Opalescent Essence

One-handed reading

2012-01-17T15:34:00.000-08:00

Per my previous post, my life has changed pretty radically recently! I am enthralled by my adorable baby girl, Aria. But even she can't keep me from reading. I've managed to read a few books so far, including the moving Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett and Madame Bovary, which I thought I had read already but apparently hadn't. Now I'm in the midst of 1Q84 (happily loaded on my new e-reader so I don't have to balance its bulk with a 2-month-old baby in the other arm), as well as Momma Zen by Karen Maezen Miller. I'd heard some quotes from Momma Zen and her other book in my yoga class, but now that motherhood has descended full force, I wanted to read the whole thing. I'm enjoying it so far and trying to take to heart the idea of being gentle with myself. There are no mistakes, only life.

I'm curious if anyone else out there has read or is reading 1Q84. It's compelling and interesting, and I'd love to hear what other people think (without spoilers). Even better, are there any other moms, or other folks, balancing a book in one hand and the treasure of their lives in the other? (And do you ever find time to write??)

And here is a baby picture because I can't resist :)

Hiatus, for a good reason

2011-11-27T14:02:00.001-08:00

I won't be posting much in the coming weeks ... But I think I have a good excuse. Her name is Aria.

Sixteenth Century Thought Experiments and Kittens

2011-11-22T11:54:00.001-08:00

We're lucky today to count Death as an infrequent visitor, but in the 16th century, Europeans had a much closer familiarity with such loss. Infant mortality was extremely high, life expectancy over all was less than half what Americans can look forward to today, and illness or accident could slay anyone at the slightest glance. Thus Michel de Montaigne found himself in his mid-30s and mourning the death of his best friend, his first-born infant daughter, his younger brother, and his father, all while expecting his own life to end within a few years. Such a cacophony of loss drove him to retire to his Bordeaux estate and resolve to steel his will with stoicism, the reigning philosophy of the day.

But this late Renaissance humanist found that he uncovered not stillness but endless curiosity when left alone with his mind. He turned to experimenting with the world - having himself woken while in a deep sleep so as to try to know slumber, traveling across Europe to "polish" his mind through contact with others, and musing about the meaning of his cat's play. These trials he turned to essays, from the French verb "essayer," to try or taste. And the result was a tremendous contribution to Western thought and literature.

In When I am Playing With My Cat, How do I know That She is Not Playing With Me? by Saul Frampton, we learn about both Montaigne's life and his essays. I've never read the originals, so I can't speak to Frampton's scholarship, but the story his writes is both compelling and edifying. Montaigne, at least by Frampton's account, is a charmingly human man, eager to learn about himself and his fellows through close contact and observation. He's also intellectually daring and honest with himself, and comes to some conclusions quite different from the mainstream of his time. I really enjoyed this book - devoured it in just over a day - and now look forward to trying (tasting, as Montaigne might put it), the original essays.

By the way, Montaigne lived during a fascinating period of French history, including the religious civil wars and the death of Henry II. Does anyone know of a good novel about him and his life? I'd love to read it. If it's not out there though, maybe I'll add that to my long list of projects I'd like to write some day!

Cover image from World Literature and Philosophy Rochester Public Library blog. Once again, what a neat cover, no?

The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise, by Julia Stuart

2011-11-16T12:32:00.001-08:00

It is, contrary to this visitor's expectation, a little difficult to feel the full weight of history when visiting the Tower of London. Maybe it's the conveyor belt they make you stand on to see the Crown Jewels, or maybe it's the hordes of other tourists blandly staring at yet another suit of armor. The complex can feel just a bit silly, belying its almost millennium of weighty history.

So perhaps it is appropriate that Julia Stuart's novel is quite silly, filled with a frolicking bearded pig, a tail-less centenarian tortoise, and an erotica-writing clergyman, among other oddities, but still drenched with history and emotion. Stuart takes us into the almost-cloistered lives of the Beefeaters who care for the tower and its ghosts, where we meet Balthazar Jones, a Beefeater stumbling through a thick depression after the death of his only child. Balthazar lives with his beloved wife and Mrs. Cook, a family heirloom who claims descent from Captain Cook's own tortoise and carries her home with her as she makes her slow trek across the Tower Grounds.

None of the Tower's inhabitants seem to have life figured out. Balthazar and his wife Hebe Jones are each drowning alone in their grief. The owner of the Tower's occupants-only pub suspects that she earned more than just a disappointed heart from her fling with a Spaniard. The chapel's reverend fears he will never free his dwelling from the evil occupation of yellow-toothed rats. And, worst of all, the Queen worries that visitor numbers at the Tower are down, just as she is in need of a new location for her personal menagerie.

The juxtaposition of tragedy and comedy is one of Stuart's greatest strengths here, and the result is a touching, if light, novel. She also sprinkles in fun bits of history - like the story of Ranulf Flambard, the Tower's first notable occupant and first escapee. This is certainly an enjoyable and charming read, particularly if you're a fan of British history and quirks.

Isn't the cover just adorable? Image lifted from Book Covers Anonymous, where you can also see the UK cover.

Once Upon a River, by Bonnie Jo Campbell

2011-11-13T12:03:00.001-08:00

The one upside of sitting around and waiting to have this tardy baby is that I've been able to do some reading. I happily finished my stack of books from the library - Toni Morrison's Jazz, Virginia Wolff's To the Lighthouse and Bonnie Jo Campbell's Once Upon a River, most recently. The latter book is an excellent treatise on what not to let happen to your daughter, at least in the eyes if this one expectant mother.

Margo is nearly 15 when the book opens, a beautiful young girl in love with the river and her family's simple, grubby existence along it. She experiences a traumatic event yet, as she is slow to decision and action, she takes a long time to even classify it as such. But once she decides that she has been wronged, her revenge sets off an unforeseen chain of events that sets Margo adrift on her beloved river, roaming up and down it in search of herself and a life that fits her independent spirit.

Margo is, in some ways, a tough character to love. She seems to have completely misplaced her self-preservation instinct, particularly when it comes to dealing with men. She is so casual about her sexuality as to be almost unbelievable, but I suppose it is intended to be a reflection of her inability to value herself. I found it tough to care about a girl who doesn't seem to care about herself, but she has enough hard-chewed charm to make her story worth following. And if, like me, the last time you skinned an animal was in a previous life, you'll likely find the world she lives in to be exotic and captivating, filled with dreams of Annie Oakley and the mysterious ways of stalking herons.

The best thing about the book is Ms. Campbell's writing. She manages to be both stark and evocative, and creates vivid characters. A number of those characters are mothers, and this mother-in-waiting is grateful to learn from their mistakes and their grace.

That Crazy Love for Writing

2011-10-31T16:03:00.000-07:00

The other night, when I was in one of my periodic "my writing stinks I don't know why I bother with this madness and I'll never get a novel published" moods, my husband ventured that he thought I enjoyed writing for the sake of writing, regardless of whether or not I had an audience. Well, not exactly, I tried to explain, without sounding like a raving egoist. Writing is about communication, fundamentally, and storytellers want their stories shared. He parried with the counterexample of diarists, who write for themselves. I admitted he had a point, but conceded my weakness - that's just not me. I guess I do want the validation of publication and someone else's approval. Isn't that embarrassing.

But now, thanks to Betsy Lerner's wonderful, funny, and instructive The Forest for the Trees, I can feel justified in being in good company! Lerner's book is the second of two I've read recently about the more personal, intimate sides of writing. She and Bonnie Friedman (in Writing Past Dark) explore the knotted mess of fear and ego that both propels and hinders writers. As Lerner reminds us, writers are people who write. She says, "When writers say they have no choice, what they mean is: Everything in the world conspired to make me quit but I kept going." Yes, that sounds about right.

Friedman and Lerner both urge writers to dig deeper into themselves, to use writing to express those burning emotions that are doing everything to evade our thoughts and our pens. That's a good reminder, I think -- encouragement to take risks with our characters and our readers. I know that my tendency to want to be nice to people bleeds into my writing and subverts my efforts to build tension. Thanks to my writing group and authors like Lerner and Friedman, I'm at least aware of the weakness and know to press myself.

Most importantly, I've been reminded that writing is hard work and slogging through the emotional roller coaster is a natural part of the process. As Lerner notes, "Writing is nothing but a long distance race. The same kind of hubris that can cripple a runner who doesn't properly train can also derail a writer from reaching his goal." With that in mind, it's nose to the grindstone. With a periodic pat on the back for seeing my first published story hit the streets. We'll all keep working at it!

Isn't the cover of The Forest for the Trees just beautiful??

Doc, by Mary Doria Russell

2011-10-23T18:33:00.000-07:00

Doc Holliday is one of those characters that we're surprised was actually a man, a flesh-and-blood human living in the 19th century and not just a spit-fire, charming consumptive dealing deadly hands of poker in legend after legend. John Henry Holliday was born in Georgia in 1851 and, as Mary Doria Russell tells us in her first sentence, he began to die only 21 years later. But the Fates, as she has it, had a lot more in store for the southern gentleman cum dentist before that death caught up with him. Fleeing the tuberculosis that killed his mother and had already settled in his lungs, John Henry fled west, where he met Kate, the woman who would change his life, and the Earp brothers, the men who would draw him into the history books.

Doc tells John Henry Holliday's story before the fateful showdown at the OK Corral. The book is a strange beast, with a heaping of omniscient narrative overview and relatively little real-time story telling. For this reader, that took a little getting used to. But the story picks up as the novel progresses, and by the time Doc is coughing blood into his handkerchief while Morgan Earp reads to him at his bedside, I was hooked. Russell does a wonderful job of humanizing this legend, apparently aided by an impressive amount of research, and I'm very glad to have met her version of Doc.

The photo here is of John Henry Holliday at age 20, upon graduation from dental school. It is one of the few authenticated photographs of the man.

Side note: Apparently Paramount bought the rights to a script for an action adventure film about Doc Holliday. Cool. Though I'm willing to bet Mary Doria Russell's version of the man is far more interesting.

The Zookeeper's Wife, by Diane Ackerman

2011-10-16T16:21:00.000-07:00

Jan and Antonina Zabinski filled their bright house with laughter, scampering baby animals, and tinkling piano music. Beyond the house stretched the Warsaw Zoo, where Jan was the caretaker, and every day the sounds of elephants, monkeys, macaws and other exotic animals drifted through the air. But the Nazis brought war to Poland, and the zoo was devastated. The Zabinskis reacted with unusual courage, drawing upon their conviction that both humans and animals deserved more than the occupiers believed. The Zookeeper's Wife chronicles the true story of their brave efforts, which would ultimately help more than three hundred people survive the Nazi horrors.

Diane Ackerman is an author of both non-fiction and poetry, but I think it is her poet's sense that most strongly imbues this book. If you're looking for a straightforward narrative, this is probably not your story. Ackerman leaves out key details (like how old the Zabinski's son Rys is at the start of the war), and sometimes neglects to follow a storyline to the end. But if you're looking to learn more about the people that experienced the cruelties of Nazi occupation and the depth of strength they brought to bear in their resistance, this is a great read. Ackerman clearly loves Antonina, the title figure, and brings her to life for us with deft prose. She and her husband were remarkable and inspiring individuals, and I think we are better off for knowing them.

Image is of an elephant from the Warsaw Zoo in 1938, courtesy of WikiCommons.

Confident writing

2011-10-06T15:42:00.000-07:00

It's fun to enter contests. There's the element of surprise and a sort of carefree, what-the-heck release that comes from tossing your hat in the ring. Just like that silly carnival game where you flip over a random rubber duck. Yeah, you probably won't win but hey, those duckies are cute. Bayou magazine sponsors annual prizes in fiction and poetry that include the added benefit of a subscription to the journal for your $15 entry fee. (So check it out and throw your 7,500-word-or-less hat into their ring!)

The first piece in Bayou's latest issue (#35) is titled, unappealingly, "Shitstick." Against my natural inclination, I started reading anyway. It did not take long for the author to grab my attention, and he held it, in spite of the fact that the essay is about young boys I didn't have much sympathy for and a childhood experience I could not relate to. It was the writing. Hans Burger, in his first publication, has some damned confident prose. And just like with dating, confidence is attractive.

As a result, I've been thinking about what exactly makes writing confident. The easy answer is "doing everything right" - displaying the right details, choosing the most fitting words, and balancing between description and action, among other things. But that answer seems like a cop-out to me. Perhaps confident writing is nothing more than the intangible sense a writer gives when she knows what she has to say and says it with the most perfect economy available. But perhaps confidence is a mirage, the result of layers upon layers of careful editing. I suspect that no amount of editing can make uncertain prose gleam with confidence, but I'm open to being convinced.

Photo from the Rubber Duck Regatta, a program to benefit prevention of elder abuse.

State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett

2011-10-03T17:04:00.000-07:00

When a pharmacologist working for a major drug company is declared dead from a fever in the Amazon while on a work reconnaissance trip, his colleague Marina journeys to the jungle to learn what happened to him. A reluctant

Marina arrives in bug-ridden Manaus only to learn that her destination, a mysterious research lab run by her former professor, is more difficult to both find and understand than she had ever anticipated.

While this story does not sound like a likely candidate for a lyrical, moving book, in Ann Patchett's amazingly talented hands the novel simply soars. Marina is a complicated character and, though it takes us a little while to get to know and care for her, her journey is ultimately worthwhile. And Patchett's writing is a joy, as she brings us to the sticky, oppressive heat of Manaus, the mind-numbing terror of the monotonous jungle, and the simple beauty of the Minnesotan plains. Take the following excerpt, for example. I will never think of opera in the same way as before.

... But when the house was dark and the overture rose up to their third-tier balcony she understood completely. Suddenly every insect in Manaus was forgotten. The chicken heads that cluttered the tables in the market place and the starving dogs that waited in the hopes that one might fall were forgotten. The children with fans that waved the flies away from the baskets of fish were forgotten even as she knew she was not supposed to forget the children. She longed to forget them. She managed to forget the smells, the traffic, the sticky pools of blood. The doors sealed them in with the music and sealed the world out and suddenly it was clear that building an opera house was a basic act of human survival.

Personality types and characters

2011-09-22T19:12:00.000-07:00

This week I've been in a leadership class. You know, one of those mandatory ones that everyone groans about and drags their feet on signing up for. Well, to my surprise, this course has ended up being interesting. Even useful. Hey, who would have thought. In addition to the useful stuff I've learned for work, I also enjoyed the discussion of personality types and Myers Briggs. We took the tests, confirmed our types, and talked about what that meant. I'm an INFJ - someone who needs to recharge her batteries alone, lives in the abstract, places a priority on feelings and subjective decisions, and is highly comfortable with schedules and programs. What about you?

Aside from the personal and relationship value (like understanding why my husband forgets to shave or immediately jumps into picking apart a news article I thought was "neat"), I found the exercises also useful for my writing. What personality types are my characters? I think my most recent character is an ENFP - she's definitely into the abstract, and does not need to have things planned out. In fact, being willing to fly by the seat of her pants gets her in considerable trouble, when she follows someone else's lead into a very dangerous situation. I like the idea of using this framework in my writing in the future, particularly for helping me understand the conflict between my characters. I know folks out there use character worksheets - what are some of the other tools you use?

Anyone writing about 19th c. farming communities?

2011-09-13T20:00:00.000-07:00

I was recently in Canada and visited a sort of Colonial Williamsburg for 19th century farming. They preserved a pre-existing farming community in Orwell, Prince Edward Island, complete with a general store, one-room schoolhouse, shingle mill and graveyard.

These pictures are of the merchant's house attached to the general store, so a sample of what the richest person in town lived like, and below is the blacksmith and another workshop. (Isn't that dress just darling?) I figured I'd post them here just in case anyone out there was doing research on late 19th-century agriculture, as I know I've relied on others' photos for my own far-flung imaginings!
And if anyone out there knows about the fashions shown here, I'd love to hear about it. Would this be pretty typical for late 19th-century merchant class clothing?

The upside of self-publishing for a reader

2011-09-11T12:06:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I blogged about how frustrating self-publishing can be for readers. Without the filtering provided by agents, editors, publishing houses, and stores, we readers are faced with practically unlimited choices and extremely limited information about the quality of what's available. That's pretty daunting, and I'm still wary about how readers are supposed to negotiate that difficult and time-consuming terrain.

