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January Books Part 2

Although I did not actually feel like I was reading obsessively in January, it seems that I did read a lot of books. Partially this is simply because I have been more diligent about getting books from the library instead of buying them, and I am loathe to return a book unread. There are times when I grow frustrated at the random way books appear, but the simple truth is that as much as I intend to be intentional with my reading, I rarely am. More often than not, what I read happens to be whatever I happen to pick up, which ultimately means the library stack does provide a sort of impetus for reading as opposed to allowing myself to wallow in other mindless pursuits. Of course this doesn't solve the problem that once my nose is in a book, the world could fall away before I would notice.

I also have gone to the salt spa fairly regularly, and this gives me a series of 45 minute increments in which I tend to read. Many of these books are fairly easy reading, 1 1/2 to 3 hours, if you are, like me, a fairly fast reader. The curse of being a fast reader is that it usually takes me longer to come to terms with my thoughts on a book than it takes to actually read it, and one of the reasons I like books more than movies, aside from the whole bit about spurring imagination and all that, is that a great majority of movies are made from books that take more or less 2 to 3 hours to read, and reading is far more entertaining than 2 hours at a movie.

There I've said it. Forgive me.

Anyway, above are the books I read in the second half of January. Notice there are more books than in the first half of January, but as I said above most of them were easy reads. Out of this grouping, I am tickled that my favorite books were the shortest, namely Gratitude by Oliver Sacks, at about 45 pages and 15 to 20 minutes of reading time, and the longest, American Ulysses, at 659 pages, which I dawdled over for two weeks. American Ulysses was not a library book, and although I originally requested Gratitude from the library, I have since purchased a copy at our local second hand bookstore, to be added to my small collection of books on dying and grief.

But, onto the books:

The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride was simultaneously easier to read than the author's first novel and more difficult. The text was more coherent, closer to the way we perceive our own random thoughts, and so there was a more immediate connection with the reader, but the cost was too high in that the prose lost that poetic sense of flow that was so evident in McBride's first novel, difficult as the language and the story itself was for the reader. In The Lesser Bohemians, McBride's prose did capture that flush of intensity one feels when falling in love, but ultimately this not sufficient for carrying a novel. Perhaps it is just me, but alas, I fear that an extended preoccupation with the emotional whirlwind of first love is only fascinating to those who a caught up in its nets.

In The Woods by Tana French. I read Tana French's most recent novel las fall, and although I enjoyed it, it was not one of my favorite novels. I wished, and still wish, having now read the first novel in the Dublin Murder Squad series, that I had read these previous novels first. The novel was full of twists and I love the way the author managed he overlapping of the procedural and psychological elements of the story, as well as that sense that the reader was caught up in the unravelling of case and detective simultaneously. Much more difficult than it sounds. I will read more, and will probably eventually reread the most recent novel.

Commonwealth is probably the best book I have read by Anne Patchett since Bel Canto. In fact, this novel is perhaps more clearly realized, but I continue to prefer the former. It is an excellent novel about families, love, betrayal, and the things that both bind us together and wrench us apart. (Often they are the same things.) I liked the way the author focused on specific events or moments, not necessarily told in chronological order, as I do increasingly feel that this is what is important in how we live and are shaped by our lives. It is not the day-to-day, but moments that have repercussions beyond what was imagined, that shape us. One poignant moment in this novel that continues to stick in my memory: the story about how the children would conspire to leave Albie, the youngest behind. They drugged him. I never did anything that drastic, but it reminds me of the way we felt as children toward my youngest brother on occasion, how the older children were held accountable, and the story of the time my parents left my youngest brother behind. It is a story in which I am complicit, but it did not end up the way one might expect. And it strikes me that this is twice in this month that I have thought of that story, and twice I have said I will perhaps tell it at a later date. and yes, perhaps someday I will.

What is Populism by Jan Werner Muller is a short, well-written and intelligent tract. And I believe the author makes very important points that can be related to the current situation in our country and culture. I say this regardless of where one stands on the issues. This is not a political blog, and I have my thoughts and reasons, which I may or may not someday elucidate. Let us just say that we each have our gifts, and our place in the world, but that does not mean we should shut the door.

The Night Bird by Brian Freeman. I must admit that I haven't read "kindle first" books very frequently of late and this is a book that I purchased for free through this program. It was the perfect book for reading on airplane, or for a visit to my mom: gripping enough, fast paced enough, but ultimately forgettable psychological thriller, distracting but not requiring extensive thought.

Selection Day by Aravind Adiga. I had been looking forward to this book, and I was on the waiting list for some time. I suppose this is one of the problems with library books. If I buy a book for my kindle and don't read it right away there is no sense of anticipation involved, but if I request a book, and I have to wait for weeks or months, the build up to reading becomes monumental. As usual with Adiga, the novel was about more than it appears to be about. A novel about cricket in Mumbai is actually about India and Mumbai, about fathers and sons, about class, culture, competition, ambition and obsession. But in the end I felt the author's control unraveled. Although ti shows with great clarity the cost of poverty and ambition, especially selfish ambition without consideration of the costs, it lacked the hard driving anger and punch of some of Adiga's previous novels.

