As I mentioned yesterday, it was time for me to think again about how well I have been writing about the 50 state books and whether this is a meaningful, entertaining endeavor. So ...
Why Am I Reading a Book About --or Set in -- Every State?
It did not naturally occur to me that I had to psychoanalyze my motives for this year's book reading resolution until a friend of mine, who reads the blog but does not post comments, sent me an email about how onerous and trivial it all seemed:; that my comments had no larger relevance, and that my time would be better spend doing something else. Well, that was a nice wake-up email first thing in the morning. But it did provoke me.
Initially, as I have told many friends, the years when I read a biography for each letter of the alphabet never lasted long enough for twelve months of enjoyment. (See my essay on why I read biographies, January 30th.) So for 2009, I was looking for a way to tackle a theme that would last a full year. Fifty books seemed within reach since it took me only five months to do the alphabet.
Fifty evoked the USA. That option paralleled my college roommate's goal to visit every state. I thought I could do that, but from the comfort of home and not have to deal with bad weather or poor accommodations. But at a deeper level, I wanted to be more like De Tocqueville, looking to find typical Americans -- to understand their rigors, dreams and failures. Could I find a new national essence or would I discover we had become more splintered and differentiated than merely along the dimension of red and blue politics?
After a couple of years of memoirs, accompanied with a barrage of plain old fiction from my "face to face" book club, I decided not to be limited in genre when selecting a representative from each state. Given my innate preference, I would have preferred something historical in every case, but had to balance the interests of the "Slackers."
Also I acknowledge that this is an opportunity to fill in a gaping hole. Even though I am an English major, I have read very little fiction by American authors. Here's my chance to read all those giants of American literature, Pulitzer Prize recipients, Guggenheim Fellows, National Book Award winners, books everyone else read as part of their summer reading lists from school.
But distilling all these rationalizations into the real reason why: I want to see whether where someone is indelibly affects that person. Does home or roots circumscribe options, or align characters with larger issues? Does the author use a point in time or a particular location to describe something uniquely universal? Does the writer employ literary devices, especially the use of home, neighborhood or region, as a metaphor or as an impetus to move the story along?
So, my friend, have I explained my reasons for this undertaking? I also recognize, reading has to be entertaining (or I might as well turn on the DVD ... apparently something all of American is doing or the Washington Post might not be ending its book review section). I hope to be travelling across space with a story that moves along interestingly and makes me sorry to leave one state for another.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
A Couple of Asides
Still reading somewhat diligently, but have to do a reassessment of what I am writing in the posts and why I am reading these books to begin with.
So I have two rationales to share. The first is germane to last year's resolution: to read a biography for each letter of the alphabet. But since some of our selected "state" books are life stories, I thought it should be posted. (Soon to be followed by my reasons for selecting this year's resolution to do the fifty states.)
That rationale will become my new yardstick for writing comments on the books. I have had some complaints about the write ups being really only plot reprises and not anything insightful. Time permitting, might revisit the posted books and comment on how well they line up with these goals.
But first, from last year, the reasons:
Why I Read Biographies
It started out as a New Year's resolution that seemed attainable: read about 26 people whose last names began with a different letter of the alphabet.
The first time I challenged myself to do this, I wanted to get away from murder mysteries (which I read to improve my logic and ability to discover patterns in the insignificant) and to add to my pile of historical trivia, should I ever have to run the famous names category in Jeopardy. Although I jumped between letters randomly in that first cycle, I finished all 26 by the end of May.
My regret was not writing up what I read. I did keep a check-off list to show that I had made a selection for each letter, but once the alphabet was done, that got thrown out. Now I can remember only a few of them: Josephine Baker, St. Exupery, Niehbur, Olmstead, Piux X, Cole Porter, Orville Faubus. This time around (2008), I not only stayed in strict alphabetical order, but also wrote a commentary after finishing each one.
I continued my hard and fast rule of selection: stand in front of the biographies for a particular letter, disregarding any publicity-seeking celebrities (Madonna, Doris Day) as well as any historical figure who everyone instantly recognizes (John Adams, James Monroe, Napoleon). If in reading the inside flap I discovered that the person was just writing about one life-defining event, and was nowhere near being an honest retrospective of assembling all the pieces of experience into a "life," I reshelved the book. I picked a mix of professions, nationalities, and men and women, zeroed in on anyone I heard of but knew nothing or very little about.
But I discovered there were much more repressed reasons for reading about these people. I was looking for a connection, a six degrees of separation, between them. I did not necessarily pick a time or a place to force fit contemporaries; rather, I was delight in having them unexpectedly cross paths, either in fact or in inspiration. Of course I recognized that anyone "meritorious" enough for a biography is in that elite class of special notables who are more likely to have traveled in the same orbits or have influenced each others' behaviors and styles. Yet it continues to surprise me when a chef serves a writer, a writer models his garden after an architect, an architect used to be a pilot.