But recently I was reminded of the upside to self-publishing from a reader's perspective. Davin Malasarn, of the Literary Lab blog, published a collection of stories titled, The Wild Grass. A good number of the stories had already been published in literary journals, but by pulling them together, Davin created a lovely immersion into his writing and imagination. In "Rivers," we meet a Thai woman who's proud of her newly-electrified house yet so uncertain about its function that she takes care to dry her hand before using the switch. In "Bohemian," Malasarn writes with pitch-perfect precision about the pettiness and joy of a fledgling writer. Who knows if this book could have gotten this published the traditional way - it's certainly possible - but by short-circuiting that route, Davin forged a direct connection with readers and is able to offer his writing at a very affordable price.Since the fragmentation of publishing seems to be with us to stay, I was glad to be reminded of one of the benefits. Now we just have to figure out how to identify all the gems out there.

The beauty of language

2011-08-28T18:16:00.000-07:00

I've already blogged about how much I enjoyed The Elegance of the Hedgehog, but given my interest in brevity I didn't get a chance to delve into why. Barbery's love for language and beauty are really inspiring, especially for writers and aspiring writers. Take this quote, for example:

"Language is a bountiful gift and its usage, an elaboration of community and society, is a sacred work. Language and usage evolve over time: elements change, are forgotten or reborn, and while there are instances where transgression can become the source of an even greater wealth, this does not alter the fact that to be entitled to the liberties of playfulness or enlightened misuse when using language, one must first and foremost have sworn one's total allegiance."

(Emphasis mine)

Isn't that lovely? Doesn't it make you want to pore over a dictionary, or at least crack open a book of poetry?

In that spirit, I'll take the liberty of a second quote, this time from Langston Hughes, who taught me that I could like poetry.

Midnight Dancer

Wine-maiden

Of the jazz-tuned night,

Lips

Sweet as purple dew,

Breasts

Like the pillows of all sweet dreams,

Who crushed

The grapes of joy

And dripped their juice

On you?

Excerpted from Selected Poems of Langston Hughes.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery

2011-08-25T18:08:00.000-07:00

The concierge, Time Magazine tells us, comprises a special class in France. They come from a single mold, cast with pulled-back hair, grey skin and grey souls. (Circa 1964, at least.) They were once the ubiquitous keepers of French apartment buildings, living in humble apartments on the ground floor and tending to the needs of the residents. Invisible and uninteresting, presumably.

Such is one of the heroines in The Elegance of the Hedgehog. The concierge Renee describes herself as ugly and afflicted with bunions, but we quickly learn that her invisibility is a well-crafted mask. Behind her frumpy, cantankerous exterior lies a woman of great intellectual curiosity who is captivated by the beauty of Art, if dismayed by the shortfalls of the world, particularly those of her residents.

One of the residents is twelve-year-old Paloma, a brilliant child who manages her own masquerade as she hides her intelligence and sensitivity from her family and schoolmates. Disappointed by the world, Paloma tells us that she intends to commit suicide on her thirteenth birthday, lighting her family's luxury apartment on fire as a final farewell.

But the world still has some magic, both transformational and tragic, to work on these women. The story is mostly the record of their observations, their musings on life, art, beauty, and disappointment. Little happens in the sense of a traditional plot, but much is revealed.

I had checked this book out from the library and I wanted to return it today, before it was overdue. But I had not yet finished reading it so I stood in the library, which was crowded with patrons fleeing the downpour unleashed on the world outside, and I read the final pages. I completely forgot where I was - forgot that I was standing in a library, forgot that I was on my lunchbreak and needed to get back to work promptly, forgot that I was even in the United States. Barbery's characters are beautiful and her writing is a joy. (Which means that proper credit is due to Alison Anderson and her crystalline translation.) I love that I live in a world where a strange, philosophizing book like this one becomes a best seller.

Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

2011-08-14T15:12:00.000-07:00

John Ames, the narrator of Marilynne Robinson's unusual Gilead, knows his life is coming to a close, that his heart is counting down to its last beat. So this seventy-six year-old small-town preacher pens a letter to his seven-year-old son. His letter, the novel, meanders from philosophizing about life and religion to telling family history. Fortunately for the reader, John Ames is a very pleasant man to spend some time with. He's the sort of fellow you could sit with on a porch on a warm summer's night and listen to him while away the time as you sip tea and watch the fireflies blink.

The first half of the book is not much more exciting than that porch chat. It takes a long time for Robinson to introduce any tension, and once she does it's pretty slight. But, in the end, the beauty of her language and Ames's observations make the time spent worthwhile. For example, take this gem from the end of the book: "There is no justice in love, no proportion to it, and there need not be, because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or parable of an embracing, incomprehensible reality."

Ames is a humble, thoughtful man who recognizes his follies (sometimes) and is wise enough to acknowledge his mistakes. He shares the lessons learned and not learned in a lifetime, and it's a pleasure to share the journey with him. Particularly if you're not in a hurry to be entertained but can sit back and savor the conversation.

(Apparently this book won the Pulitzer in 2005.)

The Virgin's Knot, by Holly Payne

2011-08-04T16:37:00.000-07:00

In mid-century Turkey, a beautiful young woman has grown up crippled by the legacy of childhood polio. But her father, her only parent, told Nurdane that when Allah takes something away, he gives something in return. So the loss of her legs, and the treasured ability to run and dance, is replaced by a legendary skill for making beautiful rugs. These prayer rugs are given to brides, which Nurdane will never be. Her latest creation is almost finished when the intrusion of a few strangers to their tiny village makes Nurdane question her deal with Allah, just as her father has made a mysterious bargain for the recipient of the remarkable rug.

Holly Payne writes The Virgin's Knot in an almost self-consciously "literary" style, forgoing quotation marks around dialogue and demanding a lot from the reader in terms of plot comprehension. The punctuation I found pretentious but the thought required to follow Nurdane's development was rewarding. I wouldn't have minded a little more explicit explanation at the end, but Payne introduces some interesting themes and, for readers willing to be patient with her, I think it's a memorable story. (Here's a nice interview with her.)

Fun contest

2011-08-01T15:10:00.000-07:00

The folks over at Literary Lab always have interesting discussions on craft and storytelling. To add to the fun, they've just announced their third story competition. Check it out. They've titled it "Variations on a Theme" and it's designed to be based (even if quite loosely) on inspiration from one of the two linked stories. Even if you don't submit a piece, it's a neat way to work your imagination a little bit and see what magic the muses bring to your writing desk.

Books in the vault - and on the walls, and the floor, and ...

2011-07-28T16:10:00.000-07:00

I love checking out quirky independent bookstores when I travel and this past weekend's trip to upstate NY was no exception. The treat this time was Lyrical Ballad Bookstore in Saratoga, NY. The store unfolds across various rooms - turn a corner, and there's another hidden nook holding a different category of books. The main room is rimmed with tall bookcases that are themselves topped in dozens and dozens of bookends, haphazardly displayed and apparently designed to tempt book lovers into thinking they're for sale (they're not).

The store used to be a bank, and you can still see the old bank vault door. (Yes, it's locked! I wonder if the books behind it are special ...) The store has a lot of first editions, also some neat old prints and of course shelves upon shelves of random treasures. I bought an old copy of Walter Scott's Ivanhoe and a 1915 Arm & Hammer Baking Soda bird trading card (like one of these but without the frame).

A taste of Wharton society

2011-07-24T17:17:00.000-07:00

Edith Wharton, the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, spent ten crucial years of her life in Lenox, MA at her custom-built estate, The Mount. Wharton designed the house as both a congenial home for guests (like Henry James) and a retreat for herself. She wrote some of her most important books there, including Ethan Frome and House of Mirth.

Before traveling to Albany this weekend for my pilgrimage to Lenox, I read some of Wharton's classics. I re-read Ethan Frome this winter and was thrilled to rediscover how cold and stark the story is. A great winter read. Then I read House of Mirth and Age of Innocence just before traveling, and they were both beautiful experiences (man, could that woman write) and wonderful introductions to Wharton's life in upper society New York. Given all the frivolous class preoccupations that she skewers in both novels, it's easy to see how Wharton treasured her time at The Mount, away from the brass materialism and snobbish distinctions of Fifth Avenue society.

Wharton did all of her writing in bed (posed pictures at her desk notwithstanding), and obviously made the most of her life of leisure. But she was also a divorcee in Paris when the Great War broke out, and she worked tirelessly to promote relief efforts and to publicize the civilian cost of the war.

Right: Wharton's bedroom

What you do while you're waiting

2011-07-21T17:12:00.000-07:00

In Venezuela the other day, a reporter recorded 117 people standing in line outside a government building. Waiting. Like so many Venezuelans they were starting (or spending) their day waiting in a line. This line was to use the only working elevator in that building. There were, of course, other lines after reaching the correct floor.

This NYT article about waiting in Venezuela mentioned what the people were doing as they waited. Waiting is interesting - it's an inescapable part of life, even with all our hustle bustle. I wait for the bus in the morning, wait in line at the cafeteria, wait for the water to boil so I can make pasta.

How do we spend all that time waiting? Stephen King says he keeps a book on him always, so whenever he's slogging through a line, at the grocery store or waiting to pick up his kids from school, he can pull out his book and read a few lines. I've tried to adopt that habit, and having a book in my purse certainly makes me a lot more patient when the bus is running late or when my lunch appointment gets lost. I don't have a smart phone (nor do I want one) so I can't check the internet, but that's often what my husband does when he waits.

Some people seem to do nothing while they wait. No books, no newspaper. Part of me thinks that seems like a horrible waste of time. But part of me thinks that maybe my imagination could stand to be let loose a bit when I wait, or that I could work on "being present," as they say.

How do you wait? Is that a good place for writing?

Doodle Stitching

2011-07-18T16:09:00.000-07:00

Inspired partly by Rowena's amazing sewing skills and partly by distant memories of sewing/cross stitch/etc. when I was in high school, I decided to try some embroidery. I'd previously bought embroidered gifts for friends having babies, but with one of my best friends due to have her first, it seemed time to up the ante. I bought Doodle Stitching, by Aimee Ray (such pretty stuff she does!). With Aimee's help I learned a few basic stitches, got inspired, and set off!

The photos here capture the results. (For those unfamiliar with baby gear, these are burp cloths.) I'm pretty excited to have picked up a new hobby! Not that I needed one, what with the writing and the cooking and the gaming and the friends and, oh right, a baby on the way ... :)

So this is a different sort of book review than my usual, but if you're interested in getting a little artsy-crafty, I definitely recommend Aimee's book.

The Season's Bounty

2011-07-10T12:53:00.000-07:00

I love the Farmer's Market at this time of year. We joined a CSA this year to help ease our shopping trips, but I still can't resist the lure. I slogged through the thick-as-butter humidity this morning to make it out to the market and was amply rewarded. Check out the beautiful flowers I bought!

I also snagged some sour cherries, one of my favorite seasonal treats. I think this may have been the last week to get them in our part of our woods, so I'm grateful I made the hike. I made a cherry pie filling with them today - just added rum, vanilla, and sugar. (My theory is that every cooked fruit dish is improved by some sort of alcohol - rum, brandy, or vodka, usually.) I'm going to have to really exercise restraint to avoid eating these for a week so they can survive until next weekend, when I'll plop them into the pie crust I made ages ago and just need to bake.

Have fun enjoying your summer bounty! I'll be tucking into a homemade zucchini bread shortly - fuel for the work I'm doing on my current manuscript-in-progress.

Summer reading on Parade

2011-07-09T17:32:00.000-07:00

I'm glad the world has the capability to surprise me, especially in pleasant ways. I'll admit to being a bit of a snob sometimes, and I usually ignore the Parade Magazine that comes with my Sunday paper inserts. ("Did Amanda Bynes really quit acting?" asks a reader on the first page. Me - who's Amanda Bynes?) But this week the cover caught my attention. Summer Reading, it promised. I wondered what Parade, which I assume is popular since it's been around for ages and still has columns by Marliyn vos Savant, would recommend to readers. What popular, commercial fiction would top their lists?

Well. I shouldn't jump to conclusions, now should I. Turns out their fiction list looked to me to be all literary, and it included a number of books I'd already added to my wishlist. Check it out for yourself. Fun to be pleasantly surprised! Fun to be reminded that there are lots of great readers out there.

(Also, the essay by Pat Conroy is charming and worth reading.)

It's been a long time since I had a long, relaxing summer vacation, so I tend to forget that summer reading can, for some lucky folks, have a special feel from the rest of the year. But I have a few short vacations coming up and I hope to make at least one of them a sitting-on-your-bum, watching-the-world-go-by sort of get-away. I haven't yet decided what books I'll take, but it will be fun to do so! Anyone else there have a special summer reading list?

The Stolen Child, by Keith Donohue

2011-07-03T16:26:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to get back into the normal flow of life, now, a few weeks after my father-in-law's passing. Reading, as usual, is a great balm and balancing force for me. Fortunately, the book I first picked up off my to-be-read pile was Keith Donohue's enchanting The Stolen Child.

In Donohue's debut work, he takes a fresh look at an old fairytale by following two sides of the same changeling swap. The chapters are written alternately by the boy who was taken from his family and the changeling boy who becomes human in his place. There's magic and creativity, and at first the book draws you along as you learn the fabulous world of the changelings and the lore that structures their lives. But then the story becomes deeper, a more profound examination of the universal search for self-confidence and authenticity. The two boys, in this story, continue to be fascinated with each other, building tension as the story progresses. No spoilers here, so I'll just say it's a fun read.

He's got a new book out that I'll have to pick up - Centuries of June. Happily, I suppose, the TBR pile never seems to diminish. That's the sort of comfort I'll take.

Tribute

2011-06-24T20:00:00.000-07:00

Returning to this blog is painful. I can't post anything else before I acknowledge this: my first reader, my most faithful reader, is gone. Last week my father-in-law passed away. The beloved father of my husband, the grandfather to our daughter-on-the-way, died at age 66. I miss you, Gary. I miss you.

How do you write a letter to someone who can't read it? This blog was always, in some way, written with Gary in mind. He encouraged me to write stories, and always wanted to hear ones with happy endings. I tried. Like Gary, I believe in happy endings. But I don't always have the courage to write them. I will always think of him when I write, wishing that he could read what comes next. I will wonder if he would have liked it, and I will try to be worthy of him.

The Bronte Sisters' Society

2011-06-10T17:58:00.000-07:00

I used to have a sense of propriety when it came to my reading. There were places to read and places not to read. The Lord of the Rings threw all that to the dogs when I re-read it in college. I couldn't bear to put the book down, even as I hurried to class afraid to be late, so I learned to read while I walk. The magic of an entrancing narrative makes the journey practically invisible -- probably contrary to my yoga-related efforts to cultivate mindfulness, but that's a sacrifice I'm happy to make.

Now that it's summer and I don't need clumsy gloves to warm my fingers, I am again reading while I walk the 1.7 miles to and from work. This morning I read (rereading) Wuthering Heights. As I stopped at a traffic light, I heard someone speaking to me.

"I absolutely love the Bronte sisters. That is one of my favorites!" I looked up to see a professionally-dressed white man in his mid-40s or so. I agreed that it was a wonderful book, and went back to reading it.

"All the Bronte sisters are excellent. Have you read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte?"

I admitted I had not.

"She's underappreciated, but it's really great."

I looked up from my book again and smiled. I thanked him for the recommendation and he strode off, jaywalking just before the light turned.

How lovely to hear a man admit his unabashed love for, not just novels, but novels written by women well over 150 years ago. And he wasn't hitting on me, either! So nice to be reminded that a love of reading lurks beneath many surprising facades.

Photo is of a sketch of Anne Bronte drawn by her sister Charlotte. Taken from Wikipedia, sourced to The Poets' Corner.

Creativity, the non-writing kind

2011-06-05T13:06:00.000-07:00

As I've posted before, I love making stop-motion animation. This started with childhood projects done with my dad's Betamax camcorder (ok, he did most of the work, we watched the giant bunny demolish the doll house) and took a hiatus until college. I've only managed two now since getting my cool video editing software, but here's the latest. It also explains why, in a little while, my life is going to get very busy and I'm not sure how much time I'll have for writing. (Which means I need to get as much done as possible soon!)

Note, this is best with sound on.

Some literary travels

2011-05-27T15:51:00.000-07:00

Busy busy! But look what I found in the meantime.

Charlotte Bronte's traveling writing desk, on display at the NY Public Library.

Eighteen beautiful miles of books at Strand.

And a perfect reading perch in the Shenandoah's.

Next trip - up to Albany with a pilgrimage to Edith Wharton's home, "The Mount." (And if I'm lucky, maybe a side trip to check out some charming used bookstores.) So I'm reading House of Mirth and (time permitting) Age of Innocence to prepare myself. Turn-of-the-century gentility, here I come!