I have already told you that Gratitude by Oliver Sacks was one of my favorite books, and that it is short. It is basically a compilation of essays that appeared in the New York Times after the author knew he was dying. The essays are calm and beautifully written. The book is both very simple book and yet complex, as peace is complex to those of us who don't yet understand it.

American Ulysses by Ronald C. White was my other favorite book of the month. I mentioned it previously here. It is a fabulous biography of a man I have long admired, probably since I first read Grant's Memoirs in my twenties, and which I need to read again. Perhaps I am simply biased, recognizing a fellow introvert, a man of intelligence and thought, who was often misunderstood in early life. There was more than one point in this book where I broke down in tears.

The financial lives of the poets by Jess Walter. More or less reviewed here.

Browsings by Michael Dirda, For the most part I enjoy Dirda's essays, which is odd because I really don't agree with his taste in books. But I suppose that is one of the talents of we humans, that we can recognize and accept joy in others, even others with whom we disagree. Remember this. I read the book over the course of two sessions in the salt spa (1 1/2 hours) and they were entertaining enough and thought provoking enough to cause me to question my own peccadillos. Enough of that.

Peacock and Vine by A.S. Byatt. I truly enjoy Byatt's novels, and yet I was disappointed in this book. I suppose I thought that it seemed like a happy marriage, a writer whose work I admire writing about two artists whom I also admire. And yet it did not live up to its potential. The book was interesting, but it seemed filled with rote rehashing of facts, and was perhaps more Byatt than either Morris or Fortuny. Alas, I felt the Byatt revealed in this tract seemed mired in clay. Perhaps it is just me.

February 4, 2017
Two Books, Two Paintings, Elusive Connections

I finished reading Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle last night. I had never read it before. Although the book was written in the 1940s and is set in England in the 1930s, there are aspects of the story, aspects of Cassandra's telling of the story, that, although not quite timeless, seem to exist outside of time. Cassandra's thoughts, the way she tells the story, are unique to themselves, and they are simultaneously modern and at the same time seemingly incomprehensible to modern readers. It is a story of place, of people, a story of first love, of bad decisions and good decisions, and how we are shaped by our circumstances to a large part, but again only partially. It is a story of capturing not only a place, but one's voice, and discovering who one might be.

This morning, as I think about the novel, I am also thinking about the exhibit of the work of Jered Sprecher that opened last week at the Knoxville Museum of Art. The paintings have been much on my mind. I was fortunate enough to attend an opening reception, and I've been back to see the works twice. With each visit I see differently. In fact, the work resonates at some frequency in my brain such that as I move through my days and thoughts, new connections are made and fleeting images from Sprecher's work flash through my thoughts and I am compelled backward (to the exhibit) and forward as well. Which is, of course, exactly what art should do, in whatever medium.

This morning I am thinking about a series of paintings from the exhibit, a set of six that were created, and displayed, as a group, a small exhibit within the larger exhibit. I did not take any photos of these pictures, and have not found them online. No matter, flat photographs show nothing of the depth of technique or the layerings of meanings. The photo above is from the Knoxville Mercury, which did an article on Sprecher and the exhibition, and the paintings I am referring to are visible only in part, on the sides of this photo. This actually works for me, for my purpose here, because one of the aspects of this grouping of paintings that struck me is the layering of images, of places and things, combined with a sense of time both occluded and revealed. You can see the lines going across the paintings, described as being inspired by the lines of a printer across the page, and fading ink. This sense of modern versus ancient, of what is hidden and what is revealed, in fact a sense that the hiding and the revealing are transient and elusive are captured in these paintings.

This morning this idea of what is revealed and what is hidden is refreshed in my head by Cassandra's own journey in the novel, by what she sees and writes, and what is revealed, often much later, only through the process of writing, of introspection, of interaction and relationship, and the sudden moment where one cries "Oh!". Revealed and yet elusive.

I am also reminded of a book I read last week, Jess Walter's The Financial Lives of the Poets, which is interesting in its sense of capturing a time and a place, but less successful in terms of that sense of being able to transcending its own time and specific circumstances. It is a novel that captures very well that sense of panic and hopelessness of its period, of the post 2008 housing crisis, job crisis, that sense of desperate hanging on. It is a novel of bad decisions, drawn in sharp relief, and eventual redemption. The main characters could in many ways be everyman or everywoman, young people filled with hopes and dreams, trying to fulfill their own dreams of what they can be, but making decisions based primarily on the yearnings within themselves looking for fulfillment, working past each other out of their own need rather than together with a sense of relationship and common purpose. Cassandra and Rose make equally poor decisions in I Capture the Castle, but they manage to grow up and redeem themselves more quickly whereas Matt and Lisa's lives break into many pieces before they begin to find some sense of comfort in each other, and the book only ends with that hint of redemption, of finding, but without guaranteed resolution.

