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a.s.
Valinor
Oct 10 2007, 11:04am
Post #1 of 34
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What have you been reading this week?
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My reading was all over the place this week. First, I finished Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks. I really loved the first two sections, but got a little bogged down by the third. I didn't see the need to flash forward in time to his grand-daughter's POV, etc. The book was packed full of enough WWI drama as it was. Apparently this is part of a trilogy, and I may read the others one of these days. I still like Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy novels better, which remain the best I'ved read (so far) about WWI.
Now I'm inspired to read Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That, a book I've always meant to read and never got around to.
I also read Run, the latest book by Ann Patchett. I don't entirely agree with Jonathan Yardley's glowing review, as I often felt the characters weren't real but rather stereotypes inserted in the story for lesson-teaching. However, Patchett is a wonderful writer and it may be the entire problem is that this book will inevitably be compared to Bel Canto. Bel Canto is one of the best books I've ever read--ever. I thought Run was interesting and provocative, in some ways, but not the best Patchett. I recommend Bel Canto and Patron Saint of Liars, if you want to try a Patchett novel and haven't read any.
Then I read a book for book club that I was sighing with resignation about having to read and was prepared to dislike: Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. And you know what?
I LOVED THIS BOOK.
I should note that I am the opposite of "New Age" (if that's a category) and am a skeptic by nature. I was prepared to hate this travelogue/"finding oneself" business, and I was ESPECIALLY ready to hate any book that Oprah raves about (sorry, Oprah, sometimes you pick good ones but sometimes...). However, let me repeat myself:
I LOVED THIS BOOK.
In fact, I bought it. There, the absolutely highest praise for a public-library fanatic like myself.
Gilbert is witty, well-read, and able to write truisms that don't sound anything like trite-isms. I learned more about Eastern religions and mysticism of ALL kinds by reading this humorous and kind book than I ever learned in two semesters of "Comparitive Religions". Try it.
And that's it for me. What about you all? What have you been reading this week?
a.s.
"an seileachan"
"Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love."
~~~Reinhold Niebuhr
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Curious
Half-elven
Oct 10 2007, 12:12pm
Post #2 of 34
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Farm to Fortune or Nat Nason's Strange Experience, by Horatio Alger Jr. and The Saturday Review Gallery: In Which Some
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Outstanding Writers of Recent Years Present Reminiscences and Biographical Portraits of Important and Striking Figures Who Have Appeared On or Near the Literary Scene over the Past Century, published 1959.
Let me start with The Saturday Review Gallery, since that led me to Horatio Alger. I found this collection of old magazine articles on the bookshelf of the local sandwich shop where it normally functions as a decoration. I'm sure they bought the books by the yard or the pound. But it is filled with delightful articles about well-known and lesser-known authors. Some of the authors I know, such as Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain or Matthew Arnold. Others I know of, such as A.E. Houseman or Horatio Alger. Others are completely new to me because they had fallen into obscurity even back when the book was published in the 1950s, or have fallen into obscurity since. The articles are in the nature of short biographies or profiles, although they are more like snapshots from the lives of the literary. I've been reading them during lunch at the sandwich shop, then I return it to the shelf. (You may recall that I read Brideshead Revisited the same way.)
I particularly enjoyed the article about Horatio Alger, who has achieved immortality as a descriptive term in the English language (a typical "Horatio Alger story") but whose actual books have fallen into obscurity. The article inspired me to find a Horatio Alger story online and read it, and apparently when you have read one Horatio Alger story, you have read them all. But he was wildly successful in his lifetime, and what is more he led a very quirky life. He remained a lifelong bachelor, and spent all his free time with homeless boys to whom he gave most of his money. That much appears to be true.
However, after looking up the Wikipedia article on Horatio Alger, I found that much of the biographical information in the article from the 1950s, such as the story about Alger's stern father, his flight to Paris, and his adopted son killed by a runaway horse, is fiction, made up for a fraudulent biography published in 1928. The author of the biography did not admit to the fraud until the 1970s. More scrupulous researchers have turned up Unitarian Church records in which two boys accused Alger of performed “deeds too revolting to relate” with them. That's hardly proof that Alger was a pederast, but it raises the question.
Although the biographical information was fraudulent, none of that changes the accurate analysis of Alger's stories I found in the Saturday Review article. The stories, including Farm to Fortune, follow the fortunes of a boy trying to make good. The boy hero invariably works hard and keeps a scrupulous budget, of which we learn the precise details in the story. Con artists and thieves beset the boy at every turn, and often succeed in depriving the boy of hard-earned cash. But the boy also is befriended by businessmen who admire his pluck and discipline. Invariably, somewhere along the way, the boy benefits from a windfall.
