Category: reading recommendations

My 2023 Reading: PART I

This pile contains many of the books I read, dipped into or (gasp!) abandoned during the early months of 2023. I rely quite heavily on my kindle, however, when I’m traveling, so I’ve also been reading quite a few e-books this year, mostly beloved old things that are now scarce or out of print.

My heavens, dear readers! Can it possibly be early July? Is the year half-way over already? And me without a single review to my name for 2023? However could such a shameful state of affairs happen? Well . . .

The year did not begin for me on an auspicious note. Nothing wrong in a major way, but the New Year found me feeling a certain ennui that is generally rather foreign to my nature, especially when it comes to books. Have you ever had a period in which you struggled to read? That despite having piles and piles of lovely unread books, chosen with great excitement (and, in many cases, considerable expense), you just didn’t feel like reading any of them? This was precisely my mood as the new year rolled around. Despite an enormous TBR list that offered endless possibilities for new discoveries (not to mention fun), I’m afraid the beginning of 2023 found me in zombie mode as far as reading was concerned. Usually I love January, with its buzz of bookish Challenges; typically I spend several intensely pleasurable days pawing through my treasures and making totally unrealistic reading plans for the upcoming year. Not so this January! The arrival of 2023 saw me twiddling my thumbs, bored (actually bored) with my books and not even beginning a single new novel. Quelle horreur!

Despite this, I did manage to read a few things simply by powering through my malaise (not to be trendy, but I suppose you could say I leaned into it) — not reading much, by my standards; but reading. Like nursing an illness, I made reading easy on myself by picking only a few things by authors I had previously enjoyed. I also re-read several books or novellas I had liked or admired in the past and picked fiction heavy on character and stylistic elegance, the main features that attract me in novels. In short, I marked time until my reading mojo chose to reappear! By February, and the discovery of some truly great novels things were definitely looking up. Although I still didn’t feel like reviewing anything myself, I did resume reading some of your lovely blog posts and leaving a comment here and there. All in all, it was an incredible relief to find my bookish life ever so slowly returning to normal.

As far as posting was concerned, however, I’m afraid my recovery’s remained incomplete. As I suspect some of you know, it’s hard to get back into blogging after a break, particularly when other, very enjoyable activities are calling your name! Chief among these has been travel, as Mr. J. and I have slowly emerged from our covid cocoon, dusted off our passports and resumed our (very) mild wanderings on the earth. I’ve also been spending much more energy & time on art history and nature , centering the travel when possible on these long-time hobbies of mine (Bernini’s David! The Ghent altarpiece! The Iiwi!) Loads of fun, but definitely not conductive to keeping the blog current! (When I do Part II of this Post, hopefully in a few days, I may throw in some of Mr. J’s excellent photos. Other than that, I won’t bore you with details).

But enough of the mea culpa — time to talk about books! Even in low energy times I generally keep a sort of running list of the books I’ve read. This year, contrary to my usual practice, my list has actually morphed into a hybrid between a list and a journal, as it frequently included my brief impressions/assessments of what I was reading as well as how it slotted into my life at the time I was reading it. Working from this, I decided to post an overview of my 2023 reading as this seemed the least painful way to ease myself back into blogging. While I’ve retained my journal’s chronological format & style, I’ve done some mild editing & expanded several entries to reflect additional thoughts about certain books that I found particularly interesting. TBH, dear readers, the whole thing is a bit of a hodgepodge, but I’ve thrown in some photos & headings that should make it easier for you to navigate to particular items you might find interesting, or to click away from those that you don’t. I’ve also resisted the temptation to leave out some of my (ahem!) “lighter” choices. After all, I can’t be the only one out there who loves Georgette Heyer, pulp sci-fi of a certain vintage and the occasional chick lit best seller, can I?

JANUARY 2023: STRUGGLING THROUGH SLUMP MONTH

Don’t you love Melville House novellas? Aside from their convenient size (so handy to pop into a purse or backpack) the colors alone are enough to jolt one out of a slump! My overflowing TBR pile includes almost all of Melville’s “art of the novella” series, so it was natural enough I’d go to my stash to read Kate Chopin’s best known work. Did you know that few, if any, of Chopin’s contemporaries had anything good to say about Awakening, with even Willa Cather criticizing it as immoral? The backlash was so heavy, in fact, that it ended poor Kate’s hitherto successful writing career. Even in zombie mode, I adored Awakening and am now eager to read some of Chopin’s other works. Any recommendations? I’m inclined to begin with this little book of short stories (issued by Counterpoint Press) but I’m open to other suggestions.

I began the New Year with a re-read of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, whose novella length and status as a re-read made it a perfect beginning for my apathetic, low energy month. Chopin’s Louisiana setting was an additional attraction; I lived in New Orleans many years ago, loved the place and felt in the mood to revisit the city through the eyes of Edna Pontellier, Chopin’s protagonist. I was also interested in comparing my present reaction to the novel to that when I first encountered it many years ago. The first time around (before I lived in New Orleans, I might add) I’d literally raced through Awakening; to my shame, I was mostly relieved to cross it off my list and move on to the next newly discovered feminist classic. In other words, I’d liked it in a rather mild kind of way but wasn’t particularly impressed. What a difference a second reading can make, particularly when it comes so much later in life! This time I savored practically every phrase, awed by Chopin’s skill with the language and her boldness in depicting the limitations of the world inhabited by her protagonist, trapped in her beautiful doll house and meaningless life. Chopin’s beautiful style, her ability to create atmosphere and her sheer honesty about, and insight into, her Edna’s psychology are leagues beyond what so many of her contemporaries were churning out. How could such a marvelous writer have been so thoroughly forgotten for so long?

WILL ONE OF MY FAVORITE AUTHORS BREAK THROUGH MY JANUARY ENNUI?

I’ve loved William Trevor’s fiction since I first read Felicia’s Journey, back in the 1990s. As you can see I have a little Trevor Trove (groan) of his work, minus several novels I very reluctantly discarded (I had read them) during my long distance move a few years ago. Did resorting to a beloved master shake me out of my reading malaise? Well . . .

I Was delighted when Cathy746 announced a year of “Reading William Trevor,” as it reminded me of how very much I love his work. Surely reading something, anything, from such an old favorite, a master of style and psychology, would restore my reading enthusiasm! Sad to say, my remedy failed. No reflection on William, he remains as great as ever in my estimation, but even his considerable literary power wasn’t enough to break through my apathy, particularly when the latter was combined with a truly nasty, late January sinus infection. I wanted to save Felicia’s Journey and After Rain, two of my all time favorites, for happier times, wasn’t in the mood for short stories (so difficult to decide which to read first, n’est-ce pas?) and didn’t have the energy to embark on a totally new novel. After a certain amount of apathetic dithering about, I returned to two Trevor works that I’d first read decades ago. I picked these two because I’d liked both very much but remembered very little about the plot of either.

I began with Two Lives, which contains two separate and seemingly unrelated novellas under one cover. The novellas are a study in contrast — as each explores two very different protagonists — are set in wildly different locales and strike very different emotional chords. My House In Umbria begins with the reminiscences of Mrs. Emily Delahunty, now retired from her career as a lady of pleasure in colonial Africa to the serenity of the Italian countryside (as Mrs. Delahunty explains early on, she’s used many different names over the years and the “Mrs.” is a courtesy title; “strictly speaking” she’s never been married). Ensconced in a charming Umbrian villa, and ably assisted by her rather sinister factotum Quinty (one of Trevor’s great minor characters) she occasionally assists the local hotels when they’re overbooked by taking guests at her villa. Mostly, however, Mrs. Delahunty spends her days writing florid and very successful romance novels. All goes reasonably well until, suffering from writer’s block (she’s unable to flesh out her new novel, tentatively titled “Ceaseless Tears”) & looking for inspiration, Mrs. Delahunty boards the wrong train at the wrong time. After surviving the ensuing terrorist attack that kills many of her fellow passengers, she impulsively and generously offers accommodation at her villa to the survivors (Quinty, less generous, ensures that the lodging isn’t free). The heart of the novella concerns both the complex relationships that develop among the survivors as well as Mrs. Delahunty’s past, which Trevor gives to us in funny, heart-breaking and oh-so-realistic fragments, in a way that only he can do.

In contrast to the exotic Mrs. Delahunty and her Umbrian menagerie, Mary Louise Dallon of Reading Turgenev is a much less colorful and seemingly more tragic protagonist. Mary Louise is the younger daughter of poor farmers who “struggled * * * to keep their heads above water” (page 4) in the dwindling Protestant community of a small Irish hamlet in the mid-1950s. Realizing that her dream of being a shop assistant in town is unobtainable, Mary Louise makes a marriage of convenience to a much older man (a naive thirty-five to her naive twenty-one) who’s one of the few Protestant bachelors in her community. After enduring years of a loveless and miserable-to-both-parties marriage, Mary Louise secretly begins to visit her invalid cousin Robert, whom she had not seen since childhood. During these surreptitious visits, Robert exposes Mary Louise to the literature and poetry, particularly the works of Turgenev, which had been the solace and comfort of his restricted and lonely life. As the two bond, Mary Louise becomes aware through the fiction they read of a world that transcends her own grim existence and experiences, for the first time, the comfort of having another human being who listens and understands her as no one else has ever done. After Robert dies unexpectedly, Mary Louise fashions his memory into an image of the great love that she believes they were destined to share. Her iron determination to own this memory, to keep and shape it for herself, insulates her from the assaults of her quotidian life and leads to tragic results. Or — does it? It’s part of Trevor’s greatness that he doesn’t leave the reader with an easy answer to this question.

When I first encountered Mrs. Delahunty and Mary Louise oh, so many years ago, it didn’t occur to me to ask the the obvious question of why Trevor paired these two novellas (Readers, I was quite young at the time!). Particularly with a novelist to whom character is so important, their juxtaposition suggests linkages between the two very different protagonists and their worlds. Using contrasts to heighten differences is an obvious and very old trick; it also seems an insufficient reason to pair these two novellas for a writer as subtle as Trevor. To me, the two lives, so very different on the surface, are actually quite alike in a very fundamental way. Despite their obvious differences, the paths taken by both women demonstrate the power of fiction and of the imagination in enabling us to transcend the mundane and often painful “realities” of our lives. Mrs. Delahunty, the product of a sordid past and unspeakable abuse, very consciously fashions sentimental stories with happy endings that allow her and her readers to escape, if only briefly, from their own lives into a reality that’s been shaped more to their likening. Mary Louise uses the literature she shared with Robert as a gateway to a world far removed from the horror of her daily life and as the foundation for fashioning her ideal of an eternal, transcendent love that she was destined to experience. Is the way these two very dissimilar women use art/literature a positive or negative thing? Trevor seems to suggest that it’s both.

It’s always interesting to re-read a work after a being away from it for many years; re-reading exposes lapses in memory, changes in sympathy and, occasionally, a greater appreciation of the writer’s craft. When I first read Two Lives, I preferred Umbria for its black humor and the clever way Trevor had Mrs. Delahunty unknowingly reveal so much about herself that she would have clearly preferred to keep private. I actually thought, first time around, that Turgenev was a bit boring, in a well written kind of way. My reaction on re-reading, however, was wildly different. Although I still enjoyed Umbria’s mix of irony, pathos & dark humor (it is very funny at times), this time around it was Turgenev that blew me away (irrelevant aside: Trevor was nominated for the Booker for this work but lost; how could that possibly be?). Last year (or was it the year before? too lazy, I’m afraid, to look it up), I read and very much enjoyed Claire Keegan’s Foster & Small Things Like These. Re-reading Turgenev reminded me very much of the tradition Claire Keegan is working in; her work is almost the equal of Trevor’s in its subtlety, psychological insight and craft. For me, there’s no greater praise.

Despite my renewed appreciation of Trevor, however, Two Lives failed to restore my joie de livre. Operating on the theory that, if one Trevor didn’t work, I might as well double down on a second, I went for a re-read of The Silence In The Garden. Again, I remembered little from my earlier encounter with this tale of decaying Anglo-Irish aristocrats in 1930s Ireland, haunted by something akin to blood guilt. Rich (perhaps a little too much so) in metaphors, Garden isn’t one of my favorite Trevor novels. Nevertheless, it’s a good story, beautifully written, and has some amazingly well-drawn characters (check out “Holy” Mullihan, a sadistic goon who’s a master in using religion to cloak his bullying). Second time through, I found Garden definitely worth the time, although I’d not place it at the top of my personal list of Trevor favorites.

WHERE DO I GO AFTER WILLIAM TREVOR?

*Three more of my “just powering through the slump” reads (the Trollope novels in the background date from a more energetic & ambitious period) . . . .*

I first encountered Laura van den Berg almost a decade ago, when I read her short story “Opa-locka” in one of those “best of the year” anthologies. LVDB’s elegiac melancholy, combined with her ability to depict a reality that was just a bit off-kilter quite haunted me; she immediately won a spot on my reading radar and I resolved to check out more of her work. But — we all know what happens to those good intentions about our TBR list, don’t we? I would probably never have gotten to I Hold A Wolf By The Ears without the enthusiasm of my good friend Silvia, who read and loved this collection (thank you, Silvia!) As with any collection of short stories, I liked some more than others, but none was a dud. How to resist a writer who begins a story (“Last Night”) with the words “I want to tell you about the night I got hit by a train and I died”?

Still operating on reading autopilot, I cast about rather desperately for something short and undemanding to read. I settled on J.L. Carr’s A Month In The Country, which had been tempting me for a very, very long time. Did it live up to expectations? Well, yes and no. Despite my grumpy, listless mood I found it to be a lovely read. It was tinged with a most appealing nostalgia, with its protagonist’s remembrance, many years later, of events that would have altered his life had he acted differently. Carr is a wonderfully descriptive novelist; he made it very easy for me to visualize an English countryside in spring that I’ve never seen in reality. One aspect of the novel that I didn’t expect and that I found totally captivating was its underlying theme about the transcendent value of art and art’s endurance, despite its fragility, to the ravages of time. Despite all these good things, however, my attention did occasionally wander and I had to force myself just a teeny bit at times to continue reading. Although I could blame “the Slump” for my reservations, I don’t think I quite succumbed to the novella’s charms. Unfairly or not, I found Country perhaps just a bit too twee, its nostalgia a little too manipulatively pulling at the heart strings. Have any of you read it? If so, what did you think? Am I being a heartless curmudgeon or what?

January’s Discovery & Its February Continuation: I don’t read much poetry any more, so you can imagine my surprise when I unexpectedly became quite obsessed with Eliot’s The Wasteland. Could it be that sometimes only poetry will do? I was barely familiar with the poem, having read only a small portion of it several years back (and then only because it was required reading in a class I was taking) and had pretty much forgotten about it. For some reason, however, during a time when I was struggling to read even a novella, I became fascinated by Wasteland, which I read at least four or five times during my slump (assisted needless to say, by various cribs & guides as well as Eliot’s own very entertaining and idiosyncratic notes).

January’s “I Just Couldn’t Do It” Book:

Although I’ve very much enjoyed Wilson’s work in the past (loved The Family Fang & found his Nothing To See Here a very enjoyable skim) I put his latest aside after only seven chapters. This may have simply been a case of “wrong book at the wrong time;” perhaps I’ll give it another try later on. Or not.

FEBRUARY 2023: A FALSE START THEN — BREAK THROUGH!
Despite reading some wonderful things the previous month, February saw my reading enthusiasm at its same tepid level. Clearly time to try a nuclear option, which in my case is the “Heyer (Georgette, that is) Cure.” Georgette has gotten me though many dismal times involving airports, long flights, minor illnesses and an unspeakably horrible camping trip (culminating in an unsuccessful attempt to see a Golden Backed Mountain Tanager ). If you’re a fan of Heyer’s work, you’ll understand my passionate devotion. If not, all I can say is you’re missing some of the best comedic dialogue since Bertie Wooster met Jeeves. I decided to skip some of my very favorite Heyers (Black Sheep; The Unknown Ajax and Bath Tangle) to focus on a couple of her (IMO at least) lesser Regency Romances. Still feeling rather dismal after a quick back-to-back of these minor gems (Sprig Muslin & Friday’s Child), I quickly added The Grand Sophy, one of Heyer’s very best, to my little binge read.

The result was disappointing; despite some temporary relief, the Heyer Cure failed to jolt my reading enthusiasm back to life. At this point, having nothing to lose, I decided to try something outside my comfort zone, which does not encompass works relating to 1930s Germany. Despite my general avoidance of the WWII era, however, I’d actually been quite excited a few months previously to discover McNally Editions’ reissuance of Lion Feuchtwanger’s The Oppermanns. Although I had put it aside for other things (at the time I hadn’t felt like beginning such a lengthy novel), its wonderful cover art and glowing reviews kept it on my reading radar. In a “what do I have to lose” mode (after all, I was already pretty bored), and with re-reads and gentle choices having failed me, I decided to give it a go. And the result? Bingo! Have you ever had that special feeling, when you know, just know, right from the opening pages, that the book you’re reading is just right for you at that moment in your life? Gentle readers, my mojo was back!

Has anyone read Lion Feuchtwanger’s The Oppermanns? The little tchotchkes on either side are based on details from paintings by Hieronymus Bosch; quite appropriate, don’t you think, for a novel set during the rise of the Nazi party in Germany? I love the cover art (a removable half-flap that can do double duty as a bookmark) but haven’t been able to discover whether it’s based on an actual painting. If anyone recognizes it, do share your information.

