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Ottawa Public Library
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Five Tuesdays in WinterFive Tuesdays in Winter, BookStories
by King, LilyBook - 2021 | First edition.Book, 2021. First edition.
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Mar 14, 2022
VioletaVioleta, BookA Novel
by Allende, IsabelBook - 2022 | First U.S. edition.Book, 2022. First U.S. edition.
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Mar 14, 2022
Comment:
This being my first sampling of Isabel Allende, I’m attempting to place her work within the panoply of Latin American writers. Here, I find no sign of the rich, imaginative prose of Márquez, the erudite, penetrating intimacy of Borges or the steamy romanticism of Jorge Amado. And she is certainly not an absurdist, the likes of Calvino or Hernandez. Perhaps she might best be compared with Juan José Saer, with whom she shares a focus on the troubled history of both Chile and Argentina. While she is known for dabbling in ‘magical realism’ I found little evidence of it in this book. What she does share with so many writers of that continent is a pervasive sadness; not fatalism, regret or bitterness, mind you, but just a sense of having been left with a heritage of shared emotional scars.
This entire book doesn’t read like a novel: it (deliberately) reads like a memoir. The language is flat, colorless, almost journalistic. Even the most traumatic events are related with restraint, precision, calm. This might be in part attributable to Frances Riddle, the translator but I miss the poignancy of language that usually emerges in so many works that originate in Spanish. The book is presented in the guise of a woman nearing the age of 100, relating her life story to her grandson in a frank, non-apologetic manner. Every bit of it is placed securely in historical context and it quietly reflects the history of Chile from the middle of the 1920 pandemic to that of 2020.
One must, from the outset, recognize and accept the personal position from which Allende writes; as granddaughter of Chile’s first democratically elected Socialist president, she cannot escape being judged from the standpoint of her family history. That said, this work is no political diatribe; she writes as a woman, with a woman’s concerns for family life being at all times front and center. She may be seen as a feminist and certainly a left-leaning humanist liberal.
The question arises: am likely to read more of Allende’s work? Probably not. This is very good work but I find many of the other South American writers more interesting.This being my first sampling of Isabel Allende, I’m attempting to place her work within the panoply of Latin American writers. Here, I find no sign of the rich, imaginative prose of Márquez, the erudite, penetrating intimacy of Borges or the steamy…
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Mar 14, 2022
Comment:
I've been re-reading this book in parallel with Ice Diaries: An Antarctic Memoir to provide background and context. Doing so was probably unfair to Jean McNeil's book; nothing could measure up to Lansing's dramatic tale.
This is without a doubt the most terrifying story I’ve ever read. No novel, no work of fiction could match it, because this was REAL. What that group of men endured, the perils they faced still seem beyond belief. When those 3 ragged, half-starved men stumbled into a whaling station on South Georgia Island they had long since been given up for dead. But not only did Shackleton traverse the Drake Passage in an open 22 foot boat and cross South Georgia on foot, a feat considered almost impossible even for well-equipped experienced mountaineers; in doing so, he effected the rescue of his entire crew of 27 men.
The name “Endurance” given to his vessel proved prophetic indeed. After the ship itself was lost, crushed in the ice, those men survived for over a year upon the ice floes and then for another four months, stranded in the open on Elephant Island, one of the most inhospitable places on earth.
As for the writing: Stark, relentless, brutally honest. High adventure. A reading experience that is likely to leave one physically tired from bound-up tension.I've been re-reading this book in parallel with Ice Diaries: An Antarctic Memoir to provide background and context. Doing so was probably unfair to Jean McNeil's book; nothing could measure up to Lansing's dramatic tale.
This is without a doubt the…
ILL - BAYOU FOLK AND A NIGHT IN ACADIEILL - BAYOU FOLK AND A NIGHT IN ACADIE, Book
by Chopin, Kate ; Koloski, BernardBookBook
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Mar 14, 2022
Comment:
These stories are, first and foremost about a particular place and time and the unique population mix that lived there. In that respect, the stories are suffused with realism. But it’s a setting so far removed from anything that most of us as readers could ever experience that even though it was within North America, it might just as well be taking place on a distant planet. A whole panoply of dialects (Creole French with its West Indies flavor, African-American patois, deep-south English, Acadian French, Native American palaver, even bits of everyday mainstream American English and the lilt of Irish immigrants) serve to bring scenes to life.
By and large, these are seemingly inconsequential sketches of daily life, restrained romanticism in a mode to be found only in the deep south. Prevailing themes are the value of respect, the perils of prejudice or dishonesty, the unpredictability of romantic infatuation, the pervasive power of love in all its forms. Most of the stories are fairly light-hearted, even whimsical, clever vignettes; but also included is a brief tragedy (Desirée’s Baby) that lifts the curtain on America’s pernicious racial divide. There are passages of gentle humor, heartfelt emotion and above all plenty of delightful character sketches — such as that drawn of a denizen of the local fishmarket, one César François Xavier a.k.a. Nég, Chicot or Marigouin,."But one felt privileged to call him almost anything, he was so black, lean, lame and shriveled. He wore a headkerchief and whatever other rags the fishermen and their wives chose to bestow upon him. Throughout one whole winter he wore a woman’s discarded jacket with puffed sleeves …… Nobody knew where Chicot lived. A man — even a nég créole — who lives among the reeds and willows of Bayou St. John, in a deserted chicken-coop constructed chiefly of tarred paper, is not going to boast of his habitation or invite attention to his domestic appointments. When, after market hours, he vanished in the direction of St. Philip street, limping, seemingly bent under the weight of his gunny-bag it was like the disappearance from the stage of some petty actor whom the audience does not follow in imagination beyond the wings, or think of until his return in another scene."
