Beautifully composed but unfortunately kind of a pain in the ass to read. This was like a nicely plump pillow with no actual support or a cozy-lookingBeautifully composed but unfortunately kind of a pain in the ass to read. This was like a nicely plump pillow with no actual support or a cozy-looking comforter that provides no actual warmth. Except for the mysterious author at the heart of the tale, characterization was flat and unbelievable. Don't get me started on the weirdly morose, insipid protagonist - what a drip. She's miserable and dying inside over missing her dead twin - a twin she only found out about yesterday (basically)? Spare me that bullshit. And good grief, the pat tidiness of that ending. I did enjoy the sequences featuring a Mary Poppins-esque governess and I wish that the entire book had been about her adventures in research. The lovely and evocative prose at first had me turning the pages eagerly. But eventually I was turning the pages as quickly as possible to get the damn experience over with. Still, it has to be said that stylistically and technically, the writing was lovely and accomplished - no complaints about Setterfield's skills as a wordsmith. This wasn't an objectionable experience, it was merely mediocre. In other words, a perfect #1 New York Times Bestseller, as the cover proudly acclaims....more
I had the day off today and thought, Why not read a romance novel? Why not read two of them? Why not read two romance novels that I figured would neveI had the day off today and thought, Why not read a romance novel? Why not read two of them? Why not read two romance novels that I figured would never be published today? And so I read this one and I also read this one.
This is a romance novel about the relationship between a 19-year-old college student and a 13-year-old kid enrolled at a nearby boarding school. The younger kid is a sporty, self-assured little fellow who is very much into his clothes. The older fellow is an iconoclastic, aimless groomer lover of younger fellows. I mean, he actually self-identifies as a pederast. The two even have a frank conversation about pederasty, although they spend most of their time together taking tea, eating snacks, going on day trips, and taking artistic photos. There is quite a lot about college life and about boarding school life, the monotony and sometimes the fun of it. There is no explicit sex, which was a relief.
The prose is excellent and the dialogue is so convincing, so real. Angus Stewart has a superior ability in conveying longing and making everyday activities feel both banal and mysterious. The book is suffused with melancholy and yet feels light, even casual. After an accident that pulls them apart then brings them back together, the novel ends abruptly, shortly after the day of their planned departure to Europe (financed by the younger lad's understanding guardian!). But it does not end in despair. The relationship runs its course; their lives go on. Overall, I enjoyed this odd, uncomfortable novel. Actually saw myself in the younger kid.
Wild that this book was apparently a bestselling, critically acclaimed novel that was reviewed by serious mainstream journals and whose protagonist was not rejected offhand by those reviewers. Not sure how I feel about that. The late 60s were definitely a different era!
The cover of the e-book is unsurprisingly less erotic:
the back cover describes its interior as "droll" and that's a perfect summation of the book's charms. quite droll. I like droll. this epistolary novelthe back cover describes its interior as "droll" and that's a perfect summation of the book's charms. quite droll. I like droll. this epistolary novel is very, very droll. Prof. Jason Fitzger is a droll creation: incredibly pretentious, long-winded, full of complaints, full of himself, and fortunately of a rather kindly and generous disposition despite all of that. the way he either consciously or - even more drolly - unconsciously sabotages the subjects of his letters of recommendations was an ongoing joy. one can't help but laugh at him while feeling increasingly affectionate towards him, exactly as the author intended. the drollness of it all did take a turn into genuine emotion, genuine tragedy, at the end. I shed some tears, which was very surprising for me and not very droll. fortunately, the tragedy didn't feel cheap, it deepened the story and it deepened the professor as well. good job, book!...more
summary: rich New Yorkers do boring things and think boring thoughts; a reader is likewise bored.
I thought I had ordered a 4-star eclair, delicious ansummary: rich New Yorkers do boring things and think boring thoughts; a reader is likewise bored.
I thought I had ordered a 4-star eclair, delicious and decadent and made with a certain level of skill and authenticity. The dish arrived and it was a doughnut. But it had a dazzling exterior, colorful and vivid, and so I thought, okay this is a doughnut but that coating really catches the eye; perhaps this will be a 3-star doughnut at least? I took a bite and it was on the dry side, unremarkable, the whole thing was not remotely interesting but it was edible at least, inoffensive. Ok, a 2-star dish, fine. But then the next morning... the stomach ache! For such an insipid meal, it turned out to be nauseating to think about afterwards. Ugh, I particularly dislike experiences that are even worse to remember the day after. Especially when there is so little to actually contemplate... 1 star!
Remind me to never follow the New York Times' book recommendations. I should have known better just by reflecting on their daily recommended recipe, which usually starts my day off with a sneer. So basic. I mean really: chicken with potatoes... pasta with broccoli... one-pot spaghetti... eggs steamed in a microwave. Anyway, there is a certain bougie woke crowd to whom NYT book reviewers appear to cater: affluent, self-satisfied liberals who require the entertainments they consume to mirror the opinions they hold, reading moralistic tales lacking any flair or technique but that come outfitted, sack-like, with the most au courant of progressive ideologies. Their bog-standard virtues signaled, oh so strenuously. And so it is with Pineapple Street, despite its eye-catching exterior. Self-impressed and scolding, faddish in its politics, inanely virtue-signalling, zero style, shallow themes, predictable plot, dull characters. A null. Literally inspired by a NYT profile of young one-percenters who are redistributing their riches. Inspired by some fluff article... no surprise there. Apparently written in a mere four months; also no surprise.