In Farm to Fortune, for example, the boy learns that his dead father owned the deed to valuable property. Usually the windfall is anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000, which was of course worth more a century ago. But it was clear that the windfall would form the basis of a much larger fortune because of the hero's hard work. The lesson seemed to be that those who worked hard and showed self-discipline would be rewarded with capital, upon which they could found a fortune by continuing to work hard and show self-discipline. The key was to work hard and show self-discipline, and Providence would take care of the rest. The point of the article I read was that this lesson captured the ideals of America in the late 1800s and early 1900s in the United States, when people like John D. Rockefeller firmly believed that God had given them their fortune, and that they were doing good by doing well. The other point of the article was that Horatio Alger himself had a very different life from his boy heroes.
Another article talked about Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, which was very popular during the same time period as Horatio Alger's stories. Twain, of course, has lasted much better than Alger, but this particular novel has not lasted as well as, say, Huckleberry Finn. Again, the author of the article, who was a younger contemporary of Twain's, argues that the Connecticut Yankee, this self-reliant machinist who so disrupts Arthur's fictional monarchy, captures the ideals of America in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when people like Henry Ford were founding a fortune on mechanical know-how.
I could go on, but I must get ready for work. At any rate, I'm enjoying these well-written glimpses into another literary age, even though some of the snapshots have turned out to be unreliable.
(This post was edited by Curious on Oct 10 2007, 12:15pm)
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Aunt Dora Baggins
Immortal
Oct 10 2007, 12:31pm
Post #3 of 34
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I finished "Sentence of Marriage" and ordered the other two books in the trilogy.
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Kimi's book about life in rural New Zealand in the 1880s is gripping, especially at the end. I cried; there are some very moving and wrenching scenes in the last sixty pages. I've ordered the rest of the trilogy and am looking forward to reading them.
I also finished Terry Pratchett's "Thud" and am now reading "Night Watch". I know that's out of order, but my daughter gave me permission. I want to read "Where's my Cow" but she insists we have to wait until Thanksgiving and have my brother read it out loud to us, since he gave it to her.
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"For DORA BAGGINS in memory of a LONG correspondence, with love from Bilbo; on a large wastebasket. Dora was Drogo's sister, and the eldest surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo; she was ninety-nine, and had written reams of good advice for more than half a century."
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Chance Meeting at Rivendell: a Tolkien Fanfic
and some other stuff I wrote...
leleni at hotmail dot com
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"Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape." --Terry Pratchett
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Lily Fairbairn
Half-elven
Oct 10 2007, 2:58pm
Post #4 of 34
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I got this and Robert Hughes' The Fatal Shore so I could study up on Australia before the Gaffer and I get there next March. It's embarrassing how little I know about the area, beyond what I learned from odd places such as Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country. (My copy of this has gone missing -- I suspect one of my sons of borrowing it a la Hugo Bracegirdle in FotR.)
The Fatal Shore is a very thick book with teensy type, so I'm putting that off. Sydney, though, is a quick and actually very amusing read -- Moorhouse writes beautifully and wittily.
For example, I didn't know that there was a Japanese submarine attack on Sydney Harbor during WWII, under circumstances that reminded me of the attack on Scapa Flow in Orkney. I'd never heard of "Ten Pound Poms" -- although I have learned from my Aussie friends what a "Pom" is. (Someone from England, or perhaps from Britain -- I'm not sure they make the distinction.)
Maybe the Kiwis here can recommend a similar book about New Zealand?
* * * * * * *
Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?
A man may do both. For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day!"
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Finding Frodo
Tol Eressea
Oct 10 2007, 3:05pm
Post #5 of 34
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Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
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I'd been on the library waiting list for this book for a long time and I finally got it. Now I'm going to put it on my Christmas list. I loved this book. The author and her family decided to spend one year eating only locally grown and raised foods (with a few exceptions -- flour was unavailable locally, and each member chose a luxury item to keep buying, such as coffee). The story is fascinating as we follow the family month by month, seeing what they do, what they eat, what they discover. Kingsolver's husband contributes sidebars about topics such as percentage of food dollar that goes to fuel costs (something like 75% or more) and her older daughter provides her own perspective and some recipes at the end of each chapter. They're preaching to the choir, but with the zeal of the newly converted, I went shopping for organic milk yesterday, and started plotting next year's garden.
Where's Frodo?
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Annael
Immortal
Oct 10 2007, 3:17pm
Post #6 of 34
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by Taylor Caldwell, about the life of St. Luke. I read this years ago, when I was a teen, and some of the images have stuck with me all those years. So I finally found a copy and have started re-reading it. She evokes the world at the time of Christ vividly. Caldwell lays on her opinions with a trowel, but the book is well-written otherwise and enjoyable.
