The TBR Pile Challenge turns 10

 

The Goal

To finally read twelve books that have been sitting on your “TBR Pile” list or shelves for a year or more.

Adam of RoofBeamReader has been running this challenge now for 10 years, and I have participated in the past. I haven't been doing a lot of challenges in the last few years, though, aside from the long-term regular ones. So when I saw this announcement I thought I'd jump in once more! I have so many unread books on my shelves and have been trying to read more of them. This challenge should help with that! 

So without further ado, here is my list of 12 books (and 2 alternates) that I am planning on reading in 2023:

This stack is actually in reverse order -- my two alternates are perched on top! So in order from bottom to top, these are my 2023 picks from the multitude on my bookshelves. I will use this post to keep track of them and link the reviews as they go up.

1. The Door / Magda Szabo 

2. The House of Spirits / Isabel Allende

3. Kiss the Joy As It Flies / Sheree Fitch

4. Father / Elizabeth von Arnim

5. Breakfast with the Nikolides / Rumer Godden

6. The 27th Kingdom / Alice Thomas Ellis

7. A Note in Music / Rosamond Lehmann

8. In a Summer Season / Elizabeth Taylor

9. The Paris-Napoli Express / Janice Kulyk Keefer

10. Mr. Wrong / Elizabeth Jane Howard 

11. Green Water, Green Sky / Mavis Gallant

12. Crusoe's Daughter / Jane Gardam 

Alternates: 

1. Brat Farrar / Josephine Tey

2. He, She & It / Marge Piercy 

2013 Challenge Wrap-Up

image via The British Library
on Flickr (amazing resource!)

2013 held a lot of reading challenges for me. I've always enjoyed taking these on even if I don't get close to finishing, although in 2014 I'll be limiting the number of challenges simply because of the scope of the Century of Books!

I didn't do too badly this year, though -- I read quite a lot. Actually I am surprised by how many of these I completed! Here is how I've done with my challenges.

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Canadian Book Challenge -- ongoing, as it runs from July 1 to July 1 (hosted by John at Book Mine Set)

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Colourful Reading Challenge -- hosted by Becca at Lost in Books
I finished this one! The challenge was to read nine books with a colour, any colour, in the title -- and I did it, just squeaking in with my last pick this week. My final list of colour books

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What's In A Name -- hosted by Beth Fish Reads
I've been doing this one for a few years now. I like the random categories and the varied reading they lead to. I finished this one, and much more quickly than usual! Here are the categories and my reads for each.

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Tea and Books Challenge -- hosted by Birgit at The Book Garden
The challenge here was to read massive chunksters. I read one supermassive tome with counted toward my goal of 2 books, Sir Charles Grandison (1600+ pages)

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RIP VIII Challenge -- hosted by Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings, running Sept 1- Oct 31
This seasonal challenge is always a delight. I chose to participate at the level of 4 books, but ended up reading 6. Here's the original challenge, and the books I ended up reading, plus a couple that I simply did not finish.

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The TBR Pile Challenge -- hosted by Roof Beam Reader

This one challenged you to read 12 books that you've had on the shelves for more than one year. I have plenty of those, so signed up and actually completed the challenge :) I even read the 2 alternate titles on my list, though didn't make it to the full 20 I'd suggested I would. All the titles are listed and linked on the original post.

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Science Book Challenge -- hosted by Jeff at Scienticity

Wow, I failed miserably on this one. I need to focus on more good science reading! Lots of ideas for where to start at Jeff's website, too, so no excuses!

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To finish up, I mustn't forget my very own challenge, the first I've hosted -- the Postal Reading Challenge! I finished up 15 epistolary books, and sent plenty of mail this year. I hope you'll consider joining in for 2014, too. You can get to all the reviews for books read by participants by following the links at the 'gateway post' (including my own). Or see the full run of my own postal reading and comments on the post here.

All the Names by Jose Saramago

All the Names / José Saramago; translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa.
San Diego, CA: Harvest Harcourt, 2001, c1999.
245 p.

At this time last year, I was finishing up one of Saramago's earlier novels, The Manual of Painting and Calligraphy. Fortunately for me, I liked All the Names much, much more than that one!

This novel has Saramago writing in a more assured manner, and with many elements that I loved. Main character Senhor José is a clerk in the Central Registry Office, which is very regimented and hierarchical.  Its purpose is very detailed record-keeping of births, death, marriages, divorces...those sorts of things. Each position has its duties, and one does not step outside of that routine.

Senhor José is a little bit unusual, however...he lives in a tiny house attached to the Central Registry, with a connecting door. There used to be a row of such houses for all the employees, but all that is left now is this last one that was overlooked in all the building and rebuilding, a ramshackle kind of place inhabited by Senhor José. This makes it easy for him to wander the Central Registry at night, something he never, never would have ever thought about doing, until one day in the course of his work he came across a file card for a unknown woman. This name caught his attention and drove him to commit all sorts of unlikely acts in his desperate urge to discover her. He moves outside himself, and beyond his routines, as his curiosity takes him out into the wider world.

This is a fascinating read for those intrigued by the same things as Saramago; record keeping, identity, the thin divide between life and death, archives, inexplicable obsessions and so forth. I really enjoyed this one, as Saramago's writing is in full flow. His characteristic style is in evidence and so is his humour, with Senhor Jose exhibiting eccentricity in his actions and in his conversations with his ceiling (very entertaining indeed). Nevertheless there is a melancholy and painful aspect to the tale as well.

I thought that Saramago was clever not to make this into a love story, but rather a search for and examination of what makes us who we are in the world. Senhor Jose is fascinated by the ordinariness of this random woman and tries to discover the kind of information about her that he has collected on various celebrities. He comes to see that our ordinary lives, despite not being written about in gossip columns, are worthy of attention, meaningful and important.

I'm still not sure what to think of the rather ambiguous conclusion. I'll have to reread and ponder a bit more. But definitely recommended if you like this kind of philosophical, innovative writing.

The Translation of Dr Apelles

The Translation of Dr Apelles / David Treuer
Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press, c2006.
256 p.

This book is unique -- it's a story of Native American life and tropes, told in a completely different voice than any other work of Native literature I've read. Treuer is also known for his literary criticism and his suggestion that Native American lit hasn't transcended stereotype yet, so this doesn't come as a surprise. This novel is embedded in a literary tradition, though, and it references many, many other works in the Western canon, as well as showing the influence of writers like Borges or Jose Saramago, for instance.

What you'll discover here is a tale of Dr Apelles, a translator and specialist in Native languages. His day job is at a book warehouse that stores unwanted books, but his passion is his translations. In his off hours, he explores an archive, where he discovers a document "of which he is the only remaining key".