I'm a class-focused progressive but that didn't help with digesting this book. I prefer food with spice. The novel depicts class tensions in the blandest and most uninteresting way imaginable; the taste was so blah. I like mayonnaise and syrup and vanilla is great too. But a whole dish composed of those ingredients is a horrible idea. No matter how bright the food coloring is that has been added to tart it up.
It was disheartening to learn that the chef in question is a leader in her field. An executive editor and vice president at Knopf! Good grief! To think that she is in a position to encourage the creation of even more flavorless dishes....more
a bed of roses should have been sweet Felicity's place of repose, herself an English rose, one more delicate than that often hardy breed, but English through and through. a certain kind of English - to the manor born, as they say, but destined to live out her life in a country cottage. alas, poor Felicity! too good for this world, too fragile, too in love with the idea of love, with the idea of a world of beauty; too easily wounded by the thorny realities of both. farewell sweet Felicity, dainty flower, found dead in a muddy ditch.
a manor full of English flowers, last seen Armed with Madness, now finding themselves bereft of weapons altogether. poor little flowers! trapped in their little world.
what can a flower do against encroaching evil, the banality of it? how can a flower halt construction? the taking away of English countrysides, the slow push from callow, selfish men and women with small, small minds and a desire to take and take and take. how can a flower solve the mystery of even one woman's lonely death? a flower bobs with the breeze, turns to the sun, wilts from the lack of it... how can a flower protect its surroundings or save a person from their fate? they are trapped in their English dirt. such flowers can only hope for the best, huddling close to each other and dreaming their flowery little lives away.
four years passed before this strange and often lovely book followed its predecessor, Armed with Madness. that novel's cast of characters has been trimmed, all the better to place in this glassy narrow vessel. Mary Butts' relationship to her characters has changed as well: what were once a flock of chattering, untrustworthy birds have become transformed: those that remain are as perfect flowers in a perfect English garden, frail and exquisite, symbols of all that is good and kind. and yet their scent is not an overly intense one, nor cloying, their goodness and kindness wispy and ineffective but still a pleasure to experience. it is as if all of that noisome thoughtlessness and backstabbing, their preening and posing, were but a stage in their development, a brief stop along their way to adulthood. I far prefer these winsome, sheltered flowers to those troublesome birds.
poor Mary Butts, to the manor born, a writer of prickly talent, a lover of men and women, friend to Jean Cocteau and Ezra Pound, acolyte of Aleister Crowley, a modernist of sublime but wayward talent, now forlornly obscure.
a repulsive obsession with The Question of the Jew, creeping quietly through her story, delicately broached at first, a comment here and there, a slight slight, and then becoming increasingly bold, the Jews a symbol to Butts of all that is coarse and grasping in the world, her anti-Semitism unfolding like a malicious flower of evil. best to stamp out such poisonous blossoms! alas, Mary Butts, such a rare mind and yet one held back by its own smallness, the toxic quality of her prejudice decaying the beauty of her talent.
but talent will out and Mary's talent blooms beautifully from this book, despite the rancid garbage smell wafting from her moronic malice towards the Jewish kind. her delightfully off-kilter way with words, the love of country and cottage, her sharp and peppery dialogue, the palpable distaste for crudity and unkindness, her skittish narrative perfectly matching her high-strung characters, the sentimental but never mawkish love of England. her tenderness when revealing the inner lives of her favorites and the melancholy ruminations of those creations, full of wonder at how little they truly know. the halting, flowing rhythm of her prose. and, as with Armed with Madness, an ending replete with shocking but coolly described violence, coming from a minor character in the preceding work, now a central one in this novel. cruel and careful Boris, an outlier among these flimsy flowers! his violence was quite a refreshing tonic, an exciting exclamation point at the end of a long and winding sentence.
poor Boris, a Russian exile, trapped beyond his means in a bed of English roses, an amoral young man hardened by his life, once a delicate flower himself before the White Russians were driven out by the Red. he is a far more interesting interloper than the American abroad of the first novel. Mary Butts is at her best when spending time with this amusing, brooding, unpredictable, nakedly vulnerable, coldly ambitious, hungry, greedy fellow. the mystery of poor Felicity Taverner's death may never truly be solved, but sweet, heartless Boris will exact his revenge nonetheless.
