From the Prairie to the City

Over the last year, the Willa Cather I have come to know and love is the Cather who writes of the Nebraska prairie.  Interestingly, some of her works that take place in different environments are my least favorites (I'm thinking of Death Comes for the Archbishop and Shadows on the Rock, neither of which I even finished).  Uncle Valentine and Other Stories:  Willa Cather's Uncollected Short Fiction, 1915-1929, falls somewhere in between for me.  In these seven stories, Cather set her stories in the urban landscape (NYC and Pittsburgh).  While collectively it is a good read, I didn't find any of the stories to be stand outs or particularly memorable.  That said, My Antonia and Cather's books set in rural places are some of the best works of fiction that I have ever read!

The Point is the Point

One of my favorite places in this vast and varied world is Point Reyes National Seashore.  I feel alive and expansive in this land of serenity and beauty.  Curious to know more about this majestic place, so close to my house yet so far away, I purchased An Island in Time:  50 Years of Point Reyes National Seashore, by John Hart, which highlights some of the major issues that have defined Point Reyes over the last 50 years, such as dairy farming, the animals that inhabit Point Reyes, and its very creation.  This is somewhat of a "coffee table" book in that it has lots of glossy photos, but it also has a good deal of information as well.  I wasn't riveted by Hart's writing, but it did provide a good overview of Point Reyes and some of the controversies and debates about the land over the years.  I'm interested in pairing this with The Solemn Land, a much older work written by local Point Reyes historian Jack Mason. 

Texas Trilogy

With Cities of the Plain, McCarthy concluded his Border Trilogy.  In this third work, McCarthy brings together his two protagonists in the earlier works, John Grady Cole and Billy Parham.  John and Billy are in early adulthood as ranch hands in New Mexico in the 1950s.  It is interesting to learn their fates, but this was my least favorite of the three books in the trilogy.  Trying to read as many books as I can before the end of the year, thus the relatively short posts!

The Grass is Always Greener, with Capote

The Grass Harp is classic Capote - wit, quirky characters, tender moments amidst hilarious ones, and immensely fabulous storytelling.  I really don't think it gets much better than this!  Read it.  Period.

Detroit City

This summer, I plan to take a trip to Michigan, starting in Detroit.  I've heard so many things about this city - its violence, its 80,000 abandoned buildings, its lawlessness, its failed public schools, but also its possibility, rebirth, and redevelopment.  Is Detroit rising from the ashes once again?  I took to reading Mark Binelli's account of the city, entitled Detroit City is the Place to Be:  The Afterlife of an American Metropolis.  Binelli's ethnographic and journalistic focus makes for an interesting account, with lots of interviews of locals from various backgrounds.  His writing is punchy and smart, if a bit longwinded.  For example, he writes, "It's an almost classically structured tale of humble origins transcended by entrepreneurial moxie and much diligent toil, all eventually brought low by tragic flaws (hubris, greed, long-simmering prejudices come home to roost)."  The book included some staggering facts such as the fact that recently, Michigan had the highest unemployment rate of any State, and one study identified nearly half of all adults as functionally illiterate.  This book provides a great starting point for understanding some of the history of Detroit, its current challenges, and its future.

Almost to the end of my Yates era

 Now that I have finished A Good School, I'm just one book away from having read all of Richard Yates.  Yates' novels and short stories are never uplifting, but always intriguing.  A Good School focuses on one year at a New England all-male prep school just at the start of WWII.  Focusing largely on the relationships between the students, Yates captures the angst and awkwardness of teenage boys as they strive to fit in, make friends, discover their passions.  As expected, there are fist fights, love affairs, hazing, sports, friendship, rivalries, and a few heartbreaking moments of isolation and loneliness.  Yates also explores the relationships between the male professors and administrative staff and their wives or lovers.  This wasn't my favorite from Yates, as it wasn't as rich in exploring the intimacies of relationships as some of his other novels (such as Revolutionary Road or The Easter Parade, but I would still say that A Good School is a "good" read. 

A Childhood Classic (but not my childhood)

Sometimes I am really amazed at some classic novels that I simply never read when I was growing up.  It's never too late though!  I found L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables to be smartly written and thoroughly winsome.  Anne, an "outspoken morsel of neglected humanity," is an orphan who comes to live with Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert on bucolic Prince Edward Island.  The Cuthberts original set out to raise a boy, but are surprised to discover a girl waiting for them at the train station.  Anne's boundless optimism, imagination, and love for words and honest expression are infectious to both the reader and the characters who populate the novel. 

Crossing into McCarthy Territory

The Crossing is the second book of McCarthy's Border Trilogy.  Set in New Mexico just before WWII, brothers Billy and Boyd Parham come of age amidst the lonesome landscape of the New Mexico border.  Billy, just sixteen years old, is a young, self-sufficient cowboy, who sets out to return a trapped wolf to the mountains of Mexico.  He returns to find his parents killed and the family horses taken, and pursues the horse thieves with his brother.  This gritty, intelligent novel explores brotherhood and what it means to be completely alone in the world.  Its bleak and beautiful, violent and vibrant.  I still can't say that I love McCarthy, but he does write with such distinctive voice and confidence that I find myself wanting to read more of his work. 

A Writer to Watch

We Need New Names is the first novel from NoViolet Bulawayo, who was born and raised in Zimbabwe and is currently a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.  As I was reading the novel, certain other works came to mind, such as Dave Eggers' What is the What and Americanah by Chimananda Ngozi Adichie, which also explore the theme of being an immigrant from Africa and navigating two different worlds and assimilating into an unknown culture in which the reality doesn't match up with the expectations.  Bulawayo has a voice entirely her own and she brings her characters to life in this unflinching, spirited, witty novel that introduces us to 10-year-old Darling and her band of friends, who we first meet stealing guavas from the wealthy neighborhood called Budapest.  Darling is eventually given the opportunity to live with an aunt in America, and ends up in Michigan amidst snow, isolation, and low paying jobs.  An interesting read indeed.