The narrative then moves back and forth between his story and the one he is ostensibly translating -- an historical piece about two young people, Eta and Bimaadiz, adopted from neighbouring tribes. Their story is a fable, a fairy tale, using various bits of Native history and mixing them with fantastical elements. They fall in love against many odds, and while translating, Dr Apelles is realizing that he himself has never really been in love. Fortunately for him, there is a beautiful young woman named Campaspe who works alongside him in his day job and for some inexplicable reason is very attracted to him. They begin a relationship fairly early on in the novel.

Naming is an important part of this book. Apelles was a portrait painter in ancient Greece, perhaps echoing our main character's ability to create a reality, to show us whatever he wants us to see. And Campaspe was the mistress of Alexander the Great, first painted by Apelles and then 'given' to him by Alexander because of the success of the portrait. Her name thus became a symbolic stand-in for "mistress". Which kind of fits here, unfortunately...

But I did find a lot to like in this book -- the bookishness of both aspects of Apelles' life, both work and play; his lustful description of his lovely Campaspe as a book whose pages must all be explored; the idea that much of this story is a translation itself; all leading toward a clever, perspective-shifting ending. Questions of historical veracity, of the reliability of a writer or translator, of the shifting reality of a text that's hard to pin down -- all this combines to provide a wonderful read. And there were some really lovely moments in the book that I greatly enjoyed as well. Here's just one quote to end off with, an image that I found beautiful in its brevity:

When they left the woods, their small shack appeared like a black stamp on the blue envelope of dusk.

The Line

The Line / Olga Grushin
New York: Penguin, c2011.
336 p.

Olga Grushin and I were born in the same year. But that's pretty much where our similarities end. She was born in Moscow, moved to the US for graduate school, and now lives in Washington. She's also a talented writer, with themes of Russian life, stagnation, boredom, and individual integrity running through her work.

Her first book, The Dream Life of Sukhanov, detailed the life of an artist who sold out to the system willingly; this one deals more with the way that regular people's dreams are stymied by their surroundings. I absolutely loved Sukhanov, and still recommend it strongly. The Line has its appeal but I didn't love it quite so effusively.

In this book, we meet a family in decay. Father Sergei plays tuba in a state band that gets trotted out for patriotic marches, despite his longing as a young man to play the violin and become a composer. Mother Anna is a stolid, long-suffering schoolteacher, who is beginning to feel that she really, really needs a change. Son Alexander, who is just turning 17, is a disengaged, rather naive teen who gets involved with the wrong sorts. Added to this is Anna's mother Maya, a silent woman who drifts around their apartment dreaming of life before "the change".

Grushin found inspiration in a true story: when Igor Stravinsky was to return to Russia to play a concert in 1962, a line for tickets existed for a year. She's taken this event and added a little bit from many eras of Russian communist life, to create a stiflingly grey, authoritarian, hopeless society. Into this grey, dull sameness comes The Line -- Anna stumbles across a kiosk at the end of a nearby street, and although at first she doesn't know what is being sold (nobody in line does know) she stays in line. Then, as this becomes a kind of quest, she cooperates with Sergei and eventually Alexander too, to maintain their place in line for months, until they finally discover that they are waiting for the chance to buy a ticket for a concert to be given by exiled composer Selinksky (a barely disguised Stravinsky). The possibility of this concert creates hopes full of colour and joy in each of them, providing a vision of art as a survival strategy for the soul.

In line they get to know their compatriots who are also waiting hopefully for some colour and excitement. All of their lives intertwine, and we hear more about each person's reasons for waiting, and their own sad home lives. I did find this book fairly depressing; everyone is sad, repressed, tragic, violent, hopeless, neglected and so on. There is a lifting of this sense near the conclusion, when we see that human connection can overcome even this kind of societal repression. And it really is all about the characters in this novel; Grushin has such a sense of compassion and understanding for each of them. Her writing is also just as exquisite as in her first novel -- her images and metaphors create a surreal landscape that feels very much part of a Russian tradition to me. It's a literary read that conveys a sense of place, and how that place affects the personalities of the increasingly large cast of characters. Perfect for a wintery, leisurely read.

**(this book also reminded me of another Russian novel I read fairly recently, Vladimir Sorokin's The Queue -- all that waiting!)

Exit Lines

Exit Lines / Joan Barfoot
Toronto: Knopf, c2008.
320 p.

So I finally finished this book, which I've had on my shelf since it was brand-new! Barfoot is reliably witty, caustic and full of dark humour, and this book certainly fulfilled my expectations for all of those elements.

It's the story of an unlikely quartet, four new friends who've banded together in their new retirement home. the Idyll Inn. From a small town, they've always known of one another, and known each other in various ways, but it's only now that they become a set of friends against the world.

Each of them feels unready to succumb to old age and its expected activities -- they don't want to spend their days waiting for lunchtime and playing cards. So they find a surreptitious source of booze and various items they still want, and continue on in their small rebellion. Until Ruth, widowed former social worker, asks the others for a very big favour, and changes the dynamics quite abruptly.

This story is about life itself -- what makes it worth living, what do we remember, what do we owe one another? It delves into the lives of each of the four characters, giving us glimpses of their past, of how quickly the years go and yet how much a part of us they remain. The distance between young mother/elderly widow isn't really very far. While physically limited now, these characters behave with the same individual personalities they had in midlife. Barfoot is making the point that life experience goes on until the very end, that we can choose to see the meaning and beauty in living while it lasts.

And she also brings up the difficult questions of how to cope with disability, with limitations or reductions in the scope of life, with pain and suffering. The characters represent the many sides to these issues, and because of this they do suffer a little from stereotypes -- the immigrant, the socialite, etc. Nonetheless, Barfoot develops a certain charm in this tale, even through the slower bits of the story. I didn't know what to expect from the conclusion but was pleased with the idea that life simply goes on. There wasn't necessarily a deliberate, defined conclusion -- more of a lifelike 'carry on'.

I found this an interesting read, though didn't love it as much as I have some of her other books. There was lots to think about, and enough humour to lighten things up when they felt very serious. The Idyll Inn's daily round was quite funny, to anyone who has any experience with the quirks of  retirement residences. This book is another in the rash of retirement-residence novels I've randomly read this year, and adds another voice to that presentation.

Other recent reads featuring nursing home cameos and more:

Flee, Fly, Flown by Janet Hepburn

The World by Bill Gaston

Perdita by Hilary Scharper

The 100 Year Old Man who climbed out the window and disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

The Deadly Space Between

The Deadly Space Between / Patricia Duncker
New York: Harper Perennial, c2003.
256 p.