More recently, I realized my reading biographies is like playing dress up in the attic -- with old clothes from passe fashions and relocated relatives. What vicarious adventures I live in these books. I can be daring, celebrated, trend-setting. Yet the grandeur of these people does not make me think of my life as diminished. The famous have roots that they outgrew, repudiated or "re-potted." They all deal with unusual family members and define resonating moments; they all have to end their lives assessing whether they are the same person they were at their peaks. And very few have a peak of Mount Everest proportions.
So, I have discovered I am not reading an alphabetical, yet random sequence, but moving over the links in a man-made chain.
So I have two rationales to share. The first is germane to last year's resolution: to read a biography for each letter of the alphabet. But since some of our selected "state" books are life stories, I thought it should be posted. (Soon to be followed by my reasons for selecting this year's resolution to do the fifty states.)
That rationale will become my new yardstick for writing comments on the books. I have had some complaints about the write ups being really only plot reprises and not anything insightful. Time permitting, might revisit the posted books and comment on how well they line up with these goals.
But first, from last year, the reasons:
Why I Read Biographies
It started out as a New Year's resolution that seemed attainable: read about 26 people whose last names began with a different letter of the alphabet.
The first time I challenged myself to do this, I wanted to get away from murder mysteries (which I read to improve my logic and ability to discover patterns in the insignificant) and to add to my pile of historical trivia, should I ever have to run the famous names category in Jeopardy. Although I jumped between letters randomly in that first cycle, I finished all 26 by the end of May.
My regret was not writing up what I read. I did keep a check-off list to show that I had made a selection for each letter, but once the alphabet was done, that got thrown out. Now I can remember only a few of them: Josephine Baker, St. Exupery, Niehbur, Olmstead, Piux X, Cole Porter, Orville Faubus. This time around (2008), I not only stayed in strict alphabetical order, but also wrote a commentary after finishing each one.
I continued my hard and fast rule of selection: stand in front of the biographies for a particular letter, disregarding any publicity-seeking celebrities (Madonna, Doris Day) as well as any historical figure who everyone instantly recognizes (John Adams, James Monroe, Napoleon). If in reading the inside flap I discovered that the person was just writing about one life-defining event, and was nowhere near being an honest retrospective of assembling all the pieces of experience into a "life," I reshelved the book. I picked a mix of professions, nationalities, and men and women, zeroed in on anyone I heard of but knew nothing or very little about.
But I discovered there were much more repressed reasons for reading about these people. I was looking for a connection, a six degrees of separation, between them. I did not necessarily pick a time or a place to force fit contemporaries; rather, I was delight in having them unexpectedly cross paths, either in fact or in inspiration. Of course I recognized that anyone "meritorious" enough for a biography is in that elite class of special notables who are more likely to have traveled in the same orbits or have influenced each others' behaviors and styles. Yet it continues to surprise me when a chef serves a writer, a writer models his garden after an architect, an architect used to be a pilot.
More recently, I realized my reading biographies is like playing dress up in the attic -- with old clothes from passe fashions and relocated relatives. What vicarious adventures I live in these books. I can be daring, celebrated, trend-setting. Yet the grandeur of these people does not make me think of my life as diminished. The famous have roots that they outgrew, repudiated or "re-potted." They all deal with unusual family members and define resonating moments; they all have to end their lives assessing whether they are the same person they were at their peaks. And very few have a peak of Mount Everest proportions.
So, I have discovered I am not reading an alphabetical, yet random sequence, but moving over the links in a man-made chain.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather (New Mexico)
This novel is so different from "The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse;" it was a shame that the latter book kept intruding as I read Cather's charming story. The sense of dedication to religion is so much more sincere, and there is honest respect and understanding for the indigenous people rather than caricature and ridicule, and the landscape stands out in stark relief.
My favorite sections dealing with these three interlocked themes are:
* How the (then) Bishop deals with Martinez and his justification of not practicing celibacy based on his tortured interpretation of St. Augustine.
* Father Latour's description of the Navajo -- "just as it was the white man's way to assert himself in any landscape, to change it, make it over a little (at least to leave some mark of memorial of his sojourn), it was the Indian's way to pass through a country without disturbing anything; to pass and leave no trace, like a fish through the water, or birds through the air."
* The Bishop remembering his first glimpse of the mesas and how the clouds mirrored them, as smoke is part of the censer.
New Mexico physically and culturally is grafted on to the Bishop and his approach to living his life. When the French architect, Molny, comments on the unfinished cathedral in Santa Fe, saying, "Setting is accident. Either a building is part of a place or it is not. Once that kinship is there, time will only make it stronger." Before that comment, Cather describes the church as leaping out of the mountain with its dark pines and carnelian rocks. But this is so close to death coming for the archbishop, that it comes to mean how he can to blend into his surroundings and leave his mark was not a European (cathedral) memorial, but as a Native American pueblo.
My favorite sections dealing with these three interlocked themes are:
* How the (then) Bishop deals with Martinez and his justification of not practicing celibacy based on his tortured interpretation of St. Augustine.