Call the Doctor(ow)

World's Fair is an engaging, smartly written novel with some beautiful passages.  Set in the Bronx in the 1930s, we meet Edgar when he is 9 years old, and the novel culminates with the World's Fair in 1939.  The book explores Edgar's relationship with his older brother, and also centers around his parents' marriage.  The novel is rich with memorable scenes, such as the one in which Edgar, his brother, and their friends build an igloo in the backyard.  I also loved the simple description of a delicious snack provided by Joe the Sweet Potato Man - "It was not only something to eat but something to warm my hands against as if I had plucked a tiny hearth from an elf's house."  Probably my favorite Doctorow work so far, slightly above Homer and Langley and Billy Bathgate. 

Deceipt and Dressage

In her debut novel, The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls, Anton DiSclafani explores the intimacies of a close knit family and its unraveling.  Set on the cusp of the Great Depression, protagonist Thea Atwell is sent away to a girls' riding camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains, but the reason why isn't revealed until the end of the book.  Having grown up on an idyllic citrus farm with her twin brother, loving parents, and the freedom to ride horses, Thea's parents decide to send her off to the camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where Thea continues along her path of self exploration, and discovers a world much larger than the one she grew up in.  The mystery of what happened kept me engaged - this is the kind of book you will want to read quickly, and its engrossing along the way to the climax. 

Revisiting Cormac McCarthy

  

I was originally turned off by McCarthy as the first book I read by him was The Road, a post apocalyptic, disturbing novel.  However, I am on a Texas streak and thought I would give the first of his Border Trilogy books a try, and I am glad I did.  After all, how can a book entitled All the Pretty Horses be too disturbing?!  While not nearly as bleak and unsettling as The Road, this novel still has its fare share of violence, but it also has some quiet moments and exquisite passages as well.  Set in West Texas and Mexico, teenager John Grady Cole sets out with his friend Lacey Rawlins on horseback.  "I just wanted to see the country, I reckon," says Grady.  Complete with knife fights, romance, lightening storms, haciendas, and a general rough and tumble tone, McCarthy infuses this story with grit in a meticulously researched and authentic way.  It seems to me that McCarthy perfectly captures the young cowboy - in his bravado and courage, chivalry and tight lipped manner, and very rarely, his expressions of tenderness (toward horses, friends, women, and children) and even sadness.  One of my favorite scenes is when Grady sets out to propose to a girl and he sits with some children he meets and shares his meal with them, then tells them of his dilemma and they offer him various suggestions as to what he should do.  It's one of the only moments that depicts Grady with a bit of kid-like energy still in him. 

I plan to read the second book.  My favorite passages:

"...they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing."  

"What is constant in history is greed and foolishness and a love of blood and this is a thing that even God - who knows all that can be known - seems powerless to change."  

Shakespearean Tragedy Amidst the Corn Fields

Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1991.  Her novel takes place in 1979 and centers around the Cook family and their farm in Iowa.  Larry Cook, the patriarch, decides to retire from farming and leave the land to his three daughters.  The youngest and the only one who no longer lives on the farm but instead became a lawyer and lives in Des Moine, expresses her concern about this to her father, and he impulsively decides to cut her out of the deal.  The story focuses largely around the other two sisters, Ginny and Rose, and their struggles in their marriages, with each other, with Rose's cancer, and with the sexual abuse inflicted upon them by their father.  It's a bleak tale, in fact there are very few happy scenes or moments.  Nonetheless, it is a powerful story that moves along quickly, and I understand is a modern day version of King Lear. 

Texas Today

It seems like everywhere I turn, there are articles about Texas.  Erica Grieder's journalistic account of the current state of affairs in Texas, entitled Big, Hot, Cheap, and Right: What America Can Learn from the Strange Genius of Texas, is an accessible book that focuses on some hot topics such as religion, politics, big business, and small government, and also touches upon major Texas industries such as cattle and oil.  What I got out of this book, more than the analysis itself, were some interesting facts about Texas, such as the fact that Houston is the most ethnically diverse metropolitan area in the U.S., Texas has more people living in rural areas than any other state, and San Antonio is considered by many to be a progressive city with a significant number of same-sex households.  Grieder does not shy away from some of the challenges in Texas (poverty, schools with little funding, limited services, etc.), but she also tries to demystify Texas and point out that many of its stereotypes may hold less water than we might think. 

Talking about Texas

Larry McMurtry's Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen:  Reflections at Sixty and Beyond, provides insight into the things that were important to McMurtry, such as place, reading, and book selling.  Having grown up in Archer City, Texas, McMurtry was destined to become a cowboy, but once he discovered books, he went on to Rice University and his whole world opened up.  As McMurtry puts it, "In the end my father's career and my own were not as different as I had once thought.  He cattle ranched in a time he didn't like much, and I word ranched..."  One of my favorite quotes from the book is, "First I try to herd a few desirable words into a sentence, and then I corral them into small pastures called paragraphs, before spreading them across the spacious ranges of a novel."  With humility and honesty, McMurtry writes about his own work as a novelist, his life after a major surgery, and his love for the open space and light of Texas.  Finally, McMurtry pays homage to one of my favorite writes of all time - "The first fictions of any value to come out of the West were usually about the struggle of sensitive, art-minded souls to survive and assert themselves amid the discouragements of necessary practical frontier society.  Willa Cather, for example."  It seems that wide open spaces have been the inspiration for some of my favorite writers. 

Both Sides of the Border

The night I arrived in Marfa, TX, Ruben Martinez and Alfredo Corchado were speaking at the Marfa Book Company.  Exhausted from the nearly nine hours it took to get there, I missed the talk, but vowed to read both of their recently published books. 

In Ruben Martinez' Desert America, he writes, "Most of all there was space, Western immensity.  The area has one of the vastest stretches of land in the Lower 48 with the fewest people and roads and human-built structures."  Martinez focuses on some of the political and demographic shifts in several different desert regions, such as Joshua Tree, CA, Velarde, NM, and my beloved Marfa, TX. 

Part personal cathartic account, part ethnographic research, and part investigative journalism, Martinez' book is a blend of approaches.  Perhaps I was just antsy to get to the chapter on Marfa (at the very end, of course), but I think I was looking for facts and found more anecdotal evidence, which can be just as powerful but did not capture my attention in this case. 