As I was reading Walter's book last week, I was reminded of the painting above, also by Sprecher, titled Bloom. This was the first echo that drove me back to the museum, the way a memory of this painting popped into my head, although I think it did not carry great weight in my imagination that first evening. Birth, rebirth, flight, memory, the breaking apart and the joining together, the movement of air, our own fractured view of reality — circling back upon itself to birth, rebirth, redemption. We cling to the moment of beauty, as if that can save us. Instead we drown. The blossom, in all its fragility, is also the source of a new birth, a new seed, and its own death. Over and over again, like the beating of wings.

top photo courtesy of Knoxville Mercury, here.

bottom photo courtesy of Gallery 16, here.

February 2, 2017
First Books, 2017

I seem to go in cycles with books; I read a lot, then I don't read much, then I read a lot again. I tend to say it helps that I am a relatively fast reader, except that sometimes it doesn't help at all. I'm not good at slow reading, something I alluded to in my end-of-year book post as concerns the novel My Brilliant Friend, a book I recently reread and finished, and not surprisingly, loved. But at this point, having started and stopped it more than once it feels more like an old friend rather than something new, and I don't feel particularly inclined to write about the book. Perhaps I will regret that later, perhaps not. I can say that reading it, even reading it in multiple attempts has affected my reading of other books, the associations I make and the connections I fabricate in my own inner narrative. But then again that is what we all do, part of the process of the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive our own lives. Something either affects the narrative or it is cast aside, although sometimes things we think we cast aside come back to haunt us.

My Brilliant Friend was only one of the five books I read in the first half of January. Of the three novels, it was probably technically the best, but each one has its own merits, and each one has played its own part in my own mental narrative, so that I can't quite distance myself enough yet to pick favorites. You know of course, that sometimes our favorite books are not necessarily the best books. Or maybe that is only a distinction that only affects those of us who are overeducated and prone to overthinking. I shall be one of the first to raise my hand.

The two other books pictured above, Cynthia Crysdale's Transformed Lives and Mark McIntosh's Mysteries of Faith, are books that are part of the EFM curriculum. I am in my fourth year, the year focused on theology, and the program is a good forum for one to review source materials, history, culture, and, in the process of speaking with others, form a clear and coherent personal statement of faith and belief. I am not one to say what that faith or belief should necessarily entail, as each journey is a personal one, even as I acknowledge that the EFM curriculum is based in the Christian tradition.

Anyway back to the books. The class as a whole just finished Crysdale, and I enjoyed it very much. I think the McIntosh is the better book, at least from my perspective, except that I am not technically supposed to have finished it yet, and therefore cannot comment further. I still have several weeks of discussion centered around this book ahead of me, but I think that I personally am much better off having read it of a piece, and referring back, much the same way I wished I had done the same thing with the Ferrante read-a-long, than I would be dragging this book out over months. I have simply come to accept that I find stringing small books out over weeks or months to be more stressful than just reading through them. I may be in the minority, given the popularity of adult education classes that spend months on books, just like this tome by McIntosh. So be it. There must be a few of us in any crowd. For a while I wondered how I got through college, until I remembered that I went to the kind of college where I read a book a week for each class, often a thousand or more pages per week, and thought my life was pretty easy.

I do have to say that Mysteries of Faith book has been instrumental in cementing my own awareness of my thoughts on the meaning of life, on purpose, on God, and why we are all here, not so much because of what the author says, and I do sometimes think he becomes overwhelmingly circular in his arguments, but because of the way the author has started a conversation that has led me to think and question and formulate my own questions and answers. And I suppose that this is what the study of theology, at least from a lay position, is all about. To quote a previous book, "we are all theologians", we all form our own stories and meanings and sense of purpose in life, no matter the framework we use to define that purpose. And if we live in the United States, much of that cultural baggage has been framed by Judaism and Christianity whether we personally adhere to those beliefs or not. You can't really know where you stand unless you know where you are, and perhaps how you came to be here in the first place. Perhaps it is time to take a stand toward openness and acceptance. Of course you can't take such a position if you are mired in quicksand. You have to build your own foundation, one that can bend in the winds without toppling over, one with roots that grow deep and strong, and then you can open your arms to the world.

January 19, 2017
Weekend Review: Doing Much, Doing Little, and a Wizard Redux

The past weekend was a busy one, and although most of the busyness, at least on my part, was of the driving or sitting and watching with rapt attention variety, it was still enough for me, as I continue to recover from whatever it was I had. I never had a fever, so I never had blood work, and don't know if I had the flue or anything serious; more likely just a series of unfortunate sinus infections and unfortunate setbacks caused by doing too much too soon. But it could have been worse, and given my own tendency to not go to the doctor, I'll never know. The hardest part now is admitting that, although I am no longer sick, I am still tired, and that it is ok to tell myself not to do things, especially when those are things I would really like to do even though I know there would be consequences.