(view spoiler)[
this is a repost of an old review. in their infinite wisdom, the powers that be here at Goodreads nuked the original review, due to a complaint from a copyright holder of one of the images (found by me on the internet). of course Goodreads staff could have told me which image was a problem and I could have resolved the issue within seconds by removing that image... alas, GR staff apparently didn't have the time for such an interaction, and so the prior review and all of its comments are now gone with the wind. during an unamusing conversation with Goodreads, they let me know which image was the cause of the issue. and so the review above no longer contains the offending image of a daisy spiral that so inflamed the flower-like holder of that image's copyright. (hide spoiler)]...more
supernatural horror without the supernatural horror. unless you consider fanatical, hypocritical so-called devotion to an organized religion like Chrisupernatural horror without the supernatural horror. unless you consider fanatical, hypocritical so-called devotion to an organized religion like Christianity whose tenets often aren't actually understood let alone followed by many of its practitioners... to be supernatural horror. okay, this is supernatural horror! and I think I've used the phrase "supernatural horror" enough, right?
wrong! and I was also wrong saying that the supernatural horror here is only based around organized religion, when there is definitely some pagan or satanic horror happening, involving wishes for healing being granted and an infant being tortured. but it is important to note that these horrors are only a small and subtle part of the book. they are not front and center, not blatant. readers looking for an evening of supernatural horror will perhaps be better off reading the Bible, which includes far more examples of such things.
but for those readers who are looking for superbly rendered and very dreary atmosphere, a contemplation of the power and the challenges of faith, lovely and very realistic characterization of a non-believing boy who is faking it until he gets free of his hysterical mum (not to mention his sadistic pastor, but fortunately that guy is dead within the opening pages) and of that boy's very endearing, developmentally disabled older brother, and a narrative that is all about creating a feeling of oppression, dread, and melancholy... this is your book! "enjoy" it!
forgive the scare quotes, there is a lot to enjoy, and to consider. besides what I mentioned above, I particularly appreciated the serious exploration of what faith can actually look like. I guess that's a nice way of saying that the book shows that both Christianity and certain other religions involve rituals like blood sacrifice (not to mention the consumption of flesh), and the miracles of God can look a lot like the gifts bestowed by certain other supernatural figures. interesting stuff.
synopsis: a lad has to deal with fanatical assholes. his brother falls in love. supernatural horror happens....more
"I want to know whether you think I would be an adequate parent. I mean, I would be willing to dine out less often, and if necessary I would change my"I want to know whether you think I would be an adequate parent. I mean, I would be willing to dine out less often, and if necessary I would change my tailor. But would that be enough?"
spoilers ahead but not really
he gets the award for worst fucking father of the year that's for sure. not because he's abusive or because he lacks love or doesn't care for the kid. it's because he puts his needs above hers time and time again. leaving her alone when she shouldn't be. giving her what she wants when he shouldn't. moving her to a small town that has an annual murder & cannibalization ritual featuring kids just her age.
they say we sacrifice things for love but does that include your own kid?
that amusing quote above isn't even from our hero-dad, it's from his best friend. who turns out to be a model of common sense compared to worst father of the year.
enough about the dad, more about the book itself!
it's been described as a slow burn and that's correct. it's quiet horror. it builds slowly and surely. and quietly. it quietly builds and builds and doesn't go anywhere noisy. it wants you to understand its world and its father and his daughter and the mysterious lady he's fallen deeply - too deeply - in love with. the father and the mysterious lady both love the little girl with all of her strange, quiet little quirks. but the father loves the lady even more and the lady loves the strange traditions of her quiet, quirky hometown more than anyone. all three of them come to hate the noisy normality of new york city. and so off to a deadly little village upstate they go. never go upstate.
film noir is all about shadows and ambiguous motivations and hidden murders, lying women, weapons in the dark. is there such a thing as film blanc, its opposite? this would be the book version of that. no shadows; everything is made clear, even the ghosts that appear in the photos with the little girl, they are right there for all to see. no ambiguous motivations; everything is said clearly and truthfully, just not blatantly, you only have to really listen to truly understand, it's just that most people don't really listen. no hidden murders; they told him from the start what the town's founder did and these are people who adhere to their traditions. the woman never lies and they keep the knife right there, in the church for all to see. that title.
Ken Greenhall is one of my favorite authors. elegant prose, eccentric characters, deep ideas. the novel didn't disappoint. only the dad did. fuck that dad....more
Paulo Emílio Sales Gomes was a Brazilian historian, professor, essayist and political activist. He was also considered to be the greatest film critic Paulo Emílio Sales Gomes was a Brazilian historian, professor, essayist and political activist. He was also considered to be the greatest film critic to have emerged from Brazil. In 1977, he wrote P's Three Women; he died shortly after its publication. This was his only novel. And what a novel! This was an entirely original experience and is highly recommended.
"P" is Polydoro and this poor gentleman hates his name, so let's be respectful and stick with P. He recounts three stories about three of his romantic partners: Helena, Ermengarda, and a young woman known only as "Her." And so this novel is essentially three unconnected novellas, only linked by sharing the same protagonist. P as a young man flirted with fascism, but by the time he shares these stories, has mellowed into a contemplative, erudite old man and former businessman.
Helena was the first love of his life and what a tangled web she wove. Ermengarda was his wife during his middle years and what a tangled web she wove. "Her" was his last wife, a December-May romance, and what a tangled web she wove. Poor P! Destined to be taken in by women whose cunning often easily fooled his book-smarts.
