Tag Archives: bookreview

A Time To Be In Earnest

Posted on by
10

A perfect day should be recorded.
It can’t be relived except in memory
but it can be celebrated and
remembered with gratitude.

P.D. James fascinates me.  She writes mysteries containing biblical allusions, phrases from the Book of Common Prayer and broad cultural references. Reading one of her novels, I am bound to learn ten new words, several new authors, poets, works of art, music or architecture.  However, life in jolly England is not all tea and scones.  Murder, infidelity and sex are part of her crime stories: disturbing but never salacious.

She calls her memoir a fragment of autobiography.  I was eager to learn more about a lady who, in a catalog of people I admire, reminds me of David McCullough. Decent. Dignified. Distinguished.

Time to Be in Earnest is written in the format of a diary of Baroness James’ seventy-seventh year. The title comes from a description of a minister in Samuel Johnson’s The Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland: A man who has settled his opinions, does not love to have the tranquility of his convictions disturbed; and at seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.  Notes of her daily life show her to be full of humor, humility, generosity and humanity. And busy! Her speaking schedule fatigued me. She includes time with her family and friends, memories of her childhood, and a potpourri of opinions.  P.D. James is interested in life; hence a journal of her daily life is interesting. 

I was asked for Dalgliesh’s
[Adam Dalgliesh is the chief detective in her series]
views on structuralism–or was it post-structuralism. 
I replied that he had given it careful thought for
a number of evenings and had come to the conclusion
that it was nonsense.
The young chaplain sitting next to me murmured,
“In vain they lay snares at her feet.”

Because of her use of Cranmer’s magnificent cadences (Book of Common Prayer), I was curious if she wrote about her faith. She was born and bred in the distinctive odour of Anglicanism; her mother gave comforting and lively little homilies on which she could hang her gentle moralizing; when asked point blank if she was a Christian, her reply is affirmative with caveats, which she acknowledges is confusing. 

This quote is representative of her prose. I love the sibilance and onomatopoeia of susurration, a word spell-check is unfamiliar with.
 

I stood for a moment in complete silence broken
only by the note of a song bird and the susurration
[a soft, whispering or rustling sound] of the breeze
in the wayside grasses. It was one of those moments
of happiness and contentment which give reality to death,
since however long we have to live,
there are never enough springs.
 

The appendix contains the full talk P.D. James gave to the Jane Austen society on 18 July, 1998. You can read all but a few pages of Emma Considered As a Detective Story here. Austen fans will love it!
        

She Married a Scottish Laird

Posted on by
5

 


I knew when I married the man that I married the mansion.

This is on my short list of great first sentences.  (N.D. Wilson’s (Leepike Ridge) is hard to beat: In the history of the world there have been lots of onces and lots of times, and every time has had a once upon it.)

On Rick Steve’s recommendation (in a UK guide book) I read Belinda Rathbone’s memoir The Guynd (rhymes with the wind). It is a poignant account of an American woman who marries a modern Scottish Laird.  Does this sound romantic? The stuff of Jane Austen, Robert Louis Stevenson, or the Brontë sisters?  Their quirky courtship is more dalliance than alliance.

When she married the laird, he offered her the land.  But the Guynd is not Pemberley; no servants dusted and hoovered the carpets.  “I had left Mansfield Park and entered Bleak House.”  Overwhelming effort is required to restore the run-down Georgian house and 400-acre estate.  But “the Lady” has determination and energy and good taste.  When they roll up the brown linoleum that was put down during WWII her spirits pick up the promise of more dramatic change. Anyone interested in interior decorating will join in the excitement.  Photos here.

I had no experience with rooms of these proportions or with architecture of this gravity. Small gestures were lost in the spaces, but large gestures were all the more daunting.

Different sensibilities and priorities create tension between John and Belinda.  The story begins with a crumbling mansion and ends, sadly, with a decaying marriage.  Belinda writes exceedingly well of modern Scotland: landowner-tenant relationships, tea rituals, famous frugality, education, sense of time, and the bitter cold.

So one learns to appreciate the native frugality within the context of generations upon generations of people born to poverty, and understand why the Scots might be inordinately grateful for small things and careful with what they have. When times are hard the Scots are better prepared for them than most of us, for a life of hardship is never buried too deep in the Scottish memory.

It was an easy/hard read.  For the portrait of Scotland, and the well-crafted prose, it was engaging, winsome, even charming.  For the heart-ache and depleted spirit, the seeming futility and failure of restoration and of relationship, it was depressing.

