Debi Cates
Ew! What a character that Wemyss is. Didn't take him long to wheedle himself into the life of a very recently bereaved and now unprotected Lucy. He's 45; she's early 20s and attractive and naive. Only a few months previous he lost his wife, Vera, under scandalous circumstances. But within days of meeting Lucy, he's calling her his “little love” and having her sit in his lap, plus has a thing for tousling her short, bobbed hair. Ew!He grows steadily more obnoxious but by the time his bad behavior starts showing up, Lucy is too far “in love” and too naturally sweet to change her high opinion of him. There were moments where I audibly groaned at his audacity and my creep alarm was by then sounding non-stop. No wonder Lucy was tired all the time. Every time this guy opened his mouth, he was exhausting. Now we would readily recognize him as a psychopath. Although high functioning, his relationship with the World is warped. He has that inner emptiness: where his soul should be is only gaping, insatiable need for power and flattery. And, oddly but characteristically, he poses himself as a victim with righteous indignation at the smallest slight or contrary opinion. (Sound like someone we all know here in September 2020?) Just to prevent him spinning off into overwrought drama at a misplaced word or sigh is the new Mrs. Wemyss' full time occupation.But, man this was a good read! Von Arnim grows in my esteem. Nothing like [b:The Enchanted April 3077 The Enchanted April Elizabeth von Arnim https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1162239197l/3077.SY75.jpg 387804] or [b:Elizabeth and Her German Garden 1140698 Elizabeth and Her German Garden Elizabeth von Arnim https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1181346215l/1140698.SY75.jpg 6936], she rocked this genre and even pre-dated du Maurier's [b:Rebecca 17899948 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386605169l/17899948.SX50.jpg 46663]. Published in 1921, she adeptly presents this man as menacing and sexually revolting well within the constraints of her era. Nothing explicit but that doesn't mean she didn't describe some twisted stuff. I read where Wemyss was based on the “Wicked Earl” Frank Russell, who von Arnim married but was separated from him after a very short time together. Having a personal relationship with a psychopath would explain her acuity, even if “psychopath” wasn't bantered around back then like it is now. Apparently it was common knowledge at the time that this novel was written that it was based on Russell, so that bit had to have been some sweet bonus revenge for her. Lifted from the wisdom of this novel, here's some sound advice for a young person considering marriage:1. TAKE YOUR TIME. Get to know the person long enough for those hormones to settle down. 2. IF YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS DON'T LIKE HIM/HER then listen. They probably see something you don't see yet. But if you marry them, you surely will.3. PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR OWN FEELINGS. Feeling smothered, having self-doubts, missing alone time, and feeling tired are not healthy signs. And if you find you are spending time trying to “figure them out” in order to explain their unpleasant behavior, that would be a big red flag against your chances of future happiness with this beloved.4. AND DON'T MARRY A WRITER unless you are 100% sure you'll never get divorced or separated. Or only if you are 100% sure you are not a psychopath.I “read' this novel by listening to the free recording, well done by Greg W at Librivox.org .
Of course I had read Alice in Wonderland. I mean, surely I have. Right? Long time ago. I feel sure I did. Didn't I?
Turns out, I had merely been exposed to its wacky world by way of movies, cartoons, and vast cultural references. Upon my actually reading it and to my pleasant surprise, there is a lot more wackiness in it I never knew about. My favorite new wackadoodle being Bill the Lizard, poor put-upon character Bill that I don't recall ever showing up when being movie-ized.
It's much more delightful than just all those odd talking creatures. As a Math fan, I loved the correct assessment Alice makes that she would never reach 20 while doing her multiplication self-test. (Carroll was a mathematics professor.) And so many puns and word play I was completely unaware of. I mean, a Mock Turtle turtle? That just strikes my funny bone.
Maybe it's because we never outgrow that heeby-jeeby feeling that the world is teetering toward illogical strangeness and could tumble into full blown madness at any moment that Alice resonates over the years and to all ages (I'm 61). Rightly so, too. I mean, there's young Alice – fallen into a world of livery-wearing fish, flamingos as not-very-cooperative croquet mallets, and schools that teach Laughing and Grief (another funny bone strike!) – and she plays right along. She faces all manner of disorientation and possible danger with aplomb and curiosity. It's no wonder Alice has lasted so long and in so many ways.
It was everything it should be. I closed the book and caressed its cover.
Lovely writing telling a simple, honest story. Layered in a delicate, never over-wrought way. Good people, simple food, families, friends, church-goers, travels by bike on old English roads, summer scents of old roses and sounds of buzzing insects. Two young chaps hired to unearth different aspects of the medieval history of the village, and while temporarily transplanted they quietly heal their own post WW I wounds.
