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!