His companion Mamzelle Agliaé is equally picturesque; "she is totally immersed in her own litany of complaints and religious fervor. Chicot would have been extremely alarmed if he had ever chanced to find Mamzelle Agliaé in an uncomplaining mood. It never occurred to him that she might be otherwise."
Nor did she limit her invective to Chicot and other humans she encountered; "She had come to hold St. Peter and St. Paul in such utter detestation that she had cut their pictures out of her prayer-book."These stories are, first and foremost about a particular place and time and the unique population mix that lived there. In that respect, the stories are suffused with realism. But it’s a setting so far removed from anything that most of us as…
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Mar 13, 2022
Comment:
This book requires a good deal of patience with the writer as she navigates her personal journey of the soul — the Antarctic being but a stopping point, albeit a defining one. Some have aptly described it as “creative non-fiction”.
The primal story of Antarctica had long since been written by Shackleton, Scott and Amundsen in the process of what they did, and retold by others. What remains for those following on, such as Jean McNeil, is to address our human response to that alien world and what one’s exposure to its mysteries does to a person. To be sure, there is a common theme to that reaction: isolation, darkness, extreme cold, disorientation. But then, each person experiencing it is left to consider their own psychic path through that ice-bound realm. McNeil does so by means of a sort of diary, interleaved with recollections of a disjointed and troubled personal life. I often became impatient with her abrupt changes in time, leaping backward and forward over decades; and while her exploration of her anxiety attacks were grittily convincing, they didn’t make for enjoyable reading.
I think that the most defining passage is where she writes: “The Antarctic was an attempt to resolve inner conflicts in my existence. I would not return to Canada to do it; it was safer to enact it far away, under an upside-down heaven, in a frozen foreign colony. How appropriate that I would go to that continent at the bottom of the planet, that place onto which we project our dark fantasies, as much as our utopias.”
In reading “Ice Diaries” one learns almost nothing new about Antarctica while learning much about Jean McNeil, especially about her emotional challenges. Despite all of that, I was still left with a sense that I never really came to understand her as a whole person. So, as a memoir, I don’t think it is truly a success.This book requires a good deal of patience with the writer as she navigates her personal journey of the soul — the Antarctic being but a stopping point, albeit a defining one. Some have aptly described it as “creative non-fiction”.
The primal story…
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Feb 12, 2022
Comment:
Not since reading Hardy's "The Return of the Native" many years ago have I encountered anything as relentlessly fatalistic as this novel. Once young Byron is thrust into the grip of those two extra seconds, his fate and that of everyone closest to him is sealed. From the outset, the novel reads like an over-filled balloon, waiting to burst from its stored-up tension. Writing of the Hemmings household, Joyce generates an atmosphere both coldly austere and stiflingly claustrophobic.. The air crackles with anxiety whenever Seymour is at home; he surrounds himself with an aura of restrained resentment — of his family, his neighbors, the demands that he perceives being made upon him. His every action is calculated to preserve his status, his image in the community, and yet his behavior reveals to all what an insecure person he is.
Caveats aside, this is an impressive piece of writing. In every one of her novels, Rachel Joyce presents us with protagonists who are deep;y wounded in some fashion, individuals who are fundamentally incapable of fitting in to their surroundings, people who will always be off-kilter. She delves very deeply into what those troubled souls are experiencing, what it is that sets them on the strange life journey that they walk. Almost always, there is a single defining moment where her protagonist makes an abrupt turn onto an unforeseen path. Miss Benson steals a pair of boots. Harold Fry just decides to keep walking. Byron thrusts his watch toward his mother and after that, nothing will ever be the same again.
Few writers can match Rachel Joyce in capturing the inner personality and psychic struggles of her protagonists:
"He needed to find James. He needed to find him urgently. James understood things in ways that Byron couldn't; James was like the logical piece of Byron that was missing ..... Maybe it was because James was such a careful boy. Byron watched him sometimes, aligning the zip fastening on his pencil case or wiping the fringe out of his eyes, and there was such precision in it that Byron was filled with awe. Sometimes he tried to be the same. He would walk carefully or arrange his felt-tip pens in order of color. But then he would find that his shoe-laces were undone, or his shirt had got untucked, and he was back to being Byron again."
This is a book that is easy to admire but I found it a difficult one to actually like. After finishing it, I felt a need to come up for air, seek the sunlight. Joyce clearly understood that need: she attempts to satisfy it right at the end, to let us off the hook emotionally. But the darkness is not easily dispelled.Not since reading Hardy's "The Return of the Native" many years ago have I encountered anything as relentlessly fatalistic as this novel. Once young Byron is thrust into the grip of those two extra seconds, his fate and that of everyone closest to…
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Feb 09, 2022
Comment:
Once again, Rachel Joyce has presented us with a protagonist who, because of a troubled childhood or traumatic experiences in life or a peculiar personality — or a combination of such factors — does not “fit in” anywhere. This time, not satisfied with just one such protagonist, she conjures up three of them, one of whom is so messed up that he has lost all touch with reality, becoming both pathetic and scary.