Outside a dog, a book is your best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read.
- Groucho Marx
* * * * *
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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Wynnie
Rohan
Oct 10 2007, 4:18pm
Post #7 of 34
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The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield
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The premise: Out of the blue, a young woman who works in her father's antiquarian bookshop receives a letter inviting her to write the biography of a famous novelist. In interviews over the years, this reclusive author has invented dozens of fanciful life stories for herself; now she says she wants to tell the truth. Though Margaret has written a few short biographies of obscure people, she's astounded to receive this commission, and is at first inclined to decline. (But there wouldn't be any story then, would there?)
This is a beautifully written novel (Setterfield's first) about the love of books and stories, about loss and separation ... also about twins. Here's an excerpt:
The window was a large expanse of dark glass, and in the center of it, my ghost, darkly transparent, was staring in at me. Her world was not unlike my own: the pale outline of a desk on the other side of the glass, and farther back a deeply buttoned armchair placed inside the circle of light cast by a standard lamp. But where my chair was red, hers was gray; and where my chair stood on an Indian rug, surrounded by light gold walls, her chair hovered spectrally in an undefined, endless plane of darkness in which vague forms, like waves, seemed to shift and breathe.
In the end, I preferred the story of the humble biographer to that of the novelist, whose family turns out to have been wildly dysfunctional. But I highly recommend the book as a whole.
Perhaps under the shadow of the Unnamed some of the beasts of Mirkwood
are wandering hither to our woods. They have black squirrels there, 'tis said.
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Elberbeth
Tol Eressea
Oct 10 2007, 4:36pm
Post #8 of 34
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I really enjoy her fiction, but I hadn't heard about this one. We could all benefit by doing this even a little.
"There are some things that it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the end may be dark."
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Elberbeth
Tol Eressea
Oct 10 2007, 4:41pm
Post #9 of 34
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which is about the Battle of Assaye in India. This is one of the books that they used when writing the movie Sharpe's Challenge (the other being Sharpe's Fortress). I loved how they used some of the dialogue verbatim.
I have been picking these up wherever I find them, so they're all over the place. One day, when I have them all, I'm going to read them in chronological order.
"There are some things that it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the end may be dark."
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SandWitch King
Rohan
Oct 10 2007, 5:44pm
Post #10 of 34
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"Hunter's Run" by Gardner Dozois, Daniel Abraham, George R.R. Martin
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Adult, raw, sci-fi and so far, pretty interesting. I have an advance copy and I feel very lucky!
No wonder all writers want to direct: one still has to put up with a load of nonsense, but even if wearing two hats (writer and director), there is one under which one is not called a thief and then raped - David Mamet
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Lily Fairbairn
Half-elven
Oct 10 2007, 6:21pm
Post #11 of 34
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At least, I thought the writing was delicious. I had a few problems with the plot, parts of which I thought were hackneyed. And I was rather disappointed in the ending:
(here be spoilers)
I had hoped that the narrator's experiences would change her life a lot more substantially than they did, so that the end of the story was a "that's all there is?" downer.
(here end spoilers)
Overall, I liked the book more than I disliked it, that's for sure. One thing I enjoyed was the timelessness of it -- there were so few clues as to the year, it could have taken place almost any time this century.
* * * * * * *
Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?
A man may do both. For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day!"
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Wynnie
Rohan
Oct 10 2007, 6:38pm
Post #12 of 34
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that the Endings didn't quite live up to the promise of the Beginnings.
Perhaps under the shadow of the Unnamed some of the beasts of Mirkwood
are wandering hither to our woods. They have black squirrels there, 'tis said.
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Penthe
Gondor
Oct 11 2007, 1:10am
Post #13 of 34
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Does that mean that you are Old Age? Hmmmm?
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I finally got around to reading Goodbye to All That last year or so. It was fascinating reading it after reading the Regeneration trilogy, because I felt like I had all the extra insights from other characters in Barker's books. It was a funny feeling having one version of events questioned by the comments of fictional characters based on real life material. Very postmodern, I'm sure.
I've been reading The Once and Future King again. I haven't read it since I was a teenager, so its quite amazing finally understanding a lot of the points being made (and not necessarily agreeing with them I have to say). Lots of the first book (The Sword in the Stone) is hilarious, especially the dialogue between Sir Ector, Sir Grummore and King Pellinore. They sound like even stupider relatives of Bertie Wooster, of course. It's quite fascinating reading such a treatise on how to live with those who wish to use force to exert their power over you, when you don't particularly wish to use force or violence yourself.