I loved these three tales. They proceed similarly: P recounts the story of a relationship, one in which he often comes across as seeing both sides of that relationship. And then he pulls back the curtain to reveal that each of these women have their own quite separate existence and he is but a pawn in their often shocking schemes. Helena has a passionate love of her life, but as P comes to learn in his later years, it was certainly not him. Ermengarda rules their married life with an iron hand until she insults his poetry (LOL), after which P decides to set some boundaries; Ermengarda has a particularly devious plan to win back ownership of their marriage. And "Her".... let's just say, still waters run deep, and a young lady may not be so enchanted by a much older man after all. Poor P, a born cuckold!
Gomes is a fantastic writer. Such vibrant and eloquent prose. The characterization is rich and surprising, the plot twists even more surprising. What a heady, multi-leveled, yet still somehow light and fun experience this novel turned out to be. Is it all an allegory for 1980s Brazil?
I still can't get over how that one character accidentally died. Oops! Planning a dramatic fake-suicide while depending on servants to revive you in the nick of time, when those servants have also been warned not to disturb your precious rest... is not a nice way to go. Sad LOL.
into the past, into the darkness. it was a sweet home back then, as sweet a home as slavery could have allowed, a refuge surrounded by cancer. but thainto the past, into the darkness. it was a sweet home back then, as sweet a home as slavery could have allowed, a refuge surrounded by cancer. but that cancer is no benign tumor, to be kept at arm's length, condescended to; it is malignant, always. it will invade, kill the body, each of the parts dying one by one. out of the past and into the present came the cancer, and it made itself a new home. a cancer is not so easily removed, even if the doctors say: the surgery was successful, it was cut out, it is officially no more! it changes shape, it metastasizes into something different. it reconstructs itself. Morrison knows this, so do Sethe and Paul D; it will take generations to cure this sickness.
a child dies, a child is reborn: Beloved. she is the fog of memory, of regret, of violence, made solid, no longer a recollection or abstraction, come from the past to destroy the present. she is what happens when the body and mind are broken down: a symptom of the cancer, not the cancer itself. she will hurt the worst those who love her the most...
the story has no storyline, the movements of past and present overlap, combine, become one. the stories and memories bleed into each other, in the mind and in the flesh, the blood flows in all directions. a tree of scars, a longing for colors, all the tragedies still alive. what was then what was now, what will be, what can be. can the body survive this cancer? one can only hope, or pray. the last few pages of Beloved hint at survival, at a new life, new paths, new hopes. perhaps the prayers have worked? keep praying....more
an imperfect book, made perfect by its imperfections. perfection is cold; this is a warm book, hot at times. complex and flawed and all too human; angan imperfect book, made perfect by its imperfections. perfection is cold; this is a warm book, hot at times. complex and flawed and all too human; anger and mourning and judgment doled out in equal measures. Du Bois' sad and often seething voice rings from the page. surprisingly lush and stylized prose across 14 essays, mood pieces, personal narratives, even a short story. all are complex. an experience both nourishing and scouring, and far from an easy read. but should it be? the book is America's dark night of the soul... a spiritual dryness, loneliness, existential doubts... a guide to the Black Belt, a history of a people kept low... but in the end, the wounded soul will still survive.
PROGRESS NOTES (some adapted from posts in GR group The Readers Review)
Chapter I: "Of Our Spiritual Strivings" - Du Bois' prose is dense and really beautiful. He has such a gift for poetic phrasing and metaphor. I was struck in particular with his description of "the tyrant and the idler... the Devil and the Deep Sea" and his "two figures ever stand to typify that day to coming ages" - the embittered old white man who has lost sons in the war and sees himself supplanted; the enslaved black woman, nurturer and caregiver and victim of constant abuse. - I loved the passage "there are today no truer exponents of the pure human spirit of the Declaration of Independence than the American Negroes" and another later that notes that the original American fairy tales and folklore are indigenous and African-American - I was reminded of Albert Murray's writings in his collection The Omni-Americans.
Chapter II: "Of the Dawn of Freedom" - I was unfamiliar with Freedmen's Bank. reading about how its collapse put freedmen so far back - on top of the lie of "forty acres and a mule" - was startling, disturbing.
Chapter III: "Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others" - an extended critique of Booker T. Washington. I'm very sympathetic to Du Bois' pillars of voting/civil rights/higher education as where the thrust of black advocacy should be (in Du Bois' time). But as a fan of Washington as well, it was also hard for me to fully agree with the critique.
Chapter IV: "Of the Meaning of Progress" - probably my favorite chapter so far. the descriptions of his two summers teaching were so beautiful and the melancholy of his return so palpable. just such gorgeous prose in this chapter. the end of Josie was so heartbreaking. all that said, there was a slight sourness to some of the depictions of the students. overall it wasn't enough to really bother me, it was just a little startling. I suppose Steinbeck did the same when describing the residents of various small towns. but then I actually haven't loved that when reading Steinbeck either.