Into the great blue yonder - or New York

2011-05-23T19:04:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow night we leave for a quick one-day trip (about 24 hours exactly) to NYC. My husband is there for work, I'm there for the free hotel room and the chance to do touristy things on a Wednesday. Of course, I'm already overbooking and being over-enthusiastic. In addition to doing two dinners and a breakfast with friends, I also want to tour the Metropolitan Museum of Art, visit the holy of holies Strand Bookstore, have scones at Alice's Tea Cup, have lunch at the vegetarian Candle Cafe, see the play Arcadia at the Barrymore Theatre, and swing by the New York Public Library's exhibit of treasures from its collection. Surely I can fit all that into a short day ... right? right? ::sigh:: Or maybe I'll stick with a literary walking tour of Greenwhich Village ... Hrm. If only I didn't need to be back at work on Thurs!!

Photo from Strand Bookstore.

Everyone's got a background

2011-05-14T14:29:00.001-07:00

We had a vigorous discussion at my last writers group meeting, prompted by two long submissions group members had given us to work on. One, from a member I'll call Kelly, was the beginning of a very creative novel with all sorts of weird things going on. Well, in actuality, "going on" is not the right term, since 80 percent of the submission was background. Where the characters came from, how they met each other, what they thought about their various provenances, how they related with their parents. I found it frustrating. Just get on with the story, already!

To my surprise, not everyone in the critique group agreed. And Kelly seized upon the dissent to disregard the comments of those of us who felt there was too much background, not enough present story time. Well, I'm biased, but I'm pretty confident I was right that the story felt like it was stuck in sludge. But I guess she'll either find out the old-fashioned way (rejection - hey, we've all had our share) or prove me wrong.

But in the meantime, I've been paying attention to how published authors kick their stories off and how much background they incorporate. I finally read a novel that I enjoyed (after a bit of a dry spell) and although Khaled Hosseini starts A Thousand Splendid Suns at nearly the beginning of his character's life -- she's five -- the story itself starts right then. He's not looking back and giving us background on Mariam's childhood, he's throwing us into the tumult from the beginning. An extended quote:

"Mariam was five hears old the first time she heard the word harami.

It happened on a Thursday. It must have, because Mariam remembered that she had been restless and preoccupied that day, the way she was only on Thursdays, the day when Jalil visited her at the kolba. To pass the time until the moment that she would see him at last, crossing the knee-high grass in the clearing and waving, Mariam had climbed a chair and taken down her mother's Chinese tea set. The tea set was the sole relic that Mariam's mother, Nana, had of her own mother, who died with Nana was two. Nana cherished each blue-and-white porcelain piece, the graceful curve of the pot's spout, the hand-painted finches and chrysanthemums, the dragon on the sugar bowl, meant to ward off evil.

It was this last piece that slipped from Mariam's fingers, that fell to the wooden floorboards of the kolba and shattered."

Hosseini has started to feed out information about Mariam and her world, but we're already caught in dramatic action. No overbearing narration.

A note on the book, by the way. I wasn't enthusiastic about reading it and was doing so out of obligation to the person who lent it to me. If you've read The Kite Runner, you know Hosseini pulls no emotional punches. And a novel about women in Afghanistan? Sure to be heart-wrenching, right? Well, it is. My face was bathed in tears when I was finished. But, still, I really liked it. The story takes a while to really grab you but when it does, it's unforgettable.

Has anyone had a similar discussion in their writing group? I'd be really interested to know what other people are going through with this.

Tulips oh tulips!

2011-05-01T15:52:00.001-07:00

So it turns out tulips aren't from Holland.* But once, almost four hundred years ago, they so seduced Dutchmen that for a few hot months, trading tulips was the fastest way to a quick buck and then, suddenly, the surest path to a quick ruin. I'm finishing up reading Tulipomania by Mike Dash, and it's fascinating. He details the "tulip boom" of 1636-1637 and the evolution of both commerce and horticulture that led to it. I picked up the book because it might, tangentially, be related to a future writing project of mine. But it has ended up having the unexpected result of making me fall in love with tulips!

Today, tulips are spring's bright but, well, common handmaid. Wide beds of red or yellow tulips pop up at spring's arrival, just after the hardy crocuses and the cheerful daffodils. In years past I had not thought much about tulips, but after learning about how much they were once valued I've started looking at them in a different light. The traders of the 17th century did not value all tulips the same, and they were likely almost as indifferent to the plain red varieties as I am today. But the more delicate, rarer types fired the lust of collectors and the greed of traders. The highest reliably-recorded price for a single bulb during the boom was 5,200 guilders. For some perspective: a typical middle-ranking merchant would earn 1,500 guilders a year, and seven years after the boom Rembrandt would rake in 1,600 guilders as his fee for his masterpiece, The Night Watch. After the bust, one trader tried to solicit a lawyer's help to recoup his losses, including 6,000 guilders paid for four pounds of Switser bulbs.

Nature conspired with my reading to bring us a beautiful crop of tulips here in the city, just as I was reading the book. So now I'm hooked on tulips. I even love the way they die -- with exuberance. Many of them just keep blooming, giving it all they've got, til they can't handle it anymore and just fall off. Such a great way to go.

It's past tulip season now but here are some photos I took last weekend.

I love the double tulips -- they're my favorite.

* Wild tulips are originally from the plains of central Asia.

In other words, be human

2011-04-17T13:57:00.000-07:00

An unshaven man approached the podium, nervously shuffled his papers and took a deep breath. He looked out at us and admitted he had never given a keynote address before. "So, in other words, you're all busting my cherry."

Yesterday's Conversations and Connections literary conference yesterday was rather like Steve Almond's hilarious yet depressing keynote address -- filled with enthusiasm for writing and yet a little disheartening in the reminder of how hard it is to be human, particularly the weird humans that writers tend to be. A strange but ultimately inspiring combination, for if we weren't so strange and conflicted, there wouldn't be much to write about! And it was certainly exciting to discuss writing with some talented, charming people. I figured I'd share a few highlights:

- A 79-year old Greek immigrant who is a retired engineer and has written a fictionalized memoir asked me if I worked aside from writing. I said yes and he replied, "Good. You have to go out and live." I thought that was a nice reminder, if not universally applicable.

- Give yourself a break and be kind to yourself. As Steve Almond put it, "Set the bar a little lower." You don't have to be a superstar to be a success - making good decisions about your writing is hard enough.

- With regard to point of view in a story, once you as the author have established it, get out of the way. No need to say, "she thought" or "she remembered" because the reader is already with that character.

- A quote from Steve Almond's book, "This Won't Take But a Minute Honey," which is really cool and he only sells in person:

... Readers are drawn to stories not because of your dazzling prose, but because they wish to immerse themselves in a world of danger. More precisely, in the heart of a particular character on the brink of emotional tumult. It doesn't especially matter what your heroine cares about, as long as she cares a lot.

- Oh, and for goodness sake, follow directions when submitting to literary magazines. Editors are human too and with all the demands on their time they can use all the kindness we can give, starting with accomodating their individual submission systems.

I bought The Calligrapher's Daughter at the conference yesterday because the author, Eugenia Kim, is a local and was participating in a panel. I'm excited to read it!

Good news!

2011-04-15T18:08:00.001-07:00

First bit of good news - I'm going to have a story published! The kind people at the Silk Road Review have accepted my bribe, er, story and I expect it'll be in their Summer/Autumn issue. I learned about this just a week or so before one of my writing partners found out a poem of hers will be published, so I think there's something in the air! (By the way, the Silk Road Review is having a Flash Fiction Contest so anyone interested in winning $500, check it out!)

Second bit of good news - tomorrow is the Conversations and Connections literary conference here in DC. I've heard that it's a fun group of people and I'm really looking forward to mingling with writers and learning!

Anyone else have good or exciting news?

On wanting to like the narrator

2011-04-11T16:58:00.000-07:00

To label someone an "unreliable narrator" is, in a certain sense, to understand that the narrator is human and neither omniscent nor objective. Unreliable narrators run the gamut - from the charming but mischevious Huck Finn to any number of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's old, lacivious men. Often unreliable narrators display a crucial human flaw in their unreliability, be it pride or shame or incurable optimism. I love how fiction shows humanity in its rich complexity and so I like narrators that aren't afraid to show their bias.

But it gets complicated when the person narrating is completely despicable or utterly detached from reality. Hubert Hubert in Lolita was pretty appalling but he works hard to make us like him, or at least understand. The books I've been reading lately, however, don't even try. One is about a rat who reads literature and loves books more than food. Sounds like a good premise, right? Except that he's so insecure about being a rat that he is constantly whining and completely pretentious. Not someone I want to spend 200 pages with. So I put that book down and tried another, one I had high hopes for. But that narrator turned out to be completely, off-the-wall insane, without the advantage of realizing it. Why should I want to read the narrative of a crazy person, why spend my time sifting through his madness to find what's relevant and what's not? I know some people think we should be able to learn from narrators we can't stand and I'm willing to admit that that's true. I am certain I could learn something about humanity by spending time listening to the unhinged rants of the mentally ill. But neither exercise sounds pleasant so I'm going to pass.

Which means that I am in a really dry spell for books! I'm dying for a sink-right-in-and-immerse-yourself-so-you-never-want-to-take-a-breath book. Any suggestions?? A historical epic would be wonderful, for example.

The Quickening Maze, by Adam Foulds

2011-04-03T17:43:00.000-07:00

In the mid-19th century a middle-aged poet was consigned to a progressive mental institute just outside London. The man, known as The Peasant Poet, believed he had two wives and alternated his delusions of having other identities (like Byron and Shakespeare) with moments of piercing, brutal clarity. John Clare suffered greatly in an era when mental health treatment had progressed little beyond the releasing of "humors," even in Matthew Allen's relatively progressive institue.

This institute, nestled in a forest shimmering with Midsummer Night's Dream dew, is home to a number of other tortured souls, a count soon increased by the arrival of Alfred Tennyson, who stays on the property to support his depresssed brother. Clare, Tennyson, Dr. Allen, his daughters, and the other inmates struggle to reconcile their inner worlds with the harsh reality of a changing, modern life, one that lies both beyond and within their enchanted forest.

The Quickening Maze does not have a plot, so to speak, but draws its strength from the trials of its fascinating characters and the questions about life that they raise. It is a book in which very little is explicit, even the settings and the characters, but it manages to be quite haunting. This would be an excellent choice for a book club -- it raises questions about poetry, love, mental health, modernity, craftmanship, and, most poignantly, the constant tragedy that comes from human yearning. I wouldn't say I loved it, as the writing was too impressionistic for the book to seize onto me, but it was definitely interesting. Has anyone else read it?

A 79-year-old's "Confessions of a Young Novelist"

2011-03-27T12:53:00.000-07:00

Umberto Eco, let's admit, is a bit quirky so I guess he can get away with calling himself a young novelist at age 79. The man has a tremendous imagination and idiosyncratic intellect, as any reader of his novels can tell you. He has recently published Confessions of a Young Novelist, a set of four essays about writing and/or fiction. It is an engaging and stimulating work and I recommend it. One of the highlights for me came right at the beginning and, in the interest of spreading the joy, I'm going to quote it.

When interviewers ask me, "How did you write your novels?" I usually cut short this line of questioning and reply, "From left to right." I realize that this is not a satisfactory answer, and that it can produce some astonishment in Arab countries and Israel.

Now I have time for a more detailed response. In the course of writing my first novel, I learned a few things. First, "inspiration" is a bad word that tricky authors use in order to seem artistically respectable. As the old adage goes, genius is ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspriation. It is said that the French poet Lamartine often described the circumstances in which he had written one of his best poems: he claimed it had come to him fully formed in a sudden illumination, one night when he was wandering through the woods. After his death, somebody found in his study an impressive number of versions of that poem, which he had written and rewritten over the course of years.

Eco later talks about the preparatory work he did for his novels, including drawing a precise map of the monastary where In the Name of the Rose takes place, and sketching out the faces of the characters in The Island of the Day Before. (He also traveled to the South Pacific and spent days learning about the oceans and the night sky on one of those islands - obviously a research technique better suited to an author who has earned money from previous books.) For Foucalt's Pendulm he spent evening after evening wandering the museum where much of the action takes place and then walking Paris streets at night. The result is a verisimiltude that has earned the awe of legions of obsessive fans.

I love books rich in learning, observation and thought. I am extremely wary of books written quickly - Eco's quickest writing was two years, for In the Name of the Rose, since he could rely upon a lifetime of medieval research. (That's one reason I've never been even remotely interested in participating in NaNoWriMo, although dear friends have convinced me that it has its place.) Do you think you can tell the difference between a novel written on the fly and one that took its author years to plough through? Do you have a preference?

The downside of self-publishing for a reader

2011-03-25T16:32:00.001-07:00

A friend of our family published a book last year. In the spirit of solidarity, I bought a copy and read it. The first warning light went off before the opening paragraph - the book opened with acknowledgements. Ok, unconventional, but fine. No mention of an agent. Ok, maybe I just couldn't pick out the agent's name, or maybe the author sold directly to the publisher.

Within pages I could tell that this was not prose that would have passed muster with my writing group. Too many commas, too many adverbs, and, most damningly, too many fluctuating emotions on the same page, paragraph, or even (the horror!) sentence. I read about 50 pages before loyalty could compel me no further. And I was grumpy all that morning about the wasted time - time I much would have rather spent reading a good book. I found out later that day that the book was, effectively, self-published.

Obviously readers often find books they're disappointed with. But I think the vetting service provided by agents and publishers often - not always - helps narrow the field. I recognize that there are exceptions and that some self-published works are quite good, while many (many!) traditionally published books are horrible. But as the floodgates open, how is a reader to defend herself and her precious time? I sure hope interpid book bloggers more brave than myself will do some winnowing and recommending for the rest of us.

Useful Writing

2011-03-20T17:53:00.000-07:00

The Washingtonian Magazine's recent issue includes a lovely interview with author/journalist/teacher/grandfather Roger Rosenblatt. It's clear from the interview that not only does Rosenblatt have an impressive resume but he also has a thoughtful and kind heart. The interview is worth reading if you can get your paws on it (the Washingtonian only posts content after its subsequent issue hits newstands), but in the meantime I'll take the liberty of quoting one bit.

[The Washingtonian] Your writing book ends with a letter you sent to your students. In it you say, "For writing to be great ... it must be useful to the world." Can you talk about that?

By "useful" I don't really mean practically useful, although I'm sure there are practical applications. There are only four reasons for writing that I can think of. I didn't put this in the book, but I've thought about it since.

First, writing makes suffering endurable, and it does this by making it beautiful. Marsha Norman writes 'Night, Mother about suicide. That play is unrelenting in its sadness, and it ends in suicide. Someone might say, "Why do this?" The answer is because art made it endurable, made it beautiful.

Second, writing makes evil intelligible. If we ever think evil is beyond our capability, we're kidding ourselves. Look at Iago -- Othello's sort of a stiff, but Iago's the one we really remember. If you know that evil is intelligible, that anyone is capable of it, then you can make moral use of that.

Third, writing makes justice desirable. I can't imagine anything more important to you, me, or any people we know and like than justice or injustice. Every time there's an injustice, your fists clench. The Winslow Boy fights England, and when that barrister's motto, "Let right be done," is said, tears well up and it's just wonderful.

Finally, writing makes love possible. All these things--suffering, injustice, and evil--one can still love above these things, love the animals we are and wish them well. That to me is the sublime use of writing.

What more is there to say than that? Rosenblatt's book about writing Unless it Moves the Human Heart just moved to the top of my wishlist. Check it out!

The Turtle Catcher, by Nicole Helget

2011-03-13T18:45:00.000-07:00

In a remote corner of Minnesota, shortly after The Great War, three sons of German immigrants force their slow-witted neighbor backwards into a lake. They train their rifle sights on him as he protests, flails, and eventually trudges backwards. They have sewn his pockets full with rocks. He violated their sister, they say, although two of them tremble to hold the rifles pointed at a man they previously knew as only gentle and dull.

The Turtle Catcher opens with this gripping and tragic encounter, and in so doing gives us a snapshot of each of the lives involved - the three brothers, the man wading into the pond, the sister sitting in shock and dismay at home. The scene concludes with horror and a bit of magic, leaving the reader anxious to know what happened to those complicated people.

Ms. Helget answers those questions by launching backwards in time about thirty years. The bulk of the book, about eighty percent, is an extended flashback detailing the lives of those characters and their families. This, unfortunately, has the effect of diluting quite a bit of the suspense, since from the very first chapter we know a great deal about the lives of those five individuals and their families. Fortunately the writing is good enough to keep the reader engaged and the descriptions of pre-war Minnesota and its immigrant German community are probably new territory for most readers. Personally, I would have preferred to know more about what happened to these characters after that evening at the lake, and how it affected them, but the story told is still thoughtful and memorable. I'd be interested to know if anyone else has read it and has thoughts - this is certainly a good book for discussion.