From the outset, Margery and Enid are not only deeply troubled people, they could scarcely be less incompatible as partners in a joint enterprise or even as fellow travelers, let alone friends. Unlike Joyce’s previous books, this one is truly an adventure, replete with life-threatening dangers, both natural and man-induced; the dramatic tension builds right to the end. If this tale is about anything, it’s about the life-altering impact of friendship. Perhaps the most satisfying aspect of the book is the manner in which Margery, gaining strength through adversity, learns to love herself. By the end, this is a woman who fears nothing. Along the way there are delightful moments of humor to balance the moments of terror and grief. All of which, for me, amounts to a perfectly balanced novel since it accomplishes what a novel is supposed to do: it becomes a metaphor for life. No one is getting out of here unscathed — and as in life, there can be no perfect endings.
In terms of emotional complexity, character development and plot, it’s almost on a par with "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" and it has the added appeal of an exotic setting (never mind a bit overly sentimental and the need to suspend disbelief here and there). To sum up: better than expected; and a very satisfactory reading experience.Once again, Rachel Joyce has presented us with a protagonist who, because of a troubled childhood or traumatic experiences in life or a peculiar personality — or a combination of such factors — does not “fit in” anywhere. This time, not satisfied…
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Feb 09, 2022
Comment:
This is one of those times when I find myself diametrically at odds with almost every one of those colleagues whose reviews I follow and respect.
For me, reading this was akin to being stuck on a transatlantic flight next to a guy who treats you to an interminable series of anecdotes about his siblings, his parents, his partner — people you don’t know and thankfully will never meet. Gossipy and inconsequential, none of the stories seem to go anywhere and before you know it, he has left each vignette hanging inconclusively and moved on to another. Time and again, I lost interest in a story, abandoned it and moved on to the next one, hoping for it to get better. It didn’t.
I don’t suppose I’ve explained my reasons for disliking this in a way that other readers are likely to understand; nor do I expect others to agree with me. Perhaps it would help if I also point out that I detest late-night TV talk shows and almost all sitcoms. Which clearly defines me as a cultural outlier.
Sorry, folks. I just don’t get what all the fuss was about. I’m afraid Sedaris is not for me.This is one of those times when I find myself diametrically at odds with almost every one of those colleagues whose reviews I follow and respect.
For me, reading this was akin to being stuck on a transatlantic flight next to a guy who treats you to…
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Feb 09, 2022
Comment:
Late poems, Atwood calls them. Too late, as in a letter arriving too late. A theme running through this collection: Regret. Or perhaps more to the point, just a sense of loss. Lost connections to the natural world, even to our own origins.
Though our feastfires have faded to candles
we’re hooked on the same old gods
much diminished.
Lost loves:
You’ll be here but not here,
a muscle memory, like hanging a hat
on a hook that’s not there any longer.
Lost pleasures:
my glass slippers,
all of their wishes used up
Wisely (she cannot help being wise) she places the title poem “Dearly” toward the end, poignantly addressing her personal loss. Then, the final poem “Blackberries” finally does it for me, the tears well up. I won’t quote it, it’s too good. Go and experience it for yourself.Late poems, Atwood calls them. Too late, as in a letter arriving too late. A theme running through this collection: Regret. Or perhaps more to the point, just a sense of loss. Lost connections to the natural world, even to our own origins.
Though…
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Feb 09, 2022
The City of MistThe City of Mist, BookStories
by Ruiz Zafón, CarlosBook - 2021 | First U.S. edition.Book, 2021. First U.S. edition.
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Feb 09, 2022
Comment:
Darkly gothic tales, expressed in florid language that has been brilliantly translated from the Spanish. Each of the stories, most of them tenuously linked, are infused with the murky atmosphere, architecture and Catalonian culture of Barcelona, Zafón’s birthplace, where he spent the first 30 years of his life.
The major centerpiece of the set is “The Prince of Parnassus”, a fascinating speculation on Cervantes having supposedly twice visited Barcelona, in company with a very young woman who is supposedly a model for the Dolcinea of his Don Quixote. Here Zafón gives his imagination free reign, introducing Faustian elements, the Plague, and even speculation on the location of Cervantes’ unknown burial site.
Translator Lucia Graves merits special praise for her success in capturing the intense color of Zafón’s prose, even creating a number of especially pithy passages, e.g.
”Comedy shows us that we must not take life too seriously, and tragedy teaches us what happens when we pay no attention to what comedy teaches us.”
or
“Love is the only creature that doesn’t learn from its mistakes.”
or
“A poet is the only being whose eyesight improves with age”.
It seems to me that Zafón is that rarity, a writer of adult novels whose work is likely to resonate with readers in their teens. I could easily classify these stories as adult fairy tales.
Delightful!Darkly gothic tales, expressed in florid language that has been brilliantly translated from the Spanish. Each of the stories, most of them tenuously linked, are infused with the murky atmosphere, architecture and Catalonian culture of Barcelona,…
The Rose CodeThe Rose Code, BookA Novel
by Quinn, KateBook - 2021 | First edition.Book, 2021. First edition.
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Feb 09, 2022
Comment:
It’s neither as gritty and tempestuous as The Huntress, nor as gripping as The Alice Network; nevertheless The Rose Code takes its place among the better historical novels that I’ve read. Being so tightly woven into actual historical events and the lives of real people of that time renders it especially compelling. Quinn has clearly put a great deal of effort into the research of her subject matter.
As is her usual practice, Quinn doesn’t bother with elegant prose; she is intent on telling an interesting story — and that's essential in a book that is this long. It’s difficult to say which of the characters is intended to be her main protagonist; her POV shifts constantly from one short interlude to another. Some readers may object to that fragmented style, even though it prevents the story from dragging — which could easily have happened; let’s face it, an account of a painstaking attempt over years to break enemy cyphers, in and of itself would soon become a deadly bore. By breaking it up into short episodes and placing the desperate Bletchley effort into the context of what was happening both on the home front and abroad kept it fresh and mobile. And then Quinn puts her novelist’s hat on and mixes in multiple romantic engagements to spice it up.