Chapter V: "Of the Wings of Atlanta" - another impressive chapter. reads like a sermon against Mammon, with Atlanta as a stand-in for all such cities undergoing industrialization at no small cost to its people. - it was interesting how up-front Du Bois is about how some folks are suited for college and others for vocational schools: "that of the million black youth, some were fitted to know and some to dig; that some had the talent and capacity of university men, and some the talent and capacity of blacksmiths; and that true training meant neither that all should be college men nor all artisans, but that the one should be made a missionary of culture to an untaught people, and the other a free workman among serfs." I appreciated that realism when it comes to humans (of all colors) and was reminded of similar stances from current sociopolitical writers, from center-left John McWhorter to far-left Marxist Freddie de Boer, whose Cult of Smart I just read. interesting synergy between the three.
Chapter VI: "Of the Training of Black Men" - I was often bored & irritated by this chapter, although the point being made here is clearly close to Du Bois' heart. I could never disagree with the benefits of higher education, for those so suited, so basically in alignment? - a bit turned off by the snobbery in one part, when describing black college graduates: "they have not that culture of manner which we instinctively associate with university men, forgetting that in reality it is the heritage from cultured homes, and that no people a generation removed from slavery can escape a certain unpleasant rawness and gaucherie, despite the best of training." - very turned off by the classic Du Bois stance that I first came across in college: that the way forward is for a relatively small number of educated to lead the uneducated masses, i.e. "They already dimly perceive that the paths of peace winding between honest toil and dignified manhood call for the guidance of skilled thinkers... Above our modern socialism, and out of the worship of the mass, must persist and evolve that higher individualism which the centres of culture protect." I had a flashback to my college self, an ardent socialist, shaking my head in disbelief when reading that. as if uneducated folks can't understand organizing.
Chapter VII: "Of the Black Belt" - brilliantly written and very depressing dirge about Georgia. such hopelessness in this chapter. fucking cotton!
Chapter VIII: "Of the Quest of the Golden Fleece" - Du Bois anticipates modern arguments about systemic racism with these powerful quotes: "Once in debt, it is no easy matter for a whole race to emerge" "The underlying causes of this situation are complicated but discernable. And one of the chief, outside the carelessness of the nation in letting the slave start with nothing, is the widespread opinion among the merchants and employers of the Black Belt that only by the slavery of debt can the Negro be kept at work." - fucking cotton
Chapter IX: "Of the Sons of Master and Man" - one of the most absorbing, rich, yet also uncomfortable chapters so far. I really appreciated how he very specifically lays out the various ways that blacks and whites of the South are divided and how their division exists on all levels: political (particularly in regards to the vote), economic, and perhaps most sadly of all, social. - my discomfort with this chapter comes from what feels like classism e.g. his outrage that "the best" of black people (i.e. most educated and politically/economically/socially sophisticated) are separated from "the best" of white people, in a way that is unique to the South. And that discomfort comes from a certain Leftism in my own political perspective, rather than any feeling that Du Bois is actually wrong in any way. Perhaps I just chafe at this constantly repeated label "the best"... - a quote - and thesis - that is deeply uncomfortable but remains very relevant to today's world: "But the chief problem in any community cursed with crime is not the punishment of the criminals, but the preventing of the young from being trained to crime." Imagine saying such a thing now in regards to black Americans! At worst, a person would be branded a racist. At best, a Glenn Loury.
Chapter X: "Of the Faith of the Fathers" - black faith & spirituality is sketched, from its roots in African religions to its transformation into Christianity, to its use as a tool to engender submissiveness within slavery ("Christian humility") to its ecstatic identification with Abolition as the great freedom finally come, to the post-Emancipation divide between Northern black radicalism and Southern black compromise. - "The Music of Negro religion is that plaintive rhythmic melody, with its touching minor cadences, which, despite caricature and defilement, still remains the most original and beautiful expression of human life and longing yet born on American soil."
Chapter XI: "Of the Passing of the First-Born" - this amazing, and amazingly sad, recounting of the short life of Du Bois' son can barely be summarized. how to summarize an infant's death? Du Bois mourns the boy and yet wonders if the child is better off dead, rather than to live and grown in a country that despises him. - from Wikipedia: His son, Burghardt, contracted diphtheria and white doctors in Atlanta refused to treat black patients.
Chapter XII: "Of Alexander Crummell" - the life of a black priest - his three temptations: Hate, Despair, Doubt - Bishop Onderdonk: "I will receive you into this diocese on one condition: No negro priest can sit in my church convention and no negro church must ask for representation there." Alexander Crummell: "I will never enter your diocese on such terms."