But on to the weekend. Saturday was the first Winter Farmer's Market of 2017, and as you can see above, I managed to pick up some lovely vegetables. I had also arranged to pick up my meat CSA from Jem Farm and was ready, sturdy bag in tow. The timing proved to be most propitious as somehow the available cuts proved to be exactly what was needed for the meals I had been dreaming of cooking. And, having recovered enough to cook, and finding myself with an almost empty larder, much of that local goodness has already been put to use, becoming stock, and soup and a large pot of spaghetti sauce.

There wasn't much time for cooking on Saturday however. I actually squeezed my farmer's market trip in between my grandson's basketball game and his black belt test. After basketball, where Owen scored twice, I headed east toward downtown to the farmer's market, shopped as efficiently as possible and headed home with my loot, only to head way out west to the tae kwon do studio for the test. Owen did fabulously well, and it was fun to watch and admire the focused young man he is becoming, and think about how far he has progressed since I would take him to TKD lessons 2 years ago..

After the test, we all headed out for a late and well deserved lunch. I had planned on going to the 4:05 showing of Fences, and since it was nearly 3 by the time we finished lunch and headed off on our separate ways, I thought I would stay in town. Luckily I had a book with me.

Or perhaps not so lucky after all, as I ended up not going to the movie. One of the books I am currently reading is Ronald C. White's biography of US Grant, American Ulysses, and it was the book I had with me that afternoon. Perhaps it was not the best choice. I love the book and am finding it fascinating, but on Saturday afternoon I started reading about the battle of Shiloh, and I got so involved in the reading, and the memories reading about the battle evoked, memories of going to the Shiloh battlefield site, of walking those fields, one of the most haunted and holy places I have ever been. In the end, although I was aware of the time, I couldn't go to the movie. Instead I went home and took a long walk with Tikka, and settled for a lovely dinner of salmon, bok choy and oyster mushrooms accompanied by more reading.

Sunday was another busy day, more running around, a couple of social gatherings and my grandson's school play. Once again I managed to take a walk, slightly less successfully this time, as the humidity was high, and the dampness in the air brought on a prolonged coughing fit which required me to sit back and rest for far longer than I would have liked.

I did make it to the play however, and had a fabulous time. I do think it was the best production I had seen yet, and the production and the set where charming and imaginative. Besides, how can anyone complain about seeing the Wizard of Oz twice, in two separate (and markedly different) productions in little over a week?

Owen really seemed to enjoy himself in the dual role of Professor Marvel/The Wizard, and it was a joy to watch him in the play. I admit I enjoyed my doting grandma role as well, snapping pictures like crazy, applauding and smiling constantly at all the perfect details.

Lucky, Lucky Me.

January 18, 2017
Five Things Friday

Let's see if I can eke out five things before the day is completely over. It is hard, given my general state of exhaustion and distraction of late.

1. Saturday night I went with friends to the Knoxville Symphony's Pops Concert, where we saw the movie The Wizard of Oz with live accompaniment   Despite that the fact that the resolution on the screen wasn't all that good, and the soundtrack as it was played in theater, with the original singing wasn't stellar either, the performance as a whole was fabulous. Well, the score is marvelous to begin with, and watching the movie while hearing the music being performed live was a stunning experience. I don't think I had ever seen The Wizard of Oz on a big screen, and although I saw it every year of my childhood, it had been many years since my last viewing.

I had forgotten how surreal and, at times, downright weird that movie is. Of course that is part of the key to its success, the way it appeals to universal themes and yet doesn't succumb to deeply to pat stereotypes. We can all learn a little something from the Wizard of Oz. It seems I am still learning. Of course children know this, know many things we adults have forgotten, know that home is safety and comfort and that the wild bright world "out there" is simultaneously vibrant and alluring, yet filled with dangers, with the overall too-muchness of it. Hence when Dorothy returns home, she learns that she can conquer her own fears, but she also returns to a black and white world. For a while I thought this was a bad thing, that the returned too world should be some half-way point on the color spectrum, but now I appreciate the security of it, of what we all long for, the security of home.

2. I've slept in my own bed for the last two nights, the first two nights this year! This means that I can actually, finally, breathe well enough that I am not spending the night propped up in a chair or recliner, and I cannot begin to explain what a huge difference this has made in terms of regaining a sense of normalcy. As a reward for sleeping, I even took a moderate walk today and it felt wonderful to be out and move, even if I did not manage as much activity as I otherwise would have preferred.

3. Wednesday I attended a chamber music concert, something that is generally much more in keeping with my musical inclinations. The highlight of the program was Bach's Concerto for Violin and Oboe, which was stunningly beautiful, not that the playing in the other pieces was a disappointment either. We heard Mozart's Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, and "Spring" from the Four Seasons. The Vivaldi was the weakest piece in the evening's performance, with the slightest hint of hesitancy and disconnect in the strings, probably corrected by the second performance on Thursday night. But the strings redeemed themselves in the later two pieces, especially in the conversational intimacy and playfulness Gordon Tsai and Gabrield Lefkowitz brought to the Mozart.

