The Best Book of 2014

Posted on September 6, 2014 by alivingpencil

I told myself I’d go slow. No big gulps. Savor the words. Take my time. Reflect. Enjoy.

And I did…the first 36 hours. But last night I had three hours open and three hours left of reading. Turn the light off at 10:00? C’est impossible!

Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good, dear reader, is the best book Jan Karon has written. Like a master chef with discerning taste, Karon has adjusted the flavor of her writing so it is not too sweet, not too bitter, not too peppery, not too bright; but the perfect combination of spices, textures, and taste. There are overtones, undertones, aromas, and the kind of finish that both satisfies and makes you yearn for more.

Laughter plays peek-a-boo throughout the text. Last night I read a section to my husband that required a working knowledge of both The Cat in the Hat and Poe’s The Raven to fully understand the rich humor. When Curt roared at the punchline, I loved him more than I had the minute before. There is humor on the surface, too: the spray tan provides more than a few guffaws.

There are three scenes that sing to the deep recesses of my soul. They, alone, are why I know I will be reading this book again and again. And, perhaps, again.

Jan Karon nourishes. Literary quotes to ponder, authors and titles to explore, music to review, idioms to delight in. And a bookstore—Happy Endings—that plays a big part in the plot. There are also problems that can’t be fixed, people that fail, people that never fail to irritate.

If you’ve read certain kinds of Christian fiction, you are familiar with what I call the two-dimensional didactic. The pasted-on-the-end moral message, the perfect hero and wicked villain, the thin patina of plot splashed on the important main point. Gag. No. Thank. You.

When you read Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good, you learn without any awareness that you are being taught. The subjects are wide ranging: diabetes, exercise, how to help the bereaved (be there), how to say ‘no’, how to cope with retirement, how to give and receive grace.

I love the map of Mitford. I love these phrases:

the benediction of her father’s deep tenderness /
a selfish view that masquerades as noble /
that they would be shielded in their joy /
his favorite tryst for plain talk /
under the stairs, a good place to have a cry /

My favorite phrase describes this book: a plenitude of grace.

The Education of Henry Adams

Posted on August 29, 2014 by alivingpencil

“What one knows is, in youth, of little moment;
they know enough, who know how to learn.”

The reader is subject to serial passions. One series is a fascination with the Adams family. After reading about John Adams, Abigail Adams, John and Abigail’s marriage, John Quincy Adams — the reader took up The Education of Henry Adams. This was not her first attempt, but she was determined to see it through to the end. It took great determination; at the end of Disc 16, she let out a whoop of relief.

Henry Adams was a lifetime learner, an attribute that caused a small measure of affinity between the reader and the subject of the book. (The reader shall be named Lifetime Learner Carol, or LLC.) Adams scorned his formal education in Quincy and at Harvard College, claiming he learned more through travel, studies abroad, friends and mentors. He called this learning “an accidental education.”

Some parts interested LLC: the view of the War Between the States from England; his perspective on Henry Cabot Lodge and Teddy Roosevelt; his opinion of politics, the extensive travels. Other parts, e.g. conflict between Lord Palmerston and Earl Russell, were snoozers. LLC lacked the mental agility to follow the philosophy of the Unity and the Multiplicity. How a man who was a Darwinian for fun, inclined towards anarchy, became enamored with the Virgin Mary…that confused LLC. The distance in thought between John Adams and his great-grandson Henry Adams — more confusion.

Henry Adams omits twenty years of his education, the most painful span of his life. In those decades he married his wife Clover; twelve years later she, in a bout of depression, committed suicide. Some are aghast that Adams does not mention his wife, but LLC believes the omission is consistent the clinical tone of the book.

Adams closes the book, writing about 1905, “For the first time in fifteen hundred years a true Roman pax was in sight…” Tragically, the twentieth century was the least peaceful period of history.

One element is memorable: Henry Adams writes his autobiography in the third person. LLC decided to mimic Henry in this review. If one wants to glean the pithy quotes, one does not need to read 505 pages or listen to 16 discs; look here or here or here.

LLC finds that one book completed yields two books to finish: Henry Adams’ Mont Saint-Michel and Chartres (and then it is good-bye Henry!) and David McCullough’s The Greater Journey, Americans in Paris (but McCullough is always a hello!).

(photograph of her husband taken by Marian “Clover” Hooper Adams, 1883)

A Wreath for Emmett Till

Posted on August 22, 2014 by alivingpencil

This squeezed all the breath out of my soul. Horror. Sorrow from Emmett’s lynching. Beauty—so sharp it stings—of the words woven so we remember Emmett Till.

