Lory
” ‘ maternal behavior' is, in fact, a basic human characteristic, not uniquely maternal after all” (Ch. 1)
“New parenthood is a developmental stage that takes time.” Ch. 1
I started skim-reading this partway through. Then stopped altogether. The premise was fascinating, but more research on this topic needs to be done. The studies the author cited were often inconclusive, too small, not published or peer-reviewed. I grew weary after many pages spent simply summarizing such studies. I agree from personal experience that caregiving changes the brain, and that parenting is a developmental stage that takes time to unfold. I wish I had known these things earlier, and that more research and knowledge were available to help new parents, but it seems this awareness is just unfolding. I hope for tomorrow's parents it will become more established, but this book is not quite the means to do it.
I also grow so weary of books that explain everything about human behavior in terms of natural selection. It's like explaining someone's journey from New York to San Francisco by describing how a train operates. It addresses the HOW but not the WHY. Without a spiritual element, the study of neurology becomes a deadening exercise in mechanization. And that particularly does not belong in any discussion of human relationships. We are more than brains walking around in bodies, and it's exactly our relationships of care that can open us to understanding that. So I'll be thrilled when a book appears that can put those pieces together.
A flood disrupts life in Moominvalley, but brings along an intriguing new home for them – which turns out to be a theatre. Of course they have to put on a show, which does not turn out as planned but is enjoyed by everybody anyway. A pleasant little diversion.
I've read this book multiple times and its mythic images have deeply impressed me. The image of Orual reading her “great work” at the end and seeing what she is really saying is powerful and rings true with much that I have myself experienced in life. Our true motives are so often hidden from us, and coming face to face with them can be a shattering experience. The message of hope and reconciliation at the end is reassuring and I believe also true to the way things are in the deeper reality. The divine world wants us to become worthy of standing in its presence, but we have to do some hard work to get there.
I think it's better not to see the novel as an allegory but as an imagination which embodies truths about the human soul and spirit. In that regard I think it's Lewis's finest work.
This was a fluently told but rather lightweight biography. It focuses on Lewis's literary life and influence, helpfully placing this in context of outer life events but leaving me feeling as though something was missing. McGrath points out Lewis's strengths, clearly a devoted fan, but is reluctant to dig into his weak points. There is also little real material about many of Lewis's important relationships. It's a short book, so perhaps McGrath felt he didn't have time to go into these details. On the other hand there is a good deal of repetition that could have been pared down, and the Narnia books get two whole chapters without leaving me feeling that much of interest had been said.
The lengthy discussion of the date of Lewis's conversion gives a plausible alternative date, but in the end it does not seem to matter much. It is interesting that Lewis places this event before his father's death, while McGrath asserts it must have been after, but the impact of that can only be speculative because Lewis apparently did not talk or write about it. When biographers get too much into pet theories that are pure speculation (like Lewis's father's death having been a catalyst for his conversion), it greatly weakens their credibility.
Then Warnie just fades out of the narrative, ending up drunk in Ireland while Lewis is dying...surely there must be more evidence of Lewis's feelings about his brother? The more I think about it, the more unsatisfactory this biography is. It's the biography of a bibliography, rather than of a person.
Can I also express here my annoyance with books that incorporate tons of random quotes from irrelevant sources, as if to assert the author's literacy – “As Oscar Wilde said...” Why? Just say it yourself, you don't have to include quotations to back up general statements. Learn how to write beautifully yourself, like C.S. Lewis, rather than depending on writers of the past to do it for you. Meanwhile, much more from the source material would have been welcome, Lewis's own letters and the statements of those who knew him.
I came across this during my month of Reading the Theatre on my blog – it was a good way to learn more about these giants of the musical theatre and about a whole era during which that world completely changed, along with the outer world in which it was embedded. The author did a good job of describing what made the shows special, as well as detailing some flops that we don't hear so much about, and in the end explaining what causes R&H to become a byword for schmaltz and sentimental drivel – unfairly, he convincingly argues.