Alfredo Corchado's Midnight in Mexico, like Martinez' book, weaves in the author's personal experience.  Corchado recounts his life as a journalist in Mexico and in the U.S. focusing on border issues, and more specifically, discusses drug trafficking, and the impact of it on his life, his emotional state, and his personal safety.  

Together, these two books are an interesting introduction into the darker sides of life on the border. 

It's never too late to read Yates

I'm a huge Richard Yates fan, with my favorite of his novels being Revolutionary Road and The Easter Parade (see previous blog posts).  I read the behemoth Collected Stories of Richard Yates, which anthologizes all of his short stories, including the stories in Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, Liars in Love, and some previously unpublished stories as well.  Yates' stories are so readable and engaging, yet heartbreaking too.  Yates shows the reader his characters' ugliest vulnerabilities, most intimate sufferings, and scarring childhood events.  It is his unflinching insight that draws the reader in, and his straightforward, clear writing that is so quintessentially Yates.  These stories are not uplifting (his story "A Private Possession," ends with, "And when the sobs finally begin they are long, scalding ones, the kind that come again and again.")  And yet, Yates sometimes catches the reader off guard with one or two unexpected hilariously funny lines, which tempers the tragedy with some comedy.  In "Regards at Home," Yates writes, "That was an old failing: she never seemed to realize that if people could see her underpants they might not care what kind of hat she was wearing."  In this same story, the protagonist dislikes his wife when she fills the role of, "dependable typist at Botany Mills, or the grudging potato peeler or the slow, tired woman who frowned over the ironing board to prove how poor we were."

Yates draws on many of his own experiences to create his stories, such as his time in WWII, bout with tuberculosis, and troubled marriages.  These stories are not uplifting, but they are crystalline and illuminating and too good to miss. 

West Texas of Yesteryear

 

I returned from my recent trip to West Texas inspired and in awe of the expansiveness, the silence, the space, the light, and the sheer beauty of the region.  I'm reading all kinds of books about Texas, and happened upon The Lonesome Plains:  Death and Revival of an American Frontier, by Louis Fairchild, at the public library.  Published by Texas A&M University Press in 2002, Fairchild relies heavily and interestingly on first person primary accounts (letters, journals, etc.) of West Texas settlers in the 1800s.  Often living many miles apart and not seeing anyone other than family for long stretches at a time, the empty endless land often created a deep sense of loneliness and isolation, for which settlers hungered to escape, however briefly.  Neighbors often came together for two specific reasons- as Fairchild puts it "times of misfortune" such as accidents and deaths, and annual religious revival meetings.  As Fairchild writes, "of all the late nineteenth century agricultural frontiers, western Texas was probably the most isolated and the most lonesome..."  The religious gatherings often gave the settlers an opportunity to have an "emotional release," an outlet from the stoicism and harshness of their daily lives.  This is a very specific book that was of particular interest to me, but it may not be everyone's cup of tea.  It is very readable, and was clearly painstakingly researched and presented in a really clear and informative way. 

A Smattering of Steinbeck

It was, not surprisingly, an utter delight to read Steinbeck's America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction.  This collection shows off Steinbeck's range and ability to engage readers on a variety of topics, including the lives of California agricultural workers in the 1930s, dogs, Paris, Salinas, war, and ospreys.  Steinbeck had this fabulous ability to write both seriously and humorously, impassioned and lighthearted.  In "Always Something to Do In Salinas," he writes, in describing the social structure with regard to those in the field of agriculture, "Now we had a new set of upstarts:  Lettuce People.  Sugar People joined Cattle People in looking down their noses.  These Lettuce People had Carrot People to look down on and these in turn felt odd about associating with Cauliflower People."  In, "My War with the Ospreys," Steinbeck writes, "Those lousy, slip-shod, larcenous birds , those ingrates, those - those ospreys."  Even though many of the essays in this collection were written over 50 years ago, some of the themes seem very relevant to today.  In "Dear Adlai," he writes, "Having too many THINGS they spend their hours and money on the couch searching for their soul."  

Other favorite quotes:

From "L'Envoi":  "I do know this - the big and mysterious America is bigger than I thought.  And more mysterious."  
From "America and Americans":  "We are afraid to be awake, afraid to be alone, afraid to be a moment without the noise  and confusion we call entertainment."
"Even businessmen in Texas wear high-heeled boots and big hats, though they ride in air-conditioned Cadillacs and have forgotten the reason for the high heels."  
"Such screwballs are very valuable to us and we would be a duller nation without them, as our economy and our means of production gently shove us nearer and nearer to a dull and single norm."  

This is a book to have on the shelf, with engaging, funny, smart, informed, witty, opinionated essays to be read again and again. 

Still talking about Potok

Earlier this year I read several Potok novels, my favorite being My Name is Asher Lev.  Potok has a distinctive writing style that is very consistent throughout all of his books, which I had enjoyed in his other works but found repetitive in In the Beginning, which tells the story of David Lurie's upbringing in the 1920s in the Bronx and follows his young life through the Great Depression, World War II, and the Holocaust.  While Potok's novels are all page-turners, In the Beginning was not one of my favorite of his works, but perhaps only because Potok's dialogue and family scenes are very similar to other novels of his that I already read.  Also, while In the Beginning is more sweeping in scope and slightly less insular than his other works, it lacks the focus and intensity that I appreciated in Potok's other novels.  Regardless, Potok is a wonderful writer and an important voice in American literature, though I would recommend starting with The Chosen or My Name is Asher Lev. 

Comanche Characteristics

Having read Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry and The Son by Philipp Meyer this year, I was very interested to learn more about the Comanches that featured so prominently in these novels and in American history.  S.C. Gwynne's Empire of the Summer Moon is a readable non-fiction account of the life of Cynthia Ann Parker, a member of one of the most powerful families in the days of early Texas, who is captured in 1836 at the age of nine by the Comanches and ends up choosing to marry a Comanche chief and stay with the tribe for over twenty years.  She has a mixed-blood son named Quanah, who becomes the last and most famous chief of the Comanches.  Interestingly, Cynthia Ann is eventually discovered and taken from the tribe, at which point she tried to repeatedly escape back to the tribe.  After her daughter Prairie Flower died, Cynthia Ann died six years later after self-starvation and illness.  