Emmett Louis Till (1941-1955) was a Chicago boy visiting relatives in Mississippi. Believing that he whistled at a white woman, two men took him from his uncle’s house and murdered him. Mutilated him. The alleged murderers were found ‘not guilty’ but those ‘innocent’ men openly explained how they killed Emmett months after the trial. Emmett’s mother, Mamie, became an activist for civil rights.

Marilyn Nelson’s poem is a heroic crown of sonnets. A sonnet is a fourteen-line rhyming poem. A crown of sonnets links each sonnet together: the last line of the preceding sonnet is the first line of the next sonnet. A heroic crown has fourteen sonnets followed by a fifteenth, made up of the first lines of the first fourteen. This for a boy whose years were fourteen.

Nelson writes:

The strict form became a kind of insulation, a way of protecting myself from the intense pain of the subject matter, and a way to allow the Muse to determine what the poem would say.

The poem is a masterpiece of form, a crown that circles around to the beginning. It is a gruesome subject, but we must bear witness to atrocity. Notes in the back explain what Nelson had in mind with each sonnet, pointing out allusions. This, dear reader, is not obscure poetry. Here is the final sonnet, an acrostic collection of fourteen first lines.

Rosemary for remembrance, Shakespeare wrote.
If I could forget, believe me, I would.
Pierced by the screams of a shortened childhood,

Emmett Till’s name still catches in my throat.
Mamie’s one child, a body thrown to bloat,
Mutilated boy martyr. If I could
Erase the memory of Emmett’s victimhood,
The memory of monsters … That bleak thought
Tears through the patchwork drapery of dreams.
Let me gather spring flowers for a wreath:
Trillium, apple blossoms, Queen Anne’s lace,
Indian pipe, bloodroot, white as moonbeams,
Like the full moon, which smiled calmly on his death,
Like his gouged eye, which watched boots kick his face.

There is an idea, an ancient idea, that flowers represent ideas. If you’ve read or seen Hamlet, you’ll remember Ophelia’s line, “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance.” My sister-in-law and I were talking about this last month; she told me that she often puts some rosemary in a note of condolence. The wreath is woven not only with words, but with flowers as tropes.

Someone—bless you!—recommended Marilyn Nelson’s book, Carver: a life in poems, which I got from the library. I read a third of the way through, stopped and bought the book. The same with Emmett Till: a library book on my Kindle, but I needed to own it. I now anticipate reading all Nelson’s books. Along with Wendell Berry and Billy Collins, Marilyn Nelson is in my list of favorite living poets.

Between Silk and Cyanide, A Codemaker’s War

Posted on August 13, 2014 by alivingpencil

“Put down on a half a sheet of paper what difference silk codes would make to our agents.”
“Half a sheet at most!” echoed Davies.
‘I think it could be done in a phrase, sir!’
‘Oh?’ said Courtauld. ‘We’d be interested to hear it.’
‘It’s between silk and cyanide.’

“This book is not a casual read,” I thought, as I waited for my tire to be repaired. A gargantuan TV, three feet away from me, was blaring the Country Music Awards; I was mouth-breathing, an inefficacious strategy to ignore the overwhelming smell of rubber, and reading three times a paragraph on coded message, attempting to comprehend it. After failed attempts at deciphering acronyms, I made my own code on the inside cover with their meanings.

Knowing the author, Leo Marks, was the son of the owner of the bookshop made famous in Helene Hanff’s 84, Charing Cross Roadwas a big draw to this book. There are many references to the bookshop; it would be helpful, but not essential to have read it first. Although Hanff’s story is set after the war, knowing it provides a fun context.

At twenty Marks begins fighting the Fuhrer with his cryptography skills. He trained agents headed for enemy territory to send and receive messages in a code based on a famous poem the agent had memorized. The problem with poem-codes is that the enemy cryptographers could break the code if they figured out which poem was used. If an agent was captured, he or she would swallow cyanide to keep from telling secrets under torture. The enemy would often continue sending and receiving messages, concealing the knowledge of the capture.

Even as an understudy, Marks understands the the system’s vulnerability. He begins writing original poems for use, a few of which have become famous. Over time he threads together a remarkable innovation to use a one-time, disposable code printed on silk, easily burned after use. This book is the story of his failure and success to spin his silk idea to his superiors.