It seems that I've been finding a few duds in my RIP reading over the last few years. Last year I read a book that I really, really disliked, finding it creepy and violent, despairing with no good reason given for it (Your House is on Fire, Your Children All Gone by Stefan Kiesbye)

I suppose this one would be this year's unpleasant choice, for me. I read it because it was on my TBR list of 20 books to read this year off of my shelves, as I've owned it for a long time. And I liked this author's first book, Hallucinating Foucault, which I read many years ago now. But this one, well, I'm not sure exactly what it was about it that disturbed me and resulted in a queasy response to it.

It's blurbed as follows:

An eerie psychological ghost story with echoes of Faust, Freud, and Frankenstein, The Deadly Space Between is a disturbing tale of Oedipal passions -- a rich and dark exploration of sexual ambiguity and longing.

The storyline is that young single mother Isobel, a painter, is unusually close to her son Toby who is only 15 years younger than she is. Now that Toby is a sullen teenager, Isobel takes up with a new lover, the enigmatic Roehm, who captivates both Isobel and Toby. Isobel's sister is violently opposed to her connection with Roehm, for reasons we later discover. So far, so good.

But. There is prurient, incestual sex involved in this story, among more than one set of characters. It doesn't add to the tale, it feels gratuitous and icky. Aside from this content, I ended up being very confused about Roehm's character. He is mysterious and powerful, a scientist who is doing biological studies in a dark, humid room which he takes Toby to, once. Roehm only comes around at night, and he seems to have a preternatural sense of what people are thinking, and seeing. He gives Toby a computer as a gift, and thus Toby tries to search for information about Roehm online -- he can find nothing, except a mention of a 19th century scientist who died during a mountaintop expedition.

When Isobel and Toby try to run from him at the conclusion of the book, they end up in Switzerland, in the mountains, where they run out onto a mountain path and Isobel collaspses, with visions of a man in the snow. Guess who? It's Roehm, the modern one, and the 19th century one. I couldn't work out whether he was a ghost, a psychological figment, a spirit, a descendent of the original -- nothing really fit with the story -- he has a presence in the modern world, not to mention prodigious sexual appetites, so how does that work?

I was confused, but glad enough to be done with this that I didn't try to puzzle it out any further. Unfortunately, this one is not recommended: it's simply deadly.

The Disapparation of James

The Disapparation of James / Anne Ursu
New York: Hyperion, c2003.
288 p.

Five year old James Woodrow is very shy, so nobody is more surprised than his parents when he volunteers to be the assistant at a circus show they've gone to for his sister Greta's 7th birthday. He is taken up on stage, is a resounding success, and then, as the high point of the act, he disappears. Suddenly. Irrevocably.

To his parents' shock, it wasn't part of the trick. As they wait and James doesn't return, the panic sets in, and the family goes through their worst nightmare -- a missing child.

The story delves into the responses of each family member, mother, father and sister, to James' disappearance. It also explores the bounds of what is known and believed: on viewing a tape of the performance, both Justin and Hannah come to view his disappearance not as an abduction but a literal disapparation. He has dissolved into thin air.

There is some support for this speculative idea early on in the book, as James is presented as a very serious, quiet, obsessive kind of child, who will play with his blocks alone for hours, or talk to his sister in their own language. The busy morning before the circus, Justin, while making breakfast, can not find his spatula -- it's as if it has "disappeared into thin air" and this kind of thing seems to happen a lot, a common enough experience for most of us, but slightly ominous here.

In any case, the disappearance alters their lives, as an investigation is underway, and a police officer takes up residence in their home for the duration. Tom is a sympathetic character whose job is to observe the family, take calls, and ward off cranks. He also and most unexpectedly begins to take care of Greta while her parents aren't really functioning. And he meets Hannah's sister, which gives a reader a tiny hint of a future connection.

But there is no way to solve this illogical disapparation. The police can only deal with abduction and the rules of everyday life, they don't understand the random dissolving of a child, the fact of which only the Woodrows seem to grasp. How will it conclude? Ursu doesn't leave us in agony, she resolves the quandary in as sudden an event as the original moment of loss. But meanwhile, she explores the ideas of loss, belonging, family, love, belief, and more. While there were a few moments that I wasn't convinced by, the majority of the story was sharp and concisely drawn. The characters were all complex, with vivid interior lives. Greta was a wonderful character, with an outsize imagination and an absolute belief in James' return.

I really enjoy Ursu's deliberate style. She includes a lot of description of the thoughts and motives of her characters, while positing a very unusual situation. I've also read and enjoyed her novel Spilling Clarence, and find many similarities in the way she approaches a story in both novels. I've owned this particular book for a long time, and I'm glad I finally read it. It was an intriguing read.

The Photograph

The Photograph / Penelope Lively
New York: Penguin Viking, c2003.
231 p.

This is one of the few Lively books I haven't read yet, so decided that this week was the perfect time to pick it up. I found a nice hardcover a few months ago and was waiting for the Lively mood to strike me. It's very much about her common preoccupations: memory, how well we know people, the place of the past in the present.

The story is thus: Glyn, landscape historian, has married Kath, young, beautiful, rather feckless. Her elder sister Elaine, garden designer, is married to Nick, a man stuck in the big ideas/no follow-through adolescent stage of development. Kath has been dead for a number of years when the story opens, when Glyn, on the search for a paper he wants to use in an article, uncovers an envelope in his archive. It has a photograph inside, a photo of Kath and Nick surreptitiously holding hands.

This throws the whole narrative into overdrive. Glyn, furious, does what he does best -- he obsesses over it and tries to track down every last bit of information about what this photo represents. Elaine, on the other hand, wishes that she'd never found out. Things will now have to change.

Nick can't understand the fuss; it was 15 years ago, it didn't mean anything, why is Elaine getting so worked up? It's more his reaction than the original action that spurs Elaine to boot him out. He's been so dependent on her income and her patience that he is utterly incapable of surviving alone, so, he decamps to his daughter's flat in London, from where she is only too glad to press her mother to take him back.

The past rises up to shatter the present, and has everyone questioning how well they really knew Kath -- and really, how well do they know one another? The man who took the original photograph, Nick's previous business partner Oliver, gets dragged into the drama against his will. As first Glyn, then Nick, come to him about it, he muses that Kath "has become like some mythical figure, trawled up at will to fit other people's narratives. Everyone has their way with her, everyone decides what she was, how things were. It seems to him unjust that in the midst of this to-do she is denied a voice" 

In Lively's writing, there are always sharp comments on individual peculiarities, but is the person self-aware about their quirks? This is never as certain. The story, though resplendent with sound and fury, dies off into a quieter acceptance near the end. The characters seem to accept that the objective Truth will never be known, that Kath's character is a jumble of impressions made up of many different viewpoints.