As white settlers arrived in Texas, the Comanches fought to maintain their tribal lands, which led to brutal battles over four decades.  A group called the Texas Rangers was formed especially to deal with the threat of Comanches.  Eventually the tribe diminished and the U.S. government provided reservations for the remaining Comanches, who were appalled at this offering, having no initial interest in becoming farmers.  Over time, Quanah and other Comanches adopted some conveniences of non-native culture. 

Unlike other native tribes, Comanches did not engage in agricultural pursuits or make artisan goods, and they had a simple cultural structure that was not stratified or rigidly organized.  They were a hunter-gatherer nomadic tribe (their primary diet was buffalo), and were exceptional horsemen which gave them a major advantage when at war.

So the next time you are in Texas under a bright moon, remember that under that bright moon the powerful Comanches lived and fought, and lived out its legacy as the most powerful tribe in American history. 

BB King (of the Bronx)

Billy Bathgate, written by E.L. Doctorow and published in 1989, tells the coming of age story of a teenage boy from a poor neighborhood in the Bronx, who figures out a way into a group of mobsters led by the infamous Dutch Schultz.  Told from Billy's perspective, Doctorow does a brilliant job of capturing a young boy's bravado, vulnerability, ingenuity, desire, and need to belong and be loved.  Having grown up without his father, Billy seeks mentors and father figures, and finds it in the clan-like and familial (as well as brutal and mercurial) Schultz gang. Billy gets in over his head but manages to find a way out.    

Billy Bathgate is one of Doctorow's most acclaimed novels, as it won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and was the runner up for the Pulitzer Prize.  

The only other novel I have ready by Doctorow is Homer & Langley, which I also really enjoyed.  Can't wait to read more! 

Supporter of Porter

Perhaps it is fitting that on the cusp of my first trip to West Texas, I have just finished The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter, published in 1965, for which she won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.  While the stories were published in 1962, most of them were written in the early 1930s.  Porter grew up in Texas and Louisiana.

Porter's stories take place all over the world - West Texas, the South, Mexico, Berlin, the German countryside, etc.  Her characters are electric as her settings are.  There were some stories that didn't really hold my interest, and others that were piercingly good, such as "Old Mortality" and "Holiday."  In the latter, a young woman gets advice from her friend about where to go for her spring holiday, and she goes to the country to live with a "family of real old-fashioned German peasants, in the deep blackland Texas farm country." 

Porter is an important writer in the American canon, and while I didn't like every story in this collection, it is absolutely worth reading a handful of these distinctive stories. 

Serena: Simply Too Good to Put Down

I have read some of Ron Rash's works, and now Serena is by far my favorite.  Set in 1929, the novel focuses on Serena and George Pemberton who both find themselves brimming with power, sensuality, ruthlessness, and the desire for profit.  The Pembertons were timber barons trailblazing near Asheville, North Carolina, at the time that the U.S. government was trying to establish the Smoky Mountains as a national park.  Serena sets her sights on timber in Brazil, and assumes that her husband will want the same.  However, he can't quite let go of his interest in his young son whose mother was someone who worked briefly at the lumber camp, and now lives nearby.  The book ends tragically, but was very captivating, atmospheric, and even cinematic.  Nothing like a good old-fashioned novel! 

Prim and Proper

Jane Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice was published 200 years ago in 1813.  The novel centers around the Bennett family and the marrying off of their daughters, in particular, Elizabeth Bennett, who warms up to Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy over time.  Reading Pride and Prejudice was kind of like watching Downton Abbey, but with none of the dramas outside of the romance plot lines.  Pride and Prejudice is particularly insular, focusing on the restrained interactions between the Bennetts, their neighbors, immediate family, and potential suitors.  While I don't think a 200 year old book need be stodgy, I found that to be so in this case.  Austen was no doubt a master of her time, but this is not a book that provoked much thought for me or caught my interest. 

Favorite quotes:

"'My dear, dear aunt,' she rapturously cried, what delight!  what felicity! You give me fresh life and vigour.  Adieu to disappointment and spleen.  What are men to rocks and mountains?""

"This is a most unfortunate affair; and will probably be much talked of.  But we must stem the tide of malice, and pour into the wounded bosoms of each other, the balm of sisterly consolation."

Satirical Steinbeck

Having traveled to France in the early 1950s, Steinbeck wrote The Short Reign of Pippin IV in 1957, which is a satirical tale of a chaotic French government at the time of the French Revolution.  France finds itself in need of a king, and the unsuspecting Pippin Heristal, based on his lineage, is recruited for the task.  While Pippin would rather be left alone to his hobby, astronomy, he must inherit the throne and try to bring peace and prosperity to his nation.  Pippin's wife Marie accepts her queendom with a sense of duty, and his precocious and rather wild daughter Clotilde becomes intrigued with an "egg king" hailing from Petaluma, CA.  As I am not an expert on French history, I'm sure that many of the satire and jokes were somewhat lost on me, and I didn't find the antics that hilarious or over the top.  All in all, this was not my favorite Steinbeck novel by a long shot, but I do admire his versatility, and he still remains one of my favorite authors of all time, with my favorite books being To a God Unknown, East of Eden, and The Grapes of Wrath. 

Some memorable quotes:

"In the salon she told her husband, 'Closed the window over the cheese - a full kilogram of cheese suffocating all night with the window closed.  And do you know what her excuse was?  She was cold.  For her own comfort the cheese must strangle.  You can't trust servants anymore."

"I want my little house, my wife, and my telescope.  Nothing more.  If they had not forced me to be king I would not have been forced to be kingly."

Unexpected Otherworldiness

Neil Gaiman's short novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, takes place in Sussex, England and centers around a young girl named Lettie Hempstock, her mother, and her grandmother.  Lettie befriends a boy who lives down the street from her, who lives a lonely and unhappy childhood, where his main escape is reading books.  Lettie starts to protect the young boy from several dark incidents that occur in his life.  The book has tones of fairy tales, as well as magical realism.  For me, the book was rather sparse for my tastes.  As the English might say, it wasn't my cup of tea, though it explores some interesting themes in a refreshing way.