My dress would have screenprinted Emily Dickinson quotes

2011-03-07T16:53:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I really wish I lived in New York. Or at least could afford to head up there more often. Today I got a save the date from One Story literary magazine for their 2nd annual "Literary Debutante Ball!" They are celebrating the five One Story authors who published their first book in the past year, and honoring author Dani Shapiro for her work mentoring young authors. And just in case you thought it was all business, they have a featured cocktail named after Ms. Shapiro's One Story issue: The Six Poisons. Mmm! I feel like Cinderella, wishing a magical coach could take her to the ball ... Maybe I'll just make one of these at home to make me feel better.

The Six Poisons Cocktail

2 oz. BULLDOG Gin (I guess Bulldog is sponsoring - I prefer Citadelle gin. Pretty much the best thing ever.)
2 1/2 oz. Cranberry Juice
1/2 oz. Orange Juice
Ice
Orange Slice for Garnish
Club soda
Shake first three ingredients with ice.
Strain into an ice-filled cocktail glass.
Garnish with orange slice.
Top with a splash of club soda.

Separate note - personal DIY writing retreat today was fabulous. I met my goals AND squeezed in some 50 percent off vintage shopping! (For anyone in the area, visit It's Vintage Darling this week!) One of the things I bought was this purse. If only I could take it to the Debutante Ball! :)

A mini writing retreat

2011-03-06T10:57:00.000-08:00

I'm taking tomorrow off work to seclude myself and my notebook in a cozy cafe (or three) somewhere in my neighborhood and, with the help of coffee and scones, hold a personal, one-day writing retreat. I hope it continues to rain here - what could be more lovely than a cozy cafe on a rainy day??

One of my writing friends sent this link along, on how to construct your own writing retreat. It's pretty straightforward if you're already working on a project (I am), and if you're not, it has some good advice on how to structure it.

I know I won't be bringing my laptop -- then the temptation to scan the real estate postings looking at cute little houses, or etsy looking for adorable little puppets would be too much! So I'd better do some of that now ...

Photo is from "Two Sad Donkeys" etsy page.

Is that a book in your purse, or ...?

2011-03-03T18:52:00.001-08:00

I get panicky if I'm caught in a situation where I have to wait (riding a bus, standing in a long line) and I don't have a book. The need to carry a book has been the single greatest factor contributing to my increasing purse size.

When I do have a book (usually) and I manage to pull my nose out of it (not often), I marvel at the people who aren't reading. How is all that waiting time not driving them totally insane? And I feel a warm kinship with the people who are reading. This morning I was especially tickled to see a woman carry her open book into our office building. She continued to huddle over it while in the elevator, and then dawdled outside our office hallway door, still reading. I guess she had reached a good part. What a nice inspiration to start the day!

A totally separate point - a quick flag for you writers. The Glimmer Train bulletin has a nice short essay on the crux of short stories from Melanie Bishop, a writer and professor. The core element, as she puts it, is "a happening" - ie, something happens.

"One can't, for instance, just describe what he/she had for breakfast and call it a story, even though eating breakfast is a human experience."

John Gardner suggests that short fiction should have a transformative experience that illustrates a revelation; Flannery O'Connor says that all writing is ultimately about the mystery of the human experience and our unique manners that bring us there. I'm sure both would agree that something has to happen. It seems obvious, but crafting a narrative arc in a short space is a challenge.

Kitty Kupcake and a recommendation

2011-02-27T17:55:00.000-08:00

We've had a busy week and weekend, so I haven't had time for a real post. But in the meantime, I'll post a cute picture of our boy kitty. (Previously referred to in this blog as K2.) He loves baked goods. Who doesn't?

A quick reading/writing note - I finished reading Granta's Issue 113, The Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists. I had mixed feelings about the selection, but man did it end with a bang. I definitely recommend checking it out, if only for the last story by Patricio Pron. Beautiful.

Frontier Blues

2011-02-20T15:13:00.001-08:00

Today we walked down to the Mall to see Frontier Blues, an Iranian film shown by the Freer Art Gallery as a part of its Iranian Film Festival. Babak Jalali directed and shot this film in northern Iran, near Turkmenistan, the flat, desperate land of his childhood. The absurdist comedy throws together a number of strange characters, each lost in his own dreams and struggles: a young man who eats only dried apricots and whose only companion is an unnamed donkey; his uncle who owns a barely-stocked clothing store; and a traditional Turkmen musician whose wife was stolen years ago by a man from Tehran in a green Mercedes Bendz, among others. There is precious little dialogue in the movie -- most of the comedic moments come when the characters are staring awkwardly at each other, or in the sparse absurdities that sprinkle their speech.

I mention the film here because it's an interesting example of a story relying heavily on place and with practically no plot. The flat, windy, poor land dominates the lives of these characters and seems to have a flattening effect on their dreams. I'm not sure that it was a great movie, but it was intriguing. I know that the three traditional focuses of stories are either plot, characters, or place, but I've had trouble thinking of a book that relies primarily on place. Frontier Blues seems to fit the bill.

Leaving Rock Harbor, by Rebecca Chace

2011-02-19T08:49:00.000-08:00

Life is a choice. It is filled with decisions about how we live and, even, the decision to live. The characters in Rebecca Chace's sweet Leaving Rock Harbor rarely forget that the choice to live is in their hands, for death haunts them closely. The story takes place in the first decades of the twentieth century, when young Frances Ross, or Frankie as she prefers to be known, grows up. We meet Frankie when she is an insecure but charming 14-year-old and she meets the two young men who will come to define her life.

Joe Barros is the son of Portuguese immigrants, a marginalized community in New England Rock Harbor, but thanks to his winning smile and basketball skills, he manages to rise above the racism. Winston Curtis is the youngest son of the richest family in Rock Harbor, but his easy grace and lighthearted attitude make it easy for those around him to forget that is father runs the town. Frankie falls in with Joe and Winston, at first hesitantly in her tight-laced corset, but then with more and more abandon, as her friendship with the two young men parallels the changing social mores of the era.

The war and the subsequent labor disputes threaten Frankie and all those she loves, and the choices each of them makes ricochet amongst the tight group of family and friends. Rebecca Chace writes with a confident hand and Frankie is an interesting, complicated woman. The historical setting here is drawn with a light touch, so those looking for a richly atmospheric piece on WWI and the Depression are likely to be disappointed. But readers seeking a compelling story about memorable characters will enjoy Leaving Rock Harbor.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Especially When Buzzed on Coffee

2011-02-13T14:14:00.000-08:00

At first, I was predisposed not to like Aimee Bender's The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. The cover made it look like chick lit, the sort of fluffy stories about friends and family that I don't find very satisfying. The title mentions cake, which while delicious, is not especially enlightening. And then the first sentence fell flat: "It happened for the first time on a Tuesday afternoon, a warm spring day in the flatlands near Hollywood, a light breaze moving east from the ocean and stirring the black-eyed pansy petals newly planted in our flower boxes."

What's "it"? She doesn't tell us there, nor for the next six pages. That doesn't build suspense, in my book, that builds irritation. And then we find out that "it" has to do with the emotions people bake into food. I think Like Water for Chocolate had that storyline down two decades ago.

But. But. I kept reading. And, as it turns out, Bender is a beguiling author, and this story is not run-of-the-mill, and it's not light fluff either. It's a quick read, but it merits thought and savoring (like fine wine! ha! gag.). So, in the end, I enjoyed it.

Which had me excited about picking up the next book in my to-read pile. That turned out to be Granta's Best Young Spanish Language Novelists edition. I read a few stories, enjoyed them, and then bam, hit a huge speed bump with a seriously unimpressive entry. This guy gets to be the best? ... jealousy creeps in ... That's not a good, or productive, feeling for a young writer. But I know I'm not the only one who sometimes feels like that.

Take the Washington writer featured in this Post Magazine article, for example. It sounds like he's had his share of disappointments. I like that he takes issue with critic Jonathan Yardley's assertion that there is no indigenous Washington literary culture. I'm a huge fan of Yardley, but we can't just take that accusation lying down! So last night I went to my favorite cafe, overdosed on coffee, and poured out a story about local people. It felt good to write, and exciting to focus on home, particularly since so much of my fiction is about places and times far distant.

What about you, to the other writers out there? Are you writing about home?

Even Clint Eastwood Doesn't Always Do It Right

2011-02-07T06:40:00.000-08:00

A quick note on "show vs. tell": This weekend, we watched "Gran Torino," Clint Eastwood's take on a grumpy, old, white man's journey as he comes to terms with a changing world. It's a pretty good flick, visually rich and morally compelling. But I was a little worried after the first few minutes, when the movie opens at the funeral of Walt Kowalski's (Eastwood) wife. Walt snarls like a badger as a gaggle of giggling, sloppily dressed pre-teens and teenagers slide into a front aisle. Clearly, his grandkids, particularly when we see their parents sit behind them and glance worriedly at Walt. Great - we see Walt's character (uncompromising) and his family's indifference. But then, the movie goes and tells us all the things it just showed us so well. One of Walt's sons leans over to the other and grumbles how nothing is ever good enough for Dad, and did you see how he looked at Ashley. Um, thanks Mr. Eastwood, but I think we got you the first time.

The movie snagged in that way a few more times in the beginning, but eventually it took off and let the acting and the camera show us what the story was about. Phew! I mention this here just as a reminder to all of us that even the greats, in great pieces of work, can hit the wrong notes.

A brief example of masterful "showing," from Alan Furst's amazing Night Soldiers:

He found it an hour later. There was old wainscoting by the door, poor-quality wood with the varnish flaking off, and as he moved the lamp the shift of angle in the light revealed the marks. He moved his fingers across the wood, confirming what he saw. She had, after all, left him a message. He sat down heavily and cried into his hands for a long time. He didn't want anyone to hear him. Time and again he touched the wall, traced, with agonizing slowness, the faintly marked outlines of the four scratches her fingernails had made as she'd been taken through the door.

A Literary Night Out

2011-02-03T16:21:00.001-08:00

Last night I went with a couple of ladies from my writing group to the posh, elite Cosmos Club for what promised to be a charming engagement and ended up being a giddy, inspiring trip. The literary journal One Story was hosting a wine and nosh night in hopes of earning some cash while also kicking off a sort of book club. We downed glasses of pinot noir, mobbed the servers holding the trays of mushroom tarts, and chatted up fellow One Story readers - many of whom were also aspiring writers. Fun, right? Yes, but it got oh so much better.

The focus of the night, in addition to the wine, was Hannah Tinti and her book, The Good Thief. My friends and I had read the book in advance and were anxious to hear what Ms. Tinti had to say about it. So when summoned away from the hors d'oevres, we took our seats and listened. The publisher of One Story explained how they started off with a lot of heart and only $3,000, and moved to expand their readership to 10,000 and their staff from two people to, well, a proper staff. Ms. Tinti took the floor. She explained the joy inherent in observing and writing, a way of, as she put it, shoving the grains of sand back up into life's hourglass. She read from her book. This was all very nice, but I was a little distracted. Because, while watching the speakers, I had noticed someone across the room who I *adore.*

Yes, you guessed it. It was Ron Charles, the Fiction Editor for the Washington Post! He writes fabulous, insightful reviews, and does the amazing (really) "Totally Hip Video Book Review." After the formal event was over, I snagged Mr. Charles and told him I had to fawn over him for a moment. I did and it was lovely! A local book blogger was there too, Bethanne Patrick from The Book Studio, and all in all I was quite star struck. So fun to see such wonderful writers and book advocates!

We also had a chance to chat with some charming gentlemen, one of whom delivered a telegram to Lena Horne's house in 1945, and to talk with Ms. Tinti in person. My writers' group ladies and I all concurred that it was a lovely night out. And even the blustery wind had mellowed by the time I walked home, grinning all the way.

A shared ambition - across time

2011-01-23T12:16:00.000-08:00

It sometimes seems to me like the world is chock full of people trying to get published, that one in ten people harbor a dream of being a novelist. With so many online resources for writers, including blogs and Twitter feeds like #litchat and #askagent, it's easy to be aware of large numbers of people who spend their days tapping away at the keyboard. It's inspiring but it can also be a little intimidating!

The popularity of literary dreams, of course, is not limited to the internet era. Nor is a widespread awareness of so many aspiring scribblers due only to our online connectivity. I've been reading Stella Tillyrand's Aristocrats, a historical novel very closely based on the lives and letters of the upper class Lennox sisters, living in the mid-18th century. In it she describes the refined social life of the oldest sister, Mrs. Fox: "Many of the Foxes' friends put themselves forward, in their own circle and sometimes on a more public stage, as wits and writers, and traded copies of their occasional verses."

I'm also reading Flannery O'Connor's Mystery and Manners, in which she writes: "In the South there are more amateur authors than there are rivers and streams...In almost ever hamlet you'll find at least one lady writing epics in Negro dialect and probably two or three old gentlemen who have impossible historical novels on the way." That was 1957. This is clearly not a new phenomenon!

O'Connor is a good bit more dismissive than I feel. Even though most of us will not achieve the dream of publication, I think it's only for the good that we are out here writing away. As we strive to improve our writing we become, I think, more astute observers of humanity and, hopefully, more dedicated consumers of the arts. And the more of those we have as a society, the better!

The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon, by Richard Zimler

2011-01-16T17:45:00.000-08:00

This is for Historical Tapestry's blog challenge, Z is for Zimler. And I'm done!

We usually, I think, attribute the most notorious Renaissance violence against Jews to the Spaniards and their Inquisition. But over the course of two days in 1506, the Portuguese residents of Lisbon massacred approximately 2,000 Marranos -- Jews forcibly converted to Christianity.

That horror initiates a week of mystery and vengeance for the twenty-year-old Berekiah Zarco, a "New Christian" still very much Jewish at heart, largely due to the influence of his uncle. Uncle Abraham was a father figure and religious sage for Berekiah, but when the chaos of the massacre unfolds over Lisbon, Abraham is murdered. Berekiah finds his uncle's nude body along with that of a young woman, and he knows he must find their killer. Berekiah spends the next days, the remainder of Passover, unspooling the mystery of his uncle's death and, in doing so, he reveals the complicated and fraught lives of deceit his fellow Portuguese Jews live.

I had high hopes for this book and was looking forward to being transported. It is rich in detail and texture of Jewish life, and Zimler captures well the atrocities of that April week in Lisbon. But so many other aspects of the novel were disappointing. The writing is overwrought and in need of an editor. Halfway through the book, Berekiah switches the tense of his narration from past to present, with a half-hearted explanation. Berekiah himself swings wildly from emotion to emotion, making him difficult to sympathize with (particularly when he is hateful towards his mother, for reasons unclear). In the search for his uncle's murder Berekiah identifies so many suspects - over a dozen - that it is difficult to follow them much less feel tension linked to a particular one. Berekiah's detective zeal often leaves him unsypathetic to the plight of the living around him. And finally, Zimler concludes the book by slipping away from narrative and into preaching. Anti-semitism is certainly a cause worthy of denouncing, but he apparently forgets that any reader with him for that long is likely to share his disgust for the ugly practice.

Still, I did learn a lot from reading the book, and it was interesting for me to read a novel with such an unapologetic Jewish view. I'm not sure if there were any sympathetic Christian characters - one or two minor ones - which is probably historically accurate for a 16th century Jewish narrator. So I'll give Zimler credit for avoiding a maudlin multi-faith anachronism. That's something, right?

Image is a contemporary German artist's rendering of the massacre, taken from www.zionism-israel.com.

In defense of happy endings

2011-01-15T15:37:00.000-08:00

I am feeling a bit distraught. I just finished reading One Story Issue #136, "Number Stations" by Smith Henderson. It was beautiful and compelling but also devastating. A lot of bad, sad things happen to people in that story, even if the author leaves room for a little hope and kindness. (I do recommend reading it, if you can stomach some despair. See Henderson's interview with One Story for some background.) "Number Stations" got me thinking about endings. And author holds a lot of power in an ending. If the reader is still with the story by that point, the reader probably cares about something. The author most likely has some emotional grip on the reader - which means that the reader is vulnerable.

When I was a child and I dreamed of some day being a writer, I promised myself I would always write happy endings. I remember feeling like the world owed us happy endings, like readers who opened their hearts to love characters deserved to be rewarded. In practice, this has turned out to be pretty difficult. After all, it's easy to write a story with a sad ending. Stories are about conflict and conflict has inertia; it is a boulder rolling through the lives of the characters. The easiest course is to let that boulder plow through the characters, knocking them over like bowling pins. Far more difficult is to craft a realistic diversion, a way out. But that's what happy endings are.