The end of the men's lives was sad cut short as they were by illness, especially for Rodgers, who was an alcoholic and whose personal life was very ethically questionable. The partnership was more of a parallel working than a real co-creation; the two worked largely separately and would make some comments on each other's work, cordial to each other in public but not exactly friends. They seem to have greatly admired each other while neither was sure whether the other really liked him. The details of all the characters behind the scenes was fascinating – orchestrators really should be given more credit, among others.
A broadly painted Broadway history that gives an excellent overview, even as one feels a bit held at a distance from the subjects. Also made me want to see really good productions of the shows, especially Carousel and South Pacific.
I wanted to read a Donna Leon novel because my mom likes this series about a police commissioner in Venice a lot, plus around-the-world project relevance. This one was okay but nothing special. The insider view of Venice was interesting, but Leon's writing is quite humdrum. And like most murder mysteries it came across as so contrived to me, so constructed by the author and not arising from reality. Perhaps she got better in time, but I'm not sure I'll read more.
This was a sweet 1950s high school romance, very G-rated and reminiscent of the Deep Valley books (but even slighter). It was fascinating to read following Cleary's memoirs, as one can see the experiences in her own life that she reworked - going to stay with another family to attend school in California, being unsure how to deal with a boy who pursued but bored her, difficulties in her relationship with her mother. However, Cleary's life was much darker and sadder than this cheerful, sunny book, in which difficulties are quickly overcome and the protagonist ends up feeling like “the luckiest girl” just for having had a chance to love and be loved. She is not a particularly deep or complex character, but her small trials and successes are very human and still relevant even though so much has changed. I think I would have enjoyed this book as a teenager and I'm sorry I never encountered it till now.
Much more personal than the McGrath biography and with lots of interesting quotes and anecdotes. Each view on Lewis gives a different perspective and I think it's necessary to compare several in order to get a picture of this complex man.
Frequently when I read a Golden Age mystery I find myself partway through wondering if I have read it before. I don't know is this is because: A. I have actually read it before, or B. These books tend to be predictable and samey, so that one reminds me of others that I have read and I can't keep them straight.
I definitely had the feeling with this one; I didn't think I had read it before, but once the denouement began to unfold it began to feel so familiar.
Contemporary romance in Regency fancy dress. I made it up to the “consummation” scene and then bailed. I don't enjoy soft porn. Some of the banter was cute, but I'd rather see it in 21st century form where it belongs.
This was a lovely book celebrating friendship and the true nobility of the human spirit. Ibbotson is marvelous at both goodies and baddies, and her little idiosyncratic touches are hilarious (like Pom-Pom the Outer Mongolian Pedestal Dog). I want to go to school at Delderton!
This was a fun adventure story with a memorable setting and characters, well-crafted language that was by turns evocative, suspenseful, funny and heartwarming. The twists and turns of the plot kept it exciting, ringing some clever changes on the usual “orphan stranded in nasty family” story, and rewarding us in the end with the perfect ending for everyone. The books of Frances Hodgson Burnett are an obvious inspiration–Little Lord Fauntleroy is explicitly referenced, but A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, and even The Lost Prince are in the background too. Ibbotson makes the genre her own, though, with her own excellent storytelling. The romantic, somewhat patronizing view of the “Indians” is an unfortunate flaw, but the powerful sense of the wonders of nature will hopefully make an even stronger impression on young readers.
Reviews and more on my blog, Entering the Enchanted Castle I started reading this because I couldn't sleep one night, and then I had to keep going to the end. An odd mixture of comedy of manners, thriller, melodrama, and sentimental romance, veering wildly through various emotional trajectories. I think it would have been more successful if it had stuck more to just one or two sorts of stories; as it is, we are just settling into one when we get taken off in another direction; just after the most gooey sentimental bit, we get a grim, cynical ending as a chaser. Maybe Burnett was making fun of her own genre-writing formulas somehow? Also, very class-conscious and snobby, but that's Burnett for you. In some ways reminiscent of a grown-up A Little Princess, but with a heroine who is much more ordinary than Sara, almost stupid, and notable mainly for her slavish devotion to the man who rescues her from a life of poverty. I remember being disappointed the first time I read it, and so it was again.