For Porter, Two Prizes

Katherine Anne Porter grew up in Texas and is best known for her short stories, the collection of which was nominated for both the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award in 1965.  Pale Horse, Pale Rider features three short novels.  My favorite of the three was "Noon Wine," which tells the story of the Thompson family who live on a dairy ranch in Texas in the 1890s.  A quiet Swedish man named Mr. Helton shows up at the farm and asks for work and Mr. Thompson agrees to provide him room and board, and a small salary, in exchange for work.  Mr. Helton quickly proves himself to be a hard worker, having learned a great deal from his work in North Dakota, though with little interest for becoming friendly with the Thompson.  His main care in the world seems to be his collection of harmonicas.  All goes well on the farm for nine years, when another man shows up at the farm, claiming that Mr. Helton escaped from a mental asylum after stabbing his brother with a pitchfork over a harmonica-related scuffle.  Mr. Thompson doesn't want any trouble and wants the stranger to leave, but before he figures out a way to get him off his porch, things quickly go awry and a tragic incident occurs over which Mr. Thompson can ultimately never forgive himself.  This dark tale is very well written and moves at a quick pace.  On a different note, one of my favorite quotes from the short novel "Pale Horse, Pale Rider," is "How I have loved this house in the morning before we are all awake and tangled together like badly cast fishing lines."  Certainly an intriguing writer, I plan to read Porter's full collection of short stories. 

The Face of the Great Depression

We all have probably seen the iconic photo, Migrant Mother, snapped in 1936 by Dorothea Lange, who worked for the government agency known as the Farm Security Administration.  The woman in the photo was Florence Owen Thompson, a 32 year old mother of seven children, who worked as a pea picker in California.  It is this famous and haunting photo that is the inspiration for Marisa Silver's new novel Mary Coin, which weaves together the fictionalized versions of Lange and Thompson, as well as a modern-day history professor who has the feeling that his own passed is tied somehow to the woman in the photo.  In simple, lush, and beautiful prose, Silver illuminates these three lives.  Walker Dodge's family owned the Dodge farm, where Mary Coin was employed many years ago as a migrant worker.  This is an interesting and satisfying novel.  It would be an interesting companion read with Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, which is also set in California and highlights the living conditions of those who worked the fields,  and James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, which depicts and describes the conditions of sharecroppers in the South also during The Great Depression. 

Pre-"Twilight"-era Vampires

Bram Stoker's classic novel Dracula, was published in 1897, and features the most famous vampire of them all, Count Dracula.  Told in a unique format which combines diary entries, letters, and ship log entries, the story starts out with a solicitor named Jonathan Harker who travels to a remote and ominous castle in Transylvania to settle some business matters with Count Dracula.  He slowly realizes that he is imprisoned by a very strange character, and eventually is able to escape.  Count Dracula sets his sharpened teeth on course to try to suck the blood of Harker's new wife Mina and her friend Lucy.  Harker and some of his colleagues band together to try to rid the earth of Dracula, which of course involves piercing him in the heart, no easy task for a Count that can become a bat, or wolf, or other incarnation.  Considered a classic gothic tale, even a horror novel, the story moves along swiftly at the beginning and then tends to drag.  I enjoyed the novel, but not nearly as much as I enjoyed a different gothic novel, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which is told from Frankenstein's perspective and explores his loneliness.  In contrast, in Dracula we only hear from him on one page out of over four hundred pages, so we don't get to know his inner workings or understand him other than from other perspectives. 

Steinbeck's Last Novel

The last novel that John Steinbeck wrote was The Winter of Our Discontent, which highlights the lives of the working class in the 1960s against the backdrop of the fictional New Baytown, largely based on Steinbeck's own experience living in Sag Harbor in his later years.  The story's protagonist is Ethan Hawley, a man educated at Harvard where he  "lodged in the old, the beautiful, the obscure, indulged myself with knowledge utterly useless in running a grocery store..."  And yet, because his father lost the family fortune by "investing wildly," Ethan finds himself doing exactly that -spending his days as the clerk of the grocery store that his family used to own, philosophizing to an audience of canned goods. Ethan has a wife and two kids, and feels discontent and resentment about his job, and explores his own conflicted relationship with his dislike for the money but his fear of not having money to support his family.   This fear drives him to consider some rather unscrupulous possibilities.  As in most Steinbeck novels, the dialogue is swift and witty.  A list of my favorite pet names that Ethan has for his wife Mary include 1) cottontail, 2) my rumpled duck, 3) pin curl, and 4) pigeon-flake.  Steinbeck went no to win the Nobel Prize in 1962.  That said, this is one of my least favorite of his books, and for me, doesn't compare to East of Eden, The Grapes of Wrath, and To a God Unknown.  Still, there are some memorable quotes:

"We can shoots rocket into space but we can't cure anger or discontent."

"It was a day as different from other days as dogs are from cats and both of them from crhysanthemums or tidal waves or scarlet fever."

Tugging at Harp Strings

Unlike the other Potok novels I read, Davita's Harp features a female protagonist, Ilana Davita, who is raised by her Gentile father and Jewish mother, both of whom are part of the Communist Party in the 1930s in New York.  As Davita grows into her own young adulthood, she becomes interested in her parents' pasts, as well as the religions that shaped them.  Ilana Davita's life is shaped by her parents' good friend Jakob Daw and the stories he tells her, her father's fierce love and laughter, and her mother's dedication to helping people.  Davita eventually forges her own path as she chooses to go to a yeshiva, only to discover that there are limitations to what she can achieve there, and is forced to make a difficult choice about how to move forward with her education.  I enjoyed this novel, but it was not as taut and climactic as some of Potok's more famous works. 

Pain in the You Know What

Pain was not a word I often thought about until this year.  Having been lucky to have lived most of my adult life without pain, it came as an unpleasant surprise to experience pain earlier this year when I had a temporary health issue.  While at Point Reyes Books, I stumbled upon this book, written by Dr. David Biro, which explores the loneliness of being in pain (which brings us "inward to the solitude of personal experience") and how difficult it is to express pain.  As Biro tells us,  "One out of every five Americans suffers from chronic pain."  Biro defines pain as, "an all-consuming internal experience that threatens to destroy everything except itself and can only be described through metaphor."  Given that pain is "the quintessential private experience," which is nearly impossible to convey to others, the only way we have to convey what we are feeling is through metaphor. 