Chapter XIII: "Of the Coming of John" - childhood playmates Black John and White John both leave their small town to become educated in the greater world. Black John's education drives the joy from his eyes, but he'd rather be unhappy than ignorant. White John's education changes little in the man. the two return to their birthplace. White John is welcomed but bored, oh so bored, by the hick town that is no comparison to the fun and the women of the big city. Black John is welcomed and then shunned; his education has transformed him into someone humorless, uppity, overly concerned with such unattainables as justice and equality. the two crossed paths in the big city once, to their mutual discomfort. and they cross paths again, back at home, to their mutual destruction. - this is a perfect story. I was reminded of Leonid Andreyev's Lazarus in its multi-leveled, parable-like narrative, the awful beauty of its prose, and the depths of its despair
Chapter XIV: "The Sorrow Songs" - “Your country? How came it yours? ... Here we have brought our three gifts and mingled them with yours: a gift of story and song - soft, stirring melody in an ill-harmonized and unmelodious land; the gift of sweat and brawn to beat back the wilderness, conquer the soil, and lay the foundations of this vast economic empire two hundred years earlier than your weak hands could have done it; the third, a gift of the Spirit. Around us the history of the land has centred for thrice a hundred years; out of the nation's heart we have called all that was best to throttle and subdue all that was worst... Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood. Are not these gifts worth the giving? Is not this work and striving? Would America have been America without her Negro People?”...more
they were like statues in a garden, the governess realized, frozen figures in an Eden out of time. a place that would soon become very different, verythey were like statues in a garden, the governess realized, frozen figures in an Eden out of time. a place that would soon become very different, very quickly: England before The Great War that changed everything for everyone on that island, including these aristocrats playing "statues in a garden," racing around, laughing, flirting, plotting, and then freezing in a game pose, renaming themselves Temperance and Prudence and Nature - all the things that they were not.
Colegate gets into the heads of these often pretty and always silly creatures, almost all of whom turn out to have rich, nuanced inner selves. don't we all, aristocrat and commoner alike. like the narrator, I often found myself entranced by their predictable but still startling ways. the author is, for the most part, a genius with characterization. I came to understand these at first off-putting but eventually fascinating people. especially the dragon of a grandmother, wandering in the garden at night, thinking of nature, change, and death. Colegate is a seasoned hand with prose and with tone: a lacey style threaded with irony; distance; a sadness in the air, a kind of gathering storm.
one deep flaw, but not quite a fatal one: the wayward adopted son. the author clearly loathed this miserable, vindictive, entirely toxic young man. he's everything that could be wrong in a person born privilege-adjacent. it's unfortunate that nearly all of the storylines centered this repulsive, shallowly-depicted villain. I wanted more depth to his characterization, the story needed it as well. even monsters are not monsters to themselves. when they look in the mirror, such monsters see another human being.
I disliked this book, but the book itself is blameless. It does well what it set out to do: (1) a portrait of a lonely, well-off widow is created, herI disliked this book, but the book itself is blameless. It does well what it set out to do: (1) a portrait of a lonely, well-off widow is created, her life shrinking after her husband's death and her children's moves into creating their own lives; (2) an appalling grift is detailed, engineered by a very handsome and very short teacher who moves into a cottage on the widow's property. Bad enough, but even worse, her new tenant isn't just a grifter who tapes their lovemaking in order to blackmail her, he's also a schizophrenic sadist who wants, above all, power over women.
Gretchen Travis is an excellent writer. Outside of the vindictive young man's psychosis, nothing is made melodramatic. The widow, her children, her friends, others in her orbit - all are persuasively characterized, made alive. Especially the widow - by the end of the book, I knew not only who she was, but what she'd do in most situations. How the story unfolds, how the cottage is remade, how the love affair turns into a nightmare, her outlook on life, her financial situation and her attempts to find money for her blackmailer and to make him see reason, her emotional highs and all of the many lows... everything is excruciatingly realistic. Emphasis: excruciating. This was a grueling read. Such a short book but I took many long pauses when reading it because I. just. didn't. enjoy. the. experience.
Even the semi-satisfying ending managed to drain the enjoyment out of a situation that could have been pure satisfaction. To be fair, I suppose it is petty of me to want orgasmic schadenfreude instead of minor-note nihilism....more
when something tragic and horrible happens to someone you love, something that could have been avoided, if I had only if she had only if they hadn't iwhen something tragic and horrible happens to someone you love, something that could have been avoided, if I had only if she had only if they hadn't if the world wasn't, you can feel a rage not just against the person or people who caused that tragedy, who hurt or killed that loved one, you feel a rage against the entire world, like lightning striking again and again and again, that's what you want, burning everything down, killing everyone in sight, innocent and guilty alike, who's innocent anyway, who needs people anyway, now that the person you love has been taken away from you. just burn it all down, you dream and you rage, as you imagine all the alternate scenarios that could have saved that person you love, all the things you could have done, as you imagine catastrophe striking the world, a catastrophe that parallels what you are feeling inside, and what you are feeling is a need to see everything and everyone burned, everything in ashes like the ashes where your heart used to be.
this story was like the best of Sylvia Plath: full of rage, full of sadness, full of imagining how it all could have been so different, if only.
synopsis: a man, a woman, and a cat have problems that need addressing and mysteries that need solving. are these three enemies or allies?
* Random thosynopsis: a man, a woman, and a cat have problems that need addressing and mysteries that need solving. are these three enemies or allies?