A reread in order to review the new Folio Society edition, to come shortly on the blog. Reviews and more on my blog, Entering the Enchanted Castle
Both short early novels are inevitably compared to the bestselling The Bridge of San Luis Rey (which was published in between the two). The Cabala reads like a study for the Bridge, with similar episodic character sketches but less emotional impact. The Woman of Andros is beautifully written but also somehow emotionally distant. I'm glad I read both but not sure I would read them again.
With rare honesty, Salzman offers a window into a writer's mind as he struggles with balancing family life, personal tragedy, and the creative impulse. Salzman's self-deprecating humor bears within it a real and moving journey toward inner peace and self-acceptance, one that is grounded in the realities of modern life.
Originally reviewed at www.emeraldcitybookreview.com
The title character of Cluny Brown is a London plumber's niece whose fatal flaw is “not knowing her place” – she took herself to tea at the Ritz because she wanted to see what it was like, imagine! When her uncle ships her off to a country house to be trained as a parlormaid, he thinks his troubles are over, but naturally Cluny has other ideas.
Sharp does an excellent job at the tricky task of capturing the accents and sensibilities of both the masters and servants of the house, as well as of Cluny, a true original who blithely ignores the strictures that should bind her to her social class and its expectations. This leads to some delightful bits of dialogue.
Though published in 1944, Cluny Brown is set six years earlier, in an England on the brink of war and of the destruction of many of its ancient ways of life, and the coming change is foreshadowed in Cluny's subtly disruptive nature. This serious strain anchors the comedy, and gives it a slightly darker touch that keeps it from being too silly and bright.
At the end of Cluny's adventures, an abrupt denouement with a swift change of heart might seem clumsy or inopportune in the hands of a less confident writer. Here, it perfectly suits the character of Cluny, and the glimpse given into her future assures us that she will continue to spread her insouciant spirit wherever she goes.
Originally reviewed at www.emeraldcitybookreview.com
I don't usually seek out short stories, though I often enjoy them when I do read them. Usually I'm looking for a longer-term reading experience, with characters I can live with over time. But when I read Katherine Mansfield's collection Bliss and Other Stories (having drawn it as my Classics Club Spin book), I was reminded of how a beautifully rendered painting of a few objects, or an insightful portrait, can be a perfect work of art; we don't always want or need a grand historical canvas with dozens of figures. In the same way these exquisitely written stories cast light on just a few characters or events, with an economy of language that does not lessen their emotional impact, but may even serve to heighten it. Freed from the necessity of plodding through a complicated plot, Mansfield often comes at her subjects in a surprising, sideways manner, with effects that are sometimes startling, sometimes amusing, but always masterfully done.
I know next to nothing about Mansfield, except that she was from New Zealand. This gave me the notion that her stories would be set in that country and that I would learn something about that place. However, this turns out not to be a strong element, at least in this particular collection; many of the stories are set in Europe, and the only one that is obviously set in New Zealand, the opening novella called “Prelude,” is far more occupied with the inner lives of the characters and their particular physical circumstances than with the setting in a wider sense. This is in no way a drawback, only a false expectation that I had to overcome in the process of reading.
The stories often end with a reversal or down-turn in the protagonist's fortunes, but so light was Mansfield's touch that this somehow did not depress me as it does with some authors. Comedy and tragedy can be very close together, and these stories delicately reveal their affinity.
Originally reviewed at www.emeraldcitybookreview.com
I remember well the day a friend casually said, upon seeing some book lying around at my place (I think it was The Hobbit), “I don't read fiction.” Now, I understood of course that there were different tastes in the fictional realm, and that Tolkien was not everyone's cup of tea. But to not read fiction at all? Just to write it off as boring and a waste of time? I knew there must be people like that out there, but they were usually more distant from me, belonging to foreign tribes of the soul, not friends that I would invite into my inner sanctum. I realized with dismay that I would have to cross a great divide to really understand such a person.