Then, like everything, it's over: summer turns to autumn, mysteries are revealed, and injuries begin to scab over.
We can ask and ask but we can't have again what once seemed ours for ever – the way things looked, that church alone in the fields, a bed on a belfry floor, a remembered voice, the touch of a hand, a loved face. They've gone and you can only wait for the pain to pass.
Two star rating meaning “it was ok.” I read up to all but the last 50 pages, then gave up and watched the 1953 movie instead, and since the novel was based on the movie which was based on a different story by L'Amour, I don't feel like that was a terrible cheat on my part.
How did I come to choose such a book that at the outset I knew had a long shot of being something I would like? I read it in memory of my father, who loved Louis L'Amour and read perhaps all of his books. I don't know which novel was his favorite so this one might not have been one of L'Amour's best effort in Dad's opinion. I remember Dad said that he liked L'Amour because he “could smell the campfire coffee” when reading him. I was sad when there was only a couple cursory mentions of coffee, but L'Amour did a lot of scene setting and leather creaking that I would say was pretty good. The story was where it was weak. It was an old fashioned John Wayne type Western, full of expected tropes, with little insight into human nature, especially women – er, woman since there was only one.
I get why Dad liked it. He was a Hondo kind of guy. And if reading L'Amour gave him pleasure, I'm all for that. Dad was a hard-working guy who had simple tastes, like campfire coffee. Nothing wrong with that.
They Came Like Swallows follows a family during the 1918 flu epidemic in Illinois. As in many families, the mother is the heart and center. Maxwell tells the story of her family's relationship to her in a linear succession of time, first from the perspective of her younger son, Bunny, 8 years old, then the older son, Robert, 15 years old, and finally the father, her husband, James.
With writing that is gentle and sensitive – Maxwell's style – we get to know how each uniquely loves and uniquely needs her. The title comes from these lines from a W.B. Yeats poem:
They came like swallows and like swallows went,
And yet a woman's powerful character
Could keep a swallow to its first intent;
And half a dozen in formation there,
That seemed to whirl upon a compass-point,
Found certainty upon the dreaming air...
Very enjoyable. Not believable in every way, but a sweet story filled with things dear to my heart. I enjoyed spending time these last few days before bed in the forest of the Catskills with Sam in a hollowed out Hemlock tree, eating and drinking from turtle shells, meeting upcoming challenges and always in tune with nature. Nice way to fall asleep.
Near the end, when Sam convened his imaginary “forum” with friends he had met while in the wild, discussing storms and how to make a spring suit, that made me smile big.
The ending was a little peculiar, not expected, but of course it had to come to an end somehow. I'll be thinking about that for a while.
Nice, gentle read.
I loved the movie and now I love the book. I was happy that that the screenwriter of the movie was quite, although not completely, faithful to the book. The book, of course, was more and I especially enjoyed learning more about the older character, Mrs. Fisher.
Both film and book are uplifting armchair vacations in a perfect April to a perfect seaside garden with imperfect companions who begin as slight irritations to one another but end as the most loving of friends.
Van Arnim, I love your writing.
A New York Review Books (NYRB) Reading Group Guide available for download: here
06.30.2025 updateJust upgraded to 4 stars because I read a review by Connie G today and thought back how it was better than 3 stars that I had originally given it, as it is still living tenderly in my memory with its humor, sadness, and slow stab to the heart. A good pairing would be with [b:Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont 44420034 Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont Elizabeth Taylor https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1552450847l/44420034.SY75.jpg 629233].
The writing was brilliant, so economical and perfect. The execution of a series of short stories, each about different individuals living in Dublin following a progression of ages, each person representing that stage of life, was a kind of thrill.
Only one story fell flat for me, “Grace,” the second to the last story, the one about the drunk and his friends who hope to reform him. Certainly it had a lot to say about the Catholic church and its relationship to Ireland, but that is out of my purview.
All the stories, even the last story, “The Dead” with so much tenderness, were filled with pathos about time passing, about disappointments, about things not turning out like they should.
If this is a series of stories really about Ireland as all the commentary say it is, then it is fabulous that it is also so clearly about human longing and short-comings even for a person without knowing a darn thing about Ireland. Brilliance to be able to ring so clear about both themes.
Next up is my attempt at Ulysses, reading with a friend. I suppose I will only grasp a fraction of it. Joyce, the writer's writer, the critics dream, but hopefully like Dubliners, he will have something worthwhile for us mortal folk in that ultimate masterpiece as well.