I think it's very stylish now (and it has been for decades) to have sad endings. After all, irony is ascendent and maudlin cheerfulness seems too earnest for people who aspire to the intelligensia. But as a reader, I hope for a skillful exit from the conflict that a writer as set up. And as a writer, I aspire to manage that escape. Especially as I hope to fulfill the oath I made as a child and the implicit promise to please an important reader of mine. It is a difficult promise to hold to.

A Practice, Not a Competition

2011-01-13T17:03:00.000-08:00

I am a horrible sports fan. My husband is a die-hard Giants football fanatic and I have really, really tried to bring myself to some level of enthusiasm for the game. I have dedicated Sunday afternoons to watching football or made a point of reading the sports page to pick up some Redskins coverage. But I can't seem to spark any interest. The same goes for the mixed martial arts fights he now follows with intensity.

One reason watching the games is so difficult for me is that I have a hard time with the losers. Without a compelling personal reason to root for a particular team (unlike my brief years as an enthusiastic Tar Heels basketball fan), I can easily see that they both want to win. And it's so sad when one team's ambitions are crushed. It's hard to feel unalloyed excitement for a player who gets a chance to prove himself because it always comes at the expense of someone else who is benched or injured or stuffed. All of this is even more the case for the MMA fights, and in that case the guy losing is getting his nose bashed in.

Yoga by contrast is a practice, not a sport. You can't win yoga. And any competitive spirit, any jealousy that someone else can hold a pose "better" than you goes entirely against the spirit of yoga. We are only competing against ourselves, recognizing that everyone's body is unique and striving to work within our own bounds.*

Writing, I think, is similar. Although we may try to determine the best writers it's truly impossible. That's why those end-of-year lists are so interesting, why literary prize decisions are so controversial, and why book club discussions can be so contentious. Taste is subjective. That's ok.

It's worth thinking of writing as a practice, I think. It's something we as writers return to as often as we can, each time thinking only of trying to write the way that we each individually write. Anne Lamott addresses the need for each of us to find our own, unique voices in Bird by Bird: "Every time Isabel Allende has a new book out, I'm happy because I will get to read it, and I'm unhappy because half of my students are going to start writing like her." She continues, urging writers to open the doors inside their lives that are accessible only to them. "The truth of your experience can only come through in your own voice."

And the only way to get there, I think, is to practice. Not trying to win, or be the best writer in your writing group, or to prove yourself to that mean girl in the 7th grade who said smart kids were losers, or whatever. Just trying to deepen your own practice.

*I'm not trying to argue yoga is better than competitive sports, only explaining why it works for me!

A contest!

2011-01-12T16:06:00.000-08:00

Contests are fun, right? The odds are slightly better than playing the lottery, and hopefully you get to polish up some of your writing in preparation. The ever-helpful Guide to Literary Agents is running their eighth iteration of "Dear Lucky Agent." This one is limited to literary fiction - my favorite! (I am grouping historicals in with literary, because I think the best historical fiction is simultaneously literary. See: War and Peace, for example.) If you're interested, here are some of the details:

1. This contest will be live for 14 days—from Jan. 9 through the end of Sunday, Jan. 23, 2011, EST. Winners notified by e-mail within three weeks of end of contest. Winners announced on the blog thereafter.
2. To enter, submit the first 150-200 words of your book. Shorter or longer entries will not be considered. Keep it within word count range please.
3. This contest is solely for completed book-length works of literary fiction. Literary fiction, defined, is fiction that falls outside the categories of genre fiction. Much fiction falls into the so-called popular commercial genres of romance, mystery, suspense, thriller, Western, horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Writing that falls in none of these categories is often called "literary."
4. You can submit as many times as you wish. You can submit even if you submitted to other contests in the past, but please note that past winners cannot win again.

See their blog for more info.

And most importantly, what's the prize?

Top 3 winners all get: 1) A critique of the first 10 pages of your work, by your agent judge (priceless!). 2) A free one-year subscription to WritersMarket.com ($50 value).

Have at 'em!

Beginnings

2011-01-12T15:19:00.000-08:00

According to my writer's group, I am obsessed with beginnings. Last night, after recovering from their teasing (which was certainly brutal and involved flaming pikes), I had to concede that they were more or less right. I love the beginnings of stories and have tried to craft adequate ones myself, a task I am definitely still working on. My favorite beginnings are the ones that manage to encompass, in a small way, the entirety of the story or the novel.

From Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God: "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board." (Swoon, right???)

From Olga Grushin's The Line: "Who's last in line? Are you last in line? What are they selling?"

Other beginnings drop the reader wonderfully, mercifully, in the center of the action. The simplicity and modesty of these sentences is part of their power - the author doesn't let big words or ideas get in the way of the story.

From Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita: "One hot spring evening, just as the sun was going down, two men appeared at Patriarch's Ponds." (There is some foreshadowing even in that simple sentence! Brilliant.)

From Edward P. Jones's "The Sunday Following Mother's Day," a story in Lost in the City: "When Madeleine Williams was four years old and her brother Sam was ten, their father killed their mother one night in early April."

Aren't those lovely? Don't you want to read the stories? (Well, maybe not the last if sad stories aren't your thing.) But then, in spite of my love for beginnings, I forget them. There are few beginnings that I can still precisely recall by the time I've finished a captivating story. Sometimes I go back to the first page of a novel so I can appreciate the journey, and possible symmetry, the author gave us. But otherwise, the beauty of those first few words usually fades away as I become engrossed by the tale. I guess, in a way, that is the best beginning. One that lays the foundation for a story and our thoughts about the characters, but then quickly gets out of the way for the action to happen.

Anyone out there have a favorite beginning? If you're like me, it might be hard to recall off the top of your head, but it's fun to go flipping through your favorite books.

New number, same us

2011-01-02T16:47:00.000-08:00

According to the Gregorian Calendar, we have entered into a new year. Two thousand and eleven - a lot of years. But there are different ways to count a year, since a date is, after all, only a human construction. We are in year five thousand, seven hundred, seventy-one of the Jewish calendar; or year one thousand, four hundred, thirty-two of the Islamic/Hijri calendar; or either 4704 or 4647 of the Chinese continuously numbered system. All those different ways of counting time make me feel a little unmoored - where are we?

In a way, releasing ourselves to look at the date as a construct is liberating. Nominally, we are entering a new year. But that year has only the meaning that we give it and by framing it we create its own story. Kind of like writing, right? Of course, in life there are plenty of things outside of our control. I can already tell 2011 will bring curveballs and challenges for me. But, like with writing, I can set the tone and try to explore what happens.

The stillness of winter is a lovely time to sit back and evaluate, so, taking advantage of the tradition, I do have a few goals for the new year. I want to continue to use my yoga practice to open my heart and creativity. I want to write more and try to write better. I want to challenge myself by reading new and different books. (More on that later - I'll be looking for recommendations!)

I'm interested to hear how others feel about the "new" year. Do you feel we have marked a milestone? Do you have objectives for the months that come?

Lessons from Orwell

2010-12-21T15:51:00.000-08:00

A few weeks before Richard Holbrooke unexpectedly died, the veteran U.S. diplomat called a few members of his staff into his office for an important lesson. According to staffer Vali Nasr, Holbrooke gave them copies of George Orwell's essay, "Politics and the English Language." He praised Orwell's instruction to avoid convoluted language and passive voice, and Holbrooke noted writers ought to value clarity above all.

Prompted by Nasr's story, I read Orwell's essay. The lessons are not new to those who have taken professional writing classes but one point in particular struck me as useful for those writing literature. "Let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around. In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is surrender to them." He goes on to admonish writers to first think about their meaning, and get the meaning clear through pictures and sensations, before finally choosing words.

Fiction writers are just as vulnerable as political writers to the tropes of our language - they're called cliches and sloppy writing. We can let our pens and fingers run away from us before we've figured out in our minds what, exactly, it is we are saying. I can easily think of a few examples from my own recent writing. It's a lesson I'm working on right now: trying not to get intoxicated by the lovely sound of a fun word but rather focusing on my clarity of expression. That's not to say that we can't play with the words. But let that come second. Jayne Anne Phillips is a wonderful example of the beautiful balance between art and clarity. She is a poet and said she took ten years to write her recent Lark and Termite because she was choosing the words one by one. I know I can't achieve her brilliance, but I can work on knowing better what is in my head before I try to find the words to express it.

My Enemy's Cradle, By Sarah Young

2010-12-19T17:00:00.000-08:00

This is for Historical Tapestry's blog challenge: Y is for Young.

Cyrla is a young Dutch-Polish girl sent to Holland by her Jewish father, who hoped to hide her from Hitler's new laws. But after a few tragic twists of fate, Cyrla ends up hidden in a program that advanced some of the Nazis' most cherished ideals.

Germany's occupation of the Netherlands makes it increasingly dangerous for Cyrla to hide her Jewish background, even with her blond hair and Christian aunt's family. She finds escape by impersonating her pregnant cousin Anneke and taking Anneke's place in a Lebensborn - a home for pregnant women. The Lebensborn are intended by their founder Heinrich Himmler to advance the Aryan bloodline: when applying, Anneke had to prove, to her disgust, her Aryan purity. When Cyrla takes her place she is surprised to find herself sent to Germany, away from the Jewish lover who promised to save her. As Cyrla's belly grows with her unborn child, she must keep herself and her baby alive by hiding the secret of her identity.

My Enemy's Cradle takes its greatest strength from the unusual setting of the Lebensborn. The facility is a beautiful prison for mothers-to-be, both wed and unwed, where they fill their waiting days with lessons on sanitation and nutrition. The babies who are unwanted are given to SS families that promise to raise them as faithful Nazis. It is a chilling and fascinating chapter of history. I was less fond of Cyrla, who often seems petulant and unperceptive. But in spite of her shortcomings her story is capitvating and moving, even with a tear-jerker finale. It is definitely a worthwhile read.

The Spider King, by Lawrence Schoonover

2010-12-13T18:26:00.000-08:00

This is for Historical Tapestry's blog challenge: X is for Louis XI.

It is easy to forget in today's age of well-known boundaries that so many nations were once jigsaw puzzles of competing fifedoms. When Louis of Valois was born in 1423, both France and England were warring to determine who ruled the ancient and divided Gaul. When Louis was crowned, becoming Louis XI of his realm, both nations were split internally, England mired in the War of Roses, France still subject to the medieval feudal power of its dukes. But Louis fought against the tide of his era, consolidating control and cementing France's boundaries. His story is a fascinating one.

In The Spider King, we begin Louis's story before the moment of his birth and then watch as the spindly, uncertain young man becomes a master warrior and statesman. He earns the honorable affection of two wives and the merited fear of his enemies. But Louis faces the treachery of France's nobility and his rivals' ever insatiable appetites for power. He must contend with, at various times, his father, his brother, his cousin, and the king of England. Whether or not he can succeed in building a modern, united France, one that advances the science of learning under a fair rule of law, is dependent upon his wit, his loyal but scheming advisors, and his luck. With a ring of lead saints' medals pinned upon his hat, Louis XI is rarely unwilling to test all three.

Lawrence Schoonover's Louis is a compelling character, a complicated man weakened by illness and pride but strengthened by his intellect and heart. Louis becomes known as a spider for the complicated webs he weaves, and his morality is not without stain, but his is a great story to follow. Even more so in Schoonover's talented hands, for he spins a masterful story filled with colorful characters and well-realized settings. A delight to read!

Map: France under Louis XI.

Opening Up

2010-12-11T12:21:00.000-08:00

I started practicing yoga almost two months ago and I am totally hooked. I love the part that I thought I would enjoy - the physical challenge, the alignment and the improved flexibility. But I'm also struck by how much I'm enjoying the emotional (or spiritual?) side of it. I was skeptical about the idea that a bunch of body twists could put me in touch with something, anything more than my muscles and tendons, but it seems that there's something to the supposed mystique of yoga. This morning, at the end of practice, one of the teachers helped me push back my shoulders - opening up my heart. Then, another teacher read a passage from Hand Wash Cold by Karen Maezen Miller. It was a portion I had heard before, and appreciated: about the inevitable suffering that life entails and how we can choose to turn towards the glimmers of beauty available to us in our ordinary lives. This same teacher had read it only two days before, so this was nothing new. But this morning, something about the story and, I think, having physically opened my heart, made the passage far more poignant. I found myself crying. Wow!

I came home and, after a quick breakfast, used the opening I had found to return to my novel-in-progress. This novel and I have had a contentious relationship, and recently, I've been a little mad at her. But I resolved today to overcome that. We sat down together, thought a little bit, imagined a little bit, and then I wrote more in one sitting than I've written in weeks.

So, do you have writer's block? Maybe try yoga! What else works for folks?

2010-12-08T17:36:00.000-08:00

The Romanov family was murdered in the height of summer, but there's still something about that tragedy that is reminiscent of winter - maybe it's the long, cold years that their bodies spent in their shallow forest graves, or maybe it's just that murder mysteries somehow echo the harsh cold of our darkest season. November's issue of Smithsonian Magazine has a very interesting article about Czar Nicholas II, Czarina Alexandra, their five children and four attendants. It's a topic that numerous historical fiction authors have plowed so I thought perhaps some of you would be interested.

Happy December!

2010-12-04T09:39:00.000-08:00

We're having a holiday party today, which means mulled brandy, hot apple cider, coconut macaroons with cranberries, cheese cheese cheese and other yummies. I'm getting in the mood for chilly, wintry stuff, and so although the book I'm currently reading (Mrs. Dalloway) has nothing to do with winter, I'm hoping to add some seasonal reads to my pile. Any suggestions? Maybe I'll reread Ethan Frome. Or the Master and Margarita!

Photo: Nuublay would like to help us prepare for the party please. Especially in the taste-testing department.

Russian Winter, by Daphne Kalotay

2010-11-28T14:23:00.001-08:00

This is for Historical Tapestry's blog challenge - W is for Winter.

Nina Revskaya was once a petite, powerful ballerina wowing the Soviet audiences of the Bolstoi Ballet, including even Stalin himself. But time and bitterness have allied to stiffen her body, leaving her wheelchair-bound and alone, living in Boston in the new millenium. Nina has decided to auction off her large jewelry collection, ostensibly to benefit the Boston Ballet but truly, as the reader comes to learn, to rid herself of painful memories.

The novel leaps back into Nina's memories, painful and otherwise, with the grace of a ballerina and provides a convincing and harrowing depiction of Soviet Russia in the 1930s through 1950s. These flashbacks are interspesed with the connected narratives of Nina, Drew - the young woman handling the auction, and Grigori - a fifty-year-old professor of Russian literature who owns, via mysterious family connections, a necklace that appears to be a part of Nina's set. These four streams gradually move together, revealing mysteries from the past and lessons for the present.

Kalotay writes best when she's looking back at Nina's years in the Bolstoi. Those pages are rich with research and sympathy. The mystery itself is not terribly difficult to divine, but it's still a pleasure to watch unfold. In all, this was a charming book, and I look forward to Kalotay's next.

Bookshop report from Spain

2010-11-24T16:03:00.000-08:00

Madrid, apparently, is a city of art. Its three most prominent and popular museums are art museums. But I noticed when I was there last week that it also seems to be a city of books. I was visiting for work so did not have a whole lot of free time, but we had some evenings to wander the streets. And in doing so I was thrilled to see a great number of bookstores (almost all of which were independent or perhaps small chains). According to UNESCO data, in 2008 Spain published 86,300 new titles, or 1 new book for every 533 Spaniards. The same year the US published 275,232 unique titles, or about 1 new book for every 1089 Americans (or so - I guesstimated the 2008 US population). Not too bad for Spain.

In that bit of research, I also found this headline:

AMERICANS ARE BECOMING SMALL BUYERS OF BOOKS; Per Capita Production of Volumes Here Less Than That of Other Leading Nations --- Poor Methods of Distribution and Modern Amusements Blamed in Part.

Printed in ... 1914.

A different form of storytelling

2010-11-14T16:33:00.000-08:00

I've long loved stop-motion animation movies, starting from when my dad made "Attack of the Bunny Monster" (a lost classic) with us when my sister and I were in elementary school. Since then, I've only done a few quickies, most notably a fork crawling out of a drawer. Compelling. (Hey, it was post-college and we were on vacation.) But today, all that changes! I've finally gotten around to making another one - this one complete with tweaks courtesy of video-editing software, yay! The movie is intended as a part of an invitation for a holiday party my husband and I are hosting next month.

The Passion of Artemisia, by Susan Vreeland

2010-11-13T08:42:00.000-08:00

This is for Historical Tapestry's blog challenge. V is for Vreeland.