* Father Latour's description of the Navajo -- "just as it was the white man's way to assert himself in any landscape, to change it, make it over a little (at least to leave some mark of memorial of his sojourn), it was the Indian's way to pass through a country without disturbing anything; to pass and leave no trace, like a fish through the water, or birds through the air."
* The Bishop remembering his first glimpse of the mesas and how the clouds mirrored them, as smoke is part of the censer.
New Mexico physically and culturally is grafted on to the Bishop and his approach to living his life. When the French architect, Molny, comments on the unfinished cathedral in Santa Fe, saying, "Setting is accident. Either a building is part of a place or it is not. Once that kinship is there, time will only make it stronger." Before that comment, Cather describes the church as leaping out of the mountain with its dark pines and carnelian rocks. But this is so close to death coming for the archbishop, that it comes to mean how he can to blend into his surroundings and leave his mark was not a European (cathedral) memorial, but as a Native American pueblo.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
The Optimist's Daughter, by Eudora Welty (Mississippi)
I've looked all over the Internet for book club discussion questions or other reviews to try to spark something incisive for me to write about this Pulitzer Prize winning book. What am I missing? Have I overdosed too early on small Southern town literature?
Laurel, a widowed artist who lives in Chicago, returns to her Mississippi home town to deal with the illness and subsequent death of her widowed, but remarried, father. Laurel, while comforted by her neighbors, townsfolk, and the unforgettable "bridesmaids," seems completely disconnected from Mount Salus as a real place. Her memories of her parents are reconstructed to childhood ideals. Her father's "lapse" in marrying brash, self-centered Fay is unexplained, personifying Ms Welty's theme that it's hard enough to know yourself, let alone your parents.
Maybe it's working in the health "industry," but it seems to me nostalgic to recall how relaxed surgeries and hospital stays were in the late 60s. No one, family or physicians, seem distressed or any way emotionally engaged in preventing the death of Laurel's father, or as she remembers it, her mother.
The cadence of Mississippi is expressed in the physical movement of the characters rather than their way of speaking. The description of the wake at home and certain aspects of her house are quaint and universal, if not uniquely Southern. My favorite section is:
"Miss Adele lifted the stacked clean dishes off the kitchen table and carried them into the dining room and put them away in their right places on the shelves of the china closet. She arranged the turkey platter to stand in its groove at the back of the gravy bowl. She put the glasses in, and restored the little wine glasses to their ring around the decanter, with its mended glass stopper still intact. She shut the shivering glass door gently, so as not to rock the old top-heavy cabinet."
What a generational gap closing couple of lines! How often have I done the same mundane household, mindless things -- for my mother as a child and now struggling with my own cabinet. More than any other passage, this says how ingrained female, almost compulsive behaviors, are passed through generations.
Fay, the counterpoint to Laurel, is my first character to align closely with another book I'm reading beyond the resolution list, The Culture of Narcissism. Hardly a full sentence passes from Fay's lips that is not focused on how she is wrongly affected by her husband's health, death and home town. She is pathologically self-involved; however, attributing this demeanor to her upbringing does not seem fully explored by Welty, as Fay's Texan family are merely "off the shelf," negative stereotypes.
So again, what am I missing? I am not convinced at the end of the story that either Laurel or Fay have changed their life views. Laurel does not lay off and smack Fay ... she is still the epitome of Southern gentlewomanly behavior. She is completely alone, no parent, no spouse, no pledge to connect with someone upon returning north to offset her resolve to not go home again.
Comment from MG: I did get back into the website and read your comments on Eudora Welty. Since I've read NO Southern Lit I should read The Optimists Daughter and let you know what I think. I was intrigued by her not because I've read her fiction but her biography is really nice, as I recall. When I was in my mid twenties I too went on a biography kick and hers stood out as particularly interesting.
Laurel, a widowed artist who lives in Chicago, returns to her Mississippi home town to deal with the illness and subsequent death of her widowed, but remarried, father. Laurel, while comforted by her neighbors, townsfolk, and the unforgettable "bridesmaids," seems completely disconnected from Mount Salus as a real place. Her memories of her parents are reconstructed to childhood ideals. Her father's "lapse" in marrying brash, self-centered Fay is unexplained, personifying Ms Welty's theme that it's hard enough to know yourself, let alone your parents.
Maybe it's working in the health "industry," but it seems to me nostalgic to recall how relaxed surgeries and hospital stays were in the late 60s. No one, family or physicians, seem distressed or any way emotionally engaged in preventing the death of Laurel's father, or as she remembers it, her mother.
The cadence of Mississippi is expressed in the physical movement of the characters rather than their way of speaking. The description of the wake at home and certain aspects of her house are quaint and universal, if not uniquely Southern. My favorite section is:
"Miss Adele lifted the stacked clean dishes off the kitchen table and carried them into the dining room and put them away in their right places on the shelves of the china closet. She arranged the turkey platter to stand in its groove at the back of the gravy bowl. She put the glasses in, and restored the little wine glasses to their ring around the decanter, with its mended glass stopper still intact. She shut the shivering glass door gently, so as not to rock the old top-heavy cabinet."