On its most superficial level, The Oppermanns recounts the destruction of a wealthy, assimilated family of German Jewish businessmen who have been loyal and patriotic citizens of the German state since the early 19th century. Among the mementos displayed in the family’s business office is one of their proudest treasures, a framed letter from Field Marshall von Moltke thanking Emmanuel, the founder of the family business, for his services during the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s. When the novel opens, Emmanuel’s grandson Martin runs the family’s furniture business, known in Berlin for its quality goods and reasonable prices; his brother Edgar is a famous and successful doctor and Gustav, the third brother and the novel’s main POV character, is a devotee of the arts and a would-be literary biographer (a fourth brother, we learn late in the novel, perished fighting for Germany during WWI). Without reading too much into the text, it seems to me that the Oppermann brothers rather subtly embody the foundations of the German culture of their time, i.e., business, science and the arts, and their fates illustrate the decay of 1930s Germany and its vulnerability to the increasingly powerful Nazi movement. Rounding out the family picture is an Oppermann sister, who makes an occasional appearance, along with her astute & far-sighted husband, who’s regarded as not quite one of the family, being a native of eastern Europe rather than Berlin. The younger Oppermann generation is represented by Martin’s idealistic teenage son; Edgar’s daughter, who’s an increasingly passionate exponent of the Zionist movement; and Heinrich, the Oppermann brothers’ cautious and pragmatic nephew.

One of the things I particularly loved about the novel is its inclusion of characters outside the upper reaches of the wealthy and cultured haute bourgeois world in which the Oppermanns move. This opens out the story and conveys that what was happening affected an entire society and not just a rarefied and prosperous segment. Some of Feuchtwanger’s most interesting chapters (IMO at least) center on a clerk in the Oppermanns’ employment who lives in humble but contented circumstances; this ends when he runs afoul of an “Aryan” neighbor who covets his apartment. For all its length (my McNally edition clocks in at 368 pages, not counting a very helpful section of notes and a great intro by Joshua Cohen) the novel’s time frame is brief. It begins on Gustav’s fiftieth birthday in late 1932 and ends less than a year later, with the near-total destruction of the Oppermanns’ world.

Although it excels as a family saga, as well as a very realistic snapshot of a particular time and place, there’s a moral dimension to The Oppermanns that elevates it far beyond the story of individuals caught in the terrifying grip of history. Although I fear I’m mangling Joshua Cohen’s insights (his essay, if you’re interested, is available in the New York Times book review, link provided below), the novel in many ways is a meditation on identity and the testing of an individual’s character; the inhabitants of Feuchtwanger’s world, especially Gustav, question the purpose of their life and/or their duty to resist the evils of the time in which they live. In effect, Feuchtwanger asks whether one’s “work” is the completion of a literary biography (and by extension, participation in the arts); political involvement/resistance to the forces shaping one’s times; the perpetuation and survival of Jewish identity or, perhaps, self-reinvention and healing? At various times throughout his great work, Feuchtwanger suggests it is all of these things. It’s worth noting that Feuchtwanger himself had chosen to use his literary talents to serve his political beliefs, a decision for which he paid a high personal price. He wrote his novel in “real time” and about contemporary events, some of which he’d experienced at first hand (like his character Gustav, for example, Nazi goons ransacked Feuchtwanger’s house and destroyed valuable personal papers and drafts of his work). During the time in which he wrote Oppermanns, Feuchtwanger had fled Germany for life as an exile in England, been stripped of his German citizenship and seen his works banned by the Nazi party.

Although I’ve rattled on too long, I can’t leave this novel without a few words about the McNally edition shown in my photo (thanks again, Jacquiwine, for putting this publisher on my radar!). The publishing arm of the McNally Jackson bookstores in New York, McNally editions has a small but exciting list of “hidden gems” (quote & info, BTW, taken from the publisher’s website) which it reissues in beautifully produced paperback editions. Although I’m unsure of McNally’s distribution and availability, particularly outside the U.S., those of you in the U.K. with a yearning for Feuchtwanger need not despair, as Persephone has also published The Oppermanns (Book No. 136). I believe both publishers are using the same 1930 translation by James Cleugh; Joshua Cohen, however, has updated it and written a great introduction for McNally (note, however, that his NYT review is adapted from his introduction and is only a click away).

MY STREAK CONTINUES:
The only downside to reading a really great book is greed; having read something really, really good, you naturally want your next selection to be just as wonderful. And really, dear readers, how often does that happen? As if to counter balance those horrible reading weeks of early 2023, however, my next February selection was (almost) the equal of The Oppermanns.

Any Jane Gardam fans out there? If so, I’d be most interested in learning your reaction to her Old Filth Trilogy or, indeed, to any of her novels. After years of being largely indifferent to Gardam’s work, I’m now a most avid member of her fan club!

Although I’d read and (mildly) enjoyed a Jane Gardam novel several years ago, I must admit that I had trouble understanding all the fuss about her work (the novel I’d read, in fact, left so little impression on me I’ve forgotten its title). I mean, her novel was o.k., I liked it, but I certainly didn’t rush out to read more. I did try Old Filth, supposedly one of her best, but didn’t get very far. Ditto for my second attempt; in fact, I may even have tried it a third time. Having ditched the Challenges this year, I decided 2023 was my “now or never” year for Gardam and I’m so glad I did! Where has this writer been my entire life? I not only raced through Old Filth, I quickly followed it with The Man In The Wooden Hat and Last Friends. Although I think there are some weaknesses, particularly in Last Friends, the trilogy is a wonderful achievement and easily one of the best things I’ve read in ages. Gardam, was, thankfully, a fairly prolific author so I’ve lots of catching up to do regarding her back list. Any recommendations?

February’s Orphan, Abandoned For No Good Reason:

O’Donnell’s poetic style and mysterious setting hooked me in, but I’m afraid I stopped reading when the orphan cygnets showed up. I just knew something bad was going to happen to them and couldn’t face it! Has anyone read this one? Can you reassure me that the baby swans are all right at the end? If so, I’ll probably return & finish!

MARCH 2023: Back To My Usual (If Slightly More Frantic) Pace
March was another travel month, with lots of airport time. Although I sometimes read serious stuff when I travel (I once finished Joseph Roth’s The Radetzky March during a single marathon flight), on the whole I tend to stick to mysteries or to more popular contemporary works. I’m a long time fan of Ruth Rendell’s dark psychological novels (originally published under her “Barbara Vine” pseudonym) and the presence of her work on my kindle dominated March, as I read four of her twisty, clever and psychologically acute novels at various points during the month (Judgment In Stone; A Dark-Adapted Eye; House of Stairs; & King Solomon’s Carpet). In a psychologically much lighter vein, I also read and enjoyed Jenny Jackson’s much ballyhooed Pineapple Street (so reassuring, dear readers, to discover that folks with thirty-seven million dollar trust funds need love too). Last, but far from least, was Deanna Raybourne’s tale of a squad of retired female assassins, Killers of a Certain Age; perfection itself for those with five-hour layovers in Kansas City.

One of my rare forays into non-fiction:

Although I’d no intention of reading it at the time, one look at its marvelous photos and I quickly became absorbed in Seymour’s biography of Jean Rhys, I Used To Live Here Once. (Has anyone read Athill’s account of her relationship with Rhys in Stet.? It’s a marvelous picture of this most difficult artist.) Aside from including great photos and much fascinating background about the Rhys family, Seymour provides a sensitive and very readable account of Rhys’ life. Most valuable for me, however, was Seymour’s very convincing argument that Rhys, both as a woman and an artist, was much more than the protagonists she portrayed. Like many readers, I first came to Rhys via The Wide Sargasso Sea and was a little disappointed in reading her other novels to discover they were quite unlike that work! After reading this biography, I’d now like to return to Rhys’ fiction, particularly her short stories, none of which I’ve previously read.

Some Of My Other March Reads:

*One Old, one new; both very enjoyable diversions! If you’ve read either of these, do share your reactions . . .*

Although I’m not rabid about it, I do tend to like Emma Donoghue’s work & have read several of her novels. She’s an eclectic writer; one of those rare artists who produces something different with each book. I purchased this one impulsively, on one of my milder book buying binges, and had no immediate plan to read it. By early March, however, my bookish mojo was up! Looking for something easy and contemporary, I started Haven pretty much on a whim and found it (surprise!) quite absorbing. It really helped to get into the mood by recalling a bleak arctic island or two I’d seen on some past birding trips, all rocky cliffs, wild ocean and seabird nesting colonies. Although I don’t think this was a great novel (or even one of Donoghue’s best), it was a quick and enjoyable read that, surprisingly, speaks directly to some very pressing contemporary issues.

After repeated and unsuccessful attempts to read Margaret Kennedy’s The Constant Nymph (unfairly or not, I just couldn’t get into the older man/nymphet thing), I decided to approach Kennedy through a different novel, The Feast (although it’s hard to tell from the photo, this is another of those adorable McNally editions). To my surprise, I loved it! So clever, to have the novel begin with an Anglican minister writing a funeral sermon, thereby ensuring the reader is hooked into guessing for whom the sermon is intended! Clever, well written and very funny at times, I’m now up for exploring more of Kennedy’s work. Who knows? perhaps I’ll even make it through The Constant Nymph!

This was my second novel by Johnson, a writer to whom I’ve become ever-so-slightly addicted. Fortunately for me, her work seems to be enjoying a mild renaissance these days, with reissuances making her novels far easier to obtain than before (I must say, however, that I hate the cover art). Although I’m still not sure that Friend’s plot entirely worked for me, I loved Johnson’s setting, a small seaside town in Belgium, as well as her very believable depiction of a middle-aged English couple on holiday with their young son. In May, I read another Johnson novel, The Last Resort, but I’m saving my discussion of that one for Part II of my catch-up post!

March’s New Discovery:

Although curious, I’ve been hesitant to tackle Dazui’s novels. New Directions Storybook Editions, however, provides a very approachable (if rather pricey) way to try a new novelist with a minimum commitment of time. This collection includes three of Dazui’s short stories (“Early Light;” One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji” and “Villon’s Wife”), all of which I found quite interesting. I can’t say the collection converted me into an instant fan, but it did confirm my opinion hat Dazui is an author whose work I’d like to pursue.

March’s Trip Down Memory Lane:

xxxxx — If you’ve previously dipped into my blog, you probably know that I’ve a deep and abiding fondness for the horror genre (comes, no doubt, from reading Dracula at a highly impressionable age). I’m particularly addicted to folk horror, involving secret rituals in remote, forgotten villages . . .

I’d read, and enjoyed, Harvest Home when it was first published aeons ago (in the 1970s, I think) but had largely forgotten it in the years since. During a recent browse through the NYRB Classics’ website (those flash sales! totally irresistible!), I came across The Other, perhaps Tryon’s best known novel, which I’d also read shortly after encountering Harvest, but not liked as much. Acting on sheer whim, I tracked down a replacement copy of Harvest (my original having been long since discarded) and settled in for a trip down memory lane. I must admit that, second time around, I found the writing rather clunky, the descriptions sometimes just a teeny bit hackneyed (there’s been a lot of literary fiction under my bridge in the intervening years) and the story at times rather gratuitously gruesome. But — Tryon can tell a story! With no intention of reading the whole thing, I quickly became immersed in his tale of rural dark doings and didn’t come up for air until I’d finished. The years, however, have definitely affected my opinion and not particularly for the better. In addition to noticing the stylistic defects that I’ve already mentioned, I also became a little uncomfortable at the sometimes not-so-latent misogyny that pervades the story. I’d have to know you personally, dear reader, to recommend this one, but for someone such as moi, with a taste for melodramatic trash horror and no demands for subtlety, this could prove a richly rewarding reading experience!

DIPPING INTO:

Unbeknownst to me, Saltz is a very prominent art critic indeed, writing for New York magazine for many years & winning a Pultizer in 2018. This collection of essays, obits & reviews is perfect for tiny bite sized reading. His material ranges from Caravaggio to Kara Walker, so the collection has something for every artistic taste!

March’s “Just Couldn’t Do It” Books:

Isn’t it sad, when bad things happen to good books (which both of these are)? March was just the wrong time for the Murdoch. I will return! As for Arthur Philips, well, not so sure. I’ve occasionally enjoyed his work in the past, but after a hundred pages or so I just lost interest in this one.

FINALLY (PAST TIME, DON’T YOU THINK?)

If you’re still with me at this point, you deserve (1) a medal for patience and (2) a little visual treat. I hope to be returning in a few days with Part II of my 2023 reading; meanwhile, I recommend you accept this advice from Zen Master Percy:

*The zen lord of Beach Towel Mountain says “it’s time to sack out!”*

“Six In Six”: My 2021 Reading So Far

About halfway through June I discovered the very amusing “Six In Six” Challenge sponsored by Jo at Book Jotter. Since I’ve posted so very little this year while reading more than I have in quite some time, I decided this was an excellent way to share at least a little of the many great books that have come my way in what is shaping up to be a banner year for reading. Besides, isn’t quantifying one’s journey almost as much fun as undertaking the trip in the first place?

The challenge is to pick six categories and, having done so, to list six books that you’ve read by the end of June within each chosen category (as I understand it, the selections should be posted by the end of July. Since I just wouldn’t be me if I actually posted on time, I’m shooting for August 1!) In addition to supplying a multitude of categories from which to choose, Jo has very cleverly left room for participants to exercise their creativity by adding something new. I’ve taken advantage of her leniency by adding two categories of my own, “Short Reads,” which is self-explanatory, and my “Shelf of Shame,” a list of six books that I’ve had on my shelves unread for over six years! Can you, dear readers, match my brave honesty? If so, please share in a comment!

SIX AUTHORS I HAVE READ BEFORE

0-10 — *Six of my “repeaters,” as of June 30. Although I don’t read each of these writers every year, I do tend to return to them at periodic intervals . . . .*

As a reader I am both loyal and tenacious, i.e., when I find a writer I like, I’m automatically “in” for her next novel and will frequently start working on that writer’s backlist as well. As a result, my yearly list almost always includes at least a few writers from prior years, although the particular combination of names may vary. Six of this year’s repeaters (there have actually been more but hey — we’re doing a “six in six” roundup here!) include:

Beryl Bainbridge (BB). Although I’ve always enormously enjoyed BB’s work, I took a rather extended break from it after reading a novel or two that didn’t quite do it for me. This year, however, Tony’s excellent review of BB’s The Bottle Factory Outing reminded me of just how much I enjoyed Bainbridge’s elegant prose and her unique view of the world. Resisting the temptation to re-read an old favorite or two (since I’m big on re-reading, this was difficult) I opted to try Every Man for Himself, in which a very privileged young man (he’s a nephew of J.P. Morgan) thinks it’s a great idea to book a homeward voyage on the Titanic. Well, we know how at least one part of the story is going to end, don’t we? Bainbridge, being Bainbridge, however, never fails to throw her readers a curve ball or two and this particular luxury ship as a metaphor is a perfect vehicle for her gimlet gaze at Edwardian Society at its height. Because I tend to avoid fiction (and movies ) invoking the Titanic (frequently too sentimental and/or melodramatic, don’t you think?) I was very skeptical the novel would work for me. Another of my egregious literary misjudgments, I’m afraid, as it was a fabulous read. If you share my phobia about things Titanic (Titanophobia?), fear not, gentle reader. This coming-of-age tale conjoined with the sinking of a very large ship is Bainbridge at her best.

Sylvia Townsend Warner. A favorite writer of mine, so much so that I actually summoned the energy last year to write a real review of one of her wonderful books. Since that time I’ve been hoarding The Flint Anchor to read for Gallimaufry’s annual STW week. Although Anchor is classified as historical fiction, it’s leagues above what’s included in this genre. Warner’s combination of realism and imagination is equaled IMO only by Hilary Mantel’s; both writers have the ability to convince me that I’m reading an actual account of an era while at the same time enriching their stories with modern flashes of insight and imagination. If you haven’t read Warner before I wouldn’t recommend that you begin with Anchor, which does start a bit slowly; if you need sympathetic characters with which you’re able to identify, I’d probably skip Warner altogether. If you’re looking, however, for an unforgettable reading experience from a master of English prose, then head for this novel about a 19th century Norfolk merchant and his tyrannized family. Despite my intense enjoyment of Flint Anchor, I didn’t manage a review for STW week. Not to worry, gentle readers, as Gallimaufry’s excellent review says it all. (Note to Gallimaufry: typepad frequently gives me technical problems, so I wasn’t able to leave any comments.)

Valerie Martin. A prolific and wonderfully skilled author that I’ve somewhat lost track of in recent years (if you haven’t read Property, put it on your TBR list immediately!). I was happy to renew our acquaintance this year with Martin’s latest, I Give It To You, a wonderful novel involving a writer’s use, and sometimes misuse, of fiction to interpret another’s life. Set in a beautifully described Tuscan countryside, with an interwoven plot strand involving Mussolini’s Italy, what’s not to like?

Joe Abercrombie: No one does dark fantasy better than Joe A. Why read George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones when Abercrombie’s novels are available? And better? Unlike Martin, Abercrombie does tight plots, has a wicked sense of humor and can actually finish a story line (is it obvious, dear reader, that I’m a disgruntled fan of George R.R.?) From December 2020 to mid-February 2021, Abercrombie’s novels were calling my name; I totally immersed myself in his deliciously cynical world. Abercrombie’s realpolitik, tricky plots and flawed characters were such a perfect escape from pandemic and moving-to-a-new-house stress. When the dust cleared, shortly after my eyesight gave out, my total was two complete trilogies and the first two volumes of a third (last volume’s due out this September. Guess what I’ll be doing then?). Readers, what can I say? That’s a lot of trilogies. If you’d like to sample Abercrombie’s work on a less immersive basis, I’d recommend Best Served Cold, which can easily be read as a standalone novel.

Elizabeth Bowen. As I’ve noted before, Bowen is one of those writers with whom I have long had a problematical relationship. She’s one of the greats, no doubt about it, and her prose can be absolutely gorgeous but . . . at times she’s just a bit too nuanced and elliptical for little old me, who dearly loves an unambiguous story told in a straightforward manner (yes, dear reader, some of us never quite leave our childhood behind). Yet Bowen is one of those writers to whom I keep returning and I’ve slowly but steadily whittled away at her novels after discovering her work a decade or so ago. (I think Hotel and A World of Love are the only ones I haven’t yet read.) This year’s Bowen was Eva Trout, a wonderful novel involving a socially challenged and very rich young woman, a gun that goes off at a most unexpected time and the inability of humans in general to communicate anything important to each other. As if Bowen’s wonderful prose and the very interesting questions she raises aren’t enough to make it one of the best things I’ve read this year, the novel is also very, very funny in spots (there’s a luncheon scene I’d rank with some of Saki’s finer sketches).