What a relief, then to open the pages of How To Be a Heroine and meet someone who decidedly belongs to my tribe. Samantha Ellis, a British playwright and journalist, reflects on her own life in terms of the books that defined and shaped her as she grew up, and particularly in terms of the heroines who showed her different ways to be a girl and then a woman. At a point in midlife when she is questioning where she is, how she got there and where she is going, rereading her favorites turns out to be more than just an exercise in nostalgia. We learn that fictional worlds don't remain static, but can transform and show us new sides of ourselves as we gain experience and knowledge. Sometimes the results are disappointing, sometimes illuminating, but always fascinating in their revelation of the eternal enchantment of fiction.
As the child of Iraqi Jewish refugee parents, raised within an insular ethnic community, one could question what Ellis would find to relate to in the heroines of classic English literature: Elizabeth Bennett, Lucy Honeychurch, Anne of Green Gables. Happily, she shows us that in such much-loved and long-lasting works of fiction are to be found universal human concerns, which shine beneath the trappings of time and culture. To take but one example, the “marriage plot” is no less powerful in her own family, which expects her to marry a nice Iraqi Jew and keeps a tier of her Bat Mitzvah cake in the freezer for that day, than in Jane Austen's society.
No literary snob, Ellis shows that there's also wisdom to be gleaned from less elevated fare, such as The Valley of the Dolls, Lace, and the novels of Jilly Cooper. How has the very idea of what it means to be a woman changed over the last two hundred years? What can we learn from the trials and struggles of these characters, and of their writers? How have they fought to be recognized as human beings, as creators, as people with rights and feelings of their own? Written with passion and verve, How To Be a Heroine is a marvelous personal exploration of these questions, articulate, lucid, and never pretentious.
If I were to meet Samantha Ellis in person, we wouldn't agree about everything. I would question her selection of the homicidal maniac Heathcliff as a romantic ideal, and she would wonder how I could find Beth March in Little Women anything other than disgustingly insipid. But we would definitely agree about one thing: reading fiction is one way, perhaps the most important way, that we have learned to create the story of our own lives. If you, too, look to books as touchstones of your life, and particularly to those inhabited by feisty, creative, and courageous heroines, then you will surely want to have the joy of revisiting them through this excellent consideration of all they have to offer.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher for review consideration. This is no way influenced the content of my review.
An entertaining and very adult reimagining of the Neverland fantasy from Hook's point of view.
For more, visit my blog at emeraldcitybookreview.com (review to come).
Full review originally posted on The Emerald City Book Review
Midway through his life's journey, Joseph Luzzi found himself in a forest of seemingly impenetrable darkness. His pregnant wife, Katherine, had died as the result of a car accident, shortly after delivering their daughter Isabel by emergency caesarean. Unprepared for sudden single fatherhood, Luzzi wrapped himself in grief and in his work as a professor of Italian at Bard College, largely leaving the raising of Isabel to his close-knit Calabrian family. But as he shuttled back and forth between Bard and the childhood home in Rhode Island that he thought he'd left behind for academia, he found that his lifelong study of Dante's Divine Comedy was speaking to the most urgent questions of his life. Heeding its message, he struggled to lift himself out of hell and into a new understanding of the real meaning of love.
In this memoir of his years of struggling through darkness into the light, structured around the three parts of Dante's masterpiece (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso), Luzzi writes with honesty and hard-gained self knowledge. He takes us along on his journey from the self-absorption of hell, through the purgatory of learning to forgive and trust again, and into the acceptance of responsibility that is the gateway to heaven and the only sure foundation for healthy relationships. His style is simple and direct, never pretentious or preachy, and allows us to enter into his story as if hearing it from a close friend. Without attempting to approach the artistic summits of his literary guide, Luzzi adds a humble footnote to the truths of the great epic: yes, this is part of what it means to be human.