* Random thoughts follow for a novel that often felt random, but slowly reveals itself to be a carefully built and multi-leveled structure <--- italics are what amount to my actual review. *
- SO MANY QUESTIONS! the book is full of them. amazingly, all of those questions are answered. I think?
- themes & questions: what is a personality and how does trauma impact that personality? how does a personal narrative differ from an objective record of events? what structures do we build, internally and externally, to protect ourselves from future traumas?
- Catriona Ward really knows how to get into her characters' heads. I felt a real connection to all of them. such empathy on display by the author! a tricky kind of empathy though.
- I am against trigger warnings because I think people should have some damn resilience. and that said, I'm a hypocrite because I personally get a lot of value when I am warned that a novel will include child and/or animal abuse. but still, not into them as a general rule.
THIS BOOK FUCKING TRIGGERED ME. hypocrisy-flavored lol? I was so triggered that my fragile self instantly closed the book, resenting the damn book, yet still very intrigued by the intriguing book. I didn't want to return to the story but it was so well-done, so well-written, that I did the unthinkable and just went to Wikipedia to find out what happened in the end. so ashamed at my actions, because reading the synopsis compelled me to get right back into the book, and I would have been better off trusting the author and not spoiling myself.
and that said, this book was still very enjoyable, a fulfilling kind of enjoyable, despite knowing what it all was about thanks to self-spoiling. SPOILER AHEAD IN THE NEXT PHRASE: that ending, and that friendship, was really heartwarming and came out of leftfield. some tears may have been shed.
- how in the world is this going to be adapted? I just read that it's being turned into a film. how??
- I loved the cat's perspective. cats are of course the best (tied with dogs). that cat really reminded me of my cat Digsy, although my cat was less religious, she came across as pretty agnostic. I miss you Digsy! you were such an important part of my life and such an important part of me....more
ah the pretensions of youth! ah the pretensions of this book. who includes entire sections of dialogue in French, assuming the reader will be able to ah the pretensions of youth! ah the pretensions of this book. who includes entire sections of dialogue in French, assuming the reader will be able to translate it? this book does. who sets up a gormless youth as the epitome of Finding Your Bliss, strenuously trying to pretend he's admirable while also sneakily saying that he's a born loser? this book does. who creates a physically passionate romance that is supposed to be the central relationship of the story and then has it abruptly end without even bothering to give any kind of reason for that ending, other than the implied Lost Cause Loser Can't Find His Bliss Even When It's Right In Front Of Him? this book does. well, it is nicely written; Dyer is talented. and it is very evocative of a certain time in one's life that could best be described as a liminal space. extra star awarded for the fine prose and the ability to portray the aimless 20s of people who are trying to find themselves. otherwise the book was rather a pretentious waste of time.
REVIEW POST-SCRIPT 10/9/22
I'm reading Albert Murray right now and a point he makes about certain writers is apt:
"Indeed, what most American fiction seems to represent these days is not so much the writer's actual sense of life as some theory of life to which he is giving functional allegiance, not so much his complex individual sensitivity to the actual texture of human experience as his intellectual reaction to ideas about experience."
Dyer is British and Murray was writing about American writers, but his comment is still a perfect fit for this book....more
the girl writes a dream journal of her life, the life of her parents, the lives of her sisters, one dead and one alive; life in San Francisco's Chinatthe girl writes a dream journal of her life, the life of her parents, the lives of her sisters, one dead and one alive; life in San Francisco's Chinatown, lives before a suicide and lives that must go on after that death.
it is a dream journal: its narrative winds its way backwards and forwards, like a dream does, memories shifting to show characters and places from different times, recollections that don't progress in a tidy order. dreams can be confusing if you try to apply logic to them, if you search for linear narrative rather than emotional truth or unspoken meaning.
it is a dream journal: and so despite the unstable quality of its un-narrative, the girl writes as a journalist would write. the emotions are there but reported on only lightly, carefully. the dry prose does not soar or sing, just as a sweat shop or a visit to a cemetery or a kitchen sink in a Chinatown apartment do not soar or sing. these are just facts of a life and so are reported on matter-of-factly.
perhaps this dream journal is the way that the girl deals with change and with trauma; perhaps that is the way for many of us. we construct stories of our lives that move in and out of memories and plans. we don't reconstruct our reality or our tragedies as things that soar or fall, all highs or lows, an opera, but instead view our lives as events that have happened, some of which we could control but many of which we could not. perhaps we can only control our reactions to such tragedies, to our lives, and sometimes we can only barely do that.
the girl chooses to react as a good journalist would report on a story: perhaps sympathetic but mainly striving for objectivity, and always aware that even a reported story can never fully encompass that story's complete reality nor its characters' complete lives....more
"...the Old Testament gives us many instances of Yahweh addressing his people through the prophets. This fountain of revelation dried up, finally. God no longer speaks to man. It is called 'the long silence.' It has lasted two thousand years."
"Jung speaks... of a person, a normal person, into whose mind one day a certain idea comes, and that idea never goes away. Moreover, Jung says, upon the entering of that idea into the person's mind, nothing new ever happens to that mind or in that mind; time stops for that mind and it is dead. The mind, as a living, growing entity has died. And yet the person, in a sense, continues on.