4. I have finally gotten back to reading the first of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels, My Brilliant Friend, and I am thoroughly enjoying it. Of course I enjoyed it when I started before, but I struggled because I had wanted to read it as part of a read-a-long and the pace was too slow and the whole thing felt pressured to me. This was about me, not the other readers. I tend to be a fast reader, and I also tend, when reading something I need to discuss, to be at my best when I can read something once-through before going back to look at it more critically. However I did not do that, and then my time and my attention was too fragmented. I am happy to be finally be fully engaged in the book and I am looking forward to finishing it and reading the other books in the series.

5. And although I have actually more or less had a normal, not too busy day today, and I have walked, and read and run errands and on a few small projects around the house, it seems I am still a trifle scatterbrained. I picked up some salmon for dinner, and some black cod as well, but then I got distracted by another project, patching a small hole in the wall left behind when I removed a large picture from the wall when I put up some interesting sculptural tin flowers I purchased in Arkansas. Alas by the time I got everything done, including a trip to the hardware store, it was too late in the afternoon on this cloudy day to get a decent picture in the sunroom, a room that is at its best in morning light.

It was also apparently too late for my salmon. I had planned on baking it with some Thai Sweet Chile sauce, which I had made before the great sinus plague, but I forgot that I needed to marinate the salmon with the chile sauce for at least 2 hours.   By the time I figured this out I was ready to eat. Luckily I had some fresh bratwurst in the fridge, and some homemade sauerkraut, so a successful dinner was not a problem. The salmon can sit in its marinade up for up to 24 hours, so I'm ready for tomorrow's dinner. The cod is bathing in a concoction of pretty much equal parts mirin, sake, and white miso.  My experience with this technique is that the cod is at its best between 48 hours (2 days) and 5 days, and so I am looking forward to have something to come home to after the MLK day activities on Monday..

Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend, and I hope to be back into a routine soon enough.

January 13, 2017
The Book Post

At the bottom of this post is the list of books I read in the second half of 2016. I am still on the fence as to whether or not there is any use to these posts, but I am doing one anyway. I didn't do a book list at the beginning of 2016 since I keep the list elsewhere, but I did a mid year post so I feel I must continue what I started. I didn't read some of the books I intended to read, but then I read others, and I can't say I am dissatisfied with my reading list. It simply is what it is.

Perhaps what interests me more is what books have stuck in my mind, or some variation on the "best books" theme. I did write such a post last year, called defining books. This year I'm opting for a variation on that theme, or a list of those books read in 2016 that are still actively in my head, or referencing my thoughts this January of 2017. They may or may not be the books that I remember a year from now, who can say. But at this moment, these are the books that exert the greatest influence on my thoughts and how I view the world and my role within that world.

I'll start by admitting that two of the best books I read last year were books I reread, in fact, books that have been read and reread multiple times, books which I find enlightening with every reading.

Of the new-to-me books, two were not literary in any sense, although one of them was written by one of my favorite novelists. The other was a book I read for EFM, a book that continues to echo in my thoughts, although in completely different ways and for different reasons.

As for fiction, Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life was by far and away, and by every measure, the best novel I read last year. It is a novel that will remain with me a long time, and a novel that I will reread, although perhaps not in the near future. It stands so far above the other novels in my mind that I can't even list it with the next runner up, although that view may change in time.

My second novel is Nathan Hill's The Nix. I wouldn't put in the same class as A Little Life, but it still plagues my thoughts. I haven't decided if it is in my mind simply because it is so smart and funny and such a perfect send up of so much of modern American Culture, because I just finished it in December, although other excellent books were read in December with less long-term repercussions, or if it actually has staying power. I think it is brash, and terribly daring, and also hits home in many ways, but the author takes the easy way out in the end, as do we all if given the choice. It is too fresh in my mind for me to make a rational judgement. The other book shown below, Marie Ponsot's volume of collected poems, Springing, evokes feelings that are in many ways the opposite of my reaction to The Nix. I found the poems often quiet and contemplative, but sometimes brash, often disturbing and calming simultaneously. I can't say that the poems themselves occupy the same kind of front-and-center space as the thoughts evoked by the novel, and yet they remain, floating as if in a gentle undercurrent buoying my thoughts.

And here, finally, is the second half of my annual book list (including one book actually read in the first half of the year, but inexplicably left off the list)

23. Phillip Wylie, The Disappearance.

24. Ruth Rendell, Not In The Flesh.

25. Fredrica Harris Thompsett, We Are Theologians.

26. Elie Wiesel, Night.

27. Leonard Nimoy, I Am Spock.

28. Linda Przybyszewski, The Lost Art of Dress.

29. Sue Miller, The Good Mother.

30. Catherine Whitmire, Plain Living.

31. Zora O'Neill, All Strangers are Kin.

32. Dave Isay, Listening is an Act of Love.

33. Robert Shaw, The Man in the Glass Booth.

34. Elena Ferrante, The Days of Abandonment.

35. Flynn Berry, Under the Harrow.

36. J.D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy.

37. Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life.