A few quibbles: As with the her two previous novels noted above, there’s a somewhat heavy handed feminist slant to this book; it didn’t disturb me but it’s likely to put some readers off. And as is often the case with historical novels, the story is somewhat contrived, especially at the end, which is wrapped up too neatly. There are a few aspects that stretch credibility and she has craftily manipulated time frames to suit her purposes. In fact, the entire structure of the book is obviously contrived.
And I can’t say that any of her three main characters measures up to those in either the Alice Network or The Huntress (there’s no hellcat Nina here!). Clearly the most interesting of the three is Beth, if only because of her impressive strength of character to overcome her personality limitations, bordering on autistic and even survive the years of horrendous abuse that she is subjected to. Those who follow my reviews will know that I detest people who decide to become victims, regardless of their situation; Beth is the polar opposite of that syndrome: once having been given a chance at a real life, the more viciously she is attacked, the more courageously she fights back. That in itself would make the novel worthwhile.It’s neither as gritty and tempestuous as The Huntress, nor as gripping as The Alice Network; nevertheless The Rose Code takes its place among the better historical novels that I’ve read. Being so tightly woven into actual historical events and the…
Amusing Ourselves to DeathAmusing Ourselves to Death, BookPublic Discourse in the Age of Show Business
by Postman, NeilBook - 2006 | 20th anniversary edition.Book, 2006. 20th anniversary edition.
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Feb 09, 2022
Comment:
This book is a Cri de Coeur lamenting the proliferation of wholesale entertainment in place of knowledge and reasoned discourse, a change that began with the advent of electrical communication and progressed with the transmission of images. Having written this in1985, Postman’s focus is on television, while also recognizing that it was just one manifestation of our embrace of entertainment — an industry that is arguably America’s most valuable product and most successful export to the rest of the world. Professional sports, movies, stage shows, nightclubs and the glitz of Vegas are mentioned as part of the parade into oblivion. What he could not have foreseen was the impact of the personal computer, the internet and social media, which have essentially eclipsed television as arbiters of public perception and delivered the final blow to the public’s capacity for conscious thought, transforming civic discourse into a chorus of giggles, snorts and whimpers, bereft of meaning.
Were Neil Postman with us today, he would no doubt be muttering “I told you this would happen” — or perhaps he would be rendered speechless on learning that truth, if it exists at all, has been rendered irrelevant or even intolerable and must be done away with. We now have “thought leaders” who do not and cannot think, spokespersons who blather about whatever happens to be “trending”, politicians who understand that every aspect of life is just theater. All of it contrived to satisfy a population that has been conditioned to exhibit an attention span of mere seconds and trained to react to frequent “jolts” in the form of images, noises and slogans.
Postman’s notion that the medium determines the nature of the information it carries is surely best demonstrated by Twitter: duration of message truncated, relevance negligible, context absent, factuality nowhere in sight, corroboration unavailable, authorship obscure, accountability none, distribution instantaneous and vast. A realm ideally suited to enable demagogues of all stripes to take power and do with the rest of us what they will.
Postman offers vague hints at steps that might be taken to limit the damage and possibly restore some measure of content, context and relevance into the discourse of our time, suggesting that our schools could serve to counterbalance the effects of Television. He sees educators as potential leaders in such an endeavor. But what he also could not know is that computers, having invaded both the home and the classroom, have further complicated the issue. It turns out that television was just one stage in the downward spiral.
Conclusion: Huxley’s prediction in “Brave New World” has been proven correct.This book is a Cri de Coeur lamenting the proliferation of wholesale entertainment in place of knowledge and reasoned discourse, a change that began with the advent of electrical communication and progressed with the transmission of images. Having…
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Feb 09, 2022
Comment:
The first question that comes to mind is: what was Glover’s objective in writing a fictionalized account of the life and work of George Orwell? There have been numerous biographies, countless essays and commentaries. And no arms-length account of the creative process that culminated in “1984” could possibly approach the sheer terror that reading Orwell’s masterpiece induces in most readers, including myself. So Glover ran the risk of delivering something that could scarcely even become a pale shadow of Orwell’s work. As an individual, Orwell does not come across here as an extraordinarily interesting person. He worked his way through the political ferment of the 1930s, even taking part in the Spanish Civil War. His struggles as a writer, even including his fatal illness from TB, were in no way unique. His personal and political beliefs were very much a product of his times.
Part 1 tells much more about the politically chaotic 1930’s than it does about Orwell. It was a time of violent confrontation between competing ideologies, with Fascists, Communists and warring factions within both camps aggressively seeking ascendancy. Despite claiming to promote diametrically opposite models for organizing society, all of the warring factions would ultimately betray their supposed ideals and institute brutal dictatorships wherever they took power, regimes characterized by wholesale murder, terrorized populations, purges and iron fisted repression of dissent in any form. In effect, there became little to differentiate the regimes of Stalin and Hitler.
But of course, none of this is news to us today, and that whole first section offers little insight into Orwell or his motivation apart from accounting for his disillusionment with the world he found himself inhabiting. I found that part of the book haphazard, fragmentary and a bit dull — but the book improves considerably beginning with Part 2. Whether Orwell's encounters with some of the leading figures of his day (such as H G Wells) actually took place in the way that Glover imagines, those episodes add color and they place Orwell within the context of the prevailing intellectual thought of his day, especially during WW2.