The fact that there are so many incompatible couples in this narrative -- Glyn & Kath, Elaine & Nick, even their daughter and her various suitors -- gives it a melancholy realism. It's not a very happy book, tinged with betrayal, obsession, fear, and resignation. And yet Lively can write in such a fluid style, sweeping in and out of interior monologue to a wide view of history and landscape to the most minute social interaction. She can express exultant happiness and bitter anger on the same page. The writing is really wonderful, very recognizable as her particular style, and her regular themes arise, and I am greatly fond of both.

An excerpt to close -- Glyn is on a hillside in Dorset, working, in a place that he had taken Kath early in their relationship. He sees a kestrel fly over, and suddenly he is with Kath once more.

Glyn is now diverted from his reflections on the functions of time; he notes that his flow of observation -- unconsidered, uncontrived -- is a nice instance of the tumultuous, spontaneous operation of the mind. He knows enough of the theories of long-term memory to identify his recognition of the mill and the hill fort as the practice of semantic memory -- the retention of facts, language, knowledge, without reference to the context of their acquisition. He simply knows these things, along with everything else he knows that makes him a fully operational being -- a being considerably more operational than most, in his view. Whereas the vision of Kath sparked by the kestrel is due to episodic memory, which is autobiographical and essential to people's knowledge of their own identity. Without it we are untethered, we are souls in purgatory. Those glimmering episodes connect us with ourselves; they confirm our passage through life . They tell us who we are.

It is exactly this idea, that accepted moments in one's autobiographical memory can be disrupted, shifting one's understanding of reality, that this book strives to represent. I think Lively succeeds -- despite the irritating behaviour of these characters, the shifting sands beneath their once secure past are clearly drawn. The effects will go on and on into the future, beyond the 'end' of this story.

Another masterful tale, though because of the prickly relationships and melancholy outlook, it didn't find the warm and cozy spot in my heart that some of her other titles have. Still a worthwhile read, however!

Pym's Excellent Women

Excellent Women / Barbara Pym
New York: Pan Books, 1995, c1952.
240 p.

Meeting Mildred Lathbury in this novel was like making a new and quietly entertaining friend. Her first person narrative is so self-deprecating, and she has such powers of observation and understatement! She is an "excellent woman", the type of middle-aged spinster who devotes her time to the church and good works, who takes on others' burdens as her own.

And yet, she sees herself as such and maintains an ironic perspective on her place in the social strata. Against expectations, she is not pining for the local bachelor vicar, although she is good friends with him and everyone assumes she is in waiting, so to speak.

However, Mildred's quiet and fairly predictable life is shaken up when new tenants move into the flat below hers. The flashy Napiers, Helena and Rocky, are unlike any other people she has known, and they quickly become involved in her life. Helena, an anthropologist, couldn't care less about housekeeping or cooking, shocking Mildred with the mess she leaves strewn about. Helena is currently in the throes of a passion for her fellow anthropologist Everard Bone, who is rather clueless about it all and frightened by Helena's declaration of love. Rocky, meanwhile, is an inveterate flirt who even works his charm on Mildred, who thankfully is sensible enough to eventually see through it. As the Napier marriage shifts, Mildred is placed in the middle, expected to communicate between Rocky, Helena and Everard, even looking after having furniture shipped from the Napier's flat to their cottage to which Rocky has decamped, Helena having gone to her mother's.

Meanwhile, the vicar Julian and his sister Winifred have taken in a new lodger, Allegra Gray, a clergyman's young widow, who works her wiles on Father Malory. An engagement arises, distressing Winifred, who will be expected to leave the vicarage to go somewhere, anywhere, once they are married. Mildred is also caught in the middle in this situation, due both to her friendship with the Malorys and to Allegra's assumption that Mildred is a disappointed spinster who wanted Julian for herself. Mildred realizes that no matter how much she protests, nobody is ever going to believe that she had no interest in marrying Julian, so she resigns herself to playing the role of chief disappointed parishoner. During lunch conversation between Allegra and Mildred, when Allegra is 'breaking the news' (or perhaps more properly, gloating) about her engagement, Pym's bookish references arise once more. Allegra, fashionably nibbling bits of her lunch, says lightly that she is like the girls in Crome Yellow. Having just read Crome Yellow myself, I recalled the story of three fashionably waif-like sisters caught gorging on banquets in private...

But, in all of her messengering between all these people, Mildred begins to develop some kind of stilted friendship with the awkward Everard Bone. He invites her to dinner with his mother, a scene that is classic and very funny, as his mother is a bit of a crank who is convinced that birds are going to take over the world. Mildred is able to keep a sense of the absurd and find this meal entertaining. As the book ends, Mildred is once again having dinner with Everard, this time at his home, and cements their friendship by taking on the proofreading and indexing of his great work, despite knowing nothing of either the subject or the niceties of such tasks.

There are so many asides and pointed comments in this book -- Mildred is very funny, even if she doesn't necessarily see herself that way. She is self-aware and always interested in other people; she gets involved in all of this interpersonal wrangling despite admitting to herself near the end that she was tired of bearing other people's burdens. She is the quintessential 'excellent woman', but one who perhaps is not content with  that role. In stepping outside of that role she is amusing, independent, and in the end I think admirable.


*in reading An Unsuitable Attachment, I noted a reference to Mildred that gives us some hint of her future. It's always fun to see how Pym inserts characters here and there in all of her books! 

Mr. Skeffington

Mr. Skeffington / Elizabeth von Arnim
London: Virago, 1993, c1940.
233 p.

I really like Elizabeth von Arnim. I've greatly enjoyed most of her books, and absolutely loved Elizabeth and her German Garden, Fraulein Schmidt & Mr. Anstruther, and Enchanted April.

So Mr. Skeffington was a big disappointment. It was, in a word, nasty.

The storyline is: Fanny Skeffington has turned 50. She is having a major life crisis, having been a celebrated beauty all her life (and that seems to be all she has ever been). What with a recent serious illness and age itself, she is looking old, and it terrifies her. It apparently terrifies everyone else as well, with people being shocked at her appearance -- how dare she have wrinkles or thinning hair? How dare she look tired, or even slightly mature?

Fanny was married young to Mr. Job Skeffington, a financier much older than her, who she finally divorced after his seventh affair. He was rich, indulgent, and most often noted, a Jew. This is a recurring theme.

The whole story is making a mockery of Fanny's affectations of youth, her desperate clinging on to her young lovers, her desire to revisit old flames to see if she still has IT for them -- of course she doesn't, with men older than her, fat, greyed and boring, all pitying and condescending to 'poor Fanny'.

All of her previous lovers are tedious men, old or young, with one in particular, a minister excessively fond of asceticism, being particularly horrible. She comes across him preaching on a street corner, follows him home and meets his sister, a scared, miserable woman kept hungry and cold and unhappy by his house rules. She takes care of him and all of his wayward souls as well, and only when she sees Fanny treating him lightly (while assuming that Fanny is a prostitute) does she begin to question his dominance of her...but that dies an early death, as Fanny goes away and the sister returns to her previous fatalism.