What a generational gap closing couple of lines! How often have I done the same mundane household, mindless things -- for my mother as a child and now struggling with my own cabinet. More than any other passage, this says how ingrained female, almost compulsive behaviors, are passed through generations.
Fay, the counterpoint to Laurel, is my first character to align closely with another book I'm reading beyond the resolution list, The Culture of Narcissism. Hardly a full sentence passes from Fay's lips that is not focused on how she is wrongly affected by her husband's health, death and home town. She is pathologically self-involved; however, attributing this demeanor to her upbringing does not seem fully explored by Welty, as Fay's Texan family are merely "off the shelf," negative stereotypes.
So again, what am I missing? I am not convinced at the end of the story that either Laurel or Fay have changed their life views. Laurel does not lay off and smack Fay ... she is still the epitome of Southern gentlewomanly behavior. She is completely alone, no parent, no spouse, no pledge to connect with someone upon returning north to offset her resolve to not go home again.
Comment from MG: I did get back into the website and read your comments on Eudora Welty. Since I've read NO Southern Lit I should read The Optimists Daughter and let you know what I think. I was intrigued by her not because I've read her fiction but her biography is really nice, as I recall. When I was in my mid twenties I too went on a biography kick and hers stood out as particularly interesting.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
First Person Rural, by Noel Perrin (Vermont)
This book is a jewel and for those of you who still believe we'll never make 51 books this year, FPR is a mere 124 pages of 20 short essays on being a "sometime" farmer in Thetford, Vermont. Written in 1978, it presents vignettes that, while nostalgic, seem to foreshadow current trends. Several are on making maple syrup and candy, drinking raw milk from a neighbor's farm and making butter in a blender in the kitchen in nine minutes flat ... and today we are trying to be loco-vores. His essay on how to buy a pick up truck sounds much like a technie ordering his/her personalized Dell computer.
Perrin himself had accolades galore: nominated for the National Book Award, both a Guggenheim and Fulbright fellow, two Masters degrees, taught American poetry at Dartmouth while "farming."
It is reminiscent of the book about Vermont living that Mercy Groupie selected last year. Set in Thetford, Perrin never mentions the names of his wife (his third was Charles Lindbergh's daughter) or his children, but the reader gets to know his lumberman, hardware store owner, town welder. His wife, I discovered searching Wiki this morning, wrote children's stories as did Noel. A hint of that comes through in is essay on the different sounds speakers of various languages use to describe how various animals make.
My Wiki search also included the fact that there are "Second," "Third," and "Last Person Rural" books that I am going to track down. (As of January 24, I have all of them from the library, added to the tower of books to read.)
Also got a "six degrees" comment from Hamagrael: "My degrees of separation is that Noel Perrin's third wife, Anne Spencer Lindbergh, used to live two houses around the corner from me. She looked exactly like her mother, and, at the time, was married to a Hungarian pianist/composer."
By the way, I received an email response from Earlene Fowler and have added it to the blog entry for Arkansas Traveler. Hope to finish The Optimist's Daughter tonight or tomorrow.
February 7, 2009: Second Person Rural
As mentioned above, once I discovered there were more "Rurals" I reserved them from the library. Perrin himself acknowledges his dislike for sequels, comparing them to grammar school readers about the serial adventures of small children, but in the introduction, he points out he had a different focus with this second book: being less practical and more interested in the differences between city and country life, especially psychologically.
From the slackers' perspective, Perrin still presents, maybe even more so than in "First," prototypical Vermonters. Here people have a "code" or tacit rules about when to talk, most naturally when engaged in work efforts -- fixing a barn or doing other household, neighborly or charitable community work. His essays on miniature farming in Queeche Lake and on rural immigration laws question why people come to Vermont to escape their urban existence only to decide that it lacks the necessary amenities that their lifestyle became overly dependent on. Perrin, on the other hand, wants to be mistaken for a native and finds that only people who are the same age as his college students can immediately see through him. An elderly shut-in women think his business is cutting down trees and the Mandarin father-in-law of one of his subordinate professors from Dartmouth refuses to shake his hand assuming he is a yokel delivering wood in a filthy truck, speaking derogatorily about him as only self-righteous elitists do in the presence of their "invisible" underlings.
Even though Perrin's Vermont dates from the late 60's and 70's, it, like Twain's 100 year old travelogue of Hawaii, makes the reader want to travel not just to that place, but in that time, accompanied by the author as tour guide.
March 13, 2009: Third Person Rural
Written in 1983, this is Noel Perrin's third collection of essays about being a sometime farmer. It is divided into four sections, the middle two being very similar to his ruminations in the First and Second Person Rural.
