then on, it was tease me about my 'island'. "Look at Miss Ten and Two", he said from the passenger seat as if his driving record is such that he can mock my safety. "She'll be reading on her island tomorrow."

Which is today. Which I will do because on Saturday? It will be time to take down the creche. The tree. The crispy garland over the mantle. My origami ornaments on the little tree on my bathroom counter. Christmas will be officially over.

But, what a Christmas it was.

Shutter Island by Dennis LeHane

2012-01-05T10:28:00.004-06:00

"You know," Cawley said, toeing the grass at his feet, head down, "I've built something valuable here. But valuable things also have a way of being misunderstood in their own time. Everyone wants a quick fix. We're tired of being afraid, tired of being sad, tired of feeling overwhelmed, tired of feeling tired. We want the old days back, and we don't even remember them, and we want to push into the future, paradoxically, at top speed. Patience and forbearance become the first casualties of progress. This is not news. Not news at all. It's always been so." Cawley raised his head. "So as many powerful friends as I have, I have just as many powerful enemies. People who would wrest what I've build from my control. I can't allow that without a fight. You understand?"

Shutter Island is an absolutely riveting book, one I was not able to put down since I checked it out with The Savage Detectives two nights ago. It's the story of Teddy Daniels, U. S. Marshall, who comes to Shutter Island in search of a missing woman, Rachel Solando. Ashecliffe Hospital is on Shutter Island, a psychiatric hospital, or penitentiary, for the criminally insane. And it is there that he finds people and events and codes which lead us all to a mind-bending conclusion.

At first I thought this novel was like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, where the doctors win over their patients by giving unnecessary lobotomies. But each connection I had to another book proved utterly false. There was no way I could predict the truth about Shutter Island that Dennis LeHane slowly revealed. What an amazing novel.

“The novel is brilliantly conceived and executed. . . . Its shocking outcome kept me awake deep into the night, as I began to grasp what the author had done to my innocent mind.” ~Washington Post Book World