Marriage is like a house, I thought, staring up at a crack in the bedroom ceiling. It’s a shelter, first of all. And it needs to be kept in good repair. Signs of water seeping through the wall need to be investigated before the paint begins to flake off, a bare patch is exposed, the fabric begins to crack, and the job of fixing it is too discouraging, too expensive, simply the last thing you can be bothered to do.            

 

No Dark Valley

Posted on by
10

I am unenthusiastic about contemporary Christian fiction.

I’m not sure how this title ended up on my shelf, but I  gave it a go.  No Dark Valley is a phrase from a hymn (There’ll be no dark valley when Jesus comes to gather his loved ones home).  As a resolute lover of robust hymns, I found the best part of No Dark Valley to be Turner’s employing hymn phrases into chapter titles and into her prose, e.g. Ten Thousand Charms; Where Bright Angel Feet Have Trod;  Some Melodious Sonnet; Frail Children of Dust; And Grace Will Lead Me Home.  I’m often snipping little phrases from hymns for a bouquet of words.  This, alone, made the book worth reading.

There was a laugh out loud moment: … Grandmother’s pastor, who seemed to be trying to depict the concept of eternality by the length of his prayer. 

The protagonist, Celia, is a director of an art gallery.  The last five books I’ve read have referenced pieces of art, a delightful rabbit trail. No Dark Valley paired paintings and poems inspired by the paintings, a worthy exploration.  Here is Delmore Schwartz’s poem Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon Along the Seine; Cathy Song’s poem Girl Powdering Her Neck based on a Kitagawa Utamaro print; a Charles DeMuth, William Carlos William pairing.

I liked the hymn phrases and fine art references.  When she isn’t highlighting fine art, Turner pokes some fun at kitsch: Their idea of good art was sticking a calendar picture or an old greeting card inside a frame from Kmart.  And later: Her idea of good art was the newest Precious Moments figurine.

But the writing did not win me.  The reader is told in almost every chapter about Celia’s angst and remorse; the subtlety of showing Celia’s feelings by her facial expressions, position of her hands, physical responses would have been better. That, along with a predictable storyline and wooden characterization, haven’t changed my opinion of contemporary Christian fiction.
 
   

Hans Brinker – A Sterling Story

Posted on by
6

Hans Brinker is a sterling story. 

Like a meal at a four-star restaurant it is delicious, beautiful and nourishing.  But a taste for delicious, beautiful and nourishing must be cultivated.  I would not serve Mary Mapes Dodge’s classic  Hans Brinker to a child who has been fed a steady diet of literary Happy Meals.  But a boy or girl who has tasted Laura Ingalls Wilder, Robert Louis Stevenson, Louisa May Alcott or Ralph Moody would eat this story up.

The setting, the time period and cultural references are foreign, and thus require some work to read.  Published in 1865, the story is set in the Netherlands.  Imagine weather so cold that the canals froze.  What would American families do?  Stay inside and watch TV.  In nineteenth century Holland every able bodied person laced on his skates, bundled up and had fun skating! 

There are benefits to reading it slowly, using tools such as Google Earth, search engines and maps to explore areas of interest.  Rabbit trails abound!

• Were the telescope and microscope invented by the Dutch Jacob Metius and Sacharias Janssen or by the English Roger Bacon? 
• A group of boys skate to Leiden and The Hague: look it up!
• Why did the art of curing and pickling herrings revolutionize the economy of Holland?

Any reader with a whiff of curiosity could learn a fair bit about Holland by reading Hans Brinker alone, in concert with other reference tools, or alongside other books like The Wheel on the School.  References to art abound; use Hans Brinker as a springboard for studying Dutch artists.  

Some favorite quotes:

Never had the sunset appeared more beautiful to Peter than when he saw it exchanging farewell glances with the windows and shining roofs of the city before him.

It is no sin to love beautiful things.

A tamed bird is a sad bird, say what you will.

Although the sermon was spoken slowly, Ben [English boy] could understand little of what was said; but when the hymn came, he joined in with all his heart. A thousand voices lifted in love and praise offered a grander language than he could readily comprehend.


Who will be the fastest skater in the race and win the Silver Skates?  Read Hans Brinker to find out!

Provence with MFK Fisher

Posted on by
2

If you were to ask foodies who the best food writer of the twentieth century is, MFK Fisher would show up on everyone’s list.  She is on my short list of food writers I’ll never tire of reading (along with Robert Farrar Capon, Ruth Reichl, Julia Child, and Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin). 