Anita Brookner. After being a rabid (if one may use such a word in connection with such a genteel writer) fan for many years, I drifted away from Brookner’s work when she was slightly past mid-career. Undeterred by my desertion, the wonderful Ms. B just kept turning out her elegant, psychologically insightful novels. I hadn’t intended to read anything by Brookner this year, but Jacquiwine’s reviews of Brookner’s novels (she’s working her way through them in publication order) have been so much fun to read I was inspired last spring to re-read Misalliance, one of my favorites. This time around, I enjoyed Brookner’s tale of the intelligent, lonely Blanche and her nemesis, a husband stealer named Mousey, every bit as much as before.

SIX BOOKS THAT I’VE READ IN AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION AND SIX WRITERS WHO ARE NEW TO ME

Until I started blogging, I really avoided translated literature for a variety of reasons, none of them good. One of the great joys of the last year (and, face it, weren’t we all seizing on the teeniest little bit of joy in that awful pandemic year?) was letting go, or at least beginning to let go, of that irrational prejudice, with some very happy results as a reward (the only downside has been an exponential explosion in my TBR list). Since I’m new to reading translated fiction, practically every translated novel that I read in the early part of this year (exception noted below) was by a writer who was new to me. Taking advantage of Jo’s invitation to be creative, I’ve decided to combine these two categories.

0-11 — *Several of these novels are thin, but mighty; their authors know how to pack a powerful punch into a minimum of pages.*

Aoko Matsuda. Placed at the bottom of my pile only for convenience (the other books stack up nicely on top of it), Matsuda was one of this year’s wonderful discoveries. Humor! A feminist slant! A great translator (Polly Barton)! Great characters and clever plots! Matsuda’s collection of short stories inspired by Japanese folk & fairy tales has everything. Although I read it back in January, thus beginning 2021 on a really high note, I’m afraid Abercrombie’s fantasy novels and my move to a new house got in the way of a proper review (I’m somewhat optimistic that I’ll manage this for #WIT month which begins, my heavens, can it really be tomorrow????)

Amélie Nothomb. I’ve been intending for (literally) years to read something, anything by this very interesting French/Belgian/grew-up-in-Asia novelist. Since she’s amazingly prolific (think Joyce Carol Oates) I had quite a lot to choose from. Because I’m drawn to mother-daughter tales, I decided on Strike Your Heart, the story of an unloved daughter and the effects of that maternal deprivation on her life. Since I’ve not read any of Nothomb’s previous work, I wasn’t sure what to expect; I must admit I was surprised by her terse style and the almost mythic nature of her story. This short and disturbing novel (the mother’s psychological brutality in the opening pages made me mildly queasy) can be read in an afternoon. Its effects, however, linger for quite some time afterward.

Magda Szabo. Including Szabo’s Katalin Street in this twofer category is a bit of a cheat, since I’ve previously read her wonderful novel The Door. But, hey — this is my list and if adding it here causes any of you to read it I’m sure you’ll forgive me for you’ll be reading a marvelous novel. Szabo’s tale of three interlocked Budapest families whose lives are torn apart by the German occupation of 1944 is quite different from The Door (aside from a more complex story arc, Szabo plays with a touch of magical realism by making one of her many characters a ghost) but is almost as good. Absolutely not to be missed.

Jens Christian Grøndahl. Grøndahl’s Often I Am Happy was another great discovery from the earlier months of the year. I must admit that a somewhat prurient curiosity drew me to this novel in which the narrator addresses her dead best friend, who just happens to have stolen the narrator’s husband (I’m addicted to tales of marital betrayal. Don’t ask why). You can imagine my surprise in finding a spare, poetic meditation on grief, friendship and marriage. I absolutely loved this book and have now added to my TBR list everything of Grøndahl’s that’s been translated into English.

Margarita Liberaki. Do you, dear readers, enjoy coming of age novels written in beautifully sensual prose? Are interesting female characers and a sense of atmosphere high on your requirements for an ideal reading experience? Are you less exacting with respect to plot and action sequences? If so, Liberaki’s Three Summers, which charts the lives and relationships of three young sisters growing up in a suburb of Athens shortly before WWII, should be your next novel. Regardless of the time and place in which you read it, Liberaki will instantly transport you to the Greek countryside of the mid-1940s, in which you’ll almost smell those red poppies and hear the bees in the garden.

Eileen Chang. Languages as well as a universe of emotional difference separates Liberaki’s novel from the beautiful, brutal short stories contained in Love In a Fallen City (oddly, I think the two women are roughly contemporaries). If you’re seeking gentle tales of romantic love, well, Chang is not your writer. Despite the title, her stories are about anything but love; rather, they center on power, exploitation and raw sexual politics, all told against the exotic setting of mid-20th century Hong Kong. I loved this collection of stories, originally published separately in the 1930s-1940s, and put together by NYRB Classics. Next on my reading for Chang will be her Little Reunions, also an NYRB Classic.

SIX BOOKS I’VE ENJOYED THE MOST

As I noted above, 2021 has been an exceptionally good year for me as far as my reading selections are concerned, with scarcely a dud among the lot. Although it’s difficult to limit my choice to six (for one thing, I keep changing my mind) my current selection is as follows (those who bother to count will notice that I’ve sneaked in a seventh novel):

Jean Stafford’s The Catherine Wheel. Another take on a love triangle, combined with a sensitively rendered portrait of childhood, told in beautiful prose by a marvelous, and marvelously underrated, American writer. Stafford was a journalist and writer of short stories, with only three novels to her name. Of these, only one, The Mountain Lion, seems to have remained continuously in print. Thankfully, NYRB Classics has recently republished Stafford’s Boston Adventure (very high on my TBR list) and the Library of America has taken up her work as well.

Elizabeth Bowen’s Eva Trout.

Henry James’s The Spoils of Poynton. A year without a Henry James novel is a sad year indeed. As much as I adore James, one has to be realistic about one’s available time and attention span, so I chose a shorter work to squeeze in this spring, keeping in mind that “short” does not equate to simple when reading HJ. Being a material girl myself, I was eager to see how this duel to death over the family heirlooms would play out. As usual, HJ did not do the expected but then — that’s why he’s The Master.

Paula Fox’s The God of Nightmares. This is the year that I’ve finally gotten to Paula Fox, a very interesting American writer whom I’ve been intending to read for years and years. This novel of a young woman, her fading actress-aunt and their bohemian circle of friends in 1940s New Orleans is told beautifully and with a complete lack of sentimentality (always welcome in novels with New Orleans’ settings). I am now an avid fan of Paula Fox and expect to read many more of her novels.

Sigrid Nunez’s The Last of Her Kind. One of my “rescued from the back shelf” books; that it remained unread for so many years speaks very poorly of my judgment. I loved this novel, for all the reasons I discussed in one of my few reviews this year.

Sylvia Townsend Warner’s The Flint Anchor.

Jane Austen’s Persuasion. An impulse choice, but can one ever go wrong with Austen? Because I first read Persuasion at a particularly low point in my life, when facing the results of several very bad choices, this novel has a special place in my affection. Don’t we all need to be reminded at times that a bad choice can be redeemed? Aside from a wonderful heroine in Anne Elliot, Sir Walter is one of Austen’s great comic creations.

SIX SHORT READS

This is one of my “invented” categories, i.e., it’s not on Jo’s “Six in Six” list. Although I’ve never been a big reader of short stories or novellas, I found myself turning increasingly to both in 2020, when I (like many others) found it so difficult to concentrate on novels. The willingness to try shorter works has carried over to 2021, when I’ve finally started to read some of those many Melville House and Penguin novellas that have been sitting, neglected, on the shelf. So far this year I’ve managed:

Willa Cather’s “Alexander’s Bridge.” A very early work, with an uncharacteristically urban setting (Boston and London, no less), this is a satisfying if flawed introduction to Cather’s work. A love triangle in which two strong and very interesting women are being strung along by the same guy, who can’t quite make up his mind between the two. Considered by critics to be not among Cather’s best, it’s still very much worth reading.

Edith Wharton’s “The Touchstone.” Not quite first rank Wharton IMO but still better than almost anything else written during that period. A brilliant, famous woman bestows her love on an unworthy object, who ultimately betrays her trust in a particularly dishonorable fashion. Wharton’s style and signature irony save this novella from being a tad sentimental and melodramatic.

Ivan Turgenev’s “First Love.” Another coming of age tale, with a twist. Although I guessed the plot well in advance, this novella was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. It’s the first thing I’ve read by Turgernev; now I’m eager to read his Fathers and Sons.

Joseph Conrad’s “The Duelist.” After watching Ridley Scot’s great movie of the same name for the umpteenth time, I finally read the source material. Although I’m not a big Conrad fan, this story of mad obsession, in which the irrational rancor of the duelists reflects the insanity of Napoleonic Europe, was a gripping and very satisfying read.

Stefan Zweig’s “Fear.” Ah, the carnal lust lurking beneath the respectable facade of the Viennese bourgeoisie! Adultery, guilt and blackmail! No one does this type of thing better than Zweig.

James Joyce’s “The Dead.” I’ve read it before, but what does that matter? A work to re-read, as many times as possible during one’s life.

SIX BOOK COVERS THAT I LOVE

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MY SHELF OF SHAME: SIX BOOKS THAT I’VE HAD FOR MORE THAN SIX YEARS WITHOUT READING THEM

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As I indicated at the beginning of this post, I devised this category largely because I have so very many unread books. The above, a mere bump on the iceberg, were chosen purely at random:

Rebecca West’s The Birds Fall Down: this one belonged to Mr. Janakay’s grandmother, who was quite a reader. In my possession, unread, since 1985. I love West’s novels, but just can’t seem to get to this one.

Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies: In my possession since shortly after its publication in 2008 (note: I have the other two volumes of the trilogy as well, also unread). Not to worry, dear readers! I’ll get to all three. Sometime.

Niven Govinden’s All the Days and Nights: sitting on my shelf since 2015; I can’t understand why, as I’ve always wanted to read it.

Elizabeth Jenkins’ The Tortoise and the Hare. I’ve been dying to read this one since 2009. One day.

Ursula Holden’s The Tin Toys. I don’t know the precise date I acquired this, but it’s been warming the shelf for at least a decade. I actually took it with me on a long overseas birding trip, but ended up reading several of Patrick O’Brien’s Aubrey-Maturin novels instead.

Esther Freud’s The Wild. Again, no precise date of acquisition, but this one’s looking pretty foxed. It was published in 2000, and I’m guessing I acquired it in 2011, when I first discovered Freud’s novels and went on a massive Esther Freud binge. I love her work, so I’ll definitely read it. At some point.

0-1 — All this unread stuff is just too, too depressing; Maxi’s had enough of this “Six in Six” business! She’s probably right. It’s time, dear readers, to follow her example . . . .

Rescued from the Back Shelf: Sigrid Nunez’s The Last of Her Kind

9781429944977 — I’ve had a copy of this book for over a decade without once reading a single word it contains. About time for a rescue mission, wouldn’t you say?

Are you sometimes surprised, dear reader, at what you actually discover when you start browsing among the peaks and vales of your very own TBR mountain? I’m not referring to that discarded tea cup that went missing a year ago, or the scrap of paper on which you’d written all the passwords to your various online accounts, or even (gasp! ) to the odd little bit of multi-legged organic life (you see, I hold nothing back). I’m referring, of course, to books! Notable books from yesteryear’s “best of” and prize lists! Sales books that were so attractively priced they demanded to be taken home! Serendipitous books rewarding an afternoon’s ramble in musty old secondhand shops and elbowing others at crowded library book sales! Impulse books (this category speaks for itself) and books acquired with an eye to impressing your visitors! Books that you were hot to read after a particularly glowing review by one of you naughty bloggers (names are unnecessary — you know who you are) but that you never actually read because you lost interest before your hard-to-locate copy arrived! “Mystery” books whose reasons for being on your shelves is now a conundrum that will never be solved! This “discovery phenomenon” (my own term, for lack of a better) no doubt mystifies organized readers but for book hoarders such as myself, well, let’s say it happens on a fairly regular basis. This was particularly true in 2020-2021, a period in which I’ve done a massive amount of packing, repacking, unpacking, shelving and reshelving of massive quantities of books. Since I’m past the point of embarrassment in this regard (I reached this milestone the first time I repurchased a replacement copy of a book I’d previously discarded), I’ve decided to share my discoveries in “Rescued from the Back Shelf” reviews, which I’ll post every now and then as the spirit moves me. On the theory that anything I’ve not touched in three years badly needs rescuing, I’ll limit these reviews to books that I haven’t read within three years of the time I acquired them.

As the needle-witted (I adore Georgette Heyer’s use of Regency slang) among you have no doubt concluded by now, my inaugural “Rescued from the Back Shelf” review is Sigrid Nunez’s The Last of Her Kind, which was first published in 2006. Although I can’t remember the exact details, I had certainly acquired a paperback copy of the novel no later than 2010. Doing so seemed a good idea at the time. Nunez, while not as famous as she subsequently became (she didn’t win a National Book Award until many years later), already possessed a substantial literary reputation. The novel’s reviews were good to excellent and the story seemed atmospheric and character-driven, two things that always heavily influence my reading choices. On the minus side, however, the novel centered on the 1960s counter culture and its aftermath, a period that’s never particularly attracted me as a setting (how many student radicals and drug trips can you read about in one life time?). I was also somewhat daunted by its length (almost four hundred pages) which meant a sizable time commitment; as well as several critics who thought the plot rambled a bit. The claim by at least one reviewer that Last stood “the American Dream” on its head didn’t help; since I’ve always been very resistant to novels about the American Dream (whatever that is), I was logically a little hesitant to embrace any topsy-turvy version of it. So you see, dear reader, the pros and cons for giving shelf room to this novel were rather evenly balanced. Although it’s impossible to say with any certainty at this point in time, a combination of impulse and greed most likely tipped the scales, i.e., my local Barnes & Noble had probably placed it on a “3 books for the price of 2” table, which was always located strategically near the check-out line.

In the years that Last subsequently sat on my book shelves, I’d occasionally consider actually reading it, but invariably other, newer and more attractive candidates for reading time claimed my attention (besides, after seven or eight years I thought Last was probably too dated to be anything more than a period piece). Since the book had been gathering dust for over a decade, it was a logical if heart-rending decision to get rid of it during last year’s ruthless, pre-move cull of my books. Of course, I only did so after I had put an electronic version on my kindle in case I had any second thoughts! As fate would have it, during one of those dreadful dry spells between books, I was recently marooned in a medical waiting room, frantically scrolling through my kindle searching for something, anything to read, saw Last for the umpteenth time on the menu and, in the same spirit in which I chose the name of my blog, thought “what the heck! I might as well read this since I’ve nothing better to do.” At this point in my narrative, commonsense suggests I should leave you dangling, dear readers, as an incentive for you to finish reading my post. I’m so enthusiastic about this book, however, that I want to share the good news immediately. The Last of Her Kind is a wonderful, absorbing, well written and very topical novel. It says much, and nothing good, about my literary judgment that it too me so long to get around to reading it.

The novel, which is divided into seven sections and spans a period of approximately thirty years, centers on the very different lives and the intense but uneasy relationship between Georgette George and Dooley Ann Drayton, two women who meet in the late 1960s when they are assigned as freshman roommates at Barnard College, an elite women’s school in New York City. The episodic structure of the novel reminded me in many respects of time lapse photography, as the considerable time lapses between sections produces what are almost snapshots of each woman’s life at a particular point in time. There are additional chronological shifts within each section, which give additional information about the characters, how each arrived at that particular juncture in her life and what’s going on in the world around her. This last is an important point; despite the heavy marketing emphasis on the relationship between the two women, anyone expecting this to be a straight “female friendship” read will be disappointed. Although I may be alone in this view, I regard Last as an almost sociological novel in the 19th century mold; like the novels of Dickens, Eliot and Trollope, Last says as much about contemporary society as it does about the exploits of its characters. Nunez tells her story retrospectively through the eyes of a middle-aged Georgette/George (at various times of her life she goes by either and her character is as mutable as her name). George is the primary point of view character and the first person narrator for most of the novel, which is an informal journal that George is compiling to be read, if at all, by her children after she’s gone (narrating events long after they occurred George freely admits that time may have altered or erased her memory of the facts). Although George is the story-teller, however, the story largely belongs to Ann, who quickly drops her given name “Dooley” for reasons I’ll explain below. While George’s consciousness shapes the narration, and determines what facts we do or don’t learn, it is Ann who propels the narration and it is the mystery of her character that keeps the reader hooked until the end.

The two first meet in the fall of 1968, “the year of Tet, the year of the highest number of American casualties in Vietnam,” of the Prague Spring, the assassination of Robert Kennedy and Dr. King, the My Lai massacre and the bloody battle between police and demonstrators at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The youth revolt of the 1960s was well underway, at least at elite schools such as Barnard (it would be two years before the Ohio National Guard gunned down students at Kent State). Nunez does a wonderful job of conveying the dangerous and heady atmosphere of those times. There’s hardly a significant counter culture event of 1960s America that the novel misses, particularly in the first two and longest of its sections. Woodstock; Altamont; the music and drug scenes; the increasingly radical student political movement; free love and the clinics dispensing free birth control; the fashions; the first stirrings of the Women’s Liberation movement; the growing student hostility towards police and parental authority — well, it’s all pretty much there in varying degrees. With a lesser writer this could have been a confused hodgepodge or a boring list of the era’s events (“Weather Underground? check. Acid trips? check. Student protests? Check. Visit to the free clinic?” I’m sure you get the idea). But this is Nunez, with the technical skill and observational powers to bring the era to life. Yes, the novel is stuffed with events, and dramatic ones at that, but the cities will soon be burning in this watershed era that reshaped many of the country’s cultural norms.