38. Helen Simonson, The Summer Before the War.

39. Alan Furst, Kingdom of Shadows.

40. Ann Patchett, The Patron Saint of Liars.

41. Marie Ponsot, Springing, New and Selected Poems.

42. Tamara McKinley, Lands Beyond the Sea.

43. Tamara McKinley, A Kingdom for the Brave.

44. Eimear McBride, A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing.

45. Tamara McKinley, Legacy.

46. Thomas Keneally, Napoleon's Last Island.

47. David Ford, Theology: A Very Short Introduction.

48. Michael Connelly, The Brass Verdict.

49. Francine Prose, Mr. Monkey.

50. Wendy Mogel, The Blessings of a Skinned Knee.

51. Louise Penny, A Great Reckoning.

52. John Grisham, The Whistler.

53. Tana French, The Trespasser.

54. Jodi Picoult, Small Great Things.

55. Nathan Hill, The Nix.

56. Haruki Murakami, Absolutely on Music: Conversations.

57. Cynthia Coe, Runaway Kitty. *

58. Roger Horowitz, Kosher USA. *

579 Matthew Carr, The Devils of Cardona.

* this post was updated on 1/9 to show two books I did read in 2016 but forgot to list. I suppose that says something about how memorable I found the books, although they were both interesting. I did not run an update on the Goodreads summary shown at the top of this post, listing 57 rather than 59 books.

January 7, 2017
A Few Notes on Recent Reading

It is December 1st. Project painting continues and I grow weary of the disruption to my routines, to my thoughts, to my ability to find a quiet space to write, think, dream…

The post I have been planning to write for a week now is still fragmentary, scattered in bits throughout corners of the house and odd meandering pathways of my mind. Instead I shall catch you up with a few of the books I've been reading.

I was looking forward to reading Thomas Keneally's new novel Napoleon's Last Island but in the end I did not finish it before it was due back at the library. I have no regrets. Keneally is an excellent writer, the prose was beautiful, the story well thought out and well managed, but as the novel progressed I became increasingly bored. It was a shame, as the conceit was fabulous and full of potential: Napoleon's exile through the eyes of a child who befriended him. But in the end I felt the narrator was not herself interesting enough of a character to maintain the story. The writing was elegant but elegantly boring, a pedantic accounting of what, where, and when without spark.

I started reading Francine Prose's Mr. Monkey immediately after picking it up from the library, and was smitten. I put it aside however as I could see that as much as it was an engaging fast paced story, and much as I wanted to crawl into a corner with a blanket and a cup of coffee and engorge myself in the tale, I forced myself to slow down. It is a book that rewards all the attention one is willing to give it. Passing itself off as a light-hearted romp through the production of an off- off-Broadway production of a children's musical, it is really a satire of modern life, both tragic and comic. It is an at times grim depiction of despair and the toll taken by a lifetime of failed expectations and also a celebration of life. The author accomplishes all of this through the sympathy and gentleness behind the development of her characters. The story is deftly told from multiple perspectives, and it is a told in a way that adds humanity to the story itself as we see each character as they see themselves, as they wish to be seen by others, and as they are actually seen. But that seeing, which could be brutal, is not. The book is lighthearted and funny, but it is also kind and humane and deceptively deep. It has crept under my skin.

I'll end with a few thoughts that have been swirling around in my head since recently rereading Wendy Mogel's The Blessing of a Skinned Knee. I like, and have kept, this book primarily because of its focus on achieving a balanced life through moderation, celebration, and sanctification, principles I feel are essential to happiness in life. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, that we each have been given a gift, the gift of life, and our purpose in life is to use this gift well and not squander it. In the process we sometimes forget about the principles above, especially sanctification. We get overwhelmed by big issues, we grow comfortable and complacent in our lives, and we forget that there is a holiness or a sanctity in every day actions. Our lives are our sanctuary, our homes are our sanctuary, and everything we do, even the most mundane tasks, can be a lifting up, an opportunity to connect with the holiness of life. Yes, often we feel like much of life is a burden, I am as prone to this as anyone (see opening paragraph) but instead I'd like to suggest that when we allow the weight of the world to oppress us, even in incredibly tiny ways, we are relinquishing some part of our gift. This is the season of advent in the Christian tradition, a season of preparation and waiting, and perhaps a season to cultivate gratitude and the sanctity of caring for ourselves, our homes, and our neighbors.

December 1, 2016
Five Things Friday

The painting continues.  I continue to be a bit discombulated by the upending of my routines and the constant shifting and reshifting of things about the house.

1. But I love the newly painted rooms, both the colors, which aren't actually radically different from what was here before, but also the shifting patterns of light on the walls.