His take on the importance of Vermont being Vermont is described through the rhythms of the year, the county calendar, an entry for each month. Because he lives so close to the earth, and his farm chores depend on the weather, Perrin marks off the passage of time by how the land and its vegetation change. Living close to the Vermont border, these descriptions not only seem apt to me, but are also recognizably comforting.
The middle section reprises his encounters with runaway cows, slaughtering spring lambs and his being experienced enough to know that when farm equipment get stuck in the mud in the afternoon, it is easier to extricate it later in the day after the ground freezes over.
Perrin muses with his other non-native Vermonters about what it was that drew them to the State and why they stay there: not masochism, but the need to successfully respond to challenges and the human love of variety and unpredictability. Like Ben Franklin's Almanac, he argues for the simplicity of doing "just enough" and for low technology, in order to produce in balance, as excessive fertilization and cross-breeding too often result in unintended consequences, not the least of which is the loss of sentimental pleasures.
The last few essays tend to get a tad political. The first is clever, being anti-vegetarianism from the point of view of his cow, who ends up arguing for folks instead to protest against the forced feeding of cattle. The second, on land being assessed for "highest possible use," is a very strong argument for tax rates that preserve small farms. The final essay is a look-back on one Perrin first wrote in 1961, about taking action for nuclear disarmament. It sticks out like a glacial rock in one of his pastures; but, reminds readers that Vermonters are proud of their civil disobedience as well as their super-patriotism.
March 15, 2009: Last Person Rural
I finished the final collection of essays in two days, while Perrin waited eight years between volumes. One of his pleasures about farming is being self-sufficient and providing for his family. When he goes through a divorce, his cannot write as joyfully about his rural existence. But a new wife not only brings a second farm and new set of children but also his eagerness to contemplate and compose.
No major new themes in LPR. The following sentences sum up Perrin's place: "But the most important byproduct of old-fashioned farming is happiness. The pursuit of happiness is something the signers of the Declaration of Independence thought all people were entitled to. I think so, too. Only, it is much easier to pursue in some places than in others. One of the best places to pursue it is when you are living a life pretty much under your own control, in harmony with nature, producing tangible things like food and firewood and woolly sheepskins, doing many kinds of interesting work." May his farm and vision of Vermont continue.
Perrin himself had accolades galore: nominated for the National Book Award, both a Guggenheim and Fulbright fellow, two Masters degrees, taught American poetry at Dartmouth while "farming."
It is reminiscent of the book about Vermont living that Mercy Groupie selected last year. Set in Thetford, Perrin never mentions the names of his wife (his third was Charles Lindbergh's daughter) or his children, but the reader gets to know his lumberman, hardware store owner, town welder. His wife, I discovered searching Wiki this morning, wrote children's stories as did Noel. A hint of that comes through in is essay on the different sounds speakers of various languages use to describe how various animals make.
My Wiki search also included the fact that there are "Second," "Third," and "Last Person Rural" books that I am going to track down. (As of January 24, I have all of them from the library, added to the tower of books to read.)
Also got a "six degrees" comment from Hamagrael: "My degrees of separation is that Noel Perrin's third wife, Anne Spencer Lindbergh, used to live two houses around the corner from me. She looked exactly like her mother, and, at the time, was married to a Hungarian pianist/composer."
By the way, I received an email response from Earlene Fowler and have added it to the blog entry for Arkansas Traveler. Hope to finish The Optimist's Daughter tonight or tomorrow.
February 7, 2009: Second Person Rural
As mentioned above, once I discovered there were more "Rurals" I reserved them from the library. Perrin himself acknowledges his dislike for sequels, comparing them to grammar school readers about the serial adventures of small children, but in the introduction, he points out he had a different focus with this second book: being less practical and more interested in the differences between city and country life, especially psychologically.
From the slackers' perspective, Perrin still presents, maybe even more so than in "First," prototypical Vermonters. Here people have a "code" or tacit rules about when to talk, most naturally when engaged in work efforts -- fixing a barn or doing other household, neighborly or charitable community work. His essays on miniature farming in Queeche Lake and on rural immigration laws question why people come to Vermont to escape their urban existence only to decide that it lacks the necessary amenities that their lifestyle became overly dependent on. Perrin, on the other hand, wants to be mistaken for a native and finds that only people who are the same age as his college students can immediately see through him. An elderly shut-in women think his business is cutting down trees and the Mandarin father-in-law of one of his subordinate professors from Dartmouth refuses to shake his hand assuming he is a yokel delivering wood in a filthy truck, speaking derogatorily about him as only self-righteous elitists do in the presence of their "invisible" underlings.
Even though Perrin's Vermont dates from the late 60's and 70's, it, like Twain's 100 year old travelogue of Hawaii, makes the reader want to travel not just to that place, but in that time, accompanied by the author as tour guide.
March 13, 2009: Third Person Rural
Written in 1983, this is Noel Perrin's third collection of essays about being a sometime farmer. It is divided into four sections, the middle two being very similar to his ruminations in the First and Second Person Rural.