By the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Renaissance had gifted its tremendous artistic outpouring to the people of Italy. Artists in particular benefitted from this boon, the accumulated greatness of the masters that came before them. Michaelangelo, Donatello, Botticelli, and all the other greats had left their mark to inspire those who came after them. But they were all men, and Artemisia Gentileschi, daughter of a great painter, aspires to be a master herself. The burden of her gender, however, may make her dreams impossible.

Artemisia's trials begin in a court - in a case brought by her father against his friend and partner, who raped her. But in the end it is Artemisia's honor that is in question, and the humiliation she endures in court will haunt her for life. Scorned, Artemisia leaves Rome for Florence, a city she hopes will nourish her ambition to be a reknowned artist.

Vreeland writes with tremendous sympathy for her characters and draws a compelling tale. The story rarely lets up, although from a distance, the drama may appear slight. She deepens the narrative with themes of forgiveness and the cruelty of choice, even if at times her discussions of these become a little heavy-handed. Nonetheless, this is a beautiful book, rendering brilliantly the dynamic Italian world at the time of Gallileo and Cosimo de Medici, and enshrining in the reader's heart the brave and talented Artemisia Gentileschi. (The painting here is a self-portrait completed by the real Artemisia Lomi, or Gentileschi.)

Bookstore Love

2010-11-11T13:35:00.000-08:00

Last weekend my husband and I traveled up to Cape Cod to visit some beloved family and attend a wedding. Neither of us had been to the Cape before and we were quite charmed. The Parnassus Book Store played no small part in that - this photo explains it all (look at the ceiling!). The first floor of a wooden-frame house is filled, literally top to bottom, with used and new books. They are organized in sections but have no labels, nor any clear order. The cookbooks are next to the poetry books, which are across from the military hardware books. Which makes for fun, and often serendipitous, browsing, while walking on creaking, about-to-collapse wooden floors.

I bought a book I plan to use for research for my next writing project (well, the one after I finish the one I'm in the middle of now, which still has a long way to go). I love the research phase of writing, when I'm filling the attic of my mind with all the details and facts and people that, someday, I'll hope to pull just a few treasures from.

Jumping into the fire - again

2010-11-03T14:53:00.000-07:00

I've decided to start submitting query letters to agents again. I took a nearly six-month hiatus from seeking representation for my historical fiction piece because I realized, unfortunately rather belatedly, that it needed some serious editing. Now I think it's ready. I think my query letter is polished. Of course, I have some mammoth-sized butterflies about the process this time, since my assessments were so off previously. (I certainly thought my manuscript was ready over a year ago, but with the help of some readers, I learned how wrong I was!) But I've edited and edited and edited, and I feel good about what I've got. I also feel at peace - if this doesn't work out, well, I'll keep trying with something else. One of the best lessons I've learned this year is to avoid setting artificial goals and to focus on the writing, not the publishing. It's difficult to hew to, but rewarding and liberating.

Land of Marvels, by Barry Unsworth

2010-10-24T17:55:00.000-07:00

This is for Historical Tapestry's blog challenge - U is for Unsworth.

By the early twentieth century the world had already been referring to the Ottoman Empire as the "sick man of Europe" for over fifty years. So as the widely-anticipated Great War loomed on the horizon, competing nations jostled to position themselves to seize the bounty expected when the Ottomans finally fell. Barry Unsworth sets his novel at the fringes of Mesopotamia, a seemingly desolate corner of this fragile Empire, but one that holds hidden wealth for those who are poised to take it.

English archaeologist John Sommerville has staked his fortune on this bit of desert for a more romantic reason than wealth or strategic advantage. He has bet his fortune on a few hills and hopes that excavating them and finding signs of lost empires will finally make a name for him as a professional archaeologist. But the money is running out and discoveries are scarce, prompting a desperation that his wife of only a few years senses, and disdains. When plans for a German railroad progress, Sommerville fears the line will cut through his camp and end any chances at success. In a desperate gambit to slow the railroad's construction, Sommerville sets in motion a chain of events that will affect not only the lives of those at his camp, but the ambitions of nations watching the weakening Ottoman lands.

I found the beginning of Land of Marvels less than engaging. The stakes were difficult to grasp at first and Sommerville is initially unsympathetic in his paranoia and waffling ambition. But the plot gathers speed, just like the steam engine Sommerville imagines hurtling past his camp, and the book becomes far more enjoyable. The book is at its best when drawing delicate comparisons between empires, different ages, and man's ambitions. I used the gendered word there advisedly - I found Unsworth's renderings of his three female characters to be the weakest parts of the book. But overall, this is an enjoyable read, and certainly thought-provoking.

It pairs well with another book I'm reading - The Idea of Decline in Western History. Unsworth's novel reminds us that all empires eventually fall, while the other book, a sort of history of political theory from the past 200 years, points out that the pessimism and predictions of the "end" have always existed. I suppose that each human enterprises will eventually change beyond recognition or end, but our ability to foresee that end is extremely limited.

Grand Cayman and Gateway Drug Books

2010-10-12T16:17:00.000-07:00

We spent the holiday weekend down in Grand Cayman, celebrating a family wedding (for whatever reason Columbus Day is still a holiday! I'll take it though). It was the second time we had been there and it was still just as lovely. With less than 50,000 people in all of the Cayman Islands, it's a pretty quiet place, especially in off-season, which early October is.

I spotted two bookstores, which might be the only two on the main island, based on the population density and a guidebook I read. Which makes me wonder, is one bookstore per 25,000 horrible? It sounds like it to me. But there are probably other places to buy books, at least for beach reading. I was pleased to see a lot of the people we were traveling with reading, and many of them reading some quality books. Yay for that. Before arriving on the island, I had given my reading-reluctant sister The Hunger Games, hoping that the book would prove to be the literary crack that the twitter-verse seems to think it is. She devoured it. Double yay. So if anyone out there has other books that might serve as similar crack, I'd really love to hear the recommendation! Christmas is coming up and I must proselytize the religion of reading!

The Turquoise Ring, by Grace Tiffany

2010-10-03T11:13:00.000-07:00

This is part of Historical Tapestry's blog challenge - T is for Turquoise (and Tiffany)

Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice begins with Antonio, who will famously owe the Jew Shylock a pound of flesh, stating, "And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, That I have much ado to know myself." To know oneself is a challenge, and even moreso to know another. The Merchant of Venice paints of harsh picture of Shylock but Shakespeare scholar Grace Tiffany takes us beneath the surface, delving back into his life and the lives of the women around him to reveal a sensitive and mournful man. In doing so, she asks us how much we really know about ourselves and each other.

The Turquoise Ring begins with the story of Leah, the headstrong young Spanish woman, half "Old Christian" and half Jewish, who captures the heart of Shylock, or Shiloh as Ms. Tiffany tells us he was first called. Leah gives Shiloh the turquoise ring, gifted to her by a Moorish swordmaker, as a token of her love. That love is dangerous in Inquisition-era Spain, but Leah persists in her affection for the pious Shiloh and marries him, against her Christian father's will. She will pay the greatest price for her embrace of the Jewish faith, leaving Shiloh deeply wounded and the single father to a young girl. Horrified by his fate, Shiloh flees Spain for Venice, hoping to find a tolerant home for himself and his infant.

Shiloh's hopes are to be disappointed as his story winds through Venice and the Terra Firma provinces in Italy, picking up the tales of the various characters who populate Shakespeare's play. His daughter's own rebellious love introduces us to women representing the various wrinkles of faith and character in sixteenth century Europe, as they all struggle to gain control over their lives against the bigotry of their time. Their efforts drive the novel's plot and reveal the humanity lurking behind the scowling face of Shylock the moneylender. This was a rich, beautiful read - I highly recommend it. (And no knowledge of Shakespeare is required to enjoy it!)

Freedom to read

2010-09-26T08:41:00.000-07:00

As you have likely heard, this week through Oct. 2 is Banned Books Week. Sponsored by the American Library Association, the week heralds the importance of maintaining access to thought-provoking and controversial literature.

The list of frequently banned or "challenged" books is astonishing - see here for examples of some of the banned classics. Then maybe pick a book that's unorthodox or unpopular - even better if it's something that makes you uncomfortable - and read it. I read Lolita this year; that addresses a topic I could not find more repugnant, and yet my life is far richer for having read it. Can anyone recommend something new for me to try? I am working on pushing myself outside of my political and cultural comfort zone.

In that vein, blogger and author Zetta Elliot has pointed out that the lack of diverse voices within published books is its own form of censorship. If authors of color and those who are otherwise marginalized (lower classes, queer, whatever it is) aren't able to get their books to the marketplace, what are we, as a society, missing? As I pointed out before, the ghettoization of black writers into the "African American Interest" section of bookstores limits their exposure to readers and readers' exposure to their ideas. I hope we can continue to work to overcome that.

Empress, by Shan Sa

2010-09-25T17:06:00.000-07:00

This is for Historical Tapestry's blog challenge, S is for Shan. (and Sa.)

In the seventh century, Chinese emperors were building towering pagodas, designing meritocratic administrative systems, and consolidating an empire of about 50 million people, among many other advances. One of the emperors responsible for that flourishing progress was a woman - China's first and only empress to rule in her own right. History has been unkind to Empress Wu, condemning her as a conniving child-murderer and tyrant, even while admitting her accomplishments. In Shan Sa's Empress, Heavenlight, as we come to know her, has a chance to tell her own story.

Heavenlight is born to a commoner father who, through his service to the first emperor of the Tang dynasty, gained noble status and a noble wife. He is a good man, but when he dies from shock at learning of his Emperor's death, he leaves his wife and three daughters to the unkind mercies of his merchant family. Twelve-year-old Heavenlight achieves escape by impressing a general with her quick with and unique charm, as he arrangers for her to earn a place in the royal household.

Heavenlight finds herself among ten thousand "beauties" vying for the attention and the bed of the new emperor. Her path from there to Empress, ruling in her own right, is astonishing and engaging. She falls in love with both men and women, she contends with plots swirling around her, and she tries to stay true to her convictions and her country.

This book is translated from the Chinese, and as it is from a culture I don't know, a language I don't speak, and a period in history I am completely unfamiliar with, it is a little difficult to judge. The narrative does not unfold seamlessly, but that could be a cultural difference. Sometimes I had trouble differentiating between Heavenlight's desires or dreams, and what actually happened to her, but that could be a translation error. In sum, this was a fascinating book that exposed me to a rich culture and history that I knew nothing about, even if it was not always a compelling read. I would recommend it, though, as Heavenlight is an unforgettable character and her world is mesmerizing.

Lovely, just lovely

2010-09-19T12:09:00.000-07:00

What a pretty weekend! It's been so pretty that I haven't been productive at all. I was going to work on a stop-motion film (finally bought some video editing software, am super excited!), and always hope to write, but I didn't do either. What I did do:

- Watched The Triplets of Belleville, an animated adventure in awesome craziness
- Ate delicious Malaysian food on a roofdeck
- Went to the Textile Museum
- Discovered a lovely secluded park where I read (working on my next Historical Tapestry book :) )
- Sawed off one of those really annoying security tags from a skirt I bought (2nd hand, and the tag was still on). This might be the greatest victory of the weekend.
- Watched my husband jump out of a plane and wished I had done so too. Maybe we will ...

Now I'm drinking chai (just a little bit of honey!). Really, does it get any better? I might squeeze one more outdoor activity in ... or maybe I'll just write. Choices.

Could the weekend not be over yet, please?

The intro to the Triplets of Belleville, provided with the warning that the Josephine Baker "cameo" is creepy.

Gardener to the King by Frederic Richaud

2010-09-12T13:56:00.000-07:00

This is for Historical Tapestry's blog challenge - R is for Richaud

The cover and title of Gardener to the King might lend a prospective reader to assume this slim novel is a light-hearted court romance, but Frederic Richaud's debut novel pulls far more weight than a first glance would suggest. The story of Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie, gardener at Versailles to King Louis XIV, turns out to be not a lace-edged ode to royal glamor but an earthy exploration of individuality and existentialism.

La Quintinie is an appealing figure, a modest man who prefers his gardens to the courtier's balls, though he is kind-hearted enough to give the courtiers the benefit of the doubt and to love his King. When not spending time working the rows of his cabbages or pruning his fruit trees, La Quintinie wanders the French countryside, learning the peasants' wisdom and sharing his own. But when international and domestic events bring difficulty to the French, the King's response and the peasants' hardships make La Quintinie re-evaluate his loyalties - at a time when even a whisper of treason can, and does, send the King's subjects to the rack.

This was a charming read, executed in clear, crisp prose (much of this credit, I imagine, goes to translator Barbara Bray). Richaud is gentle about reminding us of the time period, resulting in a sense of gradual immersion rather than rich historicity. For such a short book, it works perfectly. His light touch on the descriptions also leaves the reader with time to contemplate the political and philosophical questions the author raises. I don't know if Richaud's subsequent novels (all historical, I believe) have been translated yet; if not, this is good motivation for me to work on my French!

Cemeteries and memory

2010-09-06T11:16:00.000-07:00

I visited a few cemeteries this Labor Day weekend - three, in fact. I love old cemeteries because they are a tactile reminder of the richness of humanity and history. They remind me how many lives have been lived all over our world, some short, some long. Each of those lives memorialized holds a story, even if it's an ordinary one. I suspect, though, that each name carved into a headstone had a secret or a powerful moment, and I love imagining them. Even the infants' and the children's graves tell a story, one of their parents' mourning and of the difficult times they were born into. I read this morning in Scientific American that as recently as 100 years ago, a quarter of children died of infection before their fifth birthdays. The cemeteries we saw over the weekend bore this out, with family plots sometimes half-filled with tiny tombstones memorializing young children.

For a storyteller, cemeteries are both symbolic and a source of inspiration. How do we remember the stories our lives told? Who were these people? What does death mean for us? I have a book of Parisian cemeteries, with entries on the lives of the noteworthy, famous, and talented buried there. I love flipping through it and reading the entries; it's like an abbreviated social history. And each glimpse of a life makes me want to learn more.

This morning, I learned of a newish development in "death care" and tombstones (hat tip - Husband). One can now insert a barcode onto the headstone, and when a smartphone or other scanning device reads the barcode, they will be directed to a website with stories and photos. That's certainly more effective as a memorial function (at least for the short term, as long as society has the technology to read those barcodes and the websites to display the information). From a storyteller's or a romantic dreamer's perspective, such a function is much less provocative. And it is hard for me to avoid the sense that putting a barcode on someone's headstone commercializes them, makes their life into a commodity, even though that's just by association.

If that takes off, or if we develop other ways of memorializing ourselves, with videos embedded in mausoleums or 3-D holograms leaping from grave sites, I wonder what cemetery-wandering in the future will be like. Will it be harder to stretch our imaginations? And does it matter?

Sweetsmoke, by David Fuller

2010-08-26T17:22:00.000-07:00

This is for Historical Tapestry's blog challenge - Q is for Quashee.

Cassius is a slave, hardened by loss and inured to love, on a Virginia tobacco plantation: Sweetsmoke. It is 1862, and the war is a constant presence in his life and the lives of the rest of the plantation. The plantation owners have already lost one son to the war, and that son sent two of his favorite slaves to Sweetsmoke. When the beautiful Quashee arrives, the rest of the slaves come to believe that she is the bearer of bad luck, but Cassius can't help but notice her extraordinary intelligence and grace.

Cassius, though, has his own problems. He learns that a beloved friend has died, and he vows to avenge her death. Such a promise, however, is difficult for a black man, a slave in Virginia, to uphold, and the story follows his clever exploits as he manuevers the treacherous waters of the south.

Both Cassius and Quashee are interesting characters for whom I was happy to root. In fact, almost all the characters in Sweetsmoke are memorable and well-realized. My interest in them helped sustain me as I cringed, periodically, at the heavy-handed writing. Mr. Fuller describes plantation life and the war convincingly, but he often succumbs to the temptation to overdramatize his characters' thoughts, including in ways that lead to rapid reversals of heart from one page to another. For example, Cassius has a falling out with a friend, and after two angry lines of dialogue from her, Cassius is left reeling: "An invisible wall was now between them, as if the past had never occurred." A bit extreme, no? Or, when Cassius decides that General Lee will when the war for the south: "This thought depressed him more than he had thought possible."

Overall, though, it's an engaging story. If you really enjoy Civil War stories, this one is probably worth your time.