The story that begins in the Barnard College of 1968 subsequently expands to encompass much of the social upheaval of the contemporary American scene. In 1968, however, George and Ann are simply two new roommates meeting for the first time in a little room in the girls’ dorm. George (she’s George rather than Georgette during her college days) is a daughter of the underclass hailing from

Upstate: a small town way up north, near the Canadian border. Jack Frost country, winter eight months of the year. Oh, those days before the globe had warmed, what winters we had then, what snows. Drifts halfway up the telephone poles, buried fences, buried cars, roofs caving in under all that weight. Moneyless. A world of failing factories and disappearing farms, where much of the best business went to bars. People drank and drank to keep their bodies warm, their brains numb. * * * Whole families drank themselves to disgrace, to criminal mischief, to early death. * * * Statistically not a high crime area, but a world of everyday brutality: bar brawls, battered wives . . . acts of violent cruelty even among children. * * * The savage world of the North Country poor.

To complete this dismal picture, George’s father disappeared early (a blessing, really, as he was displaying far too much interest in his pubescent daughter’s physical development); her overworked mother vacillates between indifference and extreme physical violence; one battered sister runs away at the age of fourteen; an older brother returns from Viet Nam addicted to drugs and alcohol; and the two youngest siblings are farmed out to relatives when the family goes on welfare. George, in short, is only at college through luck, a scholarship and brains and does not possess the upperclass background of a typical Barnard girl.

Miss Dooley Ann Dalton of Connecticut, by contrast, is a golden child of the American aristocracy, gifted with money, lineage and great natural ability. For many generations her father’s family has owned and operated a surgical supply business and owns valuable medical patents as well; her mother’s family are even older and more distinguished if less financially successful (“Dooley” is a surname of her mother’s family, former owners of many southern plantations and their enslaved workers). While “Daddy” runs the family business and “Mummy” gives parties providing fodder for the local press, little Dooley Ann wins national essay contests, skips grades in school, writes a children’s book that will be illustrated by an artist friend of her family (and subsequently published) and is even cast as a bit player in a film, thanks to a famous movie director who’s another family friend (he has a summer house adjacent to her family’s on Martha’s Vineyard). She is also becoming slowing, steadily and irrevocably estranged from her family and her privileged background. Nunez is very skillful at depicting how that occurs; what sticks in my mind is a scene where Mummy uses role-playing to teach little Dooley the proper way to behave to the family’s servants (“Now let’s say you want to tell Retta [the family’s housekeeper] you’re having friends over after school and you’d like her to bake some brownies.”). Dooley, who doesn’t realize what’s going on, is heartbroken and humiliated when she gives orders to the family’s housekeeper in “Mummy’s voice” and sees the look of recognition in the woman’s eyes; Dooley “will never forgive herself for playing her mother, for not seeing through the game.” Long before she arrives at Barnard, Dooley has become “Ann” (using Dooley, a name associated with slave owners was “out of the question”) and is totally estranged from her parents, whom she now addresses as “Sophie” and “Turner.” Ann knows, despises and rejects every aspect of her parents’ world; she is “capable of loving only what was different from herself.” She sells her expensive new “college wardrobe” (selected by her mother and envied by George), gives the money to charity and embraces the radical politics then dominating the Barnard campus. Ann is regarded by her own class and race as a traitor, and is also rejected as an arrogant and ignorant outsider by Barnard’s Black students and the disadvantaged whom she tries to help. It is a pattern that will repeat itself throughout her life.

At this point, gentle reader, I imagine that you’re asking yourself, “hasn’t this been done before? Two young protagonists from dissimilar backgrounds, learning from their differences and bonding over common experiences, providing a lesson to us all?” While the theme of ill-assorted companions is admittedly a common one in literature, it’s rare indeed to see it used so skillfully to expose the almost unbridgeable class divides in American culture. Nunez has an astonishing eye for class differences. For all her efforts to embrace and achieve a new order of society Ann is both clueless and condescending with respect to the lives of others who have grown up under far less privileged conditions. Although she treats George with kindness, for example, Ann seems to regard her as more of a “type” than an individual. Totally oblivious of the implications, she informs George early in their relationship that she had specifically requested a roommate “from a world as different as possible from her own” and was disappointed on finding that George wasn’t Black. George’s reaction, other than rage, is a resolve to keep her distance, answer questions with silence or lies and thus force Ann “to find someone else to play out her fantasies.” It never occurs to Ann that the material advantages rejected by herself could be desired by less fortunate others. With respect to George, Nunez’s eye for class is even more unerring. George has internalized the idea of failure and her first reaction to any challenge is that success is beyond her reach. An outstanding student who won a scholarship to one of the country’s most prestigious schools, George literally becomes unable to speak in her classes because of “her fear of not belonging, of not speaking the same language as everyone else.”

For entirely different reasons, both women drop out of school at the end of their sophomore year. George goes to work as a secretary at a fashionable woman’s magazine and begins to work her way up the masthead. Ann moves into a communal apartment in Harlem and falls in love with an African-American poet and school teacher who’s also a former campus revolutionary. The fragile bridge that she and George have built over the chasm of class fails to hold and the two become completely estranged. One of the novel’s plot arcs is whether they will be able to reconnect and, if so, on what basis. As George later muses:

I believe you have to reach a certain age before you understand how much life really is like a novel, with patterns and leitmotifs and turning points, and guns that must go off and people who must return before the ending.

After that, dear reader, can there be any doubt on this issue? How this re-connection is accomplished, however, and the form that it takes, may very well be different from what you’d expect based on the novel’s beginnings.

My fear that the novel would prove too much of a period piece disappeared about halfway through, with the occurrence of an act of violence as topical as an account from this morning’s news. This act will drastically alter the lives of both women and expand the novel’s scope to include issues of racial justice, political activism and the morality of a penal system in which Lady Justice unfairly tilts the scales against certain offenders. The story of unequal friendship that began in the little college dorm room has morphed into a powerful examination of American society’s fault lines.

Despite the impression that I fear I’ve conveyed, Last is far from being an unrelentingly grim novel. George is a wry and cynical narrator with few illusions about her world, but who nevertheless views life with a sense of humor and a surprising amount of charity. I particularly enjoyed her stint at Visage, a woman’s magazine similar to the ones I devoured at a certain period in my life, replete with makeovers (“We thought Georgette’s long-haired waif look needed an update”), cosmetic tips, recipes for that “Candlelight Dinner for Two” and the occasional serious interview or poem by W.H. Auden. Even the novel’s darkest aspects are (with one exception) redeemed by humor and a sense of shared humanity.

As I noted near the beginning of this over-long ramble, the mystery (and power) of Ann’s personality provides much of the force and credibility in this powerful novel. Is Ann a crackpot or a secular saint? Do her good deeds actually benefit or harm others? Her rigidity and unwavering values undoubtedly damage herself and arguably others as well; her inability to imagine life through someone else’s eyes does much to wreck her friendship with George. Ann is a cause of discomfort and a source of irritation to many of those around her. Yet to a few (a former teacher; George; a defense attorney; a prison inmate serving a life sentence for a double murder) she’s an unforgettable figure whose touch has altered their lives. Although Nunez, like the good novelist she is, provides room for each reader to develop his own ideas on this point, she also gives plenty of hints in the form of literary allusions to guide any interpretation of Ann’s character. The novel is replete with references to The Great Gatsby, who, like Ann, stubornly clung to a perhaps mistaken idealism; Like Gatsby’s Nick Carraway, George both yearns after Ann’s idealism and serves as witness to Ann’s life. Another character in the novel compares Ann to Simone Weil and George herself sees a likeness between Ann and the Saint Teresa described by Eliot in her prelude to Middlemarch (although Nunez does not make this explicit, I also thought Ann was at least superficially similar to Middlemarch‘s Dorothea Brooks, the rich young lady who came to ill through her desire to do good in the world).

Like any lengthy novel with an episodic structure, particularly one dealing with multiple characters and several major themes, The Last of Her Kind can justly be criticized for sprawling a bit at times. Since I enjoyed the sprawl, I wasn’t unduly troubled by this feature. I was admittedly slightly impatient with the section concerning George’s runaway flower child sister who is seriously fixated on Mick Jagger, but even here I consoled myself with the hilarious (if a trifle too long) fan letter she writes to Sir Mick. My only serious criticism concerns the relatively short section that relates Ann’s affair with the main love of her life. Although it’s as well written as the rest of the novel, I thought the object of her affections (while psychologically believable) introduced an overly dramatic and unnecessary twist to the plot.

Although there’s a great deal more I could say about this work, I’ll take pity on myself as well as you and will conclude. If anyone’s read The Last of Her Kind, I’d love to hear your reaction.

Monday Miscellany (Moving! Books! Nature!)

Hello there, dear readers, assuming there are any of you left after my months of silence! Never one to overburden others with my written words (many, many years of turning out legal tootle on schedule finally induced me to take pity on myself and others in this respect), I was nevertheless shocked, positively shocked, to see that it’s been almost three months since I’ve posted anything on my moribund little blog. However did the blogosphere survive my absence? (Rest assured that my question here is satirical!) Although I’ve not been posting I have spent the last few weeks catching up on my blog reading and have no doubt annoyed some of you very much indeed by leaving long, rambling comments on your blogs. You may consider yourself revenged by the fact that your excellent reviews have caused me to add several new peaks to my own Mount TBR of unread books. I’ve simply lacked the energy and concentration, however, to contribute to the online bookish discussion by writing my own reviews. But all this is slowly, slowly changing, now that life is settling down and the boxes are (mostly) unpacked. Because I’ve practically forgotten how to type, much less arrange my thoughts in a coherent structure, I thought I’d ease myself back into things through the forgiving medium of a “miscellany” rather than a formal book review (hopefully the latter will start trickling in during the next few weeks, as I’ve been reading some lovely things).

0-1 — A collection of most (not all) of the things I’ve read this year, beginning way, way back in January. Although I enjoyed some more than others (surprise), there really isn’t a dud in the stack . . . more below!

Because the following sections are totally unrelated to each other, if you find one boring you aren’t missing a thing by scrolling down to the next.

A. MOVING (of most interest to those having a sadistic turn of mind)

Have you ever moved, dear reader? I don’t mean a student move, where you leave the plant at your mom’s, stuff the dirty undies (would one say “knickers” in the U.K. or is this term dated? If you’re British, please enlighten me here) in your backpack and — presto! — off you go! I mean a real, honest-to-god move involving a houseful of furniture; several thousand books; three snarling, foul-tempered cats who were perfectly happy in their old home and a stressed out Mr. Janakay. If you’ve done this, or something comparable, you can understand the trauma of my last twelve months, in which I’ve moved twice, the first a long-distance move to temporary quarters followed just recently by a move to my new and hopefully permanent home, thankfully located in the same city as my temporary abode. After surviving these physical relocations, and living out of boxes and suitcases for almost fourteen months, I can truthfully say “never again, dear reader, never again!”

0-20 — A would-be deserter from the family unit, which is preparing to move from temporary to permanent quarters. Not to worry, dear reader, Maxine reconsidered her escape plans and was scooped up and moved with her little feline frenemies!

0-21 — Percy says “you can move these stupid birds if you want, Janakay! I’m not going anywhere!” Unbeknownst to Percy the horrors of the cat carrier awaited him . . . .

0-22 — My new kitchen, three weeks before move-in date. Not to worry, however, as R., the kitchen guy, assured me he’d return to finish up as soon as he completed his *second* quarantine period (R. has many relatives who love large family gatherings . . . . . not the best strategy during a pandemic). All did in fact go well, after move-in dates were adjusted a couple of times!

0-17 — My new home at last! Surely those boxes will unpack themselves?

0-1 — Just when needed most, professional help arrives!

0-5 — A major reason for all this moving business: new shelves! Miles and . . .

0-8 — miles of new shelves! And what do new shelves need, dear book bloggers? If you have to ponder the answer you should definitely take up another hobby!

Unknown — Slowly, slowly, progress is made. Fiction is generally arranged alphabetically by author’s last name but how to organize the art books? Alphabetical by artist doesn’t quite work . . . .

Completion at last! (Well, mostly. There are still a few boxes of unpacked books in the garage.)

0-13 — As we adjust to our new home, we’re each finding our favorite space. Although Percy enjoys watching basketball in a mild kind of way, he’s far more interested in sitting *under* the TV than watching it when a boring old baseball game is in progress . . . .

0-2 — As life settles down, we’re also beginning to indulge again in our favorite activities, which in Maxine’s case involves going off on a little toot now & again (the pink thing is stuffed with catnip, to which she is quite addicted).

Despite many fundamental differences among members of the household (we disagree, for example, on whether new rugs make the best claw sharpeners), we do agree on one thing: moving is totally exhausting and requires a really good recovery nap!

B. Books Old and Books New; Books Read, Unread and (Maybe) Never to be Read

Despite the difficulties of the last two months or so, I did manage to keep reading. After all, isn’t that what we’re all about? Admittedly, there were disappointments; these primarily centered on my sheer inability to write any reviews for the Japanese Literature in Translation or Independent Publishers months despite reading a few books for both events. Ah, well, that’s what next year is for, isn’t it? My reading choices this year have been all over the place, or perhaps more accurately, more all over the plan than usual (if you’ve read my blog at all, you can see that my taste tends to be, ahem, “eclectic”). As my opening photo demonstrates, my little pile of completed books includes pop pulp (The Godfather, special 50th anniversary edition); a few classics (Henry James’ Spoils of Poynton and Saki’s The Unbearable Bassington); a little literature in translation (Sayaka Murata’s Earthlings, for example) and a few fairly obscure offerings from an independent publisher or two, prompted by Kaggsy’s February event (Doon Arbus’ The Caretaker, published by New Directions, is a good example here). During the worst of my move I spent a great deal of time with Joe Abercrombie, an inexplicable choice, no doubt, to those who don’t share my taste for his fantastical grimdark world. What can I say? You either like this stuff or you don’t and, honestly, it was light relief to turn from movers, boxes and home contractors with Covid-19 problems to the exploits of Glotka the torturer. Although I generally enjoyed everything in my pile, some choices were particularly rewarding:

0-17 — My first book of the New Year, completed on January 4th. Although I generally struggle a bit with short stories, Matsuda’s (translator Polly Barton) feminist, idiosyncratic and original treatments of Japanese folk tales deserved its glowing reviews. Added bonus: publisher is Soft Skull Press, a small indy publisher “at war with the obvious” since 1992 and located in New York City.

0-18 — Jean Stafford has been one of my great discoveries this year. After years of dodging *The Mountain Lion*, her best known novel, I read *The Catherine Wheel* on a whim. It’s a family drama set in the upper class New England of the 1930s and displays to the full Stafford’s elegant style, eye for character and ability to evoke atmosphere. A proper review is coming (sometime) on this one.

0-20 — Carrington’s *The Hearing Trumpet* was my first encounter with a surrealist literary work. Although I was mildly apprehensive at first, I soon settled in for a wild adventure with a nonagenarian like no other, a cross-dressing abbess, the goddess Venus and the Holy Grail. As subversive as it’s wildly funny, I hope to review it in the next few months.

0-2 — Despite some ambivalence about Elizabeth Bowen (there are times when she’s just a bit too refined for my taste), I’ve been slowly but steadily working my way through her novels. *Eva Trout*, Bowen’s final novel published in 1970, turned out to be one of my favorites. Very, very funny in some spots, tragic in others and with some very heavy things to say about communication, or lack thereof, among its characters. Put this one on your Elizabeth Bowen list.

0-21 — Anita Brookner’s *The Misalliance* was a trip down memory lane, as I first read it shortly after its publication in the late 1980s. Jacquiwine has been doing some incredible reviews of Brookner’s novels, which prompted me to pull this old favorite down from its home on my new shelves. Blanche Vernon, an excellent woman of a certain age, consoles herself with a little too much wine and lots of visits to London’s National Gallery after losing her husband to a much younger rival (pet name: “Mousey”). I enjoyed Brookner’s elegant style and dry wit as much this time around as I did initially and can’t wait until Jacquiwine’s review!

Although I have (almost literally) tons of books I want to get through this year as a result of various challenges, I have two or three in particular that I’ve added to my 2021 list:

0-23 — I’ve been eagerly following Simon’s reviews of the British Library’s Women Writers series. Although all the titles look great, I’m particularly eager to try Rose Macauly’s *Dangerous Ages*. On a different note entirely (remember! I *said* my tastes were ecletic) is Damon Galgut’s *The Promise*, a family saga/fable set in contemporary South Africa. I first “met” Galgut in 2010, when I read his haunting and beautiful novel, *In A Strange Room*, short listed for that year’s Booker. Despite my good intentions, I have never managed to get back to his work. As for Paula Fox, I’ve been intending to sample her novels for ages now and I’m resolved to begin *this yea*r with her highly acclaimed and best known work!

Are any of you, dear readers, fans of Proust? If so, you absolutely owe it to yourself to at least spend an hour or so with:

0-26 — I’m sure I’m the last Proust fan on the planet to be aware of this book, which I happened upon while browsing on that internet platform we all love to hate. Pricey, but worth every penny, it’s a wonderful way to dip into and out of Proust’s great masterpiece. I’ve paired it with Mr. Janakay’s great photo of a Blackburnian warbler, which I’ll miss seeing for the second year in a row because of the pandemic. Why this particular pairing? The Proust reminds me that even a plague year has some compensations . . . .