Using both literary and artistic references, including Friday Kahlo, Jack London, Toni Morrison, and Edvard Munch, Biro culls from a variety of sources to demonstrate his point about pain being expressed and depicted through metaphor, often through expressions of battling against war and violence against the body.

Ultimately, Biro's book was an interesting philosophical and intellectual approach into the exploration and expression of pain.

The Rich and the Rest of Us

In this slim and accessible book, Tavis Smiley and Cornel West discuss poverty in the United States in a historical context and point out that in order to eradicate poverty in this country, which they believe is very possible, we need to take advantage of best practices in innovation.  As the authors put it, "One out of two Americans is living in poverty or near the poverty line," and the authors believe that the first step in eradicating poverty is destigmatizing it and recognizing that it exists.  Smiley and West outline "12 poverty changing ideas," which include things like providing jobs with living wage salaries, health care coverage for all, ending hunger and homelessness, and having the White House hold a conference on "the eradication of poverty."  They also outline in detail some suggestions for how to achieve each of these ends.  

For me, given my work with low-income populations and in community development, these ideas did not come as a surprise to me.  Therefore, while I did not have any "aha" moments, I was more impressed by the authors' vehemence and insistence that this is a crisis that needs to be solved or it could lead to catastrophe.  Some key quotes:

"With the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, and the class divide getting wider, there is very little reason not to believe that America could one day implode under the weight of escalating poverty."

...the poor have been stabbed with the blade of indifference."  

"Poverty is 21st-century-style slavery."

"Our intention is to prod America's consciousness toward righteously radical thinking and 21st century revolutionary action."

Ultimately, Smiley and West end by encouraging readers to take action to make poverty an "archaic remnant," which reminds me a lot of Muhammed Yunus' vision to put poverty in museums.  Let's work together to make this happen in our lifetimes.

Steinbeck, Always Burning Bright

Steinbeck's "play-novelette," which he defines as, "A play that is easy to read or a short novel that can be played simply by lifting out the dialogue," Burning Bright is a slim and punchy read, where something interesting occurs on nearly every page.  The story follows acrobat Joe Saul and his wife Mordeen.  Upon learning that he is not able to conceive, Joe Saul falls into a dark mood (You have the blackest eyes - like new split coal - that black!" says Mordeen) about not being able to pass on his lineage. Mordeen is also pursued by Joe Saul's acrobatics partner Victor.  Mordeen decides that she will give Joe Saul a child with Victor.  When Joe Saul learns his wife is pregnant (and thinks he is the father, he exclaims in delight "There's going to be a baby playing in this house.  There's going to be a child playing in that dust.  There's going to be a growing thing discovering the sky and kicking the chickens aside ane finding eggs."  Despite the agreement Mordeen thought she had with Victor, he cannot let go of the fact that he is the father and tries to force her to run away with him.  Luckily, Joe Saul's best friend, Friend Ed, takes the situation into his own hands and kills Victor.   It is a very dramatic and edgy tale.  Perhaps because the writing has some of the characteristics of a play, the story features a great deal of dialogue, which is one of Steinbeck's strongest suits. 

Other great quotes:
Joe Saul, to Mordeen - "Walk tenderly.  Oh, take gentle care.  Rest, and let your thoughts be high and beautiful."  
Friend Ed, to Joe Saul, in trying to get him to see the beauty of raising a son, even if it is not biologically his own - "You crush loveliness on the rocks of your stinking pride."  

All in all, another masterpiece from Steinbeck. 

Big Texas, Big Novel

Relatively fresh off the heels of reading some Larry McMurtry novels, in particular Lonesome Dove, I was ready to take on another epic Texas novel, which is embodied in Philipp Meyer's new novel, The Son.  The story shifts perspectives and time periods, but essentially follows the life and dynasty of the McCullough family.  In 1849, Eli McCullough is a young boy and witnesses the murder of his sister and mother by the Comanche tribe.  He and his brother are tortured and subject to various forms of brutality, and his brother soon dies.  Left to fend for himself among the Comanches, Eli soon adapts and becomes accepted by the tribe, and is even taken under the wing as a son of the chief known as Toshaway and is given his Comanche name, Tiehteti.  Eventually, the tried is faced with starvation and disease and dies off.  Eli is left alone and must acclimatize back among whites.  Torn between these two worlds, Eli forges a new path for himself.  Fast forward to the perspective of Jeanne Anne McCullough in present day, Eli's great-granddaughter who is an aging oil baroness coming to grips with a deeper understanding of her former marriages and the lives of her children.  Not for the faint of heart, Meyer's sweeping novel has no shortage of murders, scalpings, and ruthlessness.  But it also has very lush and generous language, meticulously researched details of the eras, and distinctive characters and voices.  I didn't know where the novel was taking me at first, and it took me some time to get into the story, but ultimately I enjoyed the novel and its exploration of family and ambition.

Home on the Ranch

Judy Blunt's memoir Breaking Clean, about her thirty years spent on wheat and cattle ranches in Eastern Montana will rid the reader of any idealized notion of living an easy life out in nature and attending the iconic one-room school house as one's place of education.  Ms. Blunt talks of her childhood, her own marriage, her relationship with the land and the farm animals, and her coming into an understanding of her own self. as a self-assured woman in a very patriarchal landscape.  In lyrical yet no-nonsense prose, we are brought into Blunt's world through various stories of her life out on her ranch.  She conveys the expansiveness yet isolation of living nearly 50 miles from any significant town.  This book captures the gritty, hardscrabble life in its most stark realities.  While i wasn't necessarily captivated or wrapped up in the memoir, I learned a great deal about what it was like to be a woman living a ranch life so far from creature comforts. 

Still a Mystery, To Me

Having enjoyed William Kent Krueger's most recent novel, Ordinary Grace, I decided to try his very first book, Iron Lake, which is the first of many in a series that centers around retired sheriff Cork O'Connor.  Set in the blistering cold and wind of Minnesota, Iron Lake is a tale of love, deception, and more.  Ultimately, yes, it was a page-turner, but I discovered by the end that I didn't care much about how the mystery unraveled.  I think I am learning that I am much more a fan of novels that really center around character development and dialogue, and less around plot and intrigue.  This is probably considered a good mystery among mysteries.  For me, it was enjoyable in the moment but not memorable or one I will ponder at all. 