Perhaps the most striking theme arising out of Orwell’s writing is his deep despair at the wholesale and deliberate destruction of objective truth that has been carried out by totalitarian regimes. Once truth has been abolished, any action taken by those in power is by definition correct and justified. The “Big Lie” continues to this day to be demagogues’ most potent weapon. Everyone is compelled to believe what they are told, independent thought becomes a crime and opposition in any form becomes impossible. Human life is rendered worthless.
Both Animal Farm and 1984 are cautionary tales. They warn us that every revolution that succeeds in removing an existing regime replaces it with a tyrannical dictatorship that is usually more oppressive than the one it usurped. The top priority of the new order, fearing to be overthrown, is to remain in power. Its best guarantee of doing so is to establish a brutal police state where even the thought of opposition is a crime punishable by instant liquidation.
Regrettably, Orwell’s warning has since been ignored over and again. Few of the self-appointed ‘intellectuals’ (and none of the guys with guns) who initiate political upheavals have the patience, skills or integrity to work within existing regimes to incrementally make them less bad, which is the only way that the lives of peoples can be made better. That inconvenient truth does not emerge in Glover’s book. Perhaps that would have been too much to expect, since even Orwell himself felt that he had failed to convince many of a better way to bring about social improvement.The first question that comes to mind is: what was Glover’s objective in writing a fictionalized account of the life and work of George Orwell? There have been numerous biographies, countless essays and commentaries. And no arms-length account of…
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Jan 27, 2022
Comment:
Impossible not to recall the works of Victor Hugo. Diaz presents us with an iconic, tortured giant, an outcast from the society of men, an outsized Jean Valjean, a misnamed, misunderstood Hunchback, victim of his own imaginings and a creature to be both feared and despised.
But I do not mean to place this novel on a par with those masterpieces. Brilliantly written as it is, the book does not make for a placid or uplifting reading experience — primarily because it deals in inconvenient truth. And fair warning: It requires a stronger stomach than many readers may possess. I had to put it aside several times, ready to abandon it out of sheer horror. Fatalistic, brutal, Diaz’ account of early America and the thugs, bloody-minded settlers, quasi-religious misfits, scoundrels and schemers who made the country into what it is, reveals much about the American psyche. While elegantly proposed in lofty terms as a land ”dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”, experience over two and a half centuries has made clear that America is and has ever been a land of the gun, the boss and the buck. Into this chaotic, frequently lawless stew-pot steps a naïve, unlettered, unsure youth, lacking the language of the land, uncomfortable with his own physical power. This cannot possibly end well.
Do I over-reach in assigning such a starkly political and sociological interpretation to this novel? Perhaps. Others may disagree with me but that’s the way it spoke to me. This is, after all set in the nation that has created the holding facility at Guantanamo Bay.
Nevertheless, the book has much to recommend it. I’ve never before read such a consummate account of a man suffering from PTSD. Diaz’ invocation of the overwhelming vastness and merciless character of the unsettled plains is the equal of a Carmac McCarthy. And most poignant for me was Håkan’s first encounter with a lone honeybee, harbinger of agricultural man, after his years of wandering entirely alone in the wilderness, desperate to avoid having to face members of his own species.
Perhaps what makes the novel so compelling is its true-to-life story arc, a seemingly implacable series of setbacks, as Håkan, seeking to head east, is always thrust back westward, swept downstream by the forces of geography, climate, migration, lies, a hostile society and even his own inner demons. As with Valjean and Quasimodo, he cannot escape his fate.Impossible not to recall the works of Victor Hugo. Diaz presents us with an iconic, tortured giant, an outcast from the society of men, an outsized Jean Valjean, a misnamed, misunderstood Hunchback, victim of his own imaginings and a creature to be…
Islands of AbandonmentIslands of Abandonment, BookNature Rebounding in the Post-human Landscape
by Flyn, CalBook - 2021 | First American edition.Book, 2021. First American edition.
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Jan 10, 2022
Comment:
Having just finished reading John Green’s “The Anthropocene Reviewed” it seemed logical for me to move right along into this, a discussion of what often happens to pockets of our world after mankind’s powerful influence is removed. Does nature reassert control? Can things revert to a pre-anthropocene state?
Sites being reclaimed by nature are of course to be found everywhere, if we care to look. I recall one such from my youth, a piece of marginal farmland that had been excavated into a maze of gravel pits. Over the twenty-odd years since the site had been abandoned, nature had gradually reclaimed it. First to arrive were the common weeds, the ones with wind-blown seeds — milkweed, thistles, goats-beard and such, soon followed by the ‘pioneer’ trees and shrubs — aspen, viburnum, serviceberry, dogwood. As the trees and shrubs established cover, hundreds, probably thousands of other species were able to move in, mullein and colts-foot clinging to dry heaps of sand while masses of buttercups and bulrushes grew at the water’s edge. And there was water everywhere, the element most essential for life. Frogs, toads and mudpuppies thrived among the cattails. I even spotted a five-lined skink now and then, a species considered at risk nowadays. And where there are marsh plants, water-holes and the hordes of insects that inhabit them, there are sure to be birds, dominated by the ubiquitous redwing blackbirds, one of my favorites with their cheerful kon-kereee!