Blur ... but with a good book

2010-08-26T16:35:00.001-07:00

These past few weeks have been really nuts ... International travel for work, a series of family obligations (fun ones, happily), and then I got sick, from which I'm still recovering. All of that plane, hotel, and resting time did have one upside - I was able to read (consume, really) a wonderful book: Possession, by A.S. Byatt. Yes, I'm a bit behind the times, as the novel won the Man Booker Prize all the way back in 1990. But better late than never, and I really loved the book! It wasn't always an easy read, and I had to resort to the dictionary a few times (which actually is pretty fun since then I learn new words, but it does interrupt things). But I loved that the novel succeeded on both the intellectual and the emotional levels - making me think about its themes, and care about the characters. The plot twists weren't surprising at all, but that didn't matter at all. Instead, I loved the experience of good writing and good thinking. Weeeeee!

As for my own writing, I've been focusing on short pieces right now, as I'm taking a short break from edits on one manuscript and don't want to continue writing the other manuscript (about 2/3 through first draft) until I can really devote all my attention to it. But I've got some good ideas for it, so I'm excited to return to it when I can. In the meantime, I'm going to try to improve my craft by writing short stories ... I think I'll leave my thoughts on those for another post, though. Until then, happy literary adventures!

Sea of Poppies, by Amitav Ghosh

2010-08-14T09:45:00.000-07:00

This is for Historical Tapestry's blog challenge. P is for Poppies.

It is sometime during the early years of the 19th century, and tall-masted ships rule the seas. One ship, the Ibis, is a siren, drawing together misfits and heros as it travels from Baltimore to the mouth of the Ganges. Slowly, the disparate lives of Zachary, a mulatto freedman; Deeti, a brave Bengali peasant woman; Paulette, a vivacious Frenchwoman orphaned in India; Neel, a rajah fallen from grace; and so many others weave together, in and around the Ibis as she prepares to embark on her next journey.

Ghosh sets himself an ambitious task, introducing the reader to over a dozen memorable characters whose lives eventually will wind together in the belly of the Ibis, all while capturing the particular historic moment of Britain's Indian colonies just prior to the Opium Wars in China. This is a rich, rich, book, with memorable detail in every paragraph. At first, such ambition feels unwieldy, as the individual trajectories of the characters tarry in forming an overarching narrative. But Ghosh delivers on his promise, and with gusto. I dare anyone to finish this book without caring deeply about the main characters, and not hanging in suspense for the next book of what promises to be a superlative trilogy.

Knowing when you're done, or knowing when you're dead

2010-07-30T16:46:00.000-07:00

How do we know when we're done? Obviously, there's no good answer to that, not when it comes to life's complicated projects. I've finished a recent stage of edits on my manuscript, and that seductive little voice has slipped inside my head - "Maybe you're done now, my sweet." It could be true. But, I've listened to this voice before, and boy, was I wrong. It was like pulling out a tray of brownies with batter running down the edges and trying to sell it at a bake sale.

In tangentially related news, the President of Venezuela decided earlier this month to disinter the bones of South American independence hero, Simon Bolivar. That's kind of like digging up George Washington and Moses all at once, for Venezuelans/Colombians/Ecuadorans. Theories behind Chavez's motives abound, but whether he was hoping for evidence that the dastardly Colombians killed Bolivar or hoping to prove that he's got some of the old man's DNA in his Chavista veins, either way, Chavez took something that was most definitely done and, well, resurrected it. (Or tried.)

And a sort of flip side of that ... The Japanese government apparently didn't know when to call it quits, for the man they had been deeming the oldest man in Tokyo was apparently dead for decades. Government officials found his mummified corpse when they went to check on him.

So do I risk over-doing it by working my manuscript more (shaking the dirt off bones that were resting peacefully), or do I throw in the towel (and deceive myself into think I've accomplished something when all I've got is a mummifying manuscript)?

I think I need a second opinion. Cue - husband?

Far Bright Star, by Robert Olmstead

2010-07-24T12:58:00.001-07:00

This is for Historical Tapestry's blog challenge - O is for Olmstead.

In 1916, the frontier of war for the American Army was not across the ocean but south, in the burnt deserts abutting Mexico. In Far Bright Star, a weathered soldier who has served in countless campaigns, heads out into the desert on what he imagines will be just another patrol. But he and the five men who accompany him, all mounted on the horses that the soldier loves almost more than the men, find themselves caught in a trap that they can only end with death - either their own, or that of the enemy.

The story has less of a historical feel than I expected, since so much of the action takes place out in the timeless hell of the desert. That said, history haunts the book in a subtle way, for the soldiers are all aware that a new war in Europe awaits them, and that their cavalry way of life is already extinct. The resulting book almost as the feel of a fable, with its terse prose reminiscent of Hemmingway, and its taciturn characters known by little more than their simple names - Extra Billy, the General, Xenophon. It was an unusual read for me and, given the difficult scenes it describes, not always comfortable. But it was interesting, and Olmstead does not shy away from showing the whole of his main character, moral failings and all, which I appreciated.

The Museum Guard, by Howard Norman

2010-07-11T15:45:00.000-07:00

For Historical Tapestry's blog challenge - N is for Norman.

The Museum Guard is set, mostly, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a city that seems circumscribed into a tiny world by the limited existence of DeFoe Russet and his uncle Edward, both guards in a three-roomed museum. But the year is 1938, and the outside world is rumbling like a threatening volcano, the danger of which is transmitted through the courageous radio broadcasts of Ovid Lamartine. As Edward becomes increasingly obsessed with Lamartine and his warnings about Hitler, DeFoe wallows in his largely chaste relationship with the beautiful but enigmatic Imogen Linny, the curator of the local Jewish cemetary who can't, it seems, quite decide who she is.

Often, literature paints unrequited love as a noble, if tragic, state. Othello, the Phantom of the Opera, A Long Long Time Ago and Essentially True, etc. But for DeFoe, the narrator of The Museum Guard, however, it is a much less ennobling relationship. Which is kind of poignant, as Imogen becomes obsessed with doing something "ennobling" - leaving her to pursue an idealized identity while DeFoe embraces his faults.

I found this book to be both engaging and frustrating. It's well written, in precise prose that evokes DeFoe's tidy personality and Halifax's cold atmosphere. But the relationship between Imogen and DeFoe is aggravating, as he lavishes patient affection upon her and she seems to only notice herself: her headaches, her thoughts and her worries. Mr. Norman also sets us up from the very beginning to question DeFoe's judgment - in the first sentence of the book, DeFoe tells us he stole a painting for Imogen. So, as the book progressed, I was ready for the theft to happen, and despaired when I thought he would commit this breach of his principles at the worst moment, in a desperate bid for Imogen's affection. I'm glad I didn't throw the book down halfway through, as I was tempted to do, for DeFoe proved himself to be a slightly better man than I had feared. In the end, The Museum Guard raises interesting questions about what it means to define yourself, and what happens when those definitions clash with the outside world.

Cheepy wins a fan

2010-07-05T09:31:00.000-07:00

This weekend I traveled to my alma mater for a casual reunion with some dear college friends. It was the first time I'd been back to campus for more than a drive through since graduation, and I was astonished at all the memories that tickled their way into consciousness at the prompting of passing a certain building, or walking a particular path. I was, to my surprise, moved.

But the best part was something that prompted an older memory, with hints of future dreams. We were killing some time after dinner and wandered into a comic book store - a new addition since we graduated. I was enjoying the imagination that's on full display, the bright colors and vibrant artistry, when a threesome of small, black and white, xeroxed comics caught my eye. Scribbled in a childish hand was "Cheepy Learns to Read" and its sequels, populated by a small chicken who was little more than a circle, a triangle for a beak, and some scrawled appendages. Inside were a few pages of charming simplicity and, to my surprise, wit. I bought two. The clerk told me they were drawn by a local seven-year-old girl, whose dad is a regular customer.

That probably makes my week. Imagination, small-town relationships, and a little girl's dreams realized, even as those dreams are probably growing as we speak (or read). All the better. Happy Independence Day, all you aspiring authors! Keep writing, dreaming, and writing.

And the truth was revealed

2010-06-30T18:21:00.000-07:00

In early May, I traveled to my first writing conference. It was, in a word, phenomenal. I attended sessions, met wonderful writers, and even rubbed elbows with some charming published authors and literary agents. I came away energized and, most importantly, with a sense of mission.

At this conference, to be a bit melodramatic, the scales fell from my eyes. I learned, through the critique of disinterested but kind observers, how much work my writing still needs. I also learned, thanks largely to the effervescent Ann Hood, a little bit about how to approach that work. (If any of you writers out there have a chance to attend a conference session with Ann, particularly on revision, I highly, highly recommend it. If this book I'm working on now ever gets published, it will be in great part due to her lesson on revision.)

I had wondered before how to figure out what wasn't working, how to determine if and where my writing was falling short. Though I'd had feedback from family and friends, I wasn't sure that they could be as honest as I needed. (Truth in publishing though - I think what I most needed from them was support and encouragement, which was amply provided. Thank you!) In two personal sessions and numerous group sessions, I realized how far I have to go.

So that's where I've been. Not on this blog, not on Twitter, but digging deep into my novel. I'm loving the experience, though I can't say I'm not a little appalled at how much work it needs, particularly since I've already passed it around to a number of people (and agents, ack!). Opportunities lost - but lessons learned. So it's back to the grind, now. How have others learned the truth about their writing? How did you take it? I feel like I've found religion, but I suspect, unfortunately, that I have more nasty surprises waiting for me ...

A Place of Greater Safety, by Hilary Mantel

2010-06-13T17:34:00.001-07:00

This review is for Historical Tapestry's blog challenge - M is for Mantel.

This novel about the French Revolution and its famous protagonists begins well before the fighting starts - at the birth of its main characters, in fact. This seems, at first, to be a flaw, but as the story draws on this prolonged beginning turns out to be a boon, for by the time the conflict boils over, the reader is deeply enmeshed in Parisian politics and, more importantly, the lives of Mantel's characters. Camille Desmoulins is a brilliant, fragile lay-about and seducer of men and women; Georges-Jacques Danton is a bulldog of a lawyer with passions he is sometimes willing to compromise; Maximilien Robespierre is a sickly, socially timid man whose personal conviction far exceeds his physical frame; Lucile Duplessis is a young girl who develops a crush on Camille, the dashing young man wooing her married mother. Together, they are caught in, and make, the political storm that overtakes their country.

I picked this book up at the bookstore after a long period of anxious browsing. I wanted a book written by a woman, but not one about sisters or mothers or long-lost-loves; in other words, not just about relationships and inner lives, but about action and history and stories. Finally, I found this. I'd never heard of Mantel before reading this book, but A Place of Greater Safety has assured her a pedestal of honor in my heart. This book was everything I'd hoped when I bought it, and more.

Mantel's special skill is combining the details of history with the flesh-and-blood characters that she creates, often sketching them right over the outlines of historical people. Even though we may know the fates of Danton, Robespierre, and Desmoulins, Mantel has a lot to teach us about their lives, loves and passions. As she does so, she sweeps us into the tumult of 18th century France, and I can't imagine finishing this book without a deep respect and affection for the people who inhabited that world. As with Wolf Hall, Mantel is a bit self-indulgent (though less so than in the later work): not attibuting dialogue, shifting perspectives and verb tenses. But she's so damn brilliant, she gets away with it.

The Line, by Olga Grushin

2010-05-25T16:44:00.001-07:00

This is for Historical Tapestry's blog challenge - L is for Line.

The line, a shuffling, sighing, gossiping organism starts hopefully, populated by people who aren't sure what exactly will be sold at the other end, or even when, but they all have their dreams. Anya hopes for a cake, an airy, sweet cake to color her drab existence. She lives with her husband in a loveless marriage, watching over their 17-year-old son and her mute mother, all caught in a tiny apartment but utter strangers to each other. As it becomes clear what the line does sell - tickets to a concert by a composer now banished to the West - the line becomes their family's life, the visceral representation of their government's wrongheadedness and repression, and then it transforms them.

This story is historical in the most magical way, blending the Soviet Union of the 1930s, the 1960s and the 1970s into a strange, timeless place never precisely identified (though the model is clear to the reader). Olga Grushin's language is similarly magical, as she brings both the characters and the stark, dim city where they live to sparkling, brilliant life. I first fell in love with Grushin's The Dream Life of Sukhanov for her skillful blending of language and theme, and she does almost as well here. Sukhanov is a tough work to beat, and I highly recommend it, particularly to artists or those who love art (which sould be everyone, right?). The Line is a little more universal in its tale of human disappointment and hope, and perhaps just a touch less sharp for being so universal, but overall it's an excellent, excellent book.

If you're interested in learning more about Ms. Grushin (a Washington local, by the way), check out this interview with the great independent bookstore, Politics and Prose. Ms. Grushin came to the US in her teens, and (amazingly), English is not her native tongue.

The Known World by Edward P. Jones

2010-05-15T12:23:00.000-07:00

This is for Historical Tapestry's blog challenge - K is for Known.

I am willing to bet you have never read a book like this before - unless you've read this one. The Known World is the story of black slave-owners in a fictious Virginia county, but it's also the story of the web of relationships that slavery built and destroyed. There's Caldonia, the newly-widowed mistress of the plantation her husband, a freed slave, built and populated with people still condemned to bondage. There's Moses, the black foreman who helped create that plantation and isn't sure where his heart lies. Plus Fern, the black woman who could have passed for white but never contemplated it, and Mister Robbins, the white slave owner who's both harsh overseer and racial diplomat, and many, many more. As all these characters move through the turbulent antebellum and Civil War periods, it's impossible not to get caught in their wake.

Written in a unique style that dips back and forth between attentive, tuneful omniscence and detached, anthropological chronicling, this book is a wonder. By just the first 7 pages the reader has experienced both:

"He paused before leaving the fields as the evening quiet wrapped itself around him. The mule quivered, wanting home and rest. Moses closed his eyes and bent down and took a pinch of the soil and ate it with no more than if it were a spot of cornbread. He worked the dirt around in his mouth and swallowed, leaning his head back and opening his eyes in time to see the strip of sun fade to dark blue and then to nothing."

And,

"In 1855 in Manchester County, Virginia, there were thirty-four free black families, with a mother and father and one child or more, and eight of those free families owned slaves, and all eight knew one another's business. When the War between the States came, the number of slave-owning blacks in Manchester would be down to five, and one of those included an extremely morose man who, according to the U.S. census of 1860, legally owned his own wife and five children and three grandchildren."

This is a great book, written by a fascinating (and local!) man. I won't be giving away my copy - this one's a keeper.

An infusion of fresh blood - yum

2010-04-19T12:32:00.000-07:00

Our writing group meets tomorrow and we'll have three new (or probationary, technically) members joining us. Two of the three are men, which we are all pretty excited about. Not because our writing group doubles as a dating pool/occult ritual cult, but because in our group of about 8 people, one of them is a guy. And while most fiction readers are, reportedly, women, all of us as writers value the perspective of that other chromosomal combination.

In spite of our desire to have some male feedback, it's been a little difficult to recruit and retain men for the group. I don't yet have a year with it, but in the time I've been with the group, we've added just 2 men, only one of whom stayed and is now the lone standout. Until tomorrow, at least. I suspect some affirmative action was involved in getting these latest two gentlemen, but I'm happy to remain guessing on that one. It's mysterious that writing, which is often dominated by men (see, for example, last year's controversy over the Publisher's Weekly top books list) seems to be filled with women at the lower rungs. I have no idea if that perception is correct nor do I feel informed enough to venture an explanation, but it's curious to me. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else out there has a similar dynamic in their writing group.

The numbers game aside, I'm looking forward to hearing from some different voices in our groups. Last week, two avid reader friends of mine, both women, were talking about how hard we thought it was for men to write female characters. (Norman Rush's fascinating but ultimately appalling Mating prompted the conversation; Tolstoy got major props for pulling it off.) We noted that we found female author's male characters far more believable, but then laughed at ourselves when we realized of course we had no idea if the men were truly authentic, or just appeared so to our minds, sympathetic to the female authors. Which is all to say, I'm excited to have some real live men (aside from my wonderful, real live husband) to sound test my male characters on.

Ines of My Soul, by Isabel Allende

2010-04-13T17:50:00.000-07:00

This is for Historical Tapestry's blog challenge - I is for ...

My fondness for this book might be colored by its presence (though imperfect) in a particularly ego-stroking moment: There I was, in Santiago, Chile, hunched over local favorite Isabel Allende's latest book in a hip coffee shop, and the server delivers my cappuccino with "Viva Espana" written in the foam of the cup. I blush as I realize that the four words I uttered to request said cappuccino were still tinged with the accent lingering from a college study abroad and this guy thought I was actually Spanish. I have rarely been so excited. I didn't say another word and I tried to cover up English on my book's cover. That is, so long as I remembered to do so, which was briefly because I quickly fell back into the book's gripping plot.