I think this is the book I read in elementary school in the 1960s in New Mexico. I wasn't a big reader, but I somehow discovered that I loved books about amazing women (budding feminist that I was). There were very few to fit that bill on the library shelves at that time and that might explain why I didn't read a lot more until I was a young woman. Some kids need books they can relate to. Me, I needed real female heroes, otherwise I'd rather be outside playing.
I vividly remember one scene in the book that described an elderly, illiterate Tubman sitting on a bench when a Quaker (as I recall) came by and told her she was sitting under a poster for her capture, and possibly saved her life. It was harrowing to me. I wonder now if that was true or artistic license. I should research that.
[Update: No, not in this book. I just read it via Open Library and although this book is a good young reader's introduction to Harriet Tubman's life, there is another book, also available via OL, Freedom Train published in 1954 that does include a story about “friends” discovering her dozing on a park bench under a poster for her capture. It's just one line, but imagining that really stuck with me. Or maybe there is yet another older book I read.]
In the early 2000s, I visited my daughter in NY state and while driving we stopped by Tubman's post Civil War home in Auburn. It was really lovely. We went in Spring and there were daffodils blooming everywhere. Sadly, it was closing time, but I did get the honor to step briefly on the same ground she walked.
First 10 chapters were a four star. Or at least had that potential. I was captivated by little Kya living out on her own, figuring out how to survive, keeping up the belief her Ma would return, and growing a mature love for the marsh. I wanted all of the book to have that lyrical magic, that slow insight. I confess it crossed my mind she was an unbelievably capable six year old. But, hey, it was way back in the 60s when we kids were given pocket knives as birthday presents around that age, so okay, I'll go with that.
Then too quickly it started drifting away from its charm, page by page. The writing got more ordinary, without insight, and with that empty, repetitive verbosity I heartily dislike. Author, respect my intelligence to read a little between the lines, please. And then when the story interjected a series of eye-roll plot devices and silly romances of sighing and heaving, I began to think I'd been switched to reading Young Adult. Oh well, I changed my expectation to “summer read” (I don't even know what that means really– pool-side, groggy and sunburned with a wet book maybe) and read on.
I do object to something serious in this book: the mar of the dialogue of Jumpin' being written in dialect because he's black! What the heck? Many North Carolinians, even suburbanites working in Accounting, talk with a deep drawl to this day. But here only Jumpin' is depicted “tawkin' thad way?” I don't buy that. So why? Hm?
Anyway, I can be sincerely glad to see a writer of some age make good with a first novel in a very big way, especially a woman that has apparently done some truly good things in her life in Africa. Best sellers don't usually match my taste (couldn't force myself through the first Harry Potter no matter how many billions had read it) but in this case since I read it with family I see the positive draw of tackling a helluva Best Seller: it brought everyone together for a story.
And it was a story. Two and half stars, rounded up.
I'm not alone.
http://www.literatureandleisure.com/2019/06/review-of-where-the-crawdads-sing/
Whoa. What did I just watch? (Is watching a play an equivalent to having “read” the play? Yes, yes, why not. Same as listening to an audiobook in my way of thinking.)
Definitely a re-read (re-watch) candidate. Absolutely entertaining and even haunting, but I haven't a clue what it was about. Kind of like having a vivid dream and waking so certain of all the feelings and crave to pin down the meaning. But when you start to talk about it, or write in journal about it, you must concede that part of the meaning is the letting go of conscious logic and it's not going to fully translate to daytime. But it doesn't change the fact that you loved that dream and it's part of you now.
After the initial few chapters, I almost gave up on this book. I began to doubt if the story would ever get around to really telling something about this Olive person. But I stuck it out because when she did appear, I was smitten with that no-nonsense, panty-hose wearing, thick ankled, unapologetic Olive character. The transformation from entertaining words on the page to memorable woman wasn't until the last quarter of the book. That happened for me when she visited her son in New York.
Now I'm breathlessly awaiting the DVDs of the Frances McDormand rendition to arrive.
I'm going to go against most of the Goodreads' reviews I've seen. I only kept reading Music for Chameleons because it was by Truman Capote, and in the end, that is the only genius it had.
So, I did not like Handcarved Coffins; I just didn't buy it. Seemed suspiciously over the top. Turns out, I was right. In spite of his warning in the preface that he was writing some kind of new high art non-fiction (and weirdly disaffecting all his previous writing) doing so just didn't work for me. His interjecting himself seemed, well, lazy as a devise and that made it feel sadly apparent that he was not operating at his height. How could he be? I kept remembering his drugged out interview on Youtube and kept thinking it was that man that was writing this book. It was that man appearing in all the stories, the toast of the town Capote after In Cold Blood fame and the befuddled Capote after the Answered Prayers freeze out.