So, yes, Cal Flyn has unearthed a number of such sites that have regenerated in new ways after having been abused and then abandoned by man. That’s the good news. But in the end, this is a dystopian story in the worst possible sense, since this is not fiction and it isn’t about some ghastly future. All of the places she writes about exist today and let’s face the “inconvenient truth”: most of these sites cannot be “fixed” by nature — or by any known process of human intervention either. Humanity has, for centuries treated the earth as if it had a limitless capacity to absorb every kind of desecration imaginable. Vast quantities of the most toxic substances known have been dumped, materials that do not simply decay or reconvert into less harmful forms but remain in soil, air, water and the bodies of all living things. Precious water resources have been diverted, wasted, polluted, at times creating rivers that caught on fire and chemical deserts where no living thing can survive. Yes, there is vegetation surrounding Chernobyl, but it can never be returned to a safe environment for man or beast. What has been done to Paterson NJ is a gigantic environmental crime, with those left behind having to suffer the penalty; it is never going to morph into a healthy landscape. “The evil that men do lives after them ….” said Marcus Antonius and he was right on.
So this book deserves to have the classic two masks of theater displayed on its cover. Regrettably, the tragedy here far outweighs any optimism Val Flyn sought to offer.Having just finished reading John Green’s “The Anthropocene Reviewed” it seemed logical for me to move right along into this, a discussion of what often happens to pockets of our world after mankind’s powerful influence is removed. Does nature…
The Anthropocene ReviewedThe Anthropocene Reviewed, BookEssays on A Human-centered Planet
by Green, JohnBook - 2021 | Signed edition.Book, 2021. Signed edition.
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Jan 08, 2022
Comment:
It seems to me that any good essay ought to be a parable, a discussion set within the framework of some substantive thing, be it butterflies, lipstick or road signs — or even something as elusive as friendship or Japanese tea ceremony — all of it being used as a launching pad from which to propound a philosophical, ethical or esthetic argument. If one accepts that as a general premise, this is a pretty good set of essays — at least when compared with the works of some of the more famous essayists, which tend to be pretty heavy going and can seldom be tolerated in large doses. Green (mercifully) has selected as diverse a set of case studies as one is likely to encounter, ranging from Halley’s Comet to Piggly Wiggly to the Bonneville Salt Flats. At the same time, despite such a broad spectrum of ideas, he has managed to maintain a single common theme, an investigation of the Anthropocene era and man’s experience within it; had he concentrated (as one might have feared) on the devastation being wrought upon our world by mankind, it could easily have turned into a tiresome diatribe.
An essay is unavoidably a very personal explication of the writer’s point of view, a revelation of the writer’s character, experiences, beliefs, phobias, likes and dislikes. Here, Green reveals quite a lot about himself, his ills, his personal history. What we learn here (e.g. that he suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder and that he started out in training for the clergy) helps us to understand how he has arrived at the opinions he expresses and why he cares so deeply about mankind’s fate. John Green is clearly a far more complex person than would be suggested by reading his YA novels. As would likely be unavoidable in such a set of essays, especially by one who often suffers from depression, Green eventually (in “Sycamore Trees”) addresses the question of whether life has meaning — or as he expresses it, “What’s even the point?” I don’t suppose he comes any closer to an answer than many others who have posed the question but I think he manages the discussion well — and leaves on an optimistic note.
A couple of his statements stuck in my mind:
On growing up, he says: "One of the strange things about adulthood is that you are your current self, but you are also all the selves you used to be, the ones you grew out of but can’t ever quite get rid of."
On man’s incessant striving, he writes: "I know we’ve left scars everywhere, and that our excessive desire to make and have and do and say and go and get — six of the seven most common verbs in English — may ultimately steal away our ability to be, the most common verb in English."
Some readers might object to Green’s constant stream of quotes; for him, “reading and rereading are an everlasting apprenticeship.” And of course, he does like to digress but he always manages to find his way back to the point of the discussion. I can’t say that I found every one of his quotes pertinent within the context but there are several that prompt me to further explore the quoted sources and the ideas that they introduce, so I consider them to have fulfilled their purpose.
One might regard the notion of assigning a 1 to 5 star rating to each of his selections as a gimmick; never mind; it has no significant bearing on the essays themselves and I suppose it’s every bit as valid as what I and my fellow readers do with the books we read.
I give The Anthropocene Reviewed four stars.It seems to me that any good essay ought to be a parable, a discussion set within the framework of some substantive thing, be it butterflies, lipstick or road signs — or even something as elusive as friendship or Japanese tea ceremony — all of it…
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Dec 18, 2021
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This book has received mixed reviews; those anticipating another as stunning as "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" may be disappointed, but "The Music Shop" does have its own special merits. The protagonist in each of Rachel Joyce’s novels marches to a beat of a drum unheard by those around them. So, each reader’s reaction to her books may depend on how they react to the protagonist.
Frank is one of those troubled souls who have never quite fitted in. The mainstream of everyday human relationships has him spooked, it seems hell-bent in directions to which he cannot bring himself to go. His dogged determination to sell only vinyl records is symbolic of his alienation. So I loved the guy from the get-go, probably because he so much reminded me of myself. I too have often felt like a stranger in whatever situation that I found myself placed — especially in my youth. Frank’s shop is his refuge from a world where he will be forever a stranger in a strange land. And it’s only a fellow stranger, a mysterious woman like Ilse who may be able to entice Frank out of his cave and turn him to face the greater world. He is, like myself, the product of a peculiar upbringing. He may find his way into a fuller life but at heart he will remain the cloistered soul that he first became as a child.