His take on the importance of Vermont being Vermont is described through the rhythms of the year, the county calendar, an entry for each month. Because he lives so close to the earth, and his farm chores depend on the weather, Perrin marks off the passage of time by how the land and its vegetation change. Living close to the Vermont border, these descriptions not only seem apt to me, but are also recognizably comforting.
The middle section reprises his encounters with runaway cows, slaughtering spring lambs and his being experienced enough to know that when farm equipment get stuck in the mud in the afternoon, it is easier to extricate it later in the day after the ground freezes over.
Perrin muses with his other non-native Vermonters about what it was that drew them to the State and why they stay there: not masochism, but the need to successfully respond to challenges and the human love of variety and unpredictability. Like Ben Franklin's Almanac, he argues for the simplicity of doing "just enough" and for low technology, in order to produce in balance, as excessive fertilization and cross-breeding too often result in unintended consequences, not the least of which is the loss of sentimental pleasures.
The last few essays tend to get a tad political. The first is clever, being anti-vegetarianism from the point of view of his cow, who ends up arguing for folks instead to protest against the forced feeding of cattle. The second, on land being assessed for "highest possible use," is a very strong argument for tax rates that preserve small farms. The final essay is a look-back on one Perrin first wrote in 1961, about taking action for nuclear disarmament. It sticks out like a glacial rock in one of his pastures; but, reminds readers that Vermonters are proud of their civil disobedience as well as their super-patriotism.
March 15, 2009: Last Person Rural
I finished the final collection of essays in two days, while Perrin waited eight years between volumes. One of his pleasures about farming is being self-sufficient and providing for his family. When he goes through a divorce, his cannot write as joyfully about his rural existence. But a new wife not only brings a second farm and new set of children but also his eagerness to contemplate and compose.
No major new themes in LPR. The following sentences sum up Perrin's place: "But the most important byproduct of old-fashioned farming is happiness. The pursuit of happiness is something the signers of the Declaration of Independence thought all people were entitled to. I think so, too. Only, it is much easier to pursue in some places than in others. One of the best places to pursue it is when you are living a life pretty much under your own control, in harmony with nature, producing tangible things like food and firewood and woolly sheepskins, doing many kinds of interesting work." May his farm and vision of Vermont continue.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Alaska: Cold Water Burning, by John Straley
This is the first state where I think the location, Sitka, is essential to the story. Cecil Younger, an investigator who leaves something to be desired, his own assessment, has a difficult time disengaging from a case where he worked for the defense and got the accused off for killing four people and setting the fishing boat on fire, hence the name of the book.
Survivors, witnesses, and family members of victims end up dying, and money from tabloids for the "true killer," disturbed children and the suspicion of drug money interweave the main plot, as do other Alaskans, frustrated, isolated blues harmonica enthusiasts, etc.
The author does interject into Cecil's voice some classic murder mystery structural issues. From the end of the first chapter: "In a story, you expect that every single person will be part of the plot, but how does that happen? If your life is a story, a story you revise over and over again in your memory, how do you choose the themes? How do you choose the people?" Straley does an excellent job of connecting the people with the plot and the location.
The subplot of George Doggy, a retired former investigator with big time political connections echos the idea of how to elicit the story. Doggy is admired and still involved in police matters and when he turns the interrogation of the ultimate suspect over to Cecil, the plot comes to closure.
COMMENT FROM HIDING IN HAMAGRAEL:
I finished Cold Water Burning and then went to the blog. Agreed with your analysis, particularly about importance of setting. A very small, very insular and isolated community has more than usual influence/impact/direction on our lives. I think there's more to the title than the obvious boat burning. The actual phrase came up when Cecil was in the water. The odd placement struck me, but I haven't figured out yet why and what was implied.
Survivors, witnesses, and family members of victims end up dying, and money from tabloids for the "true killer," disturbed children and the suspicion of drug money interweave the main plot, as do other Alaskans, frustrated, isolated blues harmonica enthusiasts, etc.
The author does interject into Cecil's voice some classic murder mystery structural issues. From the end of the first chapter: "In a story, you expect that every single person will be part of the plot, but how does that happen? If your life is a story, a story you revise over and over again in your memory, how do you choose the themes? How do you choose the people?" Straley does an excellent job of connecting the people with the plot and the location.
The subplot of George Doggy, a retired former investigator with big time political connections echos the idea of how to elicit the story. Doggy is admired and still involved in police matters and when he turns the interrogation of the ultimate suspect over to Cecil, the plot comes to closure.