Visual art was very important to Proust (“My book is a painting”), which is readily apparent from the literally hundreds of artists and paintings discussed at various points by the many, many characters who appear, disappear and reappear in In Search of Lost Time. Karpeles’ “visual companion” groups these many art works into chapters that correspond to Proust’s volumes; each entry has a brief introduction, a long quotation from the relevant passage in Proust and an illustration of the art, usually in color. Did you know, for example, that Swann “had the nerve to try and make” the Duc de Guermantes buy a painting “of a bundle of asparagus . . . exactly like the ones” the Duc and his guest were having for dinner? Quelle horreur! Thanks to Karpeles, you can see (and compare) Manet’s rejected Bundle of Asparagus with the Duc’s preferred painting, a “little study by M. Vibert” of a “sleek prelate who’s making his little dog do tricks.” Guess what, dear readers? The Duc should have followed Swann’s advice!

There’s a very good introduction, notes and an index listing the artists alphabetically and keyed to three different Proust editions. It’s been many years since I’ve read Proust and I’d forgotten the wonders of In Search of Lost Time. After a few hours of browsing Karpeles, however, I’m tempted to re-read at least a volume or two. After all, there are several different editions!

On a last Proustian note: The New Yorker recently did a very good piece on “Conjuring the Music of Proust’s Salons,” in which Alex Ross reviews two recent recordings paying homage to an actual concert organized by Proust on July 1, 1907. Since Proust was as attuned to music as he was to literature and visual art, both recordings sound very interesting indeed. The New Yorker has, alas, a pay wall, but if you haven’t clicked too much this month the article is available at https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/22/conjuring-the-music-of-prousts-salons.

C. Nature

What’s a miscellany without a few nature photos, thanks to Mr. J? Although I miss some of the parks and preserves that were reasonably accessible to my old home, my new one is located little more than a mile (about 1.5 km) from a nature preserve and some very lovely scenery. Nothing dramatic, you understand, or particularly historic (if you crave history and/or dramatic scenery, you should pop over and read about some of Simon’s lovely excursions) but still — nice.

0-6 — The nature preserve’s boardwalk as viewed from the observation tower, the only high spot around in a *very* flat landscape! The basic circuit is around three miles (close to 5km) and there’s always something to see . . . .

0-7 — A view from the boardwalk, across the salt marsh. Unfortunately, the bird in the tree is too far away to make out, but I always see numerous ospreys and a variety of herons and egrets when doing the circuit; if I’m lucky, there’s the occasional kingfisher as well.

0-10 — If you look closely, you can see the large great blue heron standing in the water.

If you’ve read this far, dear readers, you no doubt agree with me that it’s time for this particular miscellany to end. I hope to post a real review later on in the week; until then au revoir.

2020 Reading Roundup

Isn’t it a relief, dear readers, to have 2020 behind us? Unlike so many in this year of the plague, my personal situation was relatively benign (I had tons of great books, good internet access & my near and dear remained healthy) but even we lucky ones can agree that it’s quite the relief to have 2020 in the rearview mirror. One of the more pleasant annual rituals for a book blogger is the annual summary of books read and enjoyed (or not); it’s especially pleasant this year, where there’s sometimes been little else to enjoy other than books. Being, as usual, just a tiny bit behind the curve in looking over the past year (if you’ve read my blog in the past you may recall that I was several weeks late for Margaret Atwood month), my tally is accordingly

The Books of 2020, or at least most of the ones I managed to finish (I do think I opted out of Daisy Johnson’s *Fen* after completing only about half of the stories, which I found a little too creepy and disturbing for my mood this year).

coming somewhat after most of the others. This is partly because I didn’t post very much this year and didn’t formally review many books. The pandemic and a long-distance move took their toll; for much of the year my brain was in a state analogous to the slumber mode of a bad computer, making it almost impossible to read anything very long or demanding. I’m not a big numbers cruncher, especially when it comes to books, but I do keep an informal tally and I was shocked to discover that I had read large portions of, and subsequently abandoned, over eleven books. I’ve never been adverse to abandoning or postponing books that didn’t work for me at a particular moment but I’m certainly not quick to do so, especially when, as here, I was actually reading some pretty good things. It was a very odd experience — about halfway through one of the Abandoned Eleven, it was “Bing! I’m done” and off I’d go to another book, which usually met the same fate (if my binger went off in a particularly intriguing work, such as Stuart Turton’s The Devil and the Dark Water, I’d skim the end. Sometimes I wouldn’t bother.) What can I say, dear readers? This was the year I just couldn’t focus.

This was also the year when I received several visits from the Ghost of Books Past (envision, dear readers, a bookish version of Dickens’ famous spectre, only in my case toting bags of gaudy mass market paperbacks and brandishing bookish gift cards — I believe these are called “book tokens” in the U.K.), who insisted that I re-visit various reading adventures of yesteryear. This apparition first appeared in September (here in the U.S., we start commercializing Christmas pretty early). Immediately after I finished John O’Hara’s Appointment in Samara (BTW many thanks, Dolce Bellezza, for that read-along, otherwise Samara would still be adorning Mount TBR) I became absolutely fixated on locating and re-reading books that I hadn’t thought about for literally decades. Seemingly out of the blue (but we know whose doing it was, right?) I suddenly remembered enough information to locate and obtain a yellowing, mass market paperback of Gwendoline Butler’s Sarsen Place, a novel I had read decades ago, as well as a copy of The Vesey Inheritance, another read by Butler from days gone by. Sarsen Place, now sadly out of print, was worth the effort. The Vesey Inheritance was slightly less so but still a fun read.

While I might quibble with the publisher’s description of this work as “bizarre,” I definitely agree with the “delightful” and “intriguing.” Despite a certain number of anachronisms, the mystery plotting was good and I loved its depiction of late Victorian Oxford.

Set in London rather than Oxford and not quite up to the level of *Sarsen Place*, this was nevertheless a very pleasant way to escape the rigors of 2020 . . . .

Through sheer force of will I resisted the compulsion to spend October re-reading my ten favorite Georgette Heyer novels (it helped that I already knew several of them by heart), but ah, the Ghost of Books Past was far from done with me. The high school I attended several lifetimes ago had a sort of hit or miss library, mostly dull old classics (Tolstoy isn’t terribly interesting to most fifteen year olds) and the librarian had the maddening habit of only ordering one or two books from a series. At that time in my life I had particularly enjoyed one such incomplete series; I won’t identify it except to say it didn’t concern the adventures of either Trixie Belden or Bomba the Jungle Boy. But my school library had only two books from the series, and odd numbered ones at that, so I never learned either the beginning or end of the saga! Imagine the frustration and grief of my little teenybopper self! It was high time, the Ghost whispered, to atone for The Wrong of Reading Only A Few Books From A Series! Heeding my supernatural warning, I started obsessively locating and reading the entire series, seven books total, following the adventures of the main guy, his brother (who pops up around the third book) and then, for gosh sakes, the main guy’s nephew, who’s born somewhere around book five and who carries the saga forward to a new century and a new place (this author clearly knew how to hook a kid in). Ah, dear readers, the joys of completion, all the sweeter for being so long delayed!

After reading/skimming seven books from a Young Adult series (comparatively well written but, let’s face it, with rather immature characters), I could feel the Ghost beginning to fade. In late November and December I really intended to make a final push to read a few more books from my “Back to the Classics Challenge;” I really did, but the past wasn’t yet past, so to speak. Are any of you, dear readers, fans of grimdark, described by N.K. Jemison as fantasy’s equivalent to sci-fi’s dystopia sub-genre? If so, you’ll understand why, when Logen Ninefingers (aka “the Bloody Nine”) summoned me for a re-read, I hastened to obey. In a bit of severe counter-programing to the holiday season, I spent half of December re-reading Joe Abercrombie’s magnificent First Law Trilogy (the Guardian has referred to Abercrombie’s work as “delightfully twisted and evil” and it’s been proclaimed by no less than Forbes as “fantasy at its finest”). Less pompous and far funnier than Martin’s Game of Thrones, and much more attuned to human frailty than Tolkien, Abercrombie’s realpolitik, double dealing and dark humor seemed perfectly attuned to this horrible year. If you liked GOT you’d probably like the First Law Trilogy, provided you aren’t adverse to (very) naughty language and more graphic depictions of the old ultraviolence than you’d find even in Burgess’ Clockwork Orange. Don’t judge me too harshly, dear readers, we all have our moods; sometimes one longs to attend a jumble sale with Pym’s excellent women and at others simply to wander the Circle of the World with the Bloody Nine. Say one thing for Abercrombie’s morally ambiguous characters, say they’re most compelling.

Although I spent the last half of 2020 more or less successfully escaping the present, my reading year did in fact include some forward momentum. Two very bright spots indeed were my increased respect for shorter fiction and a growing interest in translated literature. Prior to this year, I had only occasionally read short fiction and then largely on the theory that it was “good for me,” a type of literary equivalent of “eat your broccoli.” I’ve noticed, however, that my fragmented attention span seems fairly widespread this year and that many of my fellow bloggers as well as myself have taken to reading short stories and novellas. Among several outstanding novellas that came my way, the following three, very different works particularly stand out:

I almost discarded this during the great moving purge; fortunately I started reading the first few pages and changed my mind. Johnson is a poet as well as a novelist and it shows in this spare, beautiful mini-epic recounting the solitary life of one of those marginal people who built the American west.

Maeve Brennan is one of those names associated with The New Yorker; her sparse output is mostly associated with that periodical. This beautifully rendered story of the psychological struggle between an emotionally fragile young Irish girl and her unrelenting grandmother is a masterpiece.

After an unfortunate early encounter with *My Antonia*, I have tended to avoid Cather’s work. This wonderfully nuanced tale of a rich young girl who gave up a fortune to marry for love has made me reconsider that decision; I’ve begun lining up novels for a “reading Cather” project.

Ah, I hear the murmur through cyber space, did she read no novels during 2020? I did, actually, and although there were far fewer in number than in prior years, they included some wonderful works. In ascending order, the three that have stayed with me the longest are:

Mandel’s latest is almost as good as *Station Eleven*. Mandel uses the fallout from a disastrous Ponzi scheme to probe the many different paths individual lives can take as well as the responsibility we owe each other. The “glass” of the title refers to an actual structure in the novel; it also suggests the fragility of any one existence and how we so easily can step into another identity.

One of the few books I reviewed last year, Warner’s masterpiece is an absolutely stunning work. Under the guise of an historical novel, Warner uses her depiction of a fictitious medieval convent to ask deeper questions about the meaning of “community.” Although *Corner* demands a moderate commitment of time (it’s long), Warner’s beautiful writing and wit make the pages fly by.

Gainza’s novel narrowly beat out Warner’s for my most outstanding read of the year. Despite thinking about *Optic Nerve* a great deal, I didn’t review it, simply because it was so wonderful I didn’t feel I could do it justice! It’s a stunning piece of autofiction in which we see the protagonist’s life and character as they are reflected, and formed, by her interaction with art.

I did say “three” novels, didn’t I? Consider this intriguing novel an honorable mention! *Parasites* is a wonderfully readable, well-constructed story of three self-absorbed siblings, each the possessor of artistic talent that falls short of that of their famous parents. Quite different from the du Maurier novels I have previously read (*Rebecca; My Cousin Rachel*), *Parasites* is loaded with the atmosphere of the London theatrical world in the 1940s. And, oh yes, the novel is said to contain strong autobiographical elements . . . .

Well, dear readers, that’s pretty much it for my 2020 reading year. How did yours go? Anyone else out there, haunted by comfort reads and cursed with fragmented attention spans?

HAPPINESS IS . . .

As Mr. Janakay has occasionaly observed (admittedly somewhat to his peril), I do not possess a naturally sunny disposition. Unlike my more fortunate friends, I do not, alas, look for the silver lining purportedly possessed by even the stormiest cloud; think that it’s darkest just before the dawn; or consider a half-empty glass to be half-full. These days we live in are so very dark and dreadful, however, that I have decided to turn over a new leaf. Away with the doom and gloom! Up with the smiles and sunshine! For strictly pragmatic reasons, I have resolved to go from frowny to smiley face. Without some (perhaps irrational) optimism I see no way to survive the upcoming weeks, when I and my fellow Americans (of the U.S. variety) are clearly in for a very rough ride indeed. As part of my new program of sunshine & smiles, I’ve decided to compile a “Happiness List” of all the positive things that will keep me going in these stressful times. So — here goes!

FIRST HAPPINESS:

The certain knowledge that 2020 will be over in fifty-six days and approximately four hours (depending on when I manage to finish this post). To borrow words once uttered by her British majesty during her own dark year, 2020 has been one annus horribilis and can’t end soon enough!

Will it surprise you, dear reader, to learn that I also “officially” voted earlier this week for one other thing to end as well? (Janakay doesn’t mean to be a tease, but no more details — some forums (fora?) need to stay neutral.) With respect to the current political situation, what can one say, except:

I lifted this great photo from today’s edition of the Washington Post. It speaks volumes for the pitiful state of the times that this photo accompanied the daily *weather* report, for gosh sakes . . .

SECOND HAPPINESS:

Having many, many wonderful new books, many more than I could read in a lifetime, but, hey — since when has practicality been a factor in my book acquisition? I began this awful year traumatized with the need to do a massive cull of my bookshelves, which I managed after some hysterics and the moderate assistance of medically prescribed tranquilizers. After dismembering my little library, I dumped the surviving volumes onto a moving truck that carried them away to their temporary new home, an unused bedroom where they’re currently sharing space with some lamp shades and a table or two. I retained, unpacked, only the very minimum number of books necessary for survival — perhaps 200 volumes or so — and resolutely refused to unpack the others, as they’d be moving again in a few months. My heroic restraint created empty space in the bookcases for the first time in my adult life! Well, we know that old saw about nature abhorring a vacuum, don’t we? I’m actually too embarrassed to disclose all of my new acquisitions, which are, frankly, quite enormous (I handle my stress by acquiring books). In mitigation, I plead extenuating circumstances: I began collecting my new stash months ago (last April to be exact); the NYRB Classics had several great book sales this year and many of you write really great blogs with excellent reading recommendations that I couldn’t resist (I’m like Oscar Wilde in one way at least, being able to resist anything but temptation). Below is an incomplete but fairly representative sample of my new books:

My books aren’t usually this neatly stacked, but I’m trying to impress my readers!

I’ve been meaning to try Lispector for ages; with all this new “at home” time, perhaps this will be the year . .

This one is Kaggsy’s fault! After reading her September review of a Berridge novella (kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com), I had to try Berridge for myself. I really meant to post a review but — didn’t quite get around to it! I will say, however, that this slightly lurid cover image is rather misleading; clearly the publisher was marketing the novel as a Gothic romance, which it most certainly is not.

Another of my books that I’ve actually read! This was the monthly selection automatically sent out by the NYRB Classics Club, so it really doesn’t count against my total. These two novellas are a great introduction to Ginzburg, whom I had not previously read. I loved both novellas and now must get copies of Ginzburg’s other works as well.

Another September review, this time by Ali (heavenali.wordpress.com) led to this acquisition. Penelope Mortimer sounded so interesting this novel became a “must.”

This one I blame on Simon (at stuckinabook.com). I’ve been following his reviews of this great new series by the British Library (which he is curating) and just had to try one (ahem; actually three — notice the sticker — how could I refuse an offer like this?)

I’m reasonably fond of Henry Green (he’s so original that, at least for me, his work takes some getting used to) and haven’t read this one. When it was available on sale by NYRB Classics, there was only one thing to be done . . .

What’s a book binge that doesn’t include some art books? The art world has recently rediscovered Klint, a woman painter who was doing abstracts years and years before the big boys like Pollock. I find it very soothing to sit and look at pictures . . .

Another art book. I love landscapes but this book has lots of text and looks quite serious. It also has a limited number of pictures. *Whatever* was I thinking? Who *reads* an art book? Perhaps I’ll just place this one in a casual position on the coffee table, to impress my new neighbors when they drop by . . .

I don’t think Faulkner’s very fashionable these days and I’m not sure how many people actually *read* him. I loved Faulkner’s *Absalom, Absalom* and the few other novels I’ve sampled but . . . there’s no ignoring the fact they were written by a white southern male of the pre-civil rights era. In my opinion, Faulkner views his culture with a merciless and unflinching eye, although he is quite unable to escape its limitations. I’m eager to dip into this study, to see if Gorra shares my view . . .

Last but far from least, these two Gothic novels are a trip down memory lane. They were among the first Gothic romances I ever read, oh so very many years ago, very shortly after I read my first Victoria Holts. I was thrilled to rediscover these books a few weeks ago and will be interested to see how they hold up (so far, *Sarsen Place* is doing pretty well).

Maxi says, “Enough blathering about books, Janakay. Move on to the next item on your Happiness List!” There are times, dear reader, when Maxi is as wise as Confucious (and *far* more sly).

THIRD HAPPINESS

My third happiness is — gasp! new book shelves! Lots and lots of lovely, empty new shelves, just waiting to be filled when I finally complete my move.

Shelves on one side of the dining room and

Shelves on the other! And, of course, besides all the shelves, I still have all my old book cases.

Haven’t we all known the agony of triple stacking our beloved treasures, or even (horrors) boxing them away in one of those plastic slidey things that fit under the bed? Could it be that finally I will have enough space to alphabetize my fiction by authors’ last name and group my art books by artists? Reader, is it possible to have a greater happiness than this?

FOURTH (AND FINAL) HAPPINESS

Although I am definitely not an athletic type (turning the pages in my book, or clicking my kindle is quite enough exercise, thank you very much) I do find it absolutely necessary to touch nature at some level for at least some portion of time. In this respect, I’ve been lucky indeed; both my old home and my new have lots of green space.

Aren’t these Sandhill Cranes gorgeous, particularly with their red head stripe? There’s nothing to show you the scale, but these are big birds, standing 4 to 5 feet (approximately 152 cm). If you want to see them “live,” plan a trip to North America, where they’re primarily located. This little family group hangs close to my house and seeing them is always a major treat.