Luzzi doesn't spend as much time on Dante as I expected, based on his title. He chooses a few key moments and characters that provided him with illumination, as well as some aspects of the poet's life, but most of the narrative has to do with his own experiences, feelings, and thoughts. Given that these do fall into the archetypal pattern of the Commedia, descending into the ultimate pit of suffering as a necessary step toward true integration, the connection is valid enough.
I feel that my own experience has been enlarged through Luzzi's willingness to articulate both his suffering and his joy, and am grateful that he opened his heart to share these difficult lessons with us.
Full review originally posted on The Emerald City Book Review
Hard on the heels of the Dante-inspired In a Dark Wood, I had the opportunity to join in the blog tour for The Lover's Path, which is spreading the word about new electronic editions of a beautiful “illustrated novella of Venice” by author-artist Kris Waldherr. This atmospheric story of forbidden romance is complemented by brief vignettes about lovers throughout history and legend, sensitively portrayed in rich, glowing images. Presented as if it were an artifact from the “Museo di Palazzo Filomela,” with attendant notes, maps, and museum information, it melds history and imagination in a way that will intrigue and delight lovers of Renaissance art and classical mythology.
The original print edition was a deluxe production with removable letters and other tactile features that greatly enhanced the reading experience; the e-book is available in several forms, including from PDF to Kindle to full-color interactive editions. I was curious about how the author found the process of transferring this unique content into a digital form, and pleased that she agreed to share her thoughts. (See The Emerald City Book Review for guest post.)
See my full review on The Emerald City Book Review.This is a very strange book. It is funny, sometimes hilariously so, but it's also disorienting and savage and mystifying. The premise is, to say the least, odd: a megalomaniac matriarch, along with various descendants and hangers-on, have gathered in her walled estate to await the end of the world, of which they expect to be the only survivors. Given that most of the characters detest most of the others, the mind boggles at what will happen when their already-insular social circle is made even smaller. Classic country-house scenes of deliciously venomous dialogue are interspersed with visions and mysterious occurrences that give the whole book the quality of a nightmare from which it is singularly difficult to wake. I kept wondering what it would be like on stage or in a film, though sadly, I don't think this has a chance of coming to pass.
See my full review on The Emerald City Book Review.I haven't read much Rosemary Sutcliff, but I really need to change that. This new edition of The Mark of the Horse Lord from Chicago Review Press brings one of Sutcliff's classic works of historical fiction back into print 50 years after its original publication, and it's a stunner. Winner of the very first Phoenix Award, it's a perfectly paced, thrilling, emotionally engaging foray into that time period that Sutcliff made her own: the Roman occupation of Britain. In this story of a gladiator from a frontier town who ends up as chief of the Dalriadain (better known to us as the Scots), both Roman and British culture are brought vividly, savagely to life.
I don't want to say too much more about the plot, because I want you to have the pleasure of having it unfold according to Sutcliff's intentions; it is masterfully done. I will say that I wouldn't have thought that I could pick up a book about a gladiator, a finely honed fighting machine, and be so instantly drawn into his drama and sympathize so fully with his quest. Phaedrus is a magnificent character, and in The Mark of the Horse Lord you will meet many others: Conory, his companion and rival; Murna, the woman who is a true match for him; Sinnoch, a wily horse trader. You will feel you have really inhabited the past with them, and touched the spirit of the northern tribes, which is at once foreign and familiar.
This is one of those books where age-related labels don't really fit well at all. Published as a children's book, it could indeed be read by a child and be an extraordinary and transformative reading experience. Its mature themes and violence make it more what we would call “YA” today (a label that didn't exist 50 years ago). But it can, and should, be read by anyone who loves history, or thinking about what motivates human beings, or the British landscape and people, or great writing. It's going on my shelf along with other favorites by Mary Renault, Naomi Mitchison, and Robert Graves, and I hope you will add it to yours as well.