If it arises as a problem, your mind will fight it off, because no one really wants or enjoys problems; but if it arises as a solution, a spurious solution, of course, then you will not fight it off because it has a high utility value; it is something you need and you have conjured it up to fill this need."
Once upon a time there was a Bishop of California, a good man and a flawed one, a man who made mistakes but tried to do the right thing, a man whose son killed himself, a man who went on a spiritual journey after that death, a man who then also died tragically. This was a real bishop and his name was James Pike. One upon a time there was a book about the Bishop of California, a good man and a flawed one, and all the rest of it, the sadness and the tragedy and the death and the seeking and the death, the death. This is Philip K. Dick's bishop and his name was Timothy Archer.
Once upon a time there was a character named Angel, the protagonist in a book about a bishop and a death, and another death, and finally, another death. She was a good protagonist and a flawed one, she tried to do the right thing, she tried and she failed. But is it even failure if you are living in a flawed world, a vastly imperfect creation, one where the Creator has walked away, or flown away or floated away or transubstantiated away or or or, who cares, they left, He left, bored and uninterested in providing even the smallest sign of His caring, let alone His love. You can't blame an angel for failing in a world that sees both success and failure as equally meaningless. At least Angel tried.
Once upon a time there was an Angel who tried, who tried to not let the idea get in her head, that there was something more, some meaning to it all, a God who created order and meaning, that life and death both had meaning, she tried not to believe in all of that. She failed. Once upon a time she decided she could at least save one person, she wasn't able to save the others but surely she could at least save this Bishop, the most helpless and yet the strongest of them all. She failed. Once upon a time she decided she could at least help herself, she could try to achieve some sort of understanding, or at least a kind of equanimity with what had happened in her life, she could at least try to make sure she was more than a hollow where a person once was, a life that once had people in it, all of them gone now. She--
"I turned to my own menu, and saw there what I wanted. What I wanted was immediate, fixed, real, tangible; it lay in this world and it could be touched and grasped; it had to do with my house and my job, and it had to do with banishing ideas finally from my mind, ideas about other ideas, an infinite regress of them, spiraling off forever."
Once upon a time there was Angel, and she succeeded, in that one small thing, in that decision to keep trying, she'd leave the world of ideas behind and focus on the material world, hope wasn't lost yet, she would save this fourth person and so would be saving herself, and she--
Once upon a time there was a Bishop who transmigrated, he had left the world and then he came back into it, into the body of another, yet another person who needed saving. The Bishop had searched and he had failed and he had died and he had came back and he--
Once upon a time there was an author named Philip K. Dick who tried, who really tried, to understand God and the world and all of the ideas in his head, so many of them, he tried to organize his thoughts and create a kind of narrative out of them, he tried to understand death and reality and his place in it all, he succeeded and he failed and he--...more
Let's go back in time with the esteemed Mary Renault... back to Ancient Greece! Where people thought and battles were fought and women were seldom seeLet's go back in time with the esteemed Mary Renault... back to Ancient Greece! Where people thought and battles were fought and women were seldom seen and men were busy being gay with each other. Renault provides an amiable and sympathetic protagonist, the actor Nikeratos, witness to the palace intrigues of Syracuse in Sicily, acquaintance to lord of philosophy Plato and austere, stoical Dion and wretched idiot King Dionysios the Younger. Although much of the book details Nikeratos' day to day life moving up the ranks of tragic actors, as he travels through various nation-states of ancient Greece and Sicily, those anecdotes are more the context provided than the actual purpose of the story.
This is a novel about ideas and conversation and whether art should reflect baseness or should aim higher and whether philosophy should impact government and what makes a good ruler. It is like Renault wrote this while reflecting upon and then mourning the lack of true intelligence (let alone dignity) in world leaders. Her prose is deliberate, sure of its effects, and subtle with the many points she is making. Renault telegraphs nothing, which is particularly laudable given that this is based on historical figures. Her descriptive powers are also excellent - it was very easy to imagine myself in this setting. Those powers were given a showcase near the end, during the sole sequence where lives may be in danger. Her description of the slaughter of Syracusians at the hands of mercenaries while our hero and a friend think outside of the box in saving themselves was a riveting, tense, and surprising sequence.
If there is a flaw in this otherwise splendid experience, it is the lack of women. That is, outside of our hero's friend Axiothea, a fantastic character: a student of Plato who disguised herself as a lad to enter his school and a person who throws herself into danger to support a good cause. In one amusing scene, Nikeratos is chagrined to learn that the fetching young man he's been drooling over is actually, in the modern parlance, a sporty lesbian. (Been there.) Besides Axiothea, women are basically off-page, which is a disappointment because that mainly leaves out anything to do with the interesting and tragic Arete - Dion's wife and Dionysus II's sister, subject of a painting by Perrin. Still, the book is excellent. A rich experience, carefully paced, deeply characterized, and dense with ideas. Full of philosophy to consider, ways of life to imagine, ways of being to ponder, and dudes who spend their free time banging each other....more
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