Another quite awful lover was a flash young gent, back in her heyday immediately after her divorce. He went off to become the governor of some tropical English colony, and is a completely disgusting creature. He comments on the oily greasiness of the skin of all the black women he's bedded while there, he uses the most awful word for the residents of the colony, he wants to marry Fanny now that he's back so he can use all her money to pay off his debts. Despite all of these faults, Fanny is most offended by the fact that he winks at her servant in joke against her.

Fanny's story eventually has a "happy" ending, as she finds a man to take care of her after all -- her long divorced husband, Job Skeffington. Her cousin George tells her she should forgive him all those affairs, as men will have their girls, and arranges a meeting. She is phobic about seeing him again, since what he loved about her was her beauty -- but all is well when she discovers.......he is blind!

This was a melodramatic, unpleasant, trite story unworthy of von Arnim. It has some flashes of her trademark wit, a few quotable lines:

Frankness became rudeness too easily for it ever to be of any real use in conversation.

Life was certainly a queer business,— so brief, yet such a lot of it; so substantial, yet in a few years, which behaved like minutes, all scattered and anyhow.

But in the main, the nastiness overwhelmed the rest of the tale for me, and left me with  a definite distaste for this one. Even if (or maybe especially if) you are currently a fan of von Arnim, really, don't read this.

The Postmistress

The Postmistress / Sarah Blake
New York: Putnam/Penguin, c2010.
326 p.

This is one that's been on my shelf for a couple of years now -- it looked very good but you know how these things go...one book and then another gets added to the pile and lo and behold, years pass before you get to the book you intended to read immediately after acquiring it!

Nevertheless, this was restored to the top of the pile thanks to my Postal Reading project. And I'm glad I finally did read it. I liked parts of it immensely, but found other parts not so great. Overall though, it was an absorbing read and one that I'd recommend as a great spur for discussion.

Set in the 40's, immediately before the US is convinced to join in with WWII, it tells the story of three women, whose narratives start out separately and slowly intertwine. First of course, is our Postmistress, Iris James (though she makes a point halfway through the novel that there are no "postmistresses" in the US, unlike England -- stateside they are all called Postmasters.) Iris is a red-head, a single woman who attracts a bit of attention when she arrives in the tiny town of Franklin, Massassachusetts to take over the post office. She takes her postal responsibilities very seriously, and still marvels at the process. Here is one of her musings:

All these letters, all these words scratched out one to the other, spinning their way toward someone. Someone waiting. Someone writing. That was the point of it all, keeping the pure chutes clear, so that anybody's letter  -- finding its way to the post office, into the canvas sacks, the many hued envelopes jostling and nestling, shuffling with all the others -- could journey forward, joining all the other paper thoughts sent out minute by minute to vanquish --
Time.

Next we have Emma Trask, young bride of local doctor Will Fitch. She is an orphan, totally alone in the world, when she meets Will and makes him the centre of her life. She is certain that she will be a wonderful small-town doctor's wife -- but she doesn't get much time to try as he volunteers to go to England to serve as a doctor there during the Blitz. Emma and Iris develop a relationship as Emma goes to the post office every day hoping for mail.

Then there is Frankie Bard, a radio reporter working in London, drawing pictures of the mayhem in Europe for listeners at home. Her voice is heard in the doctor's kitchen, in Iris' office, and serves as a reminder and a spur to American consciences. Frankie ends up travelling to Franklin when she is sent home from England on what would today be called a stress leave. All three have their problems and all three feel essentially alone. Frankie is modern and laissez-faire, smoking, drinking, and having quick anonymous encounters with men while in England (a scene that came a little as a surprise to me given the tone of the book until then). Emma is almost too fragile, her personality a bit one-note. Iris was the most complex to me, with her committment to her job, and yet her concomitant longing for love and the kind of sexual relationship that she had had no chance to experience.

Reading this, I enjoyed it, and found myself thinking about the characters until I could get back to the book. On some reflection, though, I find quite a few elements that make this not entirely successful for me. First of all is the last chapter. As I was reading I was already annoyed and frustrated that the book hadn't ended after the previous chapter. The main emotional thread of the book had been resolved nicely, and to me the final chapter just felt like excessive melodrama, an authorial overstep that wasn't necessary to the story. But then I hate sentimentality, and I felt as if I was being manipulated toward an emotional reaction that wasn't organic to the plot. If you've read this please do tell me what you thought of the ending!

There were various other little things that bothered me, but in the end, the book did hang together and was of sufficient interest and thoughtfulness that I enjoyed my reading experience. It was a collage of some of the experiences of women during war, from new angles that we don't often consider. With one of the main characters a radio announcer and another the Postmistress, it also gives us a glimpse at the world of communication in the 40's, and how much has changed.

Embers

Embers / Sandor Marai; translated from German by Carol Brown Janeway (written originally in Hungarian)
New York : Knopf, c2001.
213 p.

This is a book I've meant to read for years: it's a classic Hungarian novel from 1942, in a quite beautiful English edition. The tale is all about the meeting after many, many years of two men in their seventies who were best friends as children and young men, until one shattering event broke their friendship and resulted in one of them fleeing the country.

It begins from the perspective of Henrik ("The General"), a Hungarian aristocrat holed up in his countryside manor. He hasn't left the small area around his home for many years, while his former friend Konrad has been living in England and the tropics since leaving the area forty years previously.

Henrik has spent forty-one years obsessively mulling over the facts of that long ago day that changed both their lives, and wants to hold his visitor to account. When Konrad arrives, they have dinner in the room they last ate in together, with everything from chairs to decoration to table settings to menu exactly the same. I think that this is a fine way to illustrate the General's absolute 'stuckness' in a past moment. Over the course of the evening he lays out the facts of that long ago day, and about their shared past, to try to determine the truth of what happened.

It's a fencing match in words between two men who as young soldiers learned the art of fencing very well. And, unfortunately for me, I began to find it as dull as watching a real fencing match. Who is scoring? Who knows. The General went on and on, parsing every second of the event, in order to understand it. I saw him as a symbol of the old order, a pompous man who was stuck in the past in every way, and desired to make the world answer to him for it.

The writing itself was masterful, the description of the political environment and all of its minute effects on daily life was strong. There were very quotable bits, and some lovely phrasings. I loved the fact that Konrad was the poorer friend, that he was Galician, that his parents lived a frugal life in Galicia in order to educate him at the centre of the empire. And I felt much more sympathy and interest for this more complex character. The evocation of a pre-war Europe, especially an area that I haven't read much about, was rather fascinating and beautifully drawn. Every carpet and portrait and piece of furniture in the General's manor house becomes present in the imagination. Most intriguingly, in the General's pocket is a little yellow velvet diary tied with a ribbon, formerly belonging to his long-deceased wife, awaiting its turn in the story.

