Richard Ford 101

Richard Ford's short story collection Rock Springs is a great introduction to his longer works.  Ford's stories mostly take place in working class small towns, often in Montana, and featuring just a handful of characters.  He usually focuses on men on the cusp of being down and out, on the edge of becoming drifters, about to make decisions that will alter the course of their lives.  In his title story, Ford writes from the perspective of a man trying to figure out how he ended up at a Ramada Inn with a stolen car hidden in the woods and a woman leaving him in the morning.  He writes of more successful lives led, "Through luck or design they had all faced fewer troubles, and by their own characters, they forgot them faster.  And that's what I wanted for me.  Fewer troubles, fewer memories of trouble."  Ford explores the relationships between small nuclear families (often a man, a woman, and their son).  Some of the images in the stories seemed very similar to scenes in Wildlife and Canada, perhaps as early precursors.  For example, in "Optimists," the protagonist writes of "hearing my father's steel-toed boots strike the floor," a similar image to a scene in Canada.  While not uplifting, Ford has a very distinctive writing style that I like very much, though I imagine that not everyone may agree, perhaps finding the dialogue too unrealistic or the moments of intimacy between the characters too forced.  I think this is a great introduction to reading Richard Ford, knowing that his novels (at least the two I have read) are very similar in theme and style.  It is interesting to me to contrast scenes from this book, some of which take place in Montana in the 1960s, to scenes in Doig's The Bartender's Tale, in that the setting is the same but the way it is written about is very different. 

O Pioneers!

O Pioneers! was the first book that Willa Cather wrote as part of her "prairie trilogy."  Written one hundred years ago, with the title of the book based on a Walt Whitman poem, O Pioneers! is a great book that features the Nebraska landscape which is also the setting for The Song of the Lark and My Antonia.  The novel's protagonist is Alexandra Bergson, a Swedish immigrant who came to the United States with her family as a child.  Using her business know-how and instinct, Alexandra is able to help her family's farm grow and prosper.  Other wonderfully drawn characters include Alexandra's brother Emil, the first in his family to go to college (his farmer brothers Lou and Oscar think his education ruined him), the captivating and radiant neighbor Marie, and Ivar, the barefoot elder who lives in a cave and tends to Alexandra's horses in the later years of his life. 

The book explores family relationships, forbidden love, and the experience of working the land.  It is an easy read and a really good story, but my favorite of Cather's prairie trilogy is My Antonia.  Nonetheless, these are some of my favorite lines from O Pioneers!:

"...the all-suffusing brightness of being twenty-one..."
"I'm cowardly about things that remind me of myself."
"Out of her father's children, there was one who was fit to cope with the world, who had not been tied to the plow, who had a personality apart from the soil.  And that, she reflected, was what she had worked for." 
"It was like a sigh which they had breathed together; almost sorrowful, as if each were afraid of awakening something in the other."
"Good night, sister.  I think you did pretty well by us."

The Night Birds

The Night Birds, by Thomas Maltman, is a well researched novel that takes place in the 1860s and 1870s and focuses on the Dakota Sioux uprisings in Minnesota.  Asa is a young boy who comes to know his aunt Hazel, who tells him of his family history, complete with love stories, Ozark healing traditions and folklore, battle scenes, and descriptions of the natural landscape.  The story focuses on the clashes and relationships between the Native Americans and European settlers who populated the area.   While many of the scenes are vivid, I felt that the writing was somewhat labored and did not have a fast enough pace for me.  While it was interesting to learn about the history of a part of the country that I know little about, the book did not hold my interest all the way through. 