A classic river scene from a large state park about 20 minutes away from me by car. This photo was taken a few months ago, when it was unbelievably hot. Although I didn’t see any, it’s a *very* safe bet that this river has alligators!

Same state park, different habitat . . . those golden flowers were at their peak when this photo was made earlier in the year (note to self: I really must get a plant book to learn what I’m looking at!)

This is an older photo, from an Audubon sanctuary located about 100 miles (160 km) further south from my house. The weird spikey things are flowers and the orange things are butterflies. Aren’t they both marvelous?

Well, that’s it for my Happiness List. What’s on yours, dear reader? What’s keeping you afloat, so to speak, during these dark times?

Midweek Miscellany: Reading Roundup

Job_Lot_Cheap_William_Michael_Harnett_1878.jpeg.jpeg — Does your book collection resemble this jumble as much as mine does? The painting (“Odd Lot Cheap,” 1878) is the work of the late 19th century American artist William Harnett (1848-1892). Although it’s been suggested that Harnett’s illusionistic paintings are devoid of inner meaning, don’t you find this one an implicit comment on the transience of all things, including our beloved books?

Although I’ve been blogging very little in this our year of the plague, I have (as I noted in my last post) been reading fairly steadily since 2020 rolled around. Because there wasn’t a dud book in the bunch (isn’t it gratifying, dear reader, when one is on a streak of reading good books?) I thought I’d share a quick recap of some of the excellent works of fiction that have come my way in this year. What I’m offering are quick impressionistic snapshots rather than in-depth reviews (Janakay is not by nature profound, and constant handwashing and unpacking make it so very difficult to concentrate right now). In making my list I noticed the emergence of a monthly sort-of pattern to my reading. One month was heavy on thrillers & science fiction while another tended towards “serious” novels; one month tilted to the classics and another to the contemporary, and every month included a comfort read, which generally coincided with a stressful key moment in my long-distance move! Have you, dear reader, in your great journey through the universe of literature, noted any similar tendencies or patterns in your own seasonal reading? Do you read classics when it’s cold and drippy outside or eagerly head towards light bubbly froth for those delightful days of lying on the beach? Or do you, like Janakay, indulge in counter-programing, saving all those serious literary chunksters for your lazy summer afternoons? Well, enough with the philosophical musings and on to my list!

As befitting a month associated with endings and beginnings, my January reading contained both old and new, as well as one of Janakay’s own very special little rituals. Are any of you, dear readers of mine, superstitious about books? (If so, don’t be embarrassed — do share your little kink. Janakay won’t tell!) I’m quite superstititious myself, especially about the first book I start in any new year (books I’m finishing don’t count). I regard my first new book in January as an omen for the upcoming year; if it’s a really good book, well, the gods have spoken, haven’t they? They have promised I’ll have a great year of reading ahead of me!

To increase my chances that my January ritual will have a favorable outcome I tend to go with a classic when a new year rolls around or, gasp, even reread something I’ve loved in the past (Janakay regards this as a prudent precaution rather than a cheat. Honestly, don’t we all load the dice, when we can?) This year, however, I decided to gamble a bit on Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House, a modern fairy tale of two siblings, a wicked stepmother and the enchanted house they all longed to possess. I really like Ann Patchett’s work (I think I’ve read almost all of her novels) and I’d had my eye on this one since I read the advance notices. I’m happy to report that my gamble paid off; the novel was every bit as good as it was reported to be.

From contemporary I went to classic, spending the latter half of January with Sylvia Townsend Warner’s The Corner That Held Them. I had tried many years ago to read Corner, but had given it up after less than fifty of its three hundred plus pages; to put it mildly I had been totally unimpressed. How that Warner woman could dribble on! Had she no editor? Why was this book so different from her delightful Lolly Willowes? Whatever was Warner up to in this yawn-inducing tome? Was Corner a history or was it a novel? Either way, it was BORING and Janakay loathes being bored. Back on the shelf it went, to gather many layers of dust. Given my strong negative reaction, I naturally selected Corner for the “Abandoned Classic” category in the 2020 Back to the Classics Challenge hosted by Books and Chocolate. And — please note, dear readers, Janakay conceals nothing from you, no matter how embarrassing — her initial reaction to Warner’s novel was quite mistaken! In fact, you might say that Janakay missed the boat on this one or, if you were being particularly unkind, conclude that she even fell off the pier! Oh, my good gracious me, how the years can alter one’s judgment! Even in my callow youth, however could I have abandoned this wonderful novel? The Corner that Held Them really is a masterpiece and absolutely one of the best things Janakay has read in years — she was absolutely glued to the pages and bereft when the story ended. Hopefully, I’ll be posting a review later on, before all the details have totally faded but . . . the weather is so very nice right now, Janakay’s new house has its very own hammock and there are a great many interesting new books to read (Janakay adores novelty) ….

I will absolutely, positively get around to writing my review . . . .

and, for particularly low energy days, an overwhelming temptation to browse in that most addictive of sources . . .

This is an old edition of a very popular work. Do you have a copy?

But, despite these considerable temptations, Janakay will heroically summon her energy and get busy writing a serious review! (at some point)

Before leaving January entirely, the month’s comfort read deserves a mention, being an early novel by Rumer Godden, The Lady and the Unicorn. Any Rumer Godden readers out there? Godden is one of Janakay’s favorites for those times when she’s in the mood for a well-written novel, an exotic setting and at least one psychologically interesting character. Godden’s technique is traditional (which is fine with Janakay) and she can be surprisingly perceptive on issues of class and race, an important trait when writing about the British Raj, which Godden so very frequently does. The Lady and the Unicorn centers on the three daughters of an Anglo-Indian family and their struggle to establish themselves in a world that regarded them as neither British nor Indian. Although the novel’s strong supernatural element distracted a bit from Godden’s sharp social observations, the ghost story was fun and was skillfully incorporated into the main story line. All in all, The Lady and the Unicorn was a great way to pass an afternoon and a welcome distraction from packing boxes.

Maxi says “Finish packing those boxes or you’ll never get moved!”

February was a discovery month, bringing several new and wonderful novels in translation, thanks largely to Dolce Bellezza’s Japanese Literature Challenge 13. This was especially gratifying as Janakay is just the teeniest bit parochial in her reading, mostly sticking as she does to anglophone writers. Participating in Doce Bellezza’s challenge, however, demonstrated just how much Janakay has been missing in her rather narrow approach. What treasures are contained in even the sketchiest sample of Japanese writing! Looking for a terse and elegant story of doomed love, set in one of the most poetic and deeply atmospheric novels I’ve ever read? Try Yasunari Kawabata’s Snow Country. More into a contemporary tale of the ultimate non-conformist? You couldn’t do better than Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman, a chronicle of the deeply weird life and times of a very contented employee in one of Tokyo’s many “Smile Marts.” (I’d been intending to read this one for over a year. I’m happy to report it was definitely worth the wait). I also spent a few pleasant hours in which I finally got around to reading Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen, which I had come to regard as a permanent resident on my TBR list; while a little sentimental for my taste it was definitely worth the time I spent reading it.

A wonderful cover, n’est pas? You can almost feel the cold. This is one of those rare cases in which the cover art so beautifully conveys the mood of the novel

Another wonderful case of cover matching content!

71My7NN+yCL._AC_UY218_.jpg — A fun read; rather western in style & approach but providing plenty of insight (IMO at least) into young Tokyo life

And then, of course, there was Junichiro Tanizaki’s The Makioka Sisters, another book I had tried but abandoned several years ago. What a loss that would have been, never to have read it, especially since I had the added benefit of DB’s wonderful commentary. All of these great novels deserve far more than my brief nods, and Janakay was fully intending to share her thoughts and opinions with you, but, well, life intervened. Movers were a’ comin’ and she simply had to clean out her basement (a word of unsolicited advice, dear readers! Never, ever go twenty-eight years without cleaning out your basement!)

To a lesser extent, February was also short story month. Although I do respect the genre I ordinarily tend to avoid actually reading short stories, as I regard them as a bit of a tease — just when I’m getting interested, poof! They’re over! This year, however, I began seeking them out, as they seemed to lend themselves to my currently fractured attention span (so difficult to concentrate, don’t you find, with all this constant hand washing and disinfecting?). One of my rewards was re-discovering Daphne DuMaurier’s fantastic novella Don’t Look Now. Have any of you read it? If not, why are you wasting time on my blog? Click off instantly and read it now. Afterwards, settle in for a wonderfully creepy afternoon of watching Nicholas Roeg’s 1974 film version, with Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland making their doomed way through a darkly beautiful and sinister Venice.

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If February was short stories & Japanese novels, March was packing boxes and saying good-byes; physically it was a long distance move and literature-wise a much quicker journey to some fun and distracting reads. I was particularly happy to (finally) sample the work of the very talented sci-fi writer N.K. Jemisin. Behind the curve as usual I had totally missed her acclaimed Broken Earth series, so I was particularly happy to read The City We Became, the first book in a new trilogy. Aside from being an unusual and gripping story, City’s view that cultural and ethnic diversity are necessary for our very survival made Janakay positively weep with gratitude, being such a refreshing respite from the jingoistic blather that seems so omnipresent these days. If you’d prefer an interior journey through a dark and twisted psyche to humanity’s struggle against an alien threat, I can happily recommend Flynn Berry’s A Double Life, loosely based on Britain’s Lord Lucan murder scandal. For a noir thriller with an interesting take on class, race and gender, check out Christopher Bollen’s A Beautiful Crime, an elegant tale of intrigue set mostly in Venice, (Janakay adores Venice, even though it’s been years and years since she visited). I also dipped a toe into some grimly funny Scandinavian fare, with Helene Tursten’s An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good (Janakay was looking for inspiration and did find it there, although — reluctantly — she draws the line at offing those annoying neighbors of hers). As a bonus, it has an absolutely wonderful cover:

In April, it was back to more serious, albeit still contemporary, fare. As you may surmise from my most recent post, I’m a big fan of Emily St. John Mandel. Do any of you share my enthusiasm? After it became sadly evident that our current pandemic was not, suddenly, just going to “disappear” (and Janakay absolutely draws the line at injecting herself with bleach or swallowing light beams or whatever), I seriously considered re-reading Mandel’s Station Eleven, one of my highlight books from a few years ago. I decided, however, that until we see how Covid-19 plays out, I couldn’t emotionally handle Mandel’s story of a vicious, highly contagious disease that ended current civilization (isn’t it spooky, how great writers have their fingers on the zeitgeist?). I settled instead on Mandel’s latest, The Glass Hotel, published at the end of March. Somewhat to my surprise (Mandel’s incredibly talented, but how many great books can anyone, even Hilary Mantel, produce in one lifetime?) Glass Hotel was very nearly as good as its immediate predecessor. Admittedly, the novel has no feel-good characters (it’s based loosely on Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme), so if you want warm and fuzzy, you’ll need to look elsewhere. What it does have is beautiful writing, a wonderfully complex structure that uses shifts in time and point of view to reinforce and enrich the story, and an utterly believable, complicated and heartbreaking cast of characters, all of whom are, morally, some shade of grey. I was hooked in from the beginning and absolutely couldn’t put it down for the two days or so it took me to read. The only downside was that I had to wait for its impact to fade a bit before I could start another novel, because I knew that nothing I could read would be anywhere nearly as good. Have any of you read Glass Hotel? Or any other Mandel novel, for that matter? If so, I’d love to hear your opinions. I’d also be interested in hearing how you handle that period of time after you’ve read a novel that just blows you away. Do you read non-fiction? Play solitaire? Immediately go on to the next novel on your list? Do share your secret of survival!

After a few days of absorbing Glass Hotel and letting its impact fade, I settled in to enjoy another contemporary novel, this time by Lily King. Although I’d avoided reading Euphoria, King’s highly touted previous novel (I believe it was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year), I was curious about her work and decided to give her latest novel, Writers and Lovers, a try. Writers’ ostensible subject is the story of Casey, a thirty-something wannabe writer and part-time waitress; dealing with grief over her mother’s death, Casey struggles with her novel, works in a restaurant and becomes entangled with two very different men. Writers‘ real subject (IMO at least, don’t know if the critics would agree) is the creative process and the demands that it places on its devotees. I enjoyed the novel, without being overwhelmed by it; I was particularly taken with Casey’s criteria for determining a real bookstore and picked up several useful titles to add to my TBR list! (Knut Hamsun’s Hunger; Thomas Bernhard’s Woodcutters and, what I’m far more likely to actually read, Shirley Hazzard’s The Evening of the Holiday.) Prompted by an excellent review, I then sneaked in a quickie read of Camilla Bruce’s You Let Me In, a debut novel accurately described by The Guardian as a “smart, creepy fairy story” with a twist. If you, like Janakay, love Gothic horror and ambivalent endings, not to mention nasty malevolent fairies with a taste for human blood (not to mention hearts), then waste no time, dear reader! This is your book! Janakay’s one regret is that she didn’t save it for Halloween.

Well, that’s it for my round-up! What about yours? I’d love to compare lists!

2020 Back to the Classics Challenge

Although this young lady is working in a bookstore, her activity isn’t entirely dissimilar from ours when we compile our lists, is it? Do you love this contemporary painting (“Old Books” by David Carson Taylor) as much as I do?

Janakay loves a bookish challenge, don’t you? She was incredibly excited to learn (several weeks after the rest of the world, but then, Janakay has always moved at her own pace!) that Karen’s Back to the Classics Challenge would be offered again this year. Undeterred by last year’s results (being just a teensy bit better at reading novels than writing reviews, I, alas, didn’t complete quite all of my challenge books), I immediately began the happy task of compiling a book list for the 2020 Classics Challenge. I adore lists in general; they’re fun to make and give such a sense of accomplishment, don’t you think? In fact, Janakay was so satisfied with her list that she had to remind herself to stop basking in the glory of her accomplishment and to begin actually reading all those lovely books! And this year, they’re all going to be read! What’s a Challenge for, if not to set one’s expectations sky high?

And of all the lists on all the subjects in the universe, what list could possibly be better than a list of books that one intends to read? Making the list is a perfect excuse to leave the dishes in the sink (not that I need an excuse for this, exactly, but I’m sure you understand what I mean) to do what I like best, which is to to “ooh” and “ah” over all my wonderful unread treasures (there was one downside to this, as it did set off my dust allergy! Despite my “big sort,” some of my treasures haven’t been ooh’ed and ah’ed over in quite some time!). No matter how many times January rolls around I always find it a time of wonderful possibilities, particularly when it comes to reading. I think what makes a January book list particularly exciting is that it embodies in a very special way the hope that this year I’ll meet a wonderful new author, or find that rare book I’ll add to my “I’ll read it again” list (told you! I love lists!) or even simply pick up a new idea or new way of looking at a familiar subject, literary or not (Have any of you read Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea? After I finished it, I could never think about Jane Eyre in quite the same way). For all its fun, however, compiling my Challenge list was also demanding. A book list bears a dual aspect (so fitting for a month named for a god who has two faces) as it both embodies and limits possibilities. For each book I placed on my list, I rejected two or three others. And Janakay just hates rejecting books, even temporarily! Will I read some of the novels that didn’t make my 2020 list? Absolutely! But it’s far less likely that I’ll do so, particularly in 2020. The list, once made, sets the priorities!

In compiling my own list this month I’ve very much enjoyed peeking just a bit at the 2020 Challenge lists of some of my bookish friends and admiring many of their oh-so-enticing and ingenious choices. It’s been particularly fun this year, since many of the Classic Challenge’s categories are in the nature of open-ended and imaginative prompts, which require some effort to satisfy (“Hmmm, what can I read that has nature in the title? Does a waterfall count?”). It was quite interesting to discover (as Silvia noted in her own list) that so many titles actually fit multiple categories. These cases raise the additional question of which category to use? Oh, such delightful dilemmas!

Without any more blather (please feel free to skip the first two paragraphs of this post; Janakay doesn’t mind!) here are my choices for the 2020 Back to the Classics Challenge.

19th Century Classic: To my surprise, this was one of my toughest categories to fill this year, due to a combination of a picky, impossible-to-please mood and the desire to read someone other than Dickens, Trollope, Thackeray, Austen, Hardy, Brontes (any and all), James, Gissing, Gaskell and Meredith! I considered reading Disraeli’s Sybille, which the Guardian lists as one the great novels in English, but these days I just don’t want to read anything associated with a politician! I finally settled on Emily Eden’s Semi-Detached House (1859); my copy is a Virago Modern Edition that also contains Eden’s other well-known novel, The Semi-Attached Couple (depending on time and interest, I may read this as well).

In all candor, dear readers (and Janakay is usually candid, despite her former profession as an attorney), I was attracted to this novel because of its author, one of those fascinating and influential 19th century women whom we (or at least I) are always surprised to discover. Born into a politically active family of Whig aristocrats, Eden was a prominent political hostess and in 1835 accompanied her brother to India, where for several years he served as Governor-General. The diaries she kept during these years inspired Susannah Moore’s One Last Look, a great contemporary novel I read a few years back. (Side note & utterly irrelevant to the Classics Challenge: I love Susannah Moore and would really recommend her when you, dear reader, want something “modern”!) When I discovered my yellowing copy of Eden’s own novels in a box retrieved last week from my basement, I felt (quite irrationally, I’ll admit) like I was encountering an old friend! My choice was made!

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20th Century Classic (originally published between 1900 and 1970): Something by Ivy Compton-Burnett. Although I haven’t visited dear Ivy, metaphorically, in quite some time, I love her work. In fact, I placed her on my 2019 Classics Challenge list, saved her for December as a special little treat and my own personal antidote to the fake cheer of the holiday season (Ms Compton-Burnett is not a writer you turn to for cheer, fake or otherwise) then ran out of time and missed my read! This year, I will do better! My current candidates are Manservant and Maidservant (1947); A House & its Head (1935); or Pastors and Masters (probably this one!).