Potok Prevails!

I devoured Chaim Potok's sequel to My Name is Asher Lev, called The Gift of Asher Lev, as well as his first novel, The Chosen, in just one week.  They were both riveting novels - highly recommended.

The Gift of Asher Lev fast forwards about twenty years in Asher's life, and we now find him a married man with two children, and an internationally known and successful artist. Having been exiled to France after creating art as a young man that was seen as a desecration to his Ladover Hasidic community, Asher is now more at home in France than he is in the neighborhood in which he grew up in Brooklyn.  Asher receives word of a death in the family, and needs to return to Brooklyn for just a few days, which turns into several months.  Torn between the desire to create community for his children and reconcile with his parents, and to live a more free and unrestrained life in France, the book navigates loyalty to family and how this can conflict with one's own self preservation.  There are many touching scenes in the book between the characters, thus making it come to life in a way that My Name is Asher Lev did not achieve.  Overall, I suggest reading the two of them together - you won't be able to put them down!

I read The Chosen probably twenty years ago in high school, and I am happy that I took the time to read it again.  The book follows the friendship between Reuven and Danny as they come of age. Reuven lives with his widowed father, who is supportive of his wish to become a rabbi, and who himself has Zionist beliefs.  Danny's father is a rabbi and a highly religious Hasidic Jew, who has raised his son in silence and only communicates with him about the Talmud.  Despite the fact that Danny is expected through his lineage to become a rabbi, he is more interested in becoming a psychologist.  The two boys share their experiences and hardships together, and form a bond despite their different upbringings.  We see these same two characters again in Potok's The Promise.  Again, these would be a great two books to be read in tandem!

Potok's writing is intellectual yet accessible, and brings the reader into the insular world of growing up Jewish in Brooklyn in WWII and beyond.  Not to be missed!

Troubled Bridge Over Water

It all comes full circle for me with my beloved Willa Cather!  Alexander's Bridge, Cather's first novel, was published in 1912, and it was one of the last of her novels that I have read.  Ironically, I read this book in one sitting just a stone's throw away from a bridge that crosses the great Stanislaus River.  The story's protagonist is Bartley Alexander, an engineer who builds bridges.  Torn between his love for his wife Winifred in Boston and his lover Hilda in London who makes him feel alive and youthful, Alexander must navigate these relationships and becomes increasingly tormented.  Perhaps, given all the weight on his shoulders and his inability to move forward in either direction, life comes crashing down on him, literally, when his newest bridge collapses, despite the description earlier in the book as a man who had shoulders that "looked strong enough in themselves to support a span of any one of his ten great bridges...."  Perhaps some heavy handed metaphor here, but for a first novel, it still showed signs of Cather's greatness.  One of my favorite descriptions in the book is how Cather writes of how Winifred's face suggested "stormy possibilities."  One of her better shorter works, but still not comparable to the wonderful My Antonia.

Obscure Cather

Willa Cather's collection of three stories of the West, Obscure Destinies, was published in 1932.  The first story, "Neighbor Rosicky," tells the story of the patriarch of the farm, Rosicky, who cares for his land and his family in Nebraska.  It is a simple story, but a really warmhearted one.  My favorite scene is when old man Rosicky visits his son Rudolph and his daughter-in-law Polly. Worried about how Polly, a city girl, will take to farming life, he goes over to give them his car to borrow so they can go out to a night on the town.  Rosicky takes an apron off a hook and gently pushes Polly out of the way.  Cather writes, "That kind, reassuring grip on her elbows, the old man's funny bright eyes, made Polly want to drop her head on his shoulder for a second."  Cather finds such tenderness in the smallest moments.  The second story, "Old Mrs. Harris," follows the life of Grandma Harris, who is often stoic except when she beams with love for her grandchildren.  The neighbor, Mrs. Rosen often brings over coffee cake and tries to bring Mrs. Harris out of her shell.  As Cather writes, the house in which the Harris family lived was small and "Mrs. Harris and her 'things' were almost required to be invisible."  While Mrs. Harris may not take up very much space figuratively, she doesn't need more than her grandchildren to make her "perfectly happy."  Cather writes of Grandma Harris and her grandsons, "She and the twins were the same age; they had in common all the realest and truest things."  This sentiment really reminds me of Capote's short story, "A Christmas Memory" which follows the friendship of young Buddy and his older cousin Sook.  The final story, "Two Friends" is told from the perspective of a young boy who looks up to two older men in his small town, who "led more varied lives than the other men in our town."  These stories are classic Cather - not my favorites of hers, but still worth reading. 

Don't Pass By McMurtry

 

Larry McMurtry is a prolific writer who spins stories of the American West, many of which take place in Texas.  Having read his Pulitzer prize-winning epic novel Lonesome Dove earlier this year, I was curious to read his earliest (and much slimmer) novel, Horseman, Pass By, written in 1961.  An unsentimental, gritty, atmospheric work, Horseman, Pass By is set against the backdrop of a cattle ranch in post World War II Texas.  Lonnie Brannon is the teenage grandson of Homer Brannon, an honest and hardworking old time cattle man who has owned the ranch for many years.  Homer's stepson Hud also lives at the ranch, and Lonnie is both repulsed by and intrigued by Hud's selfish, ruthless and "mean" ways.  McMurtry brings the tale to life with his description of the ranch landscape, the open sky, and the way a small town can make a person yearn to see the wider world. 

The heart and art of Asher

My Name is Asher Lev, written by Chaim Potok and published in 1972, tells the story of a young boy growing up as a Hasidic Jew in Brooklyn who discovers at an early age that he has a gift.  Asher explores his gift by starting to draw the world around him - the streets near his house, his mother, people he sees in his Brooklyn neighborhood, etc.  Those around him discover that he possesses greatness.  His father dismisses his work as foolishness and wishes that he spend more time on his studies and on honoring his parents.  Torn between Asher and his father is Asher's selfless mother who must carefully balance her love for her son and her husband.  Asher's father believes that his son should be able to control his impulse to create art, and to fight against this "evil."  While Asher feels that his father has "aesthetic blindness," Asher's father is worried about what may be his son's "moral blindness."  The rabbi decides to connect Asher with the great Jacob Kahn (a nonobservant Jew), who takes Asher under his wing and teaches him about many important artists and techniques.  The book culminates with a big art show that Asher has in New York, in which he presents a piece that scandalizes his community, so much so that he is asked to go study at a yeshiva in Paris.  I really loved this book - it is written with crystalline language and captures Asher's passion for art and his love for his family, his mother's devotion and anguish, and his father's struggle between pride for his son and a longing for his son to have followed in his footsteps.  With intellectual savvy and emotional acuity, Potok has created a classic masterpiece. 