My (Awesome) Antonia

Usually I keep a pencil nearby to mark down on my bookmark passages and pages that I want to return to while reading a book.  By the time I reached p. 20 of My Antonia, the classic work of fiction depicting farm life in Nebraska, I had written down really every page number.  I was absolutely blown away by the quality of writing of this work.  The description of the landscape and characters were very vivid.  Cather used very simple language in a poetic manner.   Jim Burden grows up as the neighbor of Antonia Shimerda, a girl with eyes brimming with life and an indomitable spirit.  The novel follows the lives of Jim, Antonia, and their families and friends through their years of childhood into adulthood.  Here are a few of my favorite lines:

"He looked lively and ferocious, I thought, and as if he had a history."
"My grandfather said little.  When he first came in he kissed me and spoke kindly to me, but he was not demonstrative.  I felt at once his deliberateness and personal dignity , and was a little in awe of him."
"I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more.  I was entirely happy.  Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge.  At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great."

I feel that My Antonia surpassed Cather's The Song of the Lark in overall greatness, and I definitely now want to read all of Cather's books.  An absolute pleasure, and it amazes me that a book written nearly 100 years ago can still feel like it comes right to life.  Perhaps an early contender for one of the best books read in 2013!

Doig Does it Again!

I just had the pleasure of reading Ivan Doig's latest novel, The Bartender's Tale, set in Montana in 1960.  Told from the perspective of Rusty Harry, a twelve year old boy, the story focuses on Rusty's relationship with his father Tom, the legendary bartender of the town of Gros Ventre.  While focusing in on small town happenings, Doig also infuses the book with interesting history by introducing a character named Delano who works for the Missing Voices project for the Library of Congress, who is tasked with seeking out "lingua americana" which he finds no shortage of once he befriends Tom and learns about his past.  And while Delano learns about Tom's past, so does his son.  In addition, some rather unexpected folks roll into town that affect the father/son duo. 

Doig's books are so pleasant to read - great dialogue, an interesting array of characters, and a glimpse into small town life.  While the plot is not dense with intrigue and riveting scenes, Doig spins a good old-fashioned tale that is winsome and smart.  Doig's book are just plain fun to read, and great stories to boot.  I will definitely be reading more of his novels soon!

The Sweetest of Thursdays

Not surprisingly, I greatly enjoyed Steinbeck's Sweet Thursday!  I would not say it was one of my favorites of his novels, but it is always a treat to see how Steinbeck describes a place, crafts dialogue, and introduces a motley cast of characters.  Considered a sequel to Cannery Row, the story follows Doc, who works in his homegrown lab named Western Biological to learn about various creatures he finds in tide pools, and Suzy, the new gal in town, as well as an extensive supporting cast including Hazel, Whitey No. 2, Mack, the Seer, and Joseph and Mary (one person!) all who populate Cannery Row in Monterey, CA.  What I love about Steinbeck is his unique way of telling a story - he invents phrases like "tom wallager" and has chapter names such as "There's a Hole in Reality through which We Can Look if We Wish" and "Oh, Woe, Woe, Woe!"  This is a story about our basic humanity that focuses on classic themes such as love, loyalty, friendship.  While not much happens on a grand scale, Cannery Row shows off Steinbeck's way of infusing lyricism into the most regular of human activities - throwing a party, playing matchmaker, helping out a friend, and even and most importantly, making brownies.

Boyd's Brazzaville Beach

I was such a fan of William Boyd's novel Waiting for Sunrise that I decided to read one of his earlier novels, Brazzaville Beach, as my first book to read in 2013.   Boyd did not disappoint!  Brazzaville Beach's protagonist is the gutsy Hope Clearwater who lives and works in Africa, studying the behavior of chimpanzees.  After making a game-changing and unsettling discovery about her subjects, this sets into motion various forms of intrigue.  Complete with love stories, civil strife, kidnappings, and sabotages, the story moved at a fast pace and was full of the bright and dark sides of humanity. 

This was a very engrossing, smart, easy to read novel, and shows off just how versatile Boyd is as a writer, having picked a totally different subject matter, era, and backdrop than Waiting for Sunrise.  Highly recommended, and might be interesting to pair with Ann Patchett's State of Wonder as another far flung tale featuring a female protagonist navigating her career and relationships.