Marks’ agility with language delights.
→ As a boy he studied the mating habits of the alphabet.
→ A superior officer had a knack for switching on silence as if it were air conditioning.
→ He writes about a desk so small, it was like keeping vigil on a splinter.
→ Could we have a quick word? He was a verbal weight-watcher.

Marks relates the story of his intelligence with self-deprecating jabs.

The need to justify and its sister frailty, the need to boast, were lethal weaknesses in SOE, and the shock discovery that I was prone to both started me worrying about the coders of Grendon.

While his acute concern and the initiatives he made to protect the safety of the agents shows remarkable maturity for a young twenty to twenty-three year man, the bawdiness that occasionally pops up reminds the reader that he was indeed still close to adolescence.

The story of the code-war fascinated me. I enjoyed the book more after I stopped trying to be an agent in training, when I kept going after I read the explanation without understanding. <grin>

On Christmas Eve, 1943, Leo Marks got word that his girlfriend Ruth had been killed in a plane crash in Canada. He wrote this short poem, which he later gave to an agent Violet Szabo. Wikipedia tells me this poem was read at Chelsea Clinton’s wedding.

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours.

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is your and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause.

For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

Ruth Reichl’s Mom

Posted on August 11, 2014 by alivingpencil

“I am so sorry I didn’t pursue a career. In the end it is meaningful work—serving people—that matters most. It is what we are made for.” — Miriam B. Reichl

I stumbled onto Ruth Reichl (RYE-shell) browsing the stacks at my local library. Her voice captured me, her stories engaged me. One by one, I read her memoirs, trying a few recipes tucked in at chapter ends. You could say that she opened the door and welcomed me into the foodie world. I’m still standing in the vestibule, not sure if I belong here, but it is fun looking around.

August and September are months when I listen to audio books by the dozen while I put up food from the garden. I was delighted to rediscover Ruth Reichl and quickly downloaded Not Becoming My Mother: and Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way . (The title changed to For You Mom, Finally when it was issued in paperback.)

Reichl interprets her mother’s life through the lens of family letters and private notes found after her mom’s death. Miriam (“Mim”) was remarkable: got a PhD in music from Paris when she was nineteen, opened a bookshop in her twenties, formed friendships with famous authors, critics, musicians. Thwarted from becoming a physician, told that she was too homely to attract a husband, bereaved of her sister, a disappointment to her parents, she carries an “unhappiness that is palpable”, sits through years of psychotherapy, tries pharmacotherapy, alienates her kids, spirals into deep depression.

Mim’s misery, Reichl insists, stems from the fact that she lacked a career. In the fifties she was one of the smart, competent women twiddling their thumbs. She hated housework, was a dangerous cook, lived in chaos. Out of her extraordinary generosity, the best gift she gave her daughter was permission to defy her. Well, now.

While the sadness clings, I just don’t buy the message. My opinion? Mim was miserable. If she had had a career she still would have been an unhappy career woman.

I applaud when Ruth Reichl in another context says “I don’t think there’s one thing more important you can do for your kids than have family dinner.” But she strikes out with this book.

Where Did English Really Come From?

Posted on July 16, 2014 by alivingpencil

Have you ever stumbled upon one side of an internet debate about a subject which seems obscure to you but is consuming the person writing? That’s what it was like reading John McWhorter’s contrarian book, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue.

The essence of the argument is this:

The real story of English is about what happened when Old English was battered by the Vikings and bastardized by Celts. The real story of English shows us how English is genuinely weird—miscegenated, abbreviated.

[Miscegenation = sexual relations between people of two different races, from Latin miscere (to mix) + genus (race)] There is a Celtic impact on English, McWhorter says, especially from the Welsh and Cornish languages. This Celticness of English has not been acknowledged, so McWhorter is jumping up and down, flinging evidence around to convince the reader, sure, ’tis so.

The first chapter is The Welshness of English. Sigh… I want to visit Wales.

Only language-lovers should read this book of strange focus. Follow the arguments, raise your eyebrow, smile at the coincidences. Just keep reading to scoop up the pearls.

My heap of gems includes:

• Albanian is about 60 percent Greek, Latin, Romanian, Turkish, Serbian, and Macedonian. (My girlfriend has learned Albanian in the last five years: kudos to her!)

• Basque is a language related to no other. (HOW did that happen?)

• English’s closest relative if Frisian, a Dutch relative spoken in the Netherlands.

• This quote made me fizzy with excitement. It still does!