It seems to me that Rachel Joyce is a writer who is determined to FINISH her stories, round up all the loose pieces and set them into their right places (e.g. after completing Harold Fry’s pilgrimage, surely a complete story in itself, she wasn’t satisfied: she told the story all over again from a different pov with "The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy"). In the Music Shop, she goes on to “Side D” and a “Hidden Track” at the end, when the story could just as well have been left as is at the end of Side C. (Other readers may of course disagree)
A strong 3 stars.This book has received mixed reviews; those anticipating another as stunning as "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" may be disappointed, but "The Music Shop" does have its own special merits. The protagonist in each of Rachel Joyce’s novels…
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Dec 07, 2021
Comment:
Although some of these pieces were worked on over many years, the collection in its finished state is clearly the work of an aging man. That infuses the poems with a certain prevailing flavor — acceptance, repose, honesty. Some pieces are ironic while a few retain the dregs of desire or long gone anger.
The second section, the Lyrics are exactly that, the bases of songs and they cry out for musical accompaniment. Whatever other forms of genius Cohen was blessed with, a great composer he was not. One would hope that some talented musicians may seize upon a few of these gems and set them to the tunes they deserve — especially “Never Got to Love You”, “Almost Like the Blues” and “I Didn’t Have Your Love”. I could name a dozen others others from this book, songs as good as anything written in the past several decades.
Along with the many poems, notes and fragments, the book includes numerous sketches and self-portraits that reveal so much about the man, his personality, his state of mind. One of those sketches is accompanied by Cohen’s hand written caption dated 2/4/03:
"Everything will come back in the wrong light, completely misunderstood and I will be seen as the man I devoted much of my life to not being."
There are so many excerpts I could quote but I’ll choose just one:
I pray for courage
Now I’m old
To greet the sickness
And the cold
I pray for courage
In the night
To bear the burden
Make it light
I pray for courage
In the time
When suffering comes and
Starts to climb
I pray for courage
At the end
To see death coming
As a friend
A poet for our times.Although some of these pieces were worked on over many years, the collection in its finished state is clearly the work of an aging man. That infuses the poems with a certain prevailing flavor — acceptance, repose, honesty. Some pieces are ironic…
A Spindle SplinteredA Spindle Splintered, Book
by Harrow, Alix E.Book - 2021 | First edition.Book, 2021. First edition.
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Dec 04, 2021
Comment:
Reading this would at first seem akin to riding one of those kiddie trains that tootle around shopping malls around Christmas time; no mental effort required, all you need do is turn pages, keep your eyes moving and wait for the end of the circuit to get off. Nothing unpleasant about it and it’s mildly entertaining. But then, it starts to go sideways and what starts out as a breezy bit of fantasy in a tough-chick voice aimed at a YA audience begins to take on some substance.
Not my usual fare but it held my attention to the end. Harrow’s writing style is crisp and colorful, her characters artfully drawn and she negotiates through a plot that could easily have careened off the rails — without a tight rein, fantasy can quickly become sheer silliness. In the midst of what is, after all a frantic, over-the-top tale requiring total suspension of disbelief, Harrow keeps bringing the focus back to reality without darkening the mood.
"I don’t know about the moral arc of the universe but our arcs sure as hell don’t bend toward justice.
Unless we change them. Unless we grab our narratives by the ear and drag them kicking and screaming toward better endings. Maybe the universe doesn’t naturally bend toward justice either; maybe it’s only the weight of hands and hearts pulling it true, inch by stubborn inch."
(Do I hear echoes of John Green?)
I don’t believe it’s a spoiler to say that the end of the book brought to mind Waterson’s unforgettable final episode of “Calvin and Hobbes”, where the two pals sail across the snow on their toboggan: “A day full of possibilities! It’s a magical world, Hobbes ol’ buddy … let’s go exploring!”
Smart, creative, lots of fun!Reading this would at first seem akin to riding one of those kiddie trains that tootle around shopping malls around Christmas time; no mental effort required, all you need do is turn pages, keep your eyes moving and wait for the end of the circuit…
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Nov 28, 2021
Comment:
One of the most perplexing issues that each of us must face at some point in our lives is that of finding ways to express what is almost inexpressible, our innermost thoughts, our most personal desires, fears, obsessions, failings; the inner self that no one around us, even those most intimately connected with us cannot truly know. Inoue here endeavors to personify that hidden inner being, through his protagonists, in the form of a snake. Whether he is successful must be determined by each of his readers.
The oddest thing about this epistolary novella is perhaps its title, which can be off-puttingly oblique. As with several other writers of Japanese origin, Inoue is liable to seem austere to western readers at first encounter. His introduction via a poem addressed to hunters is without doubt a roundabout way of getting at what turns out to be an emotionally intense human drama. Each of the three letters addressed to Misuge reveals a great deal of the correspondents’ persona and their inner turmoil. And yet, in the end, despite having revealed all of this, Misuge himself remained (for me) an enigmatic figure.One of the most perplexing issues that each of us must face at some point in our lives is that of finding ways to express what is almost inexpressible, our innermost thoughts, our most personal desires, fears, obsessions, failings; the inner self…
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Nov 26, 2021
Comment:
While reading these stories, it’s helpful to imagine them being read aloud by Atwood in her unique sardonic drawl. At some point she must have known a callow poet the likes of Gavin in the first tale; he is so realistically drawn. Her aging characters cling to nostalgia for their lost youth in the ‘60s, a time when Toronto was just waking up and beginning to perceive itself as a cool place to be. They recall a now long gone Riverboat (actually a grotty hole as I recall it) haunted by hairy guys trying to become poets and bra-less girls in long straight hair and tie-dyed shirts (Ah, yes!)