Ines of My Soul is the story of (real-life heroine) Ines Suarez and her 16th century journey from Spain to the New World, where she eventually became involved with Pedro de Valdivia, a leader in Pizarro's company. Together they and a tenacious bunch of settlers crossed the Atacama desert to found what would become Chile. They battle thirst, disease, other Spaniards and, most interestingly, the local Mapuche Indians. While I'd argue that Allende makes Ines a little too modern in her respect for the Mapuche - I suspect Allende didn't have the heart to make her beloved character Ines as bigoted as she probably was in real life - it's most likely a more comfortable stance for the modern reader to watch. (At least this reader was grateful Ines wasn't a total jerk to the displaced and abused Mapuches.) That aside, it was a charming, educational and really fun read. I definitely recommend it, even if it weren't tied to that particular cup of cappuccino!

And for those interested in Isabel Allende's writing habits and personal life, she was featured in the NY Times just this weekend.

Trying something new

2010-03-29T19:31:00.000-07:00

I have long been a secret writer - my fiction closely held to my chest, priable away from only my dead fingers, I imagined. But over the past couple of years I've been "coming out" - first admitting that I write fiction, then, gasp, sharing it with other people. Eventually these people included folks other than my husband.

But, aside from the short fiction I publish here, it's still been pretty close-hold. Then I joined a writing group. Strangers? Reading my pathetic little scribblings? Gulp. However, since I've been purged in the fire pit known as Work and The Review Process, I got used to it.

Lately, I crossed a more vertigo-inducing bridge: showing the first chapters of my work-in-progress before I had written the whole thing and edited the heck out of it. It felt a little strange to even consider the first chapters, since as I don't currently know how the book ends I can't be sure how I want it to start. But, wisely or not, I'm submitting those chapters for professional review at a conference I'm going to (another first!) and the deadline was approaching. I needed feedback, I knew it, so I gulped and sent out a few pages.

Well, I didn't die. The experience was actually a bit encouraging - people liked where I was going with the story, liked the characters. That was good to hear. I'm still not sure I won't scrap the whole thing, and it feels a little weird to have people (including my husband) know what my story's about while I'm still writing it, but I'll deal.

How do other people handle this? I imagine it has to do with how private you are in general, and how much about yourself you share in any category. But if we take the icy plunge to show early material, is it more helpful or hurtful? Could it end up being writing by committee or a guiding hand when you most need it?

Snow Mountain Passage by James D. Houston

2010-03-28T10:36:00.001-07:00

This is for Historical Tapestry's blog challenge - H is for Houston.

I say, "Donner Party," and we all know what you think, right? Reading or writing about the infamous settlers and their harrowing five months caught in the snow is bound to entail a certain amount of gut-wrenching horror, and James D. Houston's Snow Mountain Passage is no exception. But we are in the hands of a very capable author, and this story is about far more than the inhumanity those settlers had to resort to. Houston makes the wise narrative choice of focusing on one of the fathers and co-organizers of the party, exiled early in the trek and thus spared from the trap set by massive blizzards and a high mountain pass. Instead, James Frazier Reed is on the other side of those mountains trying to find a way to rescue his family and the eighty others snowbound with them.

It is 1846 and California is still contested, its people caught in the back-and-forth between Mexico and the United States. War threatens, impunity reigns, and it's unclear who even has the right to grant the land the settlers came to occupy. In the midst of all this are, of course, the native inhabitants, watching warily. Our hero, James Reed stumbles into this chaotic world with one mission, to save the wagon party he knows to be caught behind the Sierra Nevada ("snowy mountains"). But this is a story about what makes us human, our errors and all, and the path to rescue is circuitous - whether necessarily so or not.

One of the most compelling aspects of the book is its depiction of a people and a land in total flux. We often talk today about how rapidly change occurs, but at least we in the United States know, generally, who owns the land we walk on, what state it falls in, and what country governs it. We can see, more or less, how the future will unfold. This was not the case for the settlers in mid-19th century California. One of Houston's characters is Captain Sutter, an entreprenuerial Swiss who set himself up as ruler of a tiny corner of California. But that success is slipping away: "The future is crowding him ... What next? There was a time when he thought he knew. These days who can know anything, with the world transforming itself at such a pace. He grows weary of these unforeseeable changes."

Whether it's being caught in a succession of blizzards or drawn off to war against the Mexicans, this book is about unforeseeable changes. I think we can relate.

(For those interested in the author's take on his subject and some fascinating historical background -- visit here.)

On the boss encouraging reading at work - or something like that

2010-03-19T17:00:00.001-07:00

After a great weekend trip to New York, risking an instantaneous addiction to NYC brunch, I'm starting to think I have a thing for that second city to the north. So, for those of you who are fortunate enough to live there (meaning you are unfortunately not living in DC, but that's alright), you might be interested in this event on March 25. It's a reading from a history of the cigar factory in Latin America and the role played by "readers" - people hired just to read literature to the factory workers.

What a lovely idea, that factory workers' humanity was sufficiently respected for the managers/owners to hire readers. I wonder what professions we could expand that to today. Think, for example, if there were people who read to the perennially grumpy department of motor vehicle employees as they snap horrible mug shot after horrible mug shot. Maybe our visages would improve! Or maybe we could read to people washing dishes in restaurants. I guess a lot of jobs today require thought, which a reader would distract from, but it's nice to think about what engagement in literature would add to the workplace, not just leisure time.

Read a (good) book! Save the world!

2010-03-12T18:11:00.000-08:00

I don't blog about newspaper articles - I don't write here enough to keep up with that sort of thing and plenty of others can do it better. But I can't resist highlighting this wonderful NY Times article. Elias Khoury, a Palestinian, has suffered at the hands of both Israelis and Palestinians in their intractable conflict. When the latest blow came, the murder of his son by Palestinians who mistook the young man for a Jew, Khoury responded. He paid to have a famous work of Israeli literature translated, believing that the more we read about each other the more we understand, and the better our chances at co-existence.

Separately, I read a report today detailing a study of tolerance in the Western Hemisphere. The authors attempted to determine the people's willingness to accept gay candidates, to recognize their right to go to office. In the end, the authors concluded that the one factor that made the greatest difference towards promoting that tolerance was not wealth, gender, or even age - it was education.

So - save the world. Read a book. Challenge yourself!

(To take my own advice: I recently won a contest where I received 3 free books. Those books arrived one by one at our house, and only after opening the third did I figure out the trend. They were all written by people of faith and were about their religious experiences. My diabolical heart sinks - I am not religious. At all. BUT, I have resolved to read at least one of these. I will get to know these people better!)

What books are you reading or have you read that have challenged the way you thought about others? Either fiction or non-fiction.

The Cellist of Sarajevo, by Steven Galloway

2010-03-08T14:17:00.000-08:00

This is for Historical Tapestry's alphabet blog challenge. G is for Galloway!

A mortar attack during the siege of Sarajevo kills twenty-two people, people who were waiting in line to buy bread. Their lives were ended during such a mundane and humane moment, and so a cellist decides to honor them, or heal himself, by playing Albioni's Adagio in the crater of the attack for twenty-two days. Or at least as long as he can.

In the course of his effort to do so, the cellist and his music weave across the lives of three other of Sarajevo's beleaguered residents. The stories of these three other people are largely separate but joined by their individual revelations of humanity in the face of grueling war. The story of Arrow, a sniper who wants to keep her hands (and morals) clean, is the most compelling of the three, but all are lovely. I would not be surprised if the book's structure, intertwining the three stories, reflects the structure of the Adagio, but unfortunately I am a musical ignoramus so can only guess.

I am probably cheating in calling this book historical fiction, but I am quite willing to do so for two reasons: one, this was a historically significant war, even if it's modern, and two, the book is beautiful and worth touting wherever I can. The writing is clear and musical, and the characters come to life with resonance. I hope you read it!

Remembering How to Ride a Bike

2010-03-03T18:41:00.001-08:00

They say you never forget how to ride a bike, but that isn't true. Sure, the mechanics of foot-push-glide-steer remain, but that's not riding. It's the balance, the body poised over the bicycle's frame, leaned into a curve, or weaving around an obstacle that is forgotten. Forgotten so that what remains is a clumsy, mechanical imitation of bike riding.

Steve didn't know any of this, though, when he bought the bike with the flat tire for $10 at a yard sale. It didn't occur to him that he could forget, and in that moment of hopeful weakness, he didn't want to entertain doubts. He was emerging, he thought, from the throat-gripping darkness that had cloaked his life. After two (or was it more? he could hardly think of it) years of desperate misery, Steve was ready to consider the possibility of something other than pain. The bike seemed like a good start.

But it huddled, injured with its flat tire, in his front hallway for weeks. Every time Steve walked past it, he grimaced, both at the reminder of his unfinished task and at the bike's pathetic silhouette.

The decision came, as they often do for those who are healing, without any warning. He woke up, dressed, and took the bike to the shop, where he bought a new tire. Before putting the renovated bike back in his car to drive home, Steve swung a leg over the frame. He bruised his knee against the seat, but ignored it. He lifted himself onto the pedals, and with an anxious breath, pushed off.

Then he realized how much he had forgotten. He wobbled around the parking lot, and nearly strayed into the street as he turned onto a sidewalk. His body felt foreign as it stumbled to execute his biking commands.

But as the breeze flowed past his cheek, his hair, and as his hands flexed against the breaks, he realized what else he had forgotten. That there had been a time when he bicycled. When he had moved from place to place in the open air, or simply traveled for the sake of the journey. That he had once grinned so widely he had inhaled a large bug. That he'd skinned his knee but hopped up again to finish racing down a hill, just to see how fast he could go. He had forgotten those things too. He smiled, just a little, as the memories trickled in. Oh. This is who I was. Am.

The Blue Flower, by Penelope Fitzgerald

2010-02-27T09:00:00.000-08:00

This is a part of Historical Tapestry's blog challenge - F is for Fitzgerald (and Flower, and Fritz, and ...)

Fritz, son of an pious, proud and poor nobleman in late 18th century Germany, is clearly destined to be a poet, though he tries to force himself into a more practical, and pecuniary, profession. From the start, the reader realizes Fritz is flighty and pensive, even if his thoughts are rather impentrable. The opening chapter introduces us to Fritz's family on laundry day, when their underclothes are billowing in the air as a friend comes to visit. Fritz admonishes his friend, "Gentlemen! Look at that washbasket! Let your thought be the washbasket! Have you thought the washbasket? Now then, gentlemen, let your thought be on that that thought the washbasket!"

I have no idea what he means by that. I can guess, though, what Fitzgerald means it to reveal about her character - that he seeks the essence of the universe in individual things, that his thoughts do not often untangle themself well when aired to others. The richness of the personal interior is one of the key themes of the book, which has a relatively simple plot. I hate to write this, as it doesn't happen until nearly a third into the book, but it's on the back flap ... Fritz falls in love with the young (12!) Sophie, and the rest of the book is an examination of his love as he waits for her to age, to catch up. This strange love is confusing to those around him, some of whom regard Sophie as a halfwit, although there are others who become equally caught in her spell.

The crux of the book, though, is not Sophie but a story Fritz has written about a blue flower. A young man remembers a blue flower a stranger showed him, and he says, "I have no craving to be rich, but I long to see the blue flower. It lies incessantly at my heart, and I can imagine and think about nothing else. Never did I feel like this before. It is as if until now I had been dreaming, or as if sleep had carried me into another world." After reading the story to a young woman who is in love with him, though Fritz is ignorant of it, he asks her, "What is the meaning of the blue flower?" It is a question that haunts the reader for the rest of the book.

Overall, this is a quiet, strange story. It is written in a romantic style reminiscent of Goethe, who haunts the edges of the story as a character himself. I suppose it's better to think of it as a poem, one that Fritz would eventually write when he fulfills his destiny, with a lovely collection of images, people and feeling that reveals meaning after contemplation.

Great Gatsby - the Ballet?

2010-02-22T17:46:00.000-08:00

This might end up being like either a spork, a liger (see illustration, via Napoleon Dynamite), or a mule. (Respectively: Fabulous combination, A great idea but fails in execution, or Stubborn and sterile.) But, in anticipation, I'm very excited. The Washington Ballet is world-premiering The Great Gatsby at the Kennedy Center - the book turned into an original, full-length ballet. Since part of the appeal of The Great Gatsby is the brilliant use of language and the specific, pithy insights into human nature, I'm not sure it will translate. But I'm quite willing to give it a try! And in the meantime, I get to reread the book (which I have - ack - never actually finished), which is most enjoyable in and of itself. If you're in Washington, check it out! And who knows, if this succeeds, perhaps they'll take it on the road.

What is it with England?

2010-02-15T09:25:00.000-08:00

I can feel the addiction building, lingering at the edge of my vision and threatening to pounce on me. It's an addiction that seems to take nearly every white American (and many others) who are interested in history - that fascination with England, and particularly medieval/Elizabethan England. (Am I wrong here? Is my addiction already so full-blown that I'm seeing legions of fellow addicts when really we are few?)

Part of this is timing - I am planning, in the future, to set one my my next books in medieval England. (Ack, another book on mud and knights and kings? I can't help myself ...) But part of it is the particular cultural diet I've had recently. First, the Shakespeare Theatre's incredible, stunning, and strangely sexy Henry V. If you're in DC, check it out. Second, I'm reading Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, and in addition to being among the most unique reading experiences I've had, it's getting me hooked on Henry VIII. (Yes, different time frames, but I think romantically they are all linked.) Next, I bought Bernard Cornwell's Agincourt today. I'm slipping down the hill!

Now, I have not yet sewn a Renaissance Festival dress. I swear I will not go that far! I swear! (Though I would probably cave if I could shoot a recurve bow, or even a longbow. Man, I want one of those.)

A note - I just came upon this wonderful Database of the Soldier in Medieval England. You can search by name! I searched for Bell, my mother's mother's family, and found many Bells. Who were archers. Hmm.

A second, completely tangential note - For anyone else interested in the moral value/role of fiction, something I've written on in the past, D.G. Myers does a much more eloquent job than I in examining some recent thoughts on the topic.

On a book with a great title and distinct voice

2010-02-10T11:50:00.000-08:00

The snow machine currently whirring over the DC area has given me a number of things, not least of which is time to sit home reading and writing. The first book to succumb to my snow-induced reading crusade was Brigid Pasulka's A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True. I'm not going to write up each book I read, but I wanted to highlight this one for two reasons: one, it was really good; two, it has a tremendous voice.

Voice, as writers know, is that often-elusive, ever-touted sense that the words on the page come together with a certain personality. Pasulka's book is a great example because she has two distinct voices alternating. One is a sort of magical realism tale-teller's omniscient POV voice, and the other is the first-person voice of a twenty-something single woman languishing on the edge of Poland's new, post-Soviet modernity. The first sparkles with fairy tale glitter, even when it's diving into the bloody horrors of war, and the second resonates with the repressed hope of a serious young woman unwilling to recognize her dreams, much less embrace them. I strongly recommend reading it just for the interesting study in contrasts.

That said, it's also a really good story. Not necessarily a page-turning, thrilling adventure, but still an engrossing depiction of love, sacrifice, and the search for meaning. Yes, that sounds cliche, but I'm trying not to spoil anything. And, distilled, just about any life-affirming story sounds cliche (even calling it "life-affirming" is cliche). Maybe it's better to phrase the question in the way the first-person narrator does - is she on the shelf, put away from life, or off the shelf, circulating? Get to know her, and her answer might surprise you.

The ALF in my house

2010-02-09T19:04:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's the result of being cooped up in the apartment for four and a half days (tomorrow makes that five and a half). Maybe it's that I over-think things (just ask the husband :) ). But I can't stop staring at the cats and thinking What alien life form are you and why are you living in my house?

Really, why do we let these small creatures with their impenetrable thoughts in our homes? Ok, yes, I love them to pieces, but I'm convinced that it's some sort of spell they cast on me. I am certain that the female kitty (K1, for those who recall) regards me as simply a giant walking lap that once a day pours food into the bowl. When the lap is sitting, it must be sat upon. When the lap is standing, it must be begged for treats.

I feel so used.

Yet, I love them! Can't get enough of them! Just want to snuggle my face into their furry little bodies til I sneeze from all the fur up my nozzle. And anyways, I'm just guessing that's that what she thinks. Because, unlike with dogs and husbands and houseguests, cats usually keep their thoughts to themselves. (Why are you sitting in that cardboard box even though it's too small for your bottom? Why is the appearance of a laptop bag cause for intense investigation and much chewing of zipper?)

Maybe this is some sort of alien reality TV show ... I wonder how I could leverage that for 15 minutes of Xordox fame.

Or maybe I should stop staring at the cats and get back to writing that novel.