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Classic by a Woman Author: I appear to be the only person in the blogosphere who hasn’t read Muriel Spark’s The Girls of Slender Means (1963). 2020 will be the year Janakay joins the crowd! On the (extremely) off chance that I can’t get into it, I’ll probably substitue Spark’s The Mandelbaum Gate for my novel in this category.

Classic in Translation: My acquaintance with German literature is slight, being mostly limited to a few novels by Thomas Mann. The Classics Challenge is a perfect opportunity to finally get around to Theodor Fontane’s Effie Briest (pub. 1895), languishing unread on my shelves since 2010.

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Classic by a POC: A couple of years ago, I audited a course on the Harlem Renaissance, that flowering of African-American art, literature and culture that occurred in New York City’s Harlem in the 1920s. It was a wonderful introduction to a group of artists and intellectuals who were long denied the recognition that should have been theirs. One of the most interesting of these figures to me was Nella Larsen, the biracial daughter of a Danish immigrant mother and a father of mixed African and European ancestry. Larsen, who trained as a nurse, published two novels and was regarded by her contemporaries as a talented writer. By the early 1930s, however, she disappeared from the literary scene and her work was out of print until a revival of interest in the late 1990s. I read and admired her second novel, Passing, as part of my course work, finding it a fascinating study of racial and sexual identity. Despite my good intentions, however, I never got around to reading Quicksand, her earlier and more autobiographical work. Thanks to the Classics Challenge, 2020 will be my year! (P.S. the book cover below is based on a very beautiful painting by Archibald Motley, a major artist of the Harlem Renaissance and contemporary of Larsen’s).

A Genre Classic: I grew up reading sci-fi and fantasy, which I lumped in with fairy tales, mythology and novels about life outside my small southern town. So . . . picking a book from this genre was a natural choice. But which book? That’s a bit of a problem. Although I’m quite fond of much of the early stuff, I’ll be the first to admit that its language, style and character development are less appealing to me than in days of yore. (I still love the cover art, however, particularly when it involves aliens or space babes! Does that make Janakay sexist?). I finally settled on Walter M. Miller’s 1959 A Canticle for Leibowitz, which was discussed in an undergraduate “History in Science Fiction” class, which I took many years ago; it was cited as the very embodiment of the cyclical theory of history, i.e., the notion that history is simply a series of repeating cycles or events. I can’t even remember whether I actually read Canticle at the time; if so, it certainly didn’t leave much of an impression on me! Still, it’s considered a foundational work in the field and I’m now curious to see and share my current opinion of it.

Classic with a Person’s Name in the Title: Despite a plethora of possibilities, I instantly settled on Elizabeth Bowen’s Eva Trout (pub. 1968), which I’ve wanted to read for quite some time. (I’ve had a copy, unread, since 2011. My bad!) As I’ve noted before, I have a very ambivalent attitude towards Bowen’s fiction, which at times is a bit too rarefied for me; when I want rarefied, I generally head for Henry James if my energy level is high. Bowen, however, is a beautiful stylist, can be very funny at times, and convincingly portrays mid-20th century upper class English life, a world I find incredibly exotic. Besides, at this point I’ve read seven of her ten novels, and I have to complete my list!

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Classic with a Place in the Title: Has anyone read the Hungarian novelist Magda Szabo (1917-2007)? She was largely unknown in the U.S. until a few years ago, when the New York Review of Books (NYRB) reissued her great novel, The Door. I read it on a whim and it blew me away; I thought it was easily one of the best things I had read in years. The Door‘s success (France’s Prix Femina Étrabger; one of the New York Time’s 10 best books of 2015) has led to other NYRB reissues of Katalin Street as well as several other Szabo novels. The tale of three Budapest families during WWII, Katalin Street was originally published in Hungarian in 1969; it just squeaks in under the Classics Challenge’s 1970 cutoff date. My alternative selection (which I may read instead) is Glenway Wescott’s 1945 Apartment in Athens, another NYRB reissue.

Classic with Nature in the Title: This category had me stumped for a day or so; then the titles starting flooding through my mind, so to speak. I was all set to go with Olivia Manning’s The Rain Forest (has anyone read Olivia Manning? She’s a wonderful novelist who IMO is sadly neglected) until I checked its publication date — 1974, four years over the Challenge’s 1970 cutoff date! Shucky darn, that one’s out! I finally settled on The Alien Sky (1953), an early novel by Paul Scott, the author of the Raj Quartet. I loved the Quartet (its treatment of the human and political consequences of British colonialism rivals J.G. Farrell’s) and am very curious to see how a stand alone work compares to it. My alternative, if Alien Sky disappoints, is Stella Gibbon’s Nightingale Wood or Margaret Drabble’s A Summer Bird-Cage.

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Classic about a Family or with Family Members in the Title: Although my compulsion to re-read Jane Austen is gaining momentum by the day, I firmly rejected Mansfield Park in favor of Daphne du Mauier’s Parasites, a semi-autobiographical tale of three slacker siblings from a notable theatrical family. With its lack of gothic and romantic trappings, I don’t think it’s very representative of du Maurier’s better known works, which is fine. I’m fascinated by tales of dysfunctional families (like Tolstoy said, they’re all different; it’s the happy folks who are boring) and I’ve been intending to read this one for many, many years.

Abandoned Classic: Janakay was so excited to see this category because it gives her so very much to choose from! Most of Dickens! All of Hardy (except for Tess, which wasn’t so bad)! A Brontë or three (or four) — Janakay’s last attempt at Shirley didn’t go well! Should she risk drowning (again) in Ms Woolf’s Waves or getting stomped for the third or fourth time by that nasty moocow thing? (my apologies to you lovers of Joyce. I concede his greatness but even his Portrait of the Artist is a mountain I’ve yet to climb. Don’t even mention Ulysses! Janakay would rather not think about it). No! No! No! Janakay just can’t read any of those things this year — she has to pack boxes and move! Allowances must be made! Luckily, I finally remembered Sylvia Townsend Warner, one of those erudite and interesting British women novelists who always turn up on my list of favorites. Many years ago, I attempted The Corner that Held Them (1948), considered by many to be Warner’s greatest novel; I was quite disappointed in it, however, and gave up the slog about halfway through (it’s long). In retrospect, I think my disappointment was due to timing; I attempted Corner immediately after reading Lolly Willowes and on some level expected the former to be largely the same. In the years since my initial disappointment, however, I’ve read Warner’s Summer Will Show (a tremendous novel); Mr. Fortune’s Maggot (so delightfully malicious! Janakay loved it) and several of her short stories and no longer expect a Warner novel to be a repetition of anything, including an earlier Warner novel (STW is an original writer). With my expectations tempered and under control, I’m now ready to re-evaluate The Corner that Held Them. (P.S.: I’ve already started reading it! It’s wonderful!).

Classic Adaptation: This is a difficult category simply because there are so many great choices! I opted against several tempting ones (Rebecca West’s Return of the Soldier; Forster’s Passage to India) in favor of something by Richard Yates, a writer I’ve been intending to sample for quite some time. Published in 1962, Revolutionary Road meets the Challenge’s pre-1970 cutoff date, which Easter Parade does not. Road was also adapted for a 2008 film directed by Sam Mendes that reunited Leonard DiCaprio, Kate Winslet and Kathy Bates, all of whom starred in the movie “Titanic.” I missed the film, so it will be fun to compare my initial impressions of it after reading the original source material.

Well, dear readers, that’s it for my post. As you can see, I have an exciting year of Challenge reading ahead of me!

2019’s Reading Wrap-Up (or It’s Better Late than Never)

New Year’s Eve in Dogville (1903) by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge (a/k/a Kash Coolidge)

Well, dear readers, here you are, well into the new year while Janakay is still piddling around with the old! Time just seemed to gallop away from me, there at the old year’s end, what with the “Big Book Sort,” the holidays and a (very) little recreational travel. One day it was early December and I rather unrealistically thought I might actually catch up with my 2019 Challenges; then I blinked and it was mid-January! No matter how many times this has happened to Janakay, she’s always surprised! I suppose it’s that child-like sense of wonder that keeps her going!

2019 was a big year for me as far as bookish matters are concerned. After literally years of thinking it would be fun to write about some of the great books I was reading, and to connect with others who shared my passions, I (finally) launched my blog and — gasp — participated in not one, but two Challenges! (the first was Karen’s “Back to the Classics” Challenge; the second was the TBR Challenge hosted by Roof Beam Reader). Now, a year later, what do I think of the whole enterprise?

The blog itself has been rewarding, even if it’s been on life support at times; my “launch year” unfortunately coincided with a final, rather intensive year of academic work on my art history degree. As for the Challenges, well . . . . Janakay isn’t always into completion! It’s a kind of glass half–empty, glass half-full thing and, since Janakay has a naturally sunny disposition she regards both her Challenges as having been very worthwhile exercises. Even if the total number of reviews and books read were somewhat less than ideal, the Challenges ensured that reading in 2019 was quite stimulating and definitely more challenging than the previous year’s when, sad to say, I was in a bit of a science fiction-fantasy rut. Regrettably, however, around midyear my reviews fell far short of my reading; so much so that I didn’t see the point of a final linkup post for either my TBR or Classics Challenge. Because this is the month named for the god who gazes into the past as much as the future, however, and I haven’t posted in quite some time, I thought it would be interesting, at least to me (you, dear reader, can always click elsewhere for entertainment!) to do a sort of informal tally of the results of my Challenge participation.

I’ll begin with the “Back to the Classics Challenge,” as the books I selected were generally more of a stretch for me to complete than my TBR selections. The final sum of my posted reviews — five — was pretty bad. The number of books (eight) I read for the Challenge, however, wasn’t too horrible, particularly when I consider that the Challenge required me to read books from genres (such as translated literature) that I normally avoid because they’re too much work! Here’s my thumbnail tally by category:

19th century classic: For this category I rather ambitiously selected Henry James’ 1890 The Tragic Muse, written right before HJ’s disastrous stint as a playwright. Although Muse displays the realism so characteristic of 19th century literature in general, it’s also quite philosophical in a sense; James uses his characters to debate various opinions regarding the nature of dramatic art and the plot turns on the conflict between pursuing art and meeting the expectations and obligations imposed by society. One plot strand centers around Nick Dormer and his decision to pursue painting rather than the political career expected by his family, while the other revolves around Miriam Rooth, a fiercely dedicated actress who rejects a conventional life in favor of the stage. Since Muse is mid-period James, its syntax is much more manageable than HJ’s late masterpieces (Wings of the Dove, for example). As with any novel by HJ, one shouldn’t expect thrills and chills. Although Muse does have some extended discussions on the nature of art, particularly dramatic art (one senses that James is working through his ideas regarding his upcoming career switch), the major characters’ choices, along with their resulting complications, do create a bit of tension in the plot. Like the great artist he is, James creates complicated and subtle characters. While I found Nick a bit bland, James does wonderful female characters and Miriam is one of the great creations of 19th century English literature. How many novels of this era portray a strong and supremely gifted woman who navigates considerable practical obstacles and arranges her life to allow the full exercise of her talents? Miriam is not only unusual, she and her choices are fully believable. Although I liked this novel very much, it’s not one of HJ’s masterpieces and I’d hesitate to recommend it to someone who only intended to read one or two of HJ’s novels. I obviously love James’ work and actually managed to review Muse in some (well, too much) detail; if you’re interested you may check out my post.

20th century classic: Decisions, decisions! So much to choose from! I finally settled on Elizabeth Bowen’s debut novel, Friends and Relations (another one of my rather rare reviews; you may find it here.) Friends is a deceptively brief but stylistically rather complex novel involving the secrets and shifting relationships of two very different sisters and their respective husbands. Although I found some of the novel’s characters rather two dimensional and its ultimate plot twist unnecessarily melodramatic, it also contained moments of real emotional insight and tenderness, as well as some wonderful comedy. A detailed and seemingly believable depiction of upper class English life between the wars is an added bonus. And, of course, the novel is beautifully written. Friends is definitely worth reading, if not quite equal to Bowen’s later work, such as The Last September or The Death of the Heart.

Classic Tragic Novel: For this category, I read Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky, published in 1949, but, alas, failed to post a review. I found this category quite interesting because it made me question the very definition of a “tragic” protagonist. Must s/he be Aristotle’s person of noble qualities, subject to adverse circumstances and brought low by an inner flaw? Or can our tragic protagonist be some poor schlub in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or a couple of rich, educated, culturally blind Americans who traipse around Algeria, carrying too much emotional baggage and descending into their own hell of utter darkness? If you answered my third question affirmatively, well, Sky is the very defintion of a tragic novel. Kit and Port Moresby, the couple in question, are the ultimate adventure tourists, scorning the mundane; Port is intent on seeking out the increasingly remote and isolated while Kit becomes more terrified as they leave “civilization” further and further behind. Neither Port nor Kit understands or is interested in understanding anything about the people or cultures they encounter, and both are totally unsympathetic characters; if you want warm and fuzzy, this is not your novel. The couple’s journey is bleak, the north African landscape is tortured and the prose is gorgeous, as Bowles describes a terrifying and empty universe in which civilization does not triumph. This novel is bleak, bleak, bleak. Janakay loved it and wants to read more Paul Bowles, but is afraid to; she has also vowed to travel exclusively with guided tour groups in the future. Sky has been my “jinx” book for ages; without the Classics Challenge it would have continued languishing unread and I would have missed a great read (many thanks, BooksandChocolate!).

Classic from a Place You’ve Lived: One of the more interesting places I’ve lived is New Orleans, Louisiana. From the abundance of myth, legend and literature associated with this oh-so-special city I picked The Moviegoer by Walker Percy, a white, male, southern novelist I had successful avoided for most of my life. Percy was quite the flavor, back in the day; did you know The Moviegoer won the 1962 National Book Award over such contenders as J.D. Salinger (Franny and Zooey), Joseph Heller (Catch-22), William Maxwell (The Chateau) and Isaac Bashevis Singer (The Spinoza of Market Street)? Although Percy’s luster has faded a bit in subsequent years, Moviegoer continues to be regarded as one of the greatest U.S. novels of the 20th century; early last year The New Yorker made a persuasive argument that it continues to remain as relevant as ever.

The novel’s non-linear plot centers on the travails of Binx Bolling, a well-connected New Orleans stockbroker with a knack for making money, who occasionally (please forgive Janakay’s snark) attends an afternoon movie, which he finds more “real” than his quotidian routine. In addition to (occasionally) watching movies, making money and seducing his secretaries, Binx wanders around New Orleans, the Gulf Coast and Chicago seeking god and spouting thinnly disguised existentialist philosophy. By novel’s end, Binx accepts reality, marries the neurotic rich girl and decides to attend medical school, which he will have no trouble getting into and which his family will pay for. Despite Percy’s skill with dialogue and description, his frequently lovely prose and his sincerity, Janakay did not like Moviegoer, which she considers enormously overrated (lots of guilt here! When I lived in New Orleans, I patronized a nice little bookshop that had a candid photo of Percy browsing its stacks and I heard, first hand, that he was a very nice guy!). Are any of you cyberspace wanderers familiar with Moviegoer? If so, I’d love to hear your thoughts, as I’m afraid my own cultural bias may be blinding me to the novel’s virtues (I’m highly resistant to the woes of privileged southern white boys). It’s worth noting that Moviegoer reflects the racial and sexual attitudes of its time and place, which have thankfully improved somewhat over the fifty-odd years since its publication. Also, before I forget — this is one of the novels I read but never got around to reviewing.

Very Long Classic: I’m afraid I totally bombed out in this category. I had originally intended to read Miklòs Bánfly’s They Were Counted, volume I of his Transylvanian Trilogy, an unsung classic from eastern Europe. Last July and fifty pages in, I realized this was not going to happen (at least not in this lifetime); I opted instead for a nature walk in Corkscrew Swamp, a wonderful nature preserve located in the western portion of Florida’s Everglades (boardwalks! birds! river otters! ghost orchids!) Of course, I could have switched selections, made Tragic Muse my “very long classic” and reviewed Jane Eyre or Great Expectations (both of which I re-read last spring) for my 19th century category. Oh, well …………………. those river otters at Corkscrew were wonderful!

Classic Comic Novel: Another bomb! I intended to read something by Ivy Compton-Burnett, who’s a favorite author of mine (her humor is so very black and her dialogue is so very, very funny) but kept saving it as a treat. Then — it was December and I decided to read a couple of contemporary detective novels instead! (If you haven’t yet met detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, devout Buddhist cop and half-caste son of a Thai bar girl, stop now and read John Burdett’s Bangkok 8 immediately! Provided, that is, you’re not offended by an unflinching look at Bangkok’s sex trade). Remember what Janakay said about her addiction to non-completion?

Classic in Translation: The Challenge was just what I needed to get me reading some of those wonderful translations out there, particularly as I tend to confine myself to anglophone writers. Thanks to the NYRB Classics, I had several novels by Guy de Maupassant gathering dust on the shelf so I took this opportunity to read Like Death. Set in Belle Epoch Paris, it involves a simple but piquant situation: noted society painter Olivier Bertin is beginning to feel his age when the lovely young daughter of Anne de Gilleroy, his longtime mistress, appears in his life. The novel follows the growing realization of both Bertine and Anne that the former is subsuming his love for Anne into a passion for her daughter. Although I thought the story might work better as a novella than a full-length novel, it was psychologically quite acute and offered a wonderful look at the aristocratic Paris of the late 19th century. I did manage to review this one; follow the link if you want details.

Classic novella: I literally have hundreds of these in a very special, very neglected corner of a very large book case and hardly ever read one! 2019 and a Challenge — here I come! I really, really meant to read one in 2019 — one little afternoon in December would have done it — but Bangkok 8 was so exciting I simply had to follow it with Bankgok Tattoo, the second book in the series! And, after all, there’s always 2020 . . . . I did read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein last spring, which technically qualifies (it’s less than 250 pages) but just didn’t feel like writing about it! Janakay has to wait for inspiration!