Atwood is obviously having a great deal of fun here, sending up today’s trendy fantasy franchises with their deliberately ludicrous rituals and scuzzy villains (Skinrot the Time Swallower? Really?) And concocting wickedly appropriate come-uppances to be visited upon her more odious characters. She revels in the tragicomic absurdities of old age, the games we play to kid ourselves into at least pretending that we’ve still “got it”. Tin muses on his sister’s ill-considered hairstyling choices: "The hair compromise he finally agreed to is a white strip on the left side — geriatric punk, he’d whispered to himself — with, recently, the addition of an arresting scarlet patch. The total image is that of an alarmed skunk trapped in the floodlights after an encounter with a ketchup bottle."
But in the end, of course this is still Atwood, post "The Handmaid’s tale". When she’s finished entertaining us by parading her wit, she wallops us with a final tale, one that may well foretell a horrific near future, a settling of accounts, the final collapse of the social contract that has been crumbling for years.While reading these stories, it’s helpful to imagine them being read aloud by Atwood in her unique sardonic drawl. At some point she must have known a callow poet the likes of Gavin in the first tale; he is so realistically drawn. Her aging…
Under the Whispering DoorUnder the Whispering Door, Book
by Klune, TJBook - 2021 | First edition.Book, 2021. First edition.
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Nov 20, 2021
Comment:
I'm having some difficulty commenting on this book; to begin with, do I choose to set aside my normal skepticism and take the story seriously? I don't mean to denigrate a book into which Klune obviously devoted a great deal of effort, but let's face it, this is sheer fantasy, speculation about some magical way-station between life and whatever may come after one's physical death. And it's elaborately contrived, to say the least, so all views one might take about it are valid. It would be easy to scoff and set it aside.
And yet, it's a pretty heavy load of stuff for a fantasy novel to carry: death, grieving, loss, anger, confusion, terror, regret; and sexual identity and queer love thrown in for good measure. Klune is a bold writer. And he is to be applauded for having written such a story without falling into any discussion of religious beliefs; had he not managed to pull that off, I certainly would have abandoned the book very quickly. As soon as religion intrudes on such a topic, all reasoned discussion comes to an abrupt end and it's no fun; faith and tolerance of other views seldom mix well within a single paragraph.
Klune went to great lengths to make his story — despite its central thesis and bizarre setting — remarkably realistic, even credible. And yet, the writing is surprisingly uneven in places, where he seems to have drifted off track, introducing bits of outright silliness that I found jarring. Some of the interchanges between Wallace and Nelson, episodes with the ghost dog, Mei's temperamental outbursts seem to have been intended as comic relief; and of course there's the introduction of an outrageous, would-be spiritualist medium. But all of that fell flat for me.
To sum up: an intriguing and at times uplifting tale, well worth reading; but not as inspiring as T. J. Klune intended. I would be interested to hear other readers' views about it, especially in comparison with some of Mitch Albom's work.
A strong 3+ stars.I'm having some difficulty commenting on this book; to begin with, do I choose to set aside my normal skepticism and take the story seriously? I don't mean to denigrate a book into which Klune obviously devoted a great deal of effort, but let's face…
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Nov 13, 2021
Comment:
Taking the notion of an unreliable narrator to a whole new level, McEwan has concocted a thoroughly vicious little piece of theater. A deeply cynical piece, populated by a couple of the most amoral, self-absorbed, slovenly jerks I've yet to encounter in literature, along with a narrator who, despite his tender age, exhibits a similar measure of moral ambiguity, wishing, as it were, to aid the villains for the sake of his own welfare.
I find McEwan (as I do with Proust or John Williams) easy to admire but difficult to like — hence my middling 3 stars, a shrug rather than either praise or denunciation.
Needless to say, suspension of disbelief is entirely necessary; shelving it as fantasy is the only choice that makes sense. I suppose one could stretch a point and equate it to Greek tragedy, in this case a fetus assuming the role of the chorus, commenting on the action without taking an active part in the proceedings. McEwan cannot resit the opportunity of philosophizing, tossing in the occasional epigram about topics such as wishful thinking: "But here's life's most limiting truth — it's always now, always here, never then and there." Or about the paradox of faith: "Long ago someone pronounced groundless certainty a virtue."
As for the prurient possibilities of the fetus finding himself right in the middle of the sexual action as it were, perhaps the less said, the better.Taking the notion of an unreliable narrator to a whole new level, McEwan has concocted a thoroughly vicious little piece of theater. A deeply cynical piece, populated by a couple of the most amoral, self-absorbed, slovenly jerks I've yet to…
The Midnight LibraryThe Midnight Library, Book
by Haig, MattBook - 2020 | First Canadian edition.Book, 2020. First Canadian edition.
wyenotgo's rating:
Added Nov 04, 2021
Comment:
Well! Comparisons with Mitch Albom are unavoidable. And, with regret, I contend that Albom does it quite a bit better and in fewer words. Aimed at the same audience, this book is likely to be appreciated by many of the same people as those who appreciate Albom — except for a few mavericks like me who prefer the genuine article. Even Albom and his brand of magical fable can be a bit too much of a muchness with his “revelatory lessons about life”. By escalating the genre to another level, Haig is not making it more palatable.
In addition to Haig’s prose, which seems to me lacking in the crispness of Albom, I’m also troubled by his protagonist, who simply comes across as a whiner. Surely the phrase “If only I hadn’t ….” is the most futile and aggravating phrase in the entire English language. And living with (even worse, wallowing in) regrets is an egregious waste of a person’s precious one-and-only gift of life.
One extra star for creativity in presenting possible parallel lives in the form of a library that operates in the absence of time, between life and death.Well! Comparisons with Mitch Albom are unavoidable. And, with regret, I contend that Albom does it quite a bit better and in fewer words. Aimed at the same audience, this book is likely to be appreciated by many of the same people as those who…
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