2. Even the gray that I had before, (elephant gray) looks more beautiful in a better quality of paint, with a soft sheen. I think you can get a small sense of that comparing the gray around the doorframe in the top picture, which has not yet been painted, although that wall will be the same shade of gray, with the wall around the vanity (left) shown above. I may have to take another version of the first picture above, once that wall is finished, just for the sake of comparison.

3. The temperatures are to drop to very close to the frost line tonight, or, actually, in the wee hours of tomorrow morning. I harvested a good sized bowl of habaneros today in preparation, and will be making salsa or jam. It has been a good summer for peppers, and the plant is still laden with green unripe fruit, which may well be lost, But I do not want to bring the pepper plant indoors at this point, and I probably have more habanero peppers than I would otherwise have ever used.

4. I suppose this may be the end of the rose blossoms as well, but perhaps not. They are pretty much the only things left blooming in my yard. The sprinkler system has been shut down for the season, And aside from watering some new fall plantings I am not inclined to water. The ground is so dry that it is like concrete.   I am planning on moving some laurels that are in a spot that is far too sunny for them. I have new shrubs to put in their place, but the dislocated shrubs may just be temporarily relocated into the flower beds until it after the rains, whenever they come.

5. I just finished reading Eimear McBride's A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing and it was a both deeply beautiful and deeply unsettling book. Although the structure of the novel itself is in fact fairly conventional and linear, the language is anything but expected or conventional. There are few coherent sentences, and yet the story itself has a coherent flow if you allow the words their own space and their own musicality. I suppose one might think it the author was attempting to write in a stream of consciousness mode, but that is not exactly it. More likely the language seems to be attempting to explore that indistinct bridging between the inner primitive instinctual reaction and conscious thought. The language of the novel seems to float in shifting sands between the rawness of instinct and the music of poetry. In fact I would say this novel is far easier to read if you approach it as it was an epic poem. Then the language can capture something elusive, and beautiful, in the story, even though the story itself is tragic. Another point, even though one feels one knows the main character here, this too is an just an impression. We read, and think we know the narrator's thoughts, but just as we ourselves are more than just our instinctual selves, so too this narrator, but we never really see her fully, just as we are never told anything about the physical being of any of the characters.   It is a haunting novel of pain and suffering and love, but also of knowing and not-knowing, and as such, I think it will remain with me for a long time.

November 11, 2016
A Little Light Reading

Spider Man was roaming my street last night. This was the first time in the 5 Halloween's I have been in Knoxville, that I saw a trick-or-treater. It has been decades since I had strings of children coming to my door for candy, and truthfully I miss the excitement. Watching a small boy running down the street while his grandma followed discretely in the car brought joy to my heart, and was a welcome respite from piles of data and other mind-numbing tasks.

The brief respite reminded me that I have been absent here. It was not particularly intentional but it seems that the busy part of my brain has been occupied and the other part, the part that daydreams and overthinks and is more than willing to explore the various odd footpaths of my thoughts has been dormant.   Even the pages of my journal have been reduced to mere reportage and simple lists of tasks and accomplishments.   I do see that this is a necessary part of the flow of life, water rapidly churning over rocky shallows before settling once again into the deep pools. Yet I yearn for the depths.

As I wondered if I had anything to say here, it struck me that it has been some time since I have written anything about what I am, and am not, reading. Let's see if I can find anything to say, anything beyond the surfaces and lists of titles.

First of all, let's get the "not reading" category out of the way. In the last book post I stated that I was reading Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend, but it proved to be an aborted attempt. It is not the book, which I love, but more the way I had decided to go about it. I tried reading it as part of a read-a-long, and attempted to pace the reading accordingly. This did not work for me. One problem was that the pacing and my own internal pacing did not align, but the bigger problem was that I couldn't actually engage with the book in the prescribed format. It would have worked had I read the book earlier, and come back to it for the paced discussions. But as a first-time reading, there were too many voices and thoughts interrupting my own interaction with the words and the story. I will return to the book once my head has cleared, and I can relate to it at my own pace. Or perhaps there are enough big tasks in my life right now, and I simply needed something I could escape into, not further analysis.

As an exercise in recovery from my frustrations over the above mentioned book, I engaged in a little light reading. I considered downloading Ann Patchett's new book, Commonwealth, to my kindle, as I had been somewhat disappointed in her novels since Bel Canto, and didn't think it would be something I would want to keep. In the end however I decided to put myself on the library list. I am currently down to about the 135th position in line, so it will be a while. As a sort of a consolation prize, I reread Patchett's first novel, The Patron Saint if Liars. It is a novel that I am happy to have reread but also a novel that I don't believe I will read again. Patchett has a deft hand in the portrayal of her main characters, all people with their own wounds, and yet people who aren't even sure of the nature of themselves or the how or why of their own struggles. This means that nothing is completely resolved in the novel, as indeed it often is not in life. Yet the book is satisfying in and of itself.   The novel is told in three parts, told from the perspective of three lost souls: Rose, a woman of very flat emotional affect, who cannot create or maintain personal relationships , the man she marries in order to keep her child and stay at the home for unwed mothers, Son, another lost soul, who is really only looking for friendship and to be loved, and Cecelia, her daughter, a child who is both kept by her mother and yet simultaneously given away, because Rose wasn't really looking for a way to keep Cecelia but a way to stay in Habit KY, and Cecelia is part of the price she has to pay. Patchett is rather good at exploring the unsettled inner workings of her characters without really exposing easy answers, or revealing too much, much in the same way we are often simultaneously aware and blind to our own inner lives.