But the actual story was too annoying for me to love it. Tales of jealous husbands tire me, and bore me. And this turned into a type of story like that, with two men wrestling over the possession of a woman's affections. When I read stories like this I begin to feel impatient rather than sympathetic. Also, there were a couple of sentences in the book that caught my attention in a particularly irritating way, though I know perfectly well that they illustrate the thoughts and mores of the time that the book is set (and was written). The first, talking about the relationship between the two men, states that:

And yet, beyond their roles and lives in society, beyond the women, something else, something more powerful made itself felt. A feeling known only to men. A feeling called friendship. 

And the second, revealing the way that the General in particular looks at the wider world, assumes that it exists for human delectation:

All of a sudden the objects seemed to take on meaning, as if to prove that everything in the world acquires significance only in relation to human activity and human destiny.

Both of these statements, or beliefs, were sticking points for me. Perhaps I wasn't in the right mood when I read it, as I couldn't sink far enough into the story to overlook these.

Objectively, it was interesting, and as I've mentioned it was very visual, like a miniature painting with tons of detail. I also enjoyed the reverberations of the title: the fires of jealousy, love and betrayal have been banked for many years, and when these two attempt to fan them up again, the emotion is still there but in a much lower intensity, all in embers. There is no resolution of the dilemma; they realize that there is nothing to be done now except part once again and simply go on. It's well drawn, and an unusual read, but just not one I loved.

Did you read it? What did you think about the motivations behind the "big event" that separated the friends? Was it planned or spontaneous?

Larry's Party

Larry's Party / Carol Shields
Toronto: Random House, c1997.
339 p.

I've owned this book for quite a while now, and finally picked it up to read. I'd heard it had some elements involving mazes and labyrinths in it, which is the main reason I was interested. But I hadn't realized until I started reading how very much the labyrinth is involved in this entire story -- everyone interested in mazes and labyrinths should really read this! Each section opens with a title page and an image of an historical maze -- I enjoyed identifying each one and noting the discussion about the names and forms of mazes and labyrinths in the text. As this is what really struck me about this book, I will review it from my perspective as a labyrinth facilitator and aficionado.

The story is this: Larry Weller, the main character, starts out as a florist in Winnipeg (and the city is given a fairly nice role too). It's the career he sort of stumbled into after high school. He gets married young, and on his honeymoon in England he encounters Hampton Court maze, and it is true love.

He builds a maze in his yard, carefully planting and pruning shrubs to form a design of his own making. His wife Dorrie, unfortunately, dislikes both the maze and Larry's devotion to it so much that she has it partially destroyed. The marriage is also destroyed in the process.

Larry moves out; he finally leaves his floral career to move to Chicago and become a professional maze builder. He meets a new, young wife: they go to England on a Guggenheim fellowship and visit many, many continental and British mazes. Then she leaves him as well.

Larry finally moves back to Canada, this time to Toronto where his sister lives. He finds a new girlfriend and they host the titular party when both of Larry's ex-wives are coincidentally in Toronto on the same weekend. As they all have dinner in a glorious confusion of voices and personalities, Larry realizes some long-hidden truths about himself and about love.

The novel finishes with an excerpt from Bradfield's 'Sentan Wells' (1854), and at this point some of the things that had been bothering me about the story made sense.

Some run the Shepherd's Race - a rut
Within a grass-plot deeply cut

And wide enough to tread - 

A maze of path, of old designed

To tire the feet, perplex the mind

Yet pleasure heart and head;

'Tis not unlike this life we spend,

And where you start from, there you end.

If you think of the entire book as a labyrinth, the progression of the story and the manner of telling it are perfectly balanced. The book is made up of various sections, each named "Larry's *whatever*" and this gave me the impression of a set of linked short stories. This impression was made stronger by the constant repetition of certain elements, such as Dorrie's dislike of his maze, or Larry's experience with his father, within many sections. It happened too frequently to be an editing slip-up so I pondered the significance of this initially irritating habit -- and decided that it was representative of the way we think about our lives. Certain stories keep being retold, either to others or in our own minds. We dwell on certain facts and not others.

Then again, looking at the story as a labyrinth, it makes sense that things repeat. As you walk a labyrinth, you circle around and come back to nearly the same spot you were before, just one path over. The perspective changes depending on where you are on the path, and where you are in relation to others who may also be walking the same path. You circle around the central question both coming and going. And as T.S. Eliot said so pithily, "And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time."

I'd held off on reading this because (gasp) I am not really a big fan of Carol Shields' style. And here too, I found her style a bit tedious at certain points. The time frame of the book kept me puzzling over where and how the action happened as well. But, Larry's life was full enough that it worked beyond the details. Of course, his fascination with mazes parallels mine so that was enough for me. However, Shields does give us a fairly complicated cast of characters who were interesting on their own, enough that I would like to see this story told from the women's point of view! Using this metaphor, however, shaped the story a little bit artificially, fitting it into the frame neatly. The ending, happy as it might be considered, and concluding with a verse, recalled some of Shakespeare's romances -- all is apparently well and both true love and the power of words have triumphed in the end.

In any case, this book explains Shields' connection with the labyrinth, and is a clear reason for the Carol Shields Memorial Labyrinth that is found in Winnipeg. A fitting tribute.

Carol Shields Memorial Labyrinth Design

(there is an interesting discussion of Shields' use of this symbol and its metaphorical resonance in the book "Garden Plots", some of which can be read online via Google Books if you are interested)

TBR Twenty

Once again, I'm setting myself a list of 20 books from my own shelves that I want to get read this year. I did terribly in my progress on this project in 2012 so am carrying over many titles, and adding a few more to reach 20 again. Need to get my shelves moving this year! Here are my choices -- I do want to read them all, and just need to give myself a reminder to pick them up -- sometimes those books on our shelves get a little swamped by all the shiny new releases and need a bump up into our consciousness again.