Classic from the Americas: This was a category in which I did the reading but didn’t do a review, primarily because it took me so long to make my selection. After several months of dithering I finally settled on Zama, a 1956 novel by the Argentinian writer Antonio Di Benedetto. Di Benedetto (died in 1986) was a contemporary of Borges and Cortázar who never achieved their international fame; Zama has only recently been translated into English and made readily available through the NYRB Classics. As the novel opens, it is circa 1790 and Don Diego de Zama, a midlevel functionary of the Spanish empire, is stuck in a dead end posting in what is now Asunción, Paraguay. Zama longs for everything he doesn’t have: the bright lights of Buenos Aires; promotion (as a Spaniard born in the colonies he faces considerable discrimination in this respect); the wife and children whom he’s too poor to have with him and for a remote, fantasy Europe that he has never seen. The novel falls into three chronological sections (1790, 1794 and 1799); in each period Zama faces, respectively, a serious sexual, financial and existential problem. In each period Zama over-analyzes and misinterprets his situation; essentially he’s so busy presenting his life to an imaginary audience he misses, or is unable to face, the reality in front of him. Zama’s tragedy, perhaps, is that he’s never quite able to lose himself in his fantasies; he retains a neurotic self-awareness that ensures he’s continually disappointed by the realities of his situation. It’s all very existential (Di Benedetto was a great admirer of Dostoevsky) and Janakay isn’t at all sure she grasped everything there was to grasp; in fact, after I finished Zama I was tempted to settle in for a re-read (it’s quite brief). Zama is a challenging, but very worthwhile novel. And, did I mention it’s quite funny at times?

Classic Play: I’ve been meaning to read Ben Johnson’s The Duchess of Malfi for years. I’m still meaning to! Another category where I dropped the ball.

Classic from Africa, Asia or Oceania (including Australia): Thanks to NYRB Classics, I had long possessed a copy of Maria Dermôut’s The Ten Thousand Things (1955) sitting unread on my shelf. This highly autobiographical account of life on the remnants of a Dutch spice plantation in Indonesia was one of my favorite reads of the year. Ostensibly the story of a young woman who returns to her grandmother’s garden to raise her child and grow old, the story moves backwards and forwards in time to encompass hundreds of beings, the living and dead, the supernatural and natural, to show in the most subtle way possible the interconnectedness of all things. I reviewed this novel in great detail in a prior post(I’m afraid I became a little carried away with the visuals, having just completed a couple of courses in Dutch art!); there’s a wonderful essay that explains the novel far better than does my review in Lost Classics (edited by Michael Ondaatje), a fascinating little book which is in itself worth tracking down.

Classic by a Woman Author: For this category I read and reviewed The Blackmailer, the first of a number of novels by Isabel Colegate, a wonderful English novelist who’s a favorite of mine. Blackmailer, which is set in the post-war London of the 1950s, is a surprisingly subtle look at the relationship between the blackmailer and his/her prey, and the intricate cat and mouse game in which they indulge. The novel offers crisp dialogue, a great depiction of post-war London’s publishing world and some wonderful supporting characters (including a hilarious old nightmare of a nanny and Bertie the spaniel, portrayed with great vividness and not an ounce of sentimentality). Perhaps best avoided by those demanding a great deal of action in their novels.

I did a bit better with my TBR than with my Classics challenge, completing ten of the twelve books I selected from my enormous TBR pile. Alas, however, I only reviewed four. Regardless of numbers, however, the Challenge really motivated me actually to read some of those very interesting books I’ve been accumulating all these years and was, more importantly, a lot of fun (I’m very sorry to see that the Challenge won’t be offered in 2020). The real standouts for me were Tom Drury’s The Driftless Area, a wonderful noir thriller with supernatural elements, which I reviewed, and Ester Freud’s Summer at Gaglow, which I did not. My real regret is that, once again, I’ve evaded Jane Gardam’s The Man in the Wooden Hat, which has been on my TBR list for years!

Regarding my choice of illustrations — have you ever wondered where those nauseatingly cute paintings of anthropomorphic dogs playing poker and so on came from? For better or worse, we owe them to Kash Coolidge, a graphic artist who created them as part of an advertising campaign in the early part of the 20th century. In the illustration I choose, the canines all look like they’re having a doggedly good time on New Year’s Eve, don’t they?

Halloween Miscellany! Scary Reads and Pop Culture!

gustavedore_raven8 — Isn’t this print wonderfully creepy and compelling? I’m a big fan of Gustave Doré; this is one of his illustrators for Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven.”

Greetings to all you denizens of the internet, on this dark and ghastly time of year! Do you celebrate the Day, complete with your “sexy witch” costume or Freddy Kruger mask, lawn bestrown with cobwebs, plastic skeletons and those huge truly yucky fake spiders that are so unfortunately popular with Janakay’s neighbors?

0-3 — Janakay is *severely* arachnophobic and doesn’t like walking past certain houses in her neighborhood during Halloween week! Needless to say, these folks did NOT consult HER about their Halloween decorations . . .

In my neck of the woods (North American, mid-Atlantic suburban) Halloween decorations have become increasingly common. They range from folks who clearly regard Halloween as a very, very important milestone in their shopping and celebratory life . . .

0-1 — In dawn’s early light, those giant spiders are rather unpleasantly realistic!

to those of a minimalist bent who nevertheless want to mark the occasion . . . .

The pumpkin face didn’t come out well in this photo — it’s actually pretty sinister, even if the “ghost” hanging on the porch is a bit laid back!

to the oh so tasteful, who actually changed the permanent outdoor light fixtures (on the left of the gate and the right of the porch) to match their purple Halloween lights!

A bit blurry (Halloween night here is appropriately rainy and stormy) but you get the idea . . .

And — the neighborhood’s pièce de résistance!

0-1 — To paraphrase that eminent stylist, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Halloween here is “a dark and stormy night!” Great for ghostly atmosphere but lousy for photos! Still, squint hard and you can see the red thing on the right is a dragon! With movable wings! What *will* they think of next?

Just as Halloween decorations are becoming more common and elaborate, Halloween costumes have taken a giant leap forward from the cardboard witches’ hats and superman masks of my childhood! Now we have the adorably traditional:

creative-halloween-costume-ideas-54-57f66129c1373__700.jpg — Grandma is really rocking this one!

The “traditional with a twist”:

Creative-Halloween-Costume-Ideas-011-57f6641e8a16e__700.jpg — Jon Snow White!

And — the Topical:

This company also offers a “Miss Impeachment” costume (includes a tiara, beauty queen sash and a whistle blower necklace) as well as a sexy “Beyond Burger” getup, complete with a headband bearing the label “Plant Based!”

Well, it’s all certainly very interesting, isn’t it? Do you follow the lead of these festive folks or do you (like Janakay on a bad year) pretend the day just isn’t happening, as you close the blinds, turn on the TV and ignore the trick or treaters ringing your door bell so you can eat all the best candy yourself in blessed solitude? Do you have your very own Halloween rituals involving none of the above or do you perhaps hail from a country or follow a tradition that doesn’t acknowledge Halloween? This space is all about sharing, so — please share with the rest of us how, or even if, you mark the day!

PART SECOND: SCARY READS IN GENERAL. THOUGHTS, ANYONE?

I bet you never thought I’d get around to the books, did you? Ha! Tricked you! With Jankay, it’s always about the books; no matter how meandering the path, it always comes back to the books; books underlie everything! And there are such wonderful books associated with this time of year, aren’t there? And don’t we all have our favorite reads? My own preferred brand of horror tends towards the classic, away from gore and slasher (so very, very unsubtle, don’t you think?) towards the “oh my god, something moved in the corner of my eye” variety. In other words, away from the Freddy Kruger/Texas Chainsaw Massacre and more towards the Shirley Jackson, Haunting of Hill House end of the horror scale. In fact, isn’t the whole horror phenomenon fascinating? Why is it that we humans love so much to scare ourselves and isn’t it interesting how we all vary in what we regard as particularly horrifying? I was actually settling in to spend some happy hours researching this topic when I realized that I’d be posting this on Christmas if I didn’t wrap it up (speaking of which, have you seen Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas? If not, stop reading this instance and go watch!) Without further ado, here’s a few selections from my short list of creepy reads; these are just things I thought of, fairly quickly and are listed in no particular order:

Bram Stoker’s Dracula: All the ornate Victorian prose can’t obscure one of the scariest stories every written. I re-read it every now and then and it scares me almost as much as it did when I was fifteen years old, alone for the weekend and very unwisely deciding to try this old 19th century thing.

Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House. Some houses are indeed born evil and some writers were born to tell us about them. Truly one of the most terrifying tales ever conceived, written by an author of breathtaking talent working at the height of her powers. It would be a shame not to read the book but if you’re in a visual mood Netflix did a recent series that’s sort of o.k. Far better IMO is the 1963 black and white movie, starring Claire Bloom and Julie Harris.

Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire. Anne Rice has built up such a fan base and churned out so much over-written drivel over her long career (my apologies to any fans out there, but we are sharing our honest opinions aren’t we?) that it’s easy to forget just how very good she can be. This is my favorite Anne Rice novel, an incredibly atmospheric take on the vampire mythos, set in French colonial New Orleans and 19th century Paris. Erotic, baroque, stomach churning and beautiful, it isn’t easy to forget (the Theatre des Vampires, where vampires feed on victims for the audience’s amusement, is as horrifying as anything I’ve ever read). Rice’s The Witching Hour, a tale of two centuries of the Mayfair Witch family and its attendant demon Lasher, ranging from its origin in medieval Scotland to its dark doings in contemporary San Francisco & New Orleans, is also pretty good. Word of advice: avoid the numerous sequels and spinoffs of both novels.

H.P. Lovecraft’s short stories: H.P. has fallen out of favor these days because he is, let’s face it, a racist, a fact that’s painfully obvious when you start examining his work. In this area and with this writer, I agree with Victor LaValle (an award winning African American horror writer) that you can reject Lovecraft’s views while still appreciating his work (if you’re new to Lovecraft, the NY Times’ recent review of his annotated works is pretty useful). I think Lovecraft is at his best when writing short stories, which he mostly sets in a frightening cosmos in which humanity is largely irrelevant to the ancient and terrifying gods who are attempting to reenter the human dimensions. My own personal favorites among Lovecraft’s stories are “Pickman’s Model;” “The Dunwich Horror;” “The Thing On the Door Step;” and “The Rats in the Walls.”

Additional “dark writings” I’ve enjoyed (and still periodically re-read), without experiencing quite the visceral feelings evoked by Jackson, Lovecraft and Stoker:

Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla: another vampire tale (I’m particularly fond of vampires, obviously). My immediate reaction after reading this for the first time was –“what’s the big deal?” Then I had nightmares for a week. A classic, whether you give it the psychological interpretation or not.

Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby: devil worship for our era and a very shrewd commentary on a certain 20th century milieu. I’ve never read the sequel — why tamper with perfection?

Edgar Allan Poe: anything, really. If you go for his long poem “The Raven,” try to find Doré’s illustrations (I included one at the beginning of the post. They’re all great). For sheer horror, my pick is his short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher.”

Stephen King’s The Shining: I’m ordinarily not a big Stephen King fan, but I’ve read this one twice. Despite the re-read, however, this is one of the rare cases where I prefer the film (a Stanley Kubrick masterpiece) to its source material. Although I didn’t much care for King’s sequel, Doctor Sleep, nothing will keep me away from seeing the film, which will be released November 8th.

William Blatty’s The Exorcist. I loved it when I read it; a second re-read about twenty years ago left me a bit cold so it’s ripe for a third review. About the movie there’s no doubt at all — it’s really, really scary. In fact Mr. Janakay and I are having our own little Halloween celebration tonight (too bad for the trick or treaters who come by after 7 PM!) by watching the director’s cut at our nearby cinema art house!

Poppy Z. Brite’s 1990’s work (she later ventured into dark comedy): have any of you read this very interesting writer? She’s so, so southern Gothic and so off-beat; naturally enough she’s a resident of New Orleans! I have to admit I literally couldn’t read Exquisite Corpse, a novel centering on a homosexual, necrophiliac, cannibalistic serial killer (even for something that could be interpreted as a political metaphor, I do set some limits), but I found her early novels, Lost Souls and Drawing Blood, atmospheric (she’s got the lost, southern hippy thing down pat) atmospheric and absorbing. Poppy’s appeal is no doubt a bit limited, but if you’re into over the top, you may find her worth checking out.

Marisha Pessl’s Night Film. This one barely made my cut, as it’s more of a mystery-thriller than a proper horror novel but still — it was nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award. The book begins with a suicide and continues with an investigation into the dark and violent work of a reclusive horror film director. I’m a sucker for novels implying that our perceived “reality” rests on dark and unperceived secrets; I also found the interactive aspects of the story, which drive some readers nuts, wildly inventive and interesting.

My list, as I said at the beginning, is short and I’d love to expand it. Do you have any dark reads you’d like to share?

PART THIRD: MY 2019 HALLOWEEN READ(S)

My own little Halloween tradition (it actually relates more to autumn in general, than to Halloween per se) is to read something a little dark, a little eerie; something that reminds me that the universe encompasses more than we ordinarily see or perceive; that perhaps our “reality” isn’t the only reality out there. A bit mystical, I know, but then rationality, while explaining much, doesn’t quite cover it all, does it? It always seems appropriate to me, as the darkness literally closes in with the year’s waning, to read something a little dark. What better time than Halloween? It’s a time to forget the cute costumes and the fake spiders and remember that every culture I can think of had some ritual for celebrating the harvest, the time of bounty before nature’s (temporary) death. I didn’t have a lot of time this year, but in my energetic and continuing effort to evade the art work of the Italian Renaissance I decided I absolutely was not going to forego my Halloween read! The deciding factor here was a really odd compulsion to return to a novel I first read many years ago, The Night Country by the American writer Stewart O’Nan.

Have any of you read or reviewed O’Nan’s novels? O’Nan appears to be one of those writers who’s hard to classify because he seems able to write about very diverse subjects in an equally convincingly way and — he’s written a lot! A quick trip to Wiki discloses that in 1996 O’Nan was named by Granta as one of “America’s Best Young Novelists” and he’s been very respectfully reviewed by such publications as the New York Times. I’ve always meant to read O’Nan’s novels (I’ve a couple languishing now on the shelf) but, sad to say, the only one I’ve gotten around to is Night Country, which I first read shortly after it was published in 2004. I was drawn to Night Country because — you guessed it — it’s a ghost story and I was looking for a dark read. I both got, and didn’t get, what I was looking for. Night Country is a ghost story, but it’s a haunting without the chains. Along with its supernatural elements, it’s also a beautifully written (and occasionally very funny) tale of disappointment and regret; a realistic slice of life in a small town and of bad choices and bad luck. The whole thing was a bit too subtle for me and very much not what I was looking for at the time, i.e., a second Shirley Jackson Haunting of Hill House type read. And yet, it stayed with me, and this year just seemed to pop into my mind, along with the return of rain, falling leaves and the chill of dark mornings.

O’Nan sets his novel in the small Connecticut town of Avondale. It is Halloween night and his three protagonists are the ghosts of three teenagers who died the previous Halloween, victims of a terrible car crash resulting from a high speed pursuit by a local traffic cop. Two teenagers survived the crash — Tim who can’t forgive himself for having lived when his girlfriend and buddies did not, and Kyle, a once arrogant bad boy reduced by severe brain damage to a shell of his former self. The three ghosts have their own agenda, which plays out in the course of the novel as we see the effect of the tragedy on the cop, Kyle’s Mother (her proper name is never given) and a community that is still coming to terms with its grief.

As one of its contemporary reviews noted, Night Country, despite its “goblin-like atmosphere,” is a chilling, rather than a scary, read. It’s a wonderful depiction of a closely knit and prosperous community, where all appears safe. Or, this disquieting novel asks, is it safe, really? The woods surrounding Avondale are mighty dark and mysterious, its creeks and marshlands are dangerous and one chance act can affect the beautifully ordered rationality of many lives. It was amazing how much I liked this book the second time around, how beautiful, subtle and — haunting — I found the story. If, like me in 2004, you’re looking for a purely traditional and scary read, best avoid Night Country, particularly as it’s a quiet book that requires patience and time. If, on the other hand, you enjoy a Ray Bradbury type mix of the strange and the quotidian, Night Country just might be your next great autumn read.

If you’ve the patience, bear with me for one more paragraph and I’ll mention a very creepy book indeed, a fantastical (and fantastic) mixture of horror, fantasy and fairy tale called Follow Me To Ground, a debut novel by Sue Rainesford. I found this one through a review in The Guardian, which described it far better than I can here. It’s a dark, unnerving story of Ada and her father, non-humans who live and work their healing magic on nearby villagers, whom they refer to as “Cures.” The Cures are grateful but wary (their perspective is given from time to time, in brief shifts away from Ada’s); the setting is realistic with overtones of myth (everyone, including Ada, is terrified of Sister Eel Lake, the home of carnivorous serpents) and the tale can be read on a number of levels. All goes well, however, until Ada begins a sexual relationship with a human Cure of whom her father disapproves. I know what you’re thinking but trust me — Romeo and Juliet this is not. It’s a pretty brief novel (slightly less than 200 pages) and a perfect quick read for those dark autumn nights when the rain is beating against the window.

PART FOURTH: FUN LINKS

The Guardian’s List of Ten Books About Cemeteries (I may check out a couple of these!)

“I was so scared I took it back to the library: the books that scare horror authors” (amusing note: Anne Rice was too frightened to finish Dracula!)

“I didn’t sleep well for months:” the films that terrified The Guardian’s writers as kids

And, just to prove that I occasionally read something other than The Guardian’s take on books, “Globetrotting:” the New York Times sneak preview of books coming out in 2019 from around the world