To strike an archaic note, in English we start popping off hithers and thithers. Come hither, go thither, but stay here or stay there. Hither, thither, and whither were the “moving” versions of here, there, and where in earlier English.

• If you’ve read C.S. Lewis’ Surprised by Joy, you know ‘Balder the beautiful is dead.’ The Phoenician-German connection made me say Aha!

And then, the Phoenicians were also given to referring to Baal as Baal Addir (“God great”) — that is, Great God. Sometimes they would write it as one word, Baliddir, or even a shorter version Baldir. And there in that Old High German document is a god called Balder.

I went through the index counting languages which are referenced. Seventy!
I can’t say I was fascinated reading this book, but I can say it was fun reading!

The Double Comfort Safari Club

Posted on June 28, 2014 by alivingpencil

The Double Comfort Safari Club is, I believe, a superb summer read. There’s a little mystery, several chuckles, a few snorts, a large dollop of satisfaction, a sob of grief, and beautiful words like quietude. When is the last time you’ve read quietude? It’s light reading that nourishes and feeds.

There is a moment that capsizes me. It’s when I read a phrase or paragraph that so perfectly captures what I’ve always known, but rediscover as though it is a new truth through the author’s description. That click makes me say Yes!, Of course!, or How did you know?

Here’s what I’m talking about:

Some kind people may not look kind. They may look severe, or strict, or even bossy, as Mma Potokwane sometimes did. But inside them there was a big dam of kindness, as there is inside so many people, like the great dam to the south of Gabarone, ready to release its healing waters.

And this:

…this woman, moved by some private sorrow as much as by the words being spoken, cried almost silently, unobserved by others, apart from Mma Ramotswe, who stretched out her hand and laid it on her shoulder. Do not cry, Mma, she began to whisper, but changed her words even as she uttered them, and said quietly, Yes, you can cry, Mma. We should not tell people not to weep—we do it because of our sympathy for them—but we should really tell them that their tears are justified and entirely right.

What makes me love Precious Ramotswe? The way she thinks of and remembers her late father; her sense of justice and putting things to right; her gratitude for the life she’s been given; her directness when dealing with difficult questions; her acceptance of the imperfections of life; her musings on the changes in Botswana, her unswerving hospitality; her patience with the impetuous Mma Makutsi. In a word, she is kind.

The Blue Castle

Posted on June 21, 2014 by alivingpencil

My first response to The Blue Castle was to draw back from the despair. Lucy Maud! How can you? Because, you see, Anne, the Green Gables girl, had a tough beginning in life and Emily, the New Moon girl, was hurt by horrible aunts and uncles; *but* both Anne and Emily knew she was cherished by her late mother and father.

Valancy Stirling has a mother—alive and kicking—who is overbearing, suffocating, domineering, disrespectful, and mean. We meet Valancy on her 29th birthday, shamed and teased because she hasn’t married. Life has no flavor, living is a grim prospect.

All her life she had been afraid of something…
Afraid of her mother’s sulky fits—
afraid of offending Uncle Benjamin—
afraid of becoming a target for Aunt Wellington’s contempt—
afraid of Aunt Isabel’s biting comments—
afraid of Uncle James’ disapproval—
afraid of offending the whole clan’s opinions and prejudices—
afraid of not keeping up appearances—
afraid to say what she really thought of anything—
afraid of poverty in her old age.

Valancy escapes her horrid little life by fantasizing about living in a Blue Castle in Spain, where beauty adorns her, women admire her and men adore her.

Valance becomes aware of a piece of information, a secret from the family; she throws off her bondage and inhibitions and forthwith says and does what she desires. Her family is shocked—shocked!—and thinks Valancy might suffer from mental illness.

The plot takes some twists and turns, and Valancy ends up living her life of paradise on an island on a lake. L.M. Montgomery includes her hallmark descriptions of the seasons.

They went for long tramps through the exquisite reticence of winter woods and the silver jungles of frosted trees, and found loveliness everywhere.

I am torn by this book. I can’t help but holler hallelujah! when she leaves her loveless family. Happy Independence Day! The happiness she finds is, however, very private, very insular. I doubt that life can be so fulfilling when lived without community. I’m not a fan of what Valancy says about living life to please herself…whoo, boy, that’s a recipe for misery. But I love the compassion she shows to a single mother shunned by society.

I laughed aloud at the imitation swearing comment. A reference that made me snort but will only be caught by those who know old hymns. Maud surely knows how to make fun.