COMMENT FROM HIDING IN HAMAGRAEL:
I finished Cold Water Burning and then went to the blog. Agreed with your analysis, particularly about importance of setting. A very small, very insular and isolated community has more than usual influence/impact/direction on our lives. I think there's more to the title than the obvious boat burning. The actual phrase came up when Cecil was in the water. The odd placement struck me, but I haven't figured out yet why and what was implied.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Back from Georgia
Finished Joshilyn Jackson's Between, Georgia this morning. This is the novel I almost completed in the hours I spent in the emergency room on Wednesday. It's a book you can gobble up enthusiastically in one sitting, sort of like Thanksgiving dinner, especially since Ms. Jackson's plot is about Southern families. (Nicely juxtaposed with finishing Arkansas Traveler.)
The story is clever in that not only the main character, Nonny, is "between" sweethearts, mothers, places to live, but so are most of the other people in the story. I don't know if you'll feel you have a sense of learning more about Georgia, specifically, given our geographic to do list, but you won't be disappointed in the book.
The story is clever in that not only the main character, Nonny, is "between" sweethearts, mothers, places to live, but so are most of the other people in the story. I don't know if you'll feel you have a sense of learning more about Georgia, specifically, given our geographic to do list, but you won't be disappointed in the book.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
After spending an interminable day in the ER with my son, I almost finished, in one sitting, Between Georgia. Good portrait of a Southern family, but nothing particularly "Georgian" about the setting. Like Arkansas Traveler, there is a major theme of sisters feuding -- quite nastily. Hate to think that is a Southern proclivity. Also finished Falling Man, a most complex book that probably merits buying and structurally analyzing as to how Delillo's style reflects the emotional havoc of 9/11 and it's impact on relationships and sense of self and safety.
At the suggestion of the Venezio Kid, we have substituted The Orchid Thief for the previously listed book for Florida. There are only 20 unclaimed states left. Give some more thought to any subject/author from: Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, NH, Pa, RI, SC, SD, Tennessee, Washington, and WV, and of course DC.
Next posting I will re-list the 30 that have a title chosen.
At the suggestion of the Venezio Kid, we have substituted The Orchid Thief for the previously listed book for Florida. There are only 20 unclaimed states left. Give some more thought to any subject/author from: Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, NH, Pa, RI, SC, SD, Tennessee, Washington, and WV, and of course DC.
Next posting I will re-list the 30 that have a title chosen.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Arkansas Traveler
Remember, this is not a race and there are no due dates to finish any particular book. I was iced in today and finished Earlene Fowler's Arkansas Traveler. This book is one of the Benni Harper series for which Ms Fowler has won an Agatha Award. That notoriety is what attracted me to the title when I was searching for books. I found the book to be off to a slow start, but stick with it ... it gets very engaging and the characters hook you. A sense of Arkansas is conveyed by the main character, Benni's, recollections of childhood innocent pranks with her friends who still live in Sugartree, the recipes her elderly female relatives compete over, the tension between two soon-to-merge Baptist churches, and more importantly, race relations that still have a long way to go. Don't want to give off too much more of the plot until we all have a chance to get our hands on a copy.
I've started Falling Man, the Dellio story about 9/11. Again, as I started reading it, it wasn't exactly what I expected. The style seemed disjointed, but that appears to be a device to mirror the disassociation of the event from normal day to day life. It's getting better and I think it is said to say a good, if current, simile for NY.
Heard back from Ms. Fowler; here is her note. (By the way, "Love Mercy" is the name of her soon-to-be published book.)
Hi Mercy,
Of course I love your name :). I can't remember if I answered you, so forgive me if I did. I love your resolution! I have great faith you'll achieve it. AT was a fun book to write because I had to do so much research in Arkansas, my mama's birthplace. Miss those cafes and their pie!
Anyway, hope you enjoy "Love Mercy" when it comes out. Happy Trails, Earlene Fowler
Comment from MG: I found myself crying, also, at the end of Arkansas Traveler. It was pretty light as mysteries go but an engaging good book. Next is Between, Georgia. My favorite time in life, other than being a new mom, was when I was a graduate assistant , shared an office with three others and had all the time in the world to read and talk about books. Although my personal life was in the can, the good times at grad school made up for it and I've been let down since then about what the world of "work" looks like. I still can't believe that they not only paid for my tuition but also paid me to read and talk about books. Yum. I like the blog because it's fun and it's in the same vein.
I've started Falling Man, the Dellio story about 9/11. Again, as I started reading it, it wasn't exactly what I expected. The style seemed disjointed, but that appears to be a device to mirror the disassociation of the event from normal day to day life. It's getting better and I think it is said to say a good, if current, simile for NY.
Heard back from Ms. Fowler; here is her note. (By the way, "Love Mercy" is the name of her soon-to-be published book.)
Hi Mercy,
Of course I love your name :). I can't remember if I answered you, so forgive me if I did. I love your resolution! I have great faith you'll achieve it. AT was a fun book to write because I had to do so much research in Arkansas, my mama's birthplace. Miss those cafes and their pie!