Since I’ve only read one book by MFK Fisher, How to Cook a Wolf, I picked up Two Towns in Provence, two books bound into one.  The two towns are Aix and Marseilles. But there is precious little about food here. These memoirs focus on the people in Fisher’s daily life in Southern France: the waiter at her favorite cafe, her doctor, the proprietress where she boarded,  taxi drivers, a couple whose window faced theirs, fish wives, mendicants, students, even strangers whom Fisher repeatedly sees. 

Fisher is a sculptor and words are her tools.  She chips away the banalities and highlights the quirks and mannerisms unique to her subjects.  Her characters are not wooden; they were warm and vibrant. 

Both books would have benefited from stronger editing.  Sections could have been cut, leaving a tight, cohesive memoir.  I had to push myself through parts, knowing Fisher’s characters and turns of phrase would eventually reward me. 

The few people that used [the only bath in the hotel] evidently felt that this price [$0.10] included full maid service, but the two overworked slaveys in the hotel did not, so that I usually cleaned the tub in self-protection. I decided then that many people are latently swinish and that I would rather work anywhere than in a hotel.

I am intrigued by the skilled synthesis of fast and slow people in this description of the Two Sisters restaurant in Marseilles (emphasis mine).

What we see is the top of the iceberbg, as in any good restaurant. Beneath it is the real organization: the staff, both seen and invisible, the provisions, constantly checked and renewed; the upkeep of the whole small tight place, with all its linens, glasses, table fittings, and its essential fresh cleanliness. Above all, there is the skilled synthesis of fast and slow people, that they will work together on bad days and hectic festivals, through heat waves and the worst mistrals.

If you are a Francophile, you should probably read this book.  For the rest, pick up one of Fisher’s other titles.

The Peterkin Papers

Posted on by
2

The Peterkin Papers reminds me of a young child who tells a joke that makes everyone laugh. Then she tells the same joke again and again and again and again, looking for the same satisfying response. 

The Peterkins–Mr. and Mrs., Agamemnon, Elizabeth Eliza, Solomon John, and various unnamed younger brothers–are a family with lofty aspirations and nothing to ground them.  If the Christmas tree is too tall for their living room, they raise the ceiling instead of cutting the tree down to size. In short, they are silly fools. The lady from Philadelphia is their salvation. After they’ve exhausted their harebrained ideas, she solves their problem with one sentence of common sense.

The foolishness is funny at first blush, but gets tiresome quickly.  On the plus side, the illustrations are well done, complementing the text.  The chapter on Agamemnon’s education entertained me because it was close enough to the truth to be very funny. This is the best taste of the book I can offer.

Agamemnon had always been fond of reading, from his childhood up. He was at his book all day long. Mrs. Peterkin had imagined he would come out a great scholar because she could never get him away from his books.

And so it was in his colleges; he was always to be found in the library, reading and reading. But they were always the wrong books.

For instance: the class were required to prepare themselves on the Spartan war. This turned Agamemnon’s attention to the Fenians, and to study the subject he read up on Charles O’Malley and Harry Lorrequer, and some later novels of that sort, which did not help him on the subject required, yet took up all his time, so that he found himself unfitted for anything else when the examinations came. In consequence he was requested to leave.

Agamemnon always missed in his recitations, for the same reason that Elizabeth Eliza did not get on in school, because he was always asked the questions he did not know. It seemed provoking; if the professors had only asked something else! But they always hit upon the very things he had not studied up.

Mrs. Peterkin felt this was encouraging, for Agamemnon knew the things they did not know in colleges. In colleges they were willing to take for students only those who knew certain things. She thought Agamemnon might be a professor in a college for those students who didn’t know those things.

Fine Art Friday – Board Books

Posted on by
4


I am delighted with these board books!
They tell a story using the artist’s illustrations.
They just came in the mail today
so I haven’t given them a “test drive”
with my grandsons yet.

I can’t imagine the boys will be impressed with Degas’ ballerinas.
I’m guessing Henri Rousseau’s sailboats, jungles, monkeys and deer
will wow them. And Van Gogh is especially lovely.



Mary Cassatt just IS my favorite Impressionist.
This book ends with Breakfast in Bed.
I should think it would be a calming bedtime story.



At the time of writing, there were 17 used Monet books for $0.01!
It costs $3.99 for shipping.



12 used Renoirs selling for $0.01!


In the Garden with Van Gogh
15 used Van Goghs selling for $0.01!
It has First Steps, Starry Night, and Irises.
I’m particularly fond of this book.
Good for boys and girls.


A visual feast!



A Magical Day with Matisse
A dozen used Matisse books selling for $0.01!



Dancing with Degas
21 used Degas books selling for $0.01!
Wouldn’t this make a cute baby gift?