I did enjoy the titular piece. It was moody, evocative, and Capote as a character didn't seem out of place. I also enjoyed reading about his afternoon with Marilyn Monroe – wasn't she already dead by the time this was published? – and also the interview with Manson Family member and murderer Bobby Beausoleil. The Capote character wasn't silly like in the Pearl Bailey piece, which I eye-rolled through. Instead, he seemed genuine in those two stories, and his character seemed to serve a purpose. In The Beautiful Child it was to adore Monroe, like we all did, and to painfully illustrate how it couldn't ever be enough. In Then It All Came Down, Capote was our initial morbid curiosity, then, our real dumbfounded outrage.
Contrary to many GR reviewers, most of all I enjoyed the last piece. Odd since it was a conversation between TC and TC, the height of eye-roll. There were touches of unguardedness in its self-absorption. For a man who appeared outwardly to be much enamored with himself, the act of writing “I love you” TC to TC and back, betrayed something of a sad, Beautiful Child in him too.
I wish every book I read was as moving and thoughtful as this one. Beyond it being a memoir (of sorts), it is told by one who has lived and observed and been immersed in words for a long time. (Maxwell was in his 70s when he wrote this.) From the first pages I felt at ease, being in well aged hands.
The structure is unique. Written part as memoir in first person about his own life; part, for lack of a better word, as investigation; and then a long switch to third person when Maxwell imagines the lives affected by this incident, including all the slow tragedies that led up to it. (Even Trixie, the dog, is effected and my heart ached for her.) Remarkably, this mishmash we are warned about in school, worked.
And the writing, oh the writing. I could live for the rest of my life on this kind of lyrical, dead-eye accurate, evocative writing. I wanted to find a few sentences to share the feeling here, but that wouldn't work. It is passages that flow, build, and then crescendo, ending with an intake of breath, “Oh yes. Life is like that,” (to paraphrase a bit from poet Elizabeth Bishop).
This book has prompted a new bookshelf tag: to re-read.
Robot lands on a “deserted” island and must learn from scratch how to survive. Turns out it's not deserted – the island is brimming with animal life! With their help Roz the Robot learns how to live life in the wild and to thrive. Even learns how to become a mother.
I must also mention the illustrations. They are pitch perfect, plentiful, and add so much to an already enjoyable experience.
Lovely story. Would be a very good book to invoke good conversations if read aloud with a child.
The author has stated publicly that his work is superior to any by women writers. Imagine my disappointment.
It took me over a month to read about the mild misadventures of Mr. Biswas and his efforts to gain a house of his own. (I'm reminded of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.) There were a few pleasurable episodes (especially during Mr. Biswas' early career as a roving, loose-with-the-facts journalist), but because the book is mostly about a querulous child-man, living in a house of equally querulous childish in-laws and their petty squabbles and name-calling, it was a chore. I suppose ultimately Naipaul was saying something about the simple dignity in having a place to call one's own and the indignity of poverty, and perhaps also how Colonialism made children out of men, but Mr. Biswas' personality was so off-putting that it's only now that I think of that message. While reading it mostly I thought, “How many more pages?”
Then, as I turned off the light, I thought instead of other writers I love, “Jane Austen, Willa Cather, Margaret Atwood, Edith Wharton, Marjorie Kinan Rawlings, Katherine Anne Porter, Dorothy Parker, Harriet Doerr, Toni Morrison,.......”
Faulkner, when he's good is very very very good. When he's brilliant, I can't quite follow. But that's okay; there's enough there for me to be mesmerized by. Several times I caught myself worrying while reading Light in August that Faulkner's brilliance would spoil me, that I wouldn't be able to enjoy another regularly wonderful tale again after being blinded by such illumination.
There is one thing that I didn't like about Light in August – and it's a biggie. I don't like reading about psychopaths. And in this story, I counted at least 3 (Christmas, Hines, and Grimm). Maybe in Faulkner's day it wasn't common-place to hear about some atrocity committed by a Christmas or a Grimm. But in my day, all I have to do tune into the daily news to read about some astounding way men or women can be evil and twisted. I'm pretty sick of sick bastards. Too bad Faulkner writes frequently about bastards.
I loved Chapter 1. It was absolute perfection. And Chapter 21 ended things on an upbeat. In between, I was content enough to read and pick up the nuggets where they lay along the road of Christmas' bleak and violent journey.
There must be a Russian mindset that I cannot quite plumb. I read this as a prelude to Dead Souls. It's a delightfully satirical short story (I'm reminded of Charles Dickens) but frankly Gogol lost me when Akaky Akakiyevich became a ghost. Yet that odd end to the story must be key to understanding its place in Russian admiration.