…had her moles removed by electrolysis—which Aunt Mildred thought was a wicked evasion of the puposes of God.

“There are things worse than death,” said Uncle James, believing that it was the first time in the world that such statement had been made.

Valancy lived with me for many days after I finished the book, a sign of a good read.

Playing the Moldovans at Tennis

Posted on June 14, 2014 by alivingpencil

Orthodox church in Chișinău, Moldova (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

So. Tell me what you know about Moldova, eh? Tucked between Romania and Ukraine, the former Soviet country of Moldova is the least-visited country in Europe.

I confess my interest in Moldova had been nonexistent. During a marathon phone call with one of my brothers, he tossed out a random recommendation. “I think you’d like Playing the Moldovans at Tennis,” he said. “It’s about an English guy who bets he can beat the entire Moldovan national football team one by one…playing tennis.”

Sure. Let me write down the title.

[Sidebar: I’ve long wanted to write about reading as an expression of love. If my sibling, or child, or in-law asks me to read a book, I say yes! Unless it is The Silmarillion, in which case I started; alas, I could not finish. I believe it is so valuable to have shared experiences; when you are long-distance, reading and discussing the same book bridges a gap. Reading a book a dear one loves can help you understand each other better. And spending the time to read what he/she recommends is an investment in the relationship.]

Warmth, I was learning, was a luxury commodity in Moldova.

It is quirky. The bet is so eccentric, a limp pretext for a trip to Moldova. But the travel bit is what I appreciated the most. Tony stays with a family, sees life from the inside. It is cold. It is drab. It is dispassionate. It is grim.

People came into this bar to abolish drinks. No passing of the time of day, not even a nod which acknowledged the presence of anyone else; simply a quick fix and then out again. Nurse, give me something to deaden the pain.

When he first visited in 1998 there wasn’t enough money to keep streetlights lit. So people walked the streets in the dark. Tony realizes that stuff he takes for granted in England—being warm and fed—are not givens in Moldova. The transition to independence was not easy. His host family is kind, warm, and helpful.

‘You have to remember,’ she’d said rather poetically, ‘that for more than half a century we have been like caged birds. Now the cage is open we don’t know how to fly.’

I would have enjoyed this book and would recommend it if the tone wasn’t so coarse (f-bombs, body humor, locker-room bawdiness). Tony made a full-length movie of the book, available on YouTube. I’ve only watched 20 minutes, but it might be worth a look.

The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party

Posted on June 6, 2014 by alivingpencil

(Public transportation in Gaborone, Botswana – photo Wikimedia Commons)

Alexander McCall Smith did a good thing when he crafted the character of Mma Precious Ramotswe. In each book, she is consistently the kind, traditional, perceptive, tender-hearted, contented woman I’ve come to regard as my friend.

And yet, he doesn’t filter out all the unsavory aspects of Botswana life. In this 12th book of the No. 1 Ladies Detective series, we see a young mother who treats her children with utter indifference, cattle killed, a menacing man and a cowed woman.

I recently finished The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party, the twelfth book. I’m reading them out of order, according to library availability.

The title of the first chapter is The Memory of Lost Things; could it be an allusion to Proust?

As with every book in this series, I care about Mma Ramotswe’s culture ten times more than whatever mystery needs to be solved. There’s a dig at mobile phones, complainers, fathers who don’t take responsibility for their children. On the plus side is Mma’s abiding love for her late father and for her ‘late’ tiny white van, her compassion for those who suffer, the poetry of night sounds, her gratitude for Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, her encouragement to an undeserving recipient, and the joy of an abundant wedding feast.

There is a tender moment between two bereaved women. I have a late baby, Mma. It is a long time ago. ~ I have a late child too, Mma. McCall Smith understands the permanence of grief. Almost every book has a small reference to the baby Mma Ramotswe lost.

In the end Grace Makutsi marries Phuti Radiphuti, which means she will never have to ride in public transportation again, and she can indulge her love of loud shoes. The wedding doesn’t have the prominence that the title gives it, but that’s OK.

Here is a quote to whet your appetite.

Nowadays, people are always thinking of getting somewhere—they travelled around far more, rushing from here to there and then back again. She would never let her life go that way; she would always take the time to drink tea, to look at the sky, and to talk. What else was there to do? Make money? Why? Did money bring any greater happiness than that furnished by a well-made cup of red bush tea and a moment or two with a good friend? She thought not. 230

A Living Pencil

Solid joys, deep sorrows, aggressive hope

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