Thursday, December 19, 2013

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!

Monday, December 16, 2013

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!

Sunday, December 15, 2013

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.

Sunday, December 8, 2013

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. 

Monday, December 2, 2013

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.