Kingdom of Shadows is the second of Alan Furst's WWII thrillers I have read, and although I enjoyed it, it was not as cohesive as I the first novel (Spies of Warsaw). I did rather like the main character, Morath, although he was rather sketchily drawn, perhaps the reason I liked him, as it was easy to project whatever qualities the reader desired onto him. The novel read more like a series of short stories than a novel, but I think this was well suited to the time of the story and its intent, in the shadowy expectation of coming war and the impulse and intent to protect oneself and one's own, of a kind of stubborn optimism which is not at all naïve, in fact accepts that failure may be imminent, but that there is no hope but to keep moving forward as best one can.   I appreciated this sense of knowing and yet not knowing that pervaded this novel, and its exploration of the ambiguity that lies in wait along the fringes of life, although we may perhaps only be aware of it in times of stress. It is, after all, far easier to look at the world in black and white, and find oneself on the side of white, when in reality much is shadow and quicksand.

It did strike me as an odd coincidence that just as I finished a novel about the beginnings of WWII I should start a novel set during the beginnings of WWI. lthBut so it was. The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson, a rather light comedy of manners that takes place in England at the dawn of the aforementioned first World War. But where Furst was all shadow and the struggle to hold the line against impending doom, Simonson's book treads far more lightly. It was an enjoyable romp that, surprisingly, could be surprisingly thought-provoking. In fact, there were parts of the story in which I thought of young Lila and Lenu from My Brilliant Friend and other times when I could not help but think that the more everything changes, the more it stays the same, and that the issues facing these characters are not so far away from the issues in Ferrante's novel, or the United States today.

Three good novels, all of which can lead us to explore issues deeper than the stories themselves. It is my opinion that great novels are about something more than the story they are telling; that there is a story within the story, a hidden story that is often revealed only slowly.  Although they don't quite make that transition, each of these novels begins to explore depths of meaning, skirts around the edges, and leads the astute reader to ponder the world beyond the edges of the story, but stops there, each in their own distinct way, reminding us that the world is unfinished.

November 1, 2016
Three Things Thursday

1. It is a cool, gray, drizzly day here in Knoxville, although there was a brief bit of sunshine. It would be a perfect day for working in the flower beds except that the drainage work is finally being done in the back of my yard after a long series of frustrating delays. Once again there are heavy machines and men in boots mucking about and digging things up. Admittedly I've let that section of the flower bed go to weed. It was a hot summer after all, and I knew the area would have to be dug up, so it hardly seemed worth the sweat and effort, knowing that any fruits of my labors would be destroyed. I've been waiting for this job since June and I am happy that the digging and hardscapes are finally complete (fingers crossed).

2. Last night's concert at the Knoxville Museum of Art was stunning in its beauty. Our fabulous young concertmaster, Gabriel Lefkowitz performed Brahms' First Violin Sonata in G Major, bringing the soothing lyricism of the piece to life, his violin singing with a gentle effusiveness, as if all the cares of the world could be washed away in the music. The second half of the program, Schubert's "Trout" Quintet, was also beautifully performed and it was an experience altogether different from the one at the square room a week ago, even though two of the musicians were the same. This time the music had its own life, the individual musicians indistinguishable, as if there were a profound conversation going on between them, the music melding to become something with its own life and presence, where as the previous week's concert I had felt like I was hearing three distinct musicians playing the same piece. It was as if a couple of people were talking about the same thing and drawing the same conclusions, but although they were "hearing" each other, they weren't really listening, the experience was not transformative. Last night's performance was something else all together, five musicians coming together to create something greater than themselves. If you are in Knoxville and you have a chance to go to tonight's performance, go.

3. I am reading Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend. Actually I've gotten a kind of slow start, not because I don't love the novel, I do but because I started it on my kindle and now I've moved to a paperback copy and have found myself needing to step back, and retrace my steps. I don't believe I had fully realized how different my experience of reading is, and how different my perceptions and reactions, between reading on the kindle, versus reading an actual book. This has made me step back and pause somewhat. I knew that I liked certain kinds of books better on one or the other, and that if I loved a book on the kindle, I might buy a physical copy as well, and end up rereading it as it always seemed different on paper. But only now am I beginning to understand the repercussions, and appreciate how the difference affects my thoughts and relationship to the material being read.

September 29, 2016