A Visit into a Writer's Mind, and to Chile

Ways of Going Home is Chilean writer Alejandro Zambra's third novel, which interweaves the story of the protagonist with the writer of the story, and flashes back and forth from the time of the Pinochet dictatorship to modern day.  It is a poetic, short novel, which captures the mindset of a writer and the insular world of childhood.  An interesting and unique read which sheds light on Chilean life and culture, but not a book that is a stand-out for me.  Zambra is clearly a very talented young writer, with a clear point of view and sparse but lyrical writing style.  

Mere Mortals

Willa Cather's novel My Mortal Enemy, written in 1926, tells the story of Myra Driscoll, a woman of strong character and opinion.  Not my favorite Cather novel (it is over so quickly), but still includes some beautiful passages by Cather, in which she succeeds in very distinctly describing some of the people in the short novel, as follows:

"She looked strong and broken, generous and tyrannical, a witty and rather wicked old woman, who hated life for its defeats, and loved it for its absurdities." 

"I felt that his life had not suited him; that he possessed some kind of courage and force which slept, which in another sort of world might have asserted themselves brilliantly." 

Re-visiting Potent Potok

 

On a recent visit to the library, I was looking for a copy of Charles Portis' True Grit (see earlier review below)  Finding myself in the "Po..." section, Chaim Potok's novel The Promise caught my eye.  Having remembered enjoying The Chosen many years ago, I thought I would take on another Potok work.  The Promise is a wonderful novel in many ways - the construction of the narrative, the pace, the character development, and the deep exploration of ideas in an intellectual yet accessible manner.  I couldn't put it down, and I was very interested to learn what would happen.  The story centers around Reuven Malter, a young man living in post-WWII Williamsburg, Brooklyn, studying to be a rabbi at a yeshiva.  He has a difficult relationship with one of his teachers, Rav Kalman, who takes great issue with his way of interpreting and questioning sacred Jewish texts.  Meanwhile, Reuven becomes intertwined in the life of a troubled teenage boy, Michael, who is a patient of Reuven's good friend Danny, a newly minted psychologist.  I learned a great deal about Judaism in this novel, and it is written in a highly intriguing way.  This is novel of ideas and of great tenderness.  I will be reading more (and maybe all) of Potok's novels, based on the highly satisfying experience contained in the luminous pages of The Promise. 

The Great Western Novel?

At over 800 pages, I was daunted by taking on Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize-winning and legendary tale of the American West, Lonesome Dove.  Filled with heroes and outlaws and "cowboys and Indians," this was a fast moving tale, people with many memorable characters like Lorena, Jack Spoon, July Johnson, and Newt.  Led by Captain August McCrae and W.F. Call, both former Texas Rangers, a group of cowboys band together to organize a cattle drive from Texas to Montana in the late nineteenth century.  Gus McCrae is fun loving, talkative, and adventurous, in comparison to Call's more quiet and serious nature.  This book has it all - plots and sub-plots of love, revenge, loyalty, adventure, hardship, and camaraderie.   It is a consuming, readable, and memorable tale.

Danticat's Haiti

Edwidge Danticat's nonfiction work Brother, I'm Dying, follows her life as a child growing up in Haiti, and being left in the care of her Uncle Joseph when her parents set out to establish a life in America.  Weaving in scenes and memories from both the U.S. and Haiti, Danticat explores the strength of family ties in the face of illness, violence, and distance.  I could not get a really strong sense of Danticat's writing style in this book, so I would be interested to read one of her books of fiction. 

True (or false?) Grit

Having enjoyed Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, I was excited to read another Western classic, Charles Portis' True Grit, first published in 1968.  True Grit tells the story of fourteen-year old Mattie Ross, who sets out to avenge her father's death when she learns that he was killed by a man named Tom Chaney.  Mattie knows she must find a partner in crime for this adventure, and seeks someone with "grit."  This search quickly leaders her to Rooster Cogburn.  The two set out to search for Chaney, and of course encounter many ruffians and other trouble along the way.  Told from Mattie's perspective in deadpan and straightforward language, this is an amusing tale that has garnered a cult following, not to mention that it was made into a John Wayne movie and then was taken on by the Coen brothers as well.  While there is something alluring about the plot, I did not really enjoy the book and would not recommend it.  Much less of a time commitment than Lonesome Dove, but not as good either. 

Hurrah, Chimamandamericanah!

I have read all four of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's books, and Americanah, her latest novel, does not disappoint.  Unlike my favorite of her works, Half of a Yellow Sun, which is taut, explosive, and passionate, Americanah is more meandering and sweeping.  Set in the United States, Nigeria, and London, Adichie explores race, love, and identity that spans across continents and time.  The story centers around Ifemelu, a young woman who leaves Nigeria to study in the United States, and leaves behind her first love, Obinze, who, after living undocumented in London, gets deported back to Nigeria, where Ifemelu eventually lands as well.  The novel traces their separate lives and families, and is infused with great dialogue as well as a refreshing directness, mainly conveyed through Ifemelu's blog.  Adichie is one of my favorite contemporary writers!

Watered Down

I've read great reviews of Jess Walter's novel Beautiful Ruins, so I thought I would get a feel for his writing in his new short story collection We Live in Water.  The stories are quick and punchy, gritty and dark.  In "Anything Helps," a father makes a cardboard sign for donations to get enough money to buy his son the newest Harry Potter book, but his son who he hardly gets to see already read the book at camp.  In "Thief," a father discovers that one of his kids is stealing from the family vacation money jar.  He stakes himself out in the closet with two beers to figure out who it is. 

There was nothing for me to really grab on to with these stories - they were enjoyable and edgy, but not ones that I will remember.