Painting with Picasso (Mini Masters)
My least favorite, but I’m curious
what the kids think.

I’m participating in Saturday Review of Books.
Shoot, I buy/swap/borrow many books because of reviews there.
Click on the icon to find out more.

SatReviewbutton

A Modern Gothic Thriller

Posted on by
7

But it’s a brave old house, Hugh.
And the name is Gaelic, not English:
‘fear’ is spelled ‘fir’ or ‘fhir,’
sometimes, and it means ‘man.’
Old House of Fear is Old House of Man.

Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey meets John Buchan.  (Not exactly: Northanger is a parody of Gothic novels. But I have an extremely limited supply of Gothic references.)  Russell Kirk’s  Old House of Fear, set on an island in the Outer Hebrides (Scotland) has all the necessary ingredients for a modern Gothic thriller: a Scottish castle, mist, mysteries, death, secrets, romance, a dying octogenarian, a beautiful maiden, an evil tyrant physician, and, of course, a brave daring hero who rescues the maiden.        

Kirk does an excellent job of pacing this page-turner.  I admit to being late to work one morning because I had to know what happened next.  Hugh Logan, our hero, reminds me of Buchan’s spy, Richard Hannay: intelligent, shrewd, tough, daring; an excellent foe for the evil Dr. Edmund Jackman.  Mary MacAskival, the twenty-year-old captive of Dr. Jackman, is spunky, steady, fierce, spritely, loyal. She is a girl with gumption.

Old House is well-written and a clean Gothic: the thrill of the chase minus vampires, werewolves, sex, demons and skeletons.  
 
Time Magazine’s 1961 review

                    

Zarafa, A Curious Book for the Curious Reader

Posted on by
1

  

The cover of Zarafa: A Giraffe’s True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris caught my eye and came home with me from the bookstore a few years back.  Last month while I was browsing my gold mine of books to read–wanting something different–this caught my imagination.

The book has a map that shows the starting and ending places of Zarafa’s journey from Khartoum to Paris.  The prologue (you can read it here) will delight the heart of any reader blessed with curiosity. The author provides the context of how he discovered the story of a giraffe given by an Egyptian ruler to the king of France in 1827.  A special ship was built to accommodate Zarafa who walked to Paris from Marseille .

If you are the curious type, you will enjoy reading this fascinating book.  If you are particularly interested in Egypt, Napoleon, Muhammad Ali (not the former Cassius Clay!), Muslim-Christian relations, the Rosetta Stone, giraffes, travel or the nineteenth century don’t delay in getting this title. Most of the charming illustrations are from nineteenth century artists. 

Fun facts I learned from reading this book:

The Nile is shaped like the letter S in Sudan.

Printing presses brought to Egypt by Napoleon were later used by Muhammad Ali to modernize Egypt.

Of all land animals, giraffes have the largest eyes…enabling them to communicate with one another visually from as far as a mile away.

Zarafa walked 550 miles from Marseille to Paris in 41 days.

This book will do for folks allergic to history what Longitude did for this science shy person.

A children’s book, The Giraffe That Walked to Paris, was written by Nancy Milton about Zarafa.

Why PD James is my favorite mystery writer

Posted on by
13

  

I just finished another Adam Dalgliesh book, A Certain Justice.  Adam Dalgliesh is the main character of fourteen mystery novels. I like mysteries more than science fiction, westerns, horror and thrillers—but less than memoirs, travel, histories and humor.  I prefer spacing mysteries out, inserting them between heavier reading.  And my “go to” mystery writer is P.D. James. 

The mystery part of the book is always secondary for me.  I love the culture, the commentary, the specificity behind James’ writing. One of her characters doesn’t turn on classical music while he drives; he listens to Elgar’s Serenade for Strings. 

James is conversant in the Bible and The Book of Common Prayer.  If you know your Books, you will recognize phrases and allusions.  Adam Dalgliesh is the son of an Anglican rector, who embraces the trappings of his childhood but does not hold to the faith of his father.  Theological and philosophical questions are naturally raised. Death is present in every book (she is, after all, a murder mystery writer); reckoning with mortality tends to get one beyond the mundane.  

And she is British.  (happy sigh)   

Here is a sampler from A Certain Justice.

Do you want a cup of tea?  A cup of tea.  That English remedy for grief, shock and human mortality.

The affair now was beginning to have some of the longueurs of marriage, but with none of marriage’s reassuring safety and comfort.

But there was in his bearing the innate dignity of a man who is at ease with his work, does it well and knows that he is valued.

What I wrote when I first discovered P.D. James