Also, I have found a new challenge that ties in very nicely with my ongoing TBR 20 project -- the 2013 TBR Pile Challenge. It aims to get you to read 12 books off your own shelves throughout the year. The only difference -- the books must have been waiting their turn on your shelves for at least a year -- so no 2012 titles. This may help me get through this list! So I am signing up to yet another challenge ;) This is hosted by Roof Beam Reader, and has rules and a prize, too... if you are like so many of us and have lots of backlogged reading on your shelf, think about joining in. But do it quickly, as you must be signed up and linked up by December 31st!
(PS -- there has to be a list of 14 for this challenge, so the first 14 on the list below will count toward the TBR Pile Challenge)



In any case, here is my List of 20 that I'll be working away at this year:
(first 14 for TBR Pile Challenge specifically)

1. All the Names / José Saramago  (my review here)

2. Translation of Dr. Appelles / David Treuer  (my review here)

3. The Postmistress / Sarah Blake     (My review here)

4. Exit Lines / Joan Barfoot   (my review here)

5. The Disapparation of James / Anne Ursu   (my review here)

6. Embers / Sandor Marai    (My review here)

7. The Deadly Space Between / Patricia Duncker    (my review here)

8. The Line / Olga Grushin  (my review here)

9. Larry's Party / Carol Shields     (My review here)

10. The Photograph / Penelope Lively    (my review here)

11. Excellent Women / Barbara Pym  (my review here)

12. A Few Green Leaves / Barbara Pym  (my review here)

13. Stopping for Strangers / Daniel Griffin  (my review here)

14.Mr. Skeffington / Elizabeth von Arnim    (my review here) 

*********

15. Ardor / Lily Prior

16. The Vet's Daughter / Barbara Comyns 

17. The Enchantress of Florence / Salman Rushdie

18. The Ugly Truck and Dog Contest / Cathy Jewison

19. Russian Winter / Daphne Kalotay

20. Lydia Cassat Reading the Morning Paper / Harriet Scott Chessman

And some non-fiction, which I don't count as part of the 20 but as extras, in case I'm more in the mood for non-fiction at some point:

1. Must Write / Edna Staebler

2, Pursuing Giraffe / Anne Innis Dagg

3. The Paper Garden / Molly Peacock

4. The Arcanum / Janet Gleeson

5. Letters of a Portuguese Nun / Myriam Cyr

Four Letters of Love

Four Letters of Love / Niall Williams
London: Picador, c1997.
342 p.

I've had this on my shelf for a long time; in fact, it is on my "20 Books To Read This Year List" which I made in an effort to clear some space on my overloaded shelves. I kept this book so long because I wanted to read it, and there were some good bits in it, but as a whole I have to admit it didn't really do anything for me.

Here's the storyline: Isabel and Nicholas live separate lives in Ireland. Nicholas is an only child whose dysfunctional family includes a father who thinks he is called by God to wander the countrysides and paint and a mother who locks herself in her room once her husband disappears. Isabel is an Island girl, a clever one, and heads to school on the mainland once she outgrows the small island school run by her father. She gets into all kinds of mischief and ends up convincing herself that she is in love with a lumpish kind of fellow she meets while in boarding school, while Nicholas gets himself a job as a government clerk until the moment when both of his parents are dead. They still haven't met by this time, by the way.

Their two stories run parallel and then finally meet as Nicholas decides to reclaim his father's one painting still known to be in existence, a painting that was given as a prize in a poetry contest that had been won by Isabel's father. So off he goes to the island where he meets the family (Isabel is back in Dublin by this time, having been married the day previous to his arrival). And he falls in love with her in one brief meeting, returning to the family to write her four letters, the four letters of LOVE I suppose. But there is no resolution, Isabel doesn't come and Nicholas doesn't recover from his infatuation.

Did I mention that Isabel has a twin brother Sean who has been in a strange coma since childhood, and Nicholas' arrival mysteriously restores him to full speech, movement and awareness? And that the painting mystically spreads itself out into the air of the schoolroom as Nicholas and Sean walk by? And that I wasn't sure if I was reading an Irish novel or some South American magical realism kind of novel? It was all too much for me, and I failed to really grasp the point of all this to-ing and fro-ing between Isabel and Nicholas. If you build it up there should be something for the reader in the end. At least I thought so.

If you like dreamy, meandering Irish novels with eccentric characters you might like this. It all felt a little too suffocating for me, though. At least it's one more book off my shelf and passed on to unsuspecting others ;) It just wasn't the book for me at this time. Everyone else -- and I mean everyone -- seems to love it, so don't trust my opinion... you'll have to try this one for yourself and see what you think.

Elizabeth Taylor's Angel

Angel / Elizabeth Taylor

London: Virago, c2006.

256 p.

I've finally taken up this book which I've had on the shelves for ever so long, in honour of the blog world's Virago Reading Week, organized by Rachel at Book Snob and Carolyn at A Few of My Favourite Books -- it is so much fun to read this book, and then read a whole bunch of other reviews of Virago reading. There are already round-ups at Rachel and Carolyn's blogs so be sure to take a look at everyone else who has been reading this week.

Now, on to my impression of Angel. This is the second Elizabeth Taylor I've read -- the first was Palladian, and I'm sorry to say it made such a pale impression that I read it twice without realizing until the last chapter that I'd read it previously. So I was hoping that this one would strike me a little more. And it did.

Angel Deverell is fifteen at the beginning of this book, and is notable for her wild, passionate romanticism in the arena of her imagination, unleavened by any sense of humour at all, especially when it comes to herself. When she tells lovely, elaborate stories about her 'true home', Paradise House, and all its glories, she is called out as a liar and an embarrassment to her hardworking mother, who owns a corner grocery store. Angel is outraged, not by her actions but by the lack of understanding and admiration that she expects. Deciding that she will never return to the school that was the site of her humiliation, she writes, in a white heat, a torrid romantic novel. Sending it off randomly to three publishers, Angel has an unbelievable stroke of luck and has her book accepted. To her this makes perfect sense and is not a sign of luck or fortune, but only natural.

The book, laughed at by many in the publishing house, captures the public imagination and sets Angel on the path of a wildly successful writing career, writing overblown romantic sagas featuring aristocrats and huge houses and melodrama.

The novel skips the years between Angel's first book and her established career. When we meet her again, after her astonishing debut, she is living in a much more respectable area of town, where her mother feels out of place and lonely. Angel, however, is as much of a self-centred diva as always. It's Angel and her strange, domineering personality that this book centres around. In all the situations she finds herself, reality is never as important as her belief in how things should be. This chutzpah carries her through for a long, long time -- along with various meek women, like her mother, who act as her prop and support in relation to the real world.

Along the way, Angel must encounter and puzzle out various human relationships, unable to see them in their true state. Her vanity is enormous and is the root cause of all her difficulties. Only near the very end, when she is finally broke and nearly forgotten in her crumbling Paradise House, does the possibility of light dawning arise. Alas, it is too late. She is left with only two people to mourn her.

I can't say I enjoyed this, exactly. It was painful reading at times, with the reader complicit in the embarrassment of those watching Angel in her element. Her personality, while vitally strong and able to sweep all before it, wasn't exactly endearing. Only one or two of the characters in the book were able to see the desperate longing and fragility beneath her vast ego -- and I don't think that Angel was one of them. I couldn't really see where the story was going, either. What was the reader intended to take away from this? I am still not sure. There is something about Elizabeth Taylor's writing that seems to elude me. While I found this one much more intriguing and memorable than Palladian, I don't think it will be one I'll read again. I'm going to give a couple of her other books a try and see if I can find a way in.