Come and visit me at lifeorbooks.blogspot.com
Sometimes it's about books, and sometimes it isn't.
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Penthe
Gondor
Oct 11 2007, 1:15am
Post #14 of 34
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I suspect I learned as much from Bryson's book as I did in all my years of school history.
If you have any questions, please ask. I'd be happy to answer to the fullest of my ability (and I promise not to fib, either). I always like to read a bit of fiction from the country I'm going to so I can get a different view as well.
Come and visit me at lifeorbooks.blogspot.com
Sometimes it's about books, and sometimes it isn't.
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a.s.
Valinor
Oct 11 2007, 2:06am
Post #15 of 34
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Honey, I was old age before new age was new age
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I had a similar experience when I read Once and Future King as an adult with some maturity, after not having read it since maybe late teenhood. Where before I had loved the characters and plot and recognized some of the broader themes, I hadn't had the perspective of adult understanding of so many things. Especially the political implications.
I liked it better as a kid, in some ways. 
It has one of the most beautiful sentences I've ever read, though, and I often wonder if it's an allusion to something else that goes over my head. Somewhere in the part where Kay and Wart are off in the woods with Robin et al, the sentence reads: "They were in the deep and stilly womb of night". I love that sentence, and it's always stuck with me (and God knows, I hope I'm quoting it correctly now that I publicly claimed that it's always stuck with me!!!!)
a.s.
"an seileachan"
"Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love."
~~~Reinhold Niebuhr
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GreenHeart
Rivendell
Oct 11 2007, 2:56am
Post #16 of 34
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Getting through it slowly. 
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Curious
Half-elven
Oct 11 2007, 9:41am
Post #17 of 34
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From Shakespeare's Henry V, Act IV:
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Now entertain conjecture of a time
When creeping murmur and the poring dark
Fills the wide vessel of the universe.
From camp to camp through the foul womb of night
The hum of either army stilly sounds,
That the fixed sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other's watch ...
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a.s.
Valinor
Oct 11 2007, 11:05am
Post #18 of 34
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one of the enduring mysteries of my life, solved!!!
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Just like that! Thanks, Curious.
a.s.
"an seileachan"
"Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love."
~~~Reinhold Niebuhr
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a.s.
Valinor
Oct 11 2007, 11:11am
Post #19 of 34
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one of my mother's favorite books
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I haven't read this in decades, but still think of it when anyone refers to the Luke as "the physician" or something similar.
a.s. (off to see if this is available at the library....)
"an seileachan"
"Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love."
~~~Reinhold Niebuhr
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Lily Fairbairn
Half-elven
Oct 11 2007, 3:39pm
Post #20 of 34
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I'm sure as we get closer to departure date, we'll have lots of questions about subtleties such as tipping.
* * * * * * *
Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?
A man may do both. For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day!"
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SandWitch King
Rohan
Oct 11 2007, 5:01pm
Post #21 of 34
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That is a book I wish I had read more carefully in high school. I may need to revisit it.
No wonder all writers want to direct: one still has to put up with a load of nonsense, but even if wearing two hats (writer and director), there is one under which one is not called a thief and then raped - David Mamet
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Kimi
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Oct 11 2007, 7:30pm
Post #22 of 34
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Solved for the second time :-)
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We have had this discussion on TORn before.
  
Promises to Keep: a novel set in 19th Century New Zealand.
The Passing of Mistress Rose
Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?
- A Room With a View
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a.s.
Valinor
Oct 11 2007, 9:35pm
Post #23 of 34
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***a.s. makes appt with neurologist, must check to see
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if my brain is still present up there in that apparently empty space in my skull, where they say memory resides.
Apparerently, I have no memory.
lol
You know, I remembered talking about this sentence and remembered that something was said about it, but didn't remember it was on Torn.
So, thanks for having my memories for me, Kimi!! Do you remember where I put the receipt for the clock I bought that doesn't work, by any chance????
a.s.
"an seileachan"
"Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love."
~~~Reinhold Niebuhr
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Kimi
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Oct 11 2007, 9:39pm
Post #24 of 34
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Tucked into the instruction manual?
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Failing that, perhaps it's got into my filing system, and will never be seen again. I hope not.
Promises to Keep: a novel set in 19th Century New Zealand.
The Passing of Mistress Rose
Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?
- A Room With a View
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Penthe
Gondor
Oct 11 2007, 9:41pm
Post #25 of 34
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Underneath the clock itself, perhaps?
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'Stilly' is wonderful, isn't it?
Come and visit me at lifeorbooks.blogspot.com
Sometimes it's about books, and sometimes it isn't.
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