Anyway, hope you enjoy "Love Mercy" when it comes out. Happy Trails, Earlene Fowler
Comment from MG: I found myself crying, also, at the end of Arkansas Traveler. It was pretty light as mysteries go but an engaging good book. Next is Between, Georgia. My favorite time in life, other than being a new mom, was when I was a graduate assistant , shared an office with three others and had all the time in the world to read and talk about books. Although my personal life was in the can, the good times at grad school made up for it and I've been let down since then about what the world of "work" looks like. I still can't believe that they not only paid for my tuition but also paid me to read and talk about books. Yum. I like the blog because it's fun and it's in the same vein.
Friday, January 2, 2009
2009 50 States Book List
States are confirmed so far. (This sounds like the roll call of the States from the conventions this summer to me.) But here are the ones selected so far:
1. Alabama: Crazy in Alabama
2. Alaska: Cold Water Burning
3. Arizona And Die in the West
4. Arkansas: Arkansas Traveler
5. California: American Lightning
6. Colorado: The Worst Hard Time
7. Connecticut: God and Man at Yale
8. Delaware: Henry F. DuPont and Winterthur
9. District of Columbia: River, Cross My Heart by Breena Clarke
10. Florida: The Orchid Thief
11. Georgia: Between Georgia
12. Hawaii: Letters from Hawaii
13. Idaho: Across Open Ground
14. Illinois: Sin in the Second City
15. Indiana: The Magnificent Ambersons
16. Iowa: Little Heathens
17. Kansas: Charlatan
18. Kentucky: Belonging - A Culture of Place
19. Louisiana: The Next Step in the Dance
20. Maine: The Beans of Egypt, Maine
21. Maryland: Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
22. Massachusetts: The Crazy School
23. Michigan: Cache of Corpses
24. Minnesota: Tall Pine Polka, by Lorna Landvik
25. Mississippi: The Optimist's Daughter
26. Missouri: A Ghost in the Little House
27. Montana:
28. Nebraska: Plains Song: For Female Voices
29. Nevada: Bringing Down the House
30. New Hampshire: Hotel New Hampshire
31. New Jersey: The Last Good Time
32. New Mexico: Death Comes for the Archbishop
33. New York: Falling Man
34. North Carolina: Down River
35. North Dakota: Dakota
36. Ohio: Knockemstiff
37. Oklahoma: Dreams to Dust
38. Oregon: The Sky Fisherman
39. Pennsylvania: Meet You in Hell
40. Rhode Island: Theophius North, by Thornton Wilder
41. South Carolina: Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
42. South Dakota: The Grass Dancer
43. Tennessee: The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter
44. Texas: That Old Ace in the Hole
45. Utah: Refuge
46. Vermont: First Person Rural
47. Virginia: The Billionaire's Vinegar
48. Washington
49. Wisconsin: Loving Frank
50. West Virginia: Red Helmet
51. Wyoming: Devil's Gate
BONUS POINTS: State by State - A Panoramic Portrait of America, edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey.
1. Alabama: Crazy in Alabama
2. Alaska: Cold Water Burning
3. Arizona And Die in the West
4. Arkansas: Arkansas Traveler
5. California: American Lightning
6. Colorado: The Worst Hard Time
7. Connecticut: God and Man at Yale
8. Delaware: Henry F. DuPont and Winterthur
9. District of Columbia: River, Cross My Heart by Breena Clarke
10. Florida: The Orchid Thief
11. Georgia: Between Georgia
12. Hawaii: Letters from Hawaii
13. Idaho: Across Open Ground
14. Illinois: Sin in the Second City
15. Indiana: The Magnificent Ambersons
16. Iowa: Little Heathens
17. Kansas: Charlatan
18. Kentucky: Belonging - A Culture of Place
19. Louisiana: The Next Step in the Dance
20. Maine: The Beans of Egypt, Maine
21. Maryland: Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
22. Massachusetts: The Crazy School
23. Michigan: Cache of Corpses
24. Minnesota: Tall Pine Polka, by Lorna Landvik
25. Mississippi: The Optimist's Daughter
26. Missouri: A Ghost in the Little House
27. Montana:
28. Nebraska: Plains Song: For Female Voices
29. Nevada: Bringing Down the House
30. New Hampshire: Hotel New Hampshire
31. New Jersey: The Last Good Time
32. New Mexico: Death Comes for the Archbishop
33. New York: Falling Man
34. North Carolina: Down River
35. North Dakota: Dakota
36. Ohio: Knockemstiff
37. Oklahoma: Dreams to Dust
38. Oregon: The Sky Fisherman
39. Pennsylvania: Meet You in Hell
40. Rhode Island: Theophius North, by Thornton Wilder
41. South Carolina: Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
42. South Dakota: The Grass Dancer
43. Tennessee: The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter
44. Texas: That Old Ace in the Hole
45. Utah: Refuge
46. Vermont: First Person Rural
47. Virginia: The Billionaire's Vinegar
48. Washington
49. Wisconsin: Loving Frank
50. West Virginia: Red Helmet
51. Wyoming: Devil's Gate
BONUS POINTS: State by State - A Panoramic Portrait of America, edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey.
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