There was also a 2007 movie made from Angel, starring Romola Garai, which I may watch someday. I am curious as to how they could portray this book on screen. Has anyone else read this? What do you think of it?

The TBR Twenty

Emily of Telecommuter Talk held an "Attacking the TBR" Challenge last year which really helped me clear off some of the books I've had sitting on my shelves for a long time. I enjoyed my reading, and the numbers of books I read from my own collection increased.

So, even if she isn't running the challenge again, I am going to use the same idea for another year -- make a list of 20 books I want to read from the shelves I already own. It's a great way of keeping track of what is still on the shelves awaiting my attention. I'll also note the reasons I want to get to them this year.

The first few are titles from last year's list that I didn't quite get to - they will remain on the list for this go round.

1. Ursula, Under / Ingrid Hill

2. The Ballad and the Source / Rosamond Lehmann

3. Angel / Elizabeth Taylor

4. All the Names / José Saramago

5. Four Letters of Love / Niall Williams

6. Passing On / Penelope Lively

And newer ones:

7. The Invisible Mountain /Carolina De Robertis Received from the publisher last year -- after reading the first couple of pages I meant to get back to it; it sounds great

8. The Case of the General's Thumb / Andrey Kurkov I bought this one when I was in Kyiv -- a couple of years ago now -- and have been meaning to read it ever since

9. Waiting for Columbus / Thomas Trofimuk

10. Black Bird / Michel Basilieres

11. Confession / Lee Gowan

12. Dream Wheels / Richard Wagamese

13. Song Beneath the Ice / Joe Fiorito

All of the above are Canadian writers that I'd like to read for the Canadian Book Challenge -- I really don't read as many male writers as female, not by conscious choice, but I would like to give some of these authors a try, especially since they are languishing on my shelves currently!

14. The Deadly Space Between / Patricia Duncker I read Duncker's Hallucinating Foucault years ago and was really struck by it. This one, according to her website, is "is a disturbing psychological thriller about 18-year-old Toby Hawk and his mother's enigmatic new lover". And I've owned a copy for at least three years.

15. Dreams of my Russian Summers / Andrei Makine An award-winning novel written in French about a Russian childhood- there's a grandmother and a good dose of nostalgia and I really don't need to know much else to want to read it.

16. Excellent Women / Barbara Pym I 'discovered' Pym this fall and will read all her books sooner or later. I got a copy of this to read when I was sick, but recovered so quickly I never got to it! So I'll read it while I am healthy :)

17. The Postmistress / Sarah Blake Was gifted a copy of this in paperback last year and it looks like just the kind of war fiction I'd like to read

18. Translation of Dr. Appelles / David Treuer I can't recall whose blog I first saw this mentioned on, but I do recall that the author commented and he was charming. Then I came across a copy of the book in a sale, so had to buy it. Now I have to read it!

19. Exit Lines / Joan Barfoot A Canadian writer who I like, this particular book is set in a senior's residence and features a quartet of independent characters. One of them asks for a very particular favour...

20. Mystery Stories / David Helwig This one hasn't been on my shelves for long...I just received a copy from the publisher last month. But I love Helwig, and all of his other books I've read have been very enjoyable so this is one I don't want to let sit on the shelves for very long.

Alternates: I'll also throw in a couple of non-fiction titles for when I am more in the mood for that - I do have some to finally read this year:

1. Must Write / Edna Staebler A book about the writing life of an author better known for her cookbooks

2. The Arcanum / Janet Gleeson Slim history of the discovery of porcelain in the West.

3. The Paper Garden / Molly Peacock Fairly new to me, received from the publisher -- a small book about an English woman who started creating a botanical scrapbook with elaborate paper flower specimens in her old age. Gorgeous illustrations.

4. Chocolate Wars / Deborah Cadbury I love chocolate. My English great-greats worked for the Cadbury factory. Thus I wanted this book. Then I was sent a copy by Ron Charles of the Washington Post. What more can I say?

5. Pursuing Giraffe / Anne Innis Dagg The life of a female zoologist studying giraffes in Africa, in the 1950s. An unusual and personal memoir of a unique life.

Return to Paris

Return to Paris / Colette Rossant

New York: Washington Square Press, c2003.
227 p.

Speaking of Paris...I just finished this book by Colette Rossant, the second of her memoirs that I've read. The first, Apricots along the Nile, I simply loved. It was about her Cairo childhood, and had that dreamy feeling of a golden childhood. In this volume, Rossant is talking about her teen/young adulthood years when she had to live with her grandmother in an uncongenial setting in France. It was an unhappy time for her, for many reasons: in Egypt she had gone to a convent school and identified as Catholic, but in France she discovered that her Jewish side was paramount. In post-war France, denying her Jewish identity was not something Rossant's grandmother was about to let her do. She was also thrown into this family that she didn't really know -- her brother and her grandmother had spent the war in France and were deeply affected. Colette had been trapped in Egypt during the war, and been largely unaffected. The clash of expectations and outlooks on life caused her no end of difficulty.

I liked this book, as it continued telling her journey from childhood to her discovery of her place in life. However, the teen years are never smooth or really ego-free for anyone, and this book suffered a little from that focus. Fighting to become an independent woman among her very traditional family made her interactions rough at times, but necessary for her development. Still, now and again I felt like I was reading Françoise Sagan, with her French devil-may-care femininity. Colette meets her American husband on his visit to France when she is quite young; they fall in love, and she waits for him to return. The next book in the series takes us to her life in New York, and I am looking forward to that one, perhaps more so than a story of adolescence.

Rossant is a food writer and a cook, so recipes are included among the stories; in the first book there were Egyptian recipes -- new to me and many vegetarian ones. In this volume, the recipes are mainly French, and quite meaty. Others could use those ones, though, and I'll stick with the simple salads! I love the way she ties food into her memories and how food plays such a major role in her relationships, both good and bad. She is proud of the meal she prepares for her future husband the first time they meet; she finally makes a kind of detente with her stepfather over gourmet meals in his hotel restaurants; the one person she has a close relationship with in her grandmother's house is the housekeeper, who lets her help in the kitchen.

The only real difficulty I had with this one was that the text jumped around a lot. I wasn't sure of the chronology in a few parts, and there were repeated elements in different chapters. Still, it is an enjoyable read, especially if you like food memoirs, or even just stories of women's lives in dramatic times. I wholeheartedly recommend the first book, Apricots on the Nile, and recommend this one if you are a fan of Paris or of Colette Rossant.