A proposal

How about if we try one more time.

What I'm thinking is trying something new that others have recognized as worth reading.

Specifically, I'm thinking about one of the award winners:

National Book Awards:
Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen (Fiction)
The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed (Nonfiction)
(I don't usually read nonfiction but am willing to try this.)

Man Booker Award
White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

I am making this suggestion somewhat hesitantly because I'm the one who picked up The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Pam would probably say a particular book 'didn't hold her attention.' In the case of Oscar Wao I'll just say it outright: I hated it. BTW it didn't hold my attention either.

Let me know what you think.

Ed

About "The Mercy"

On Dec 3, Paula asked: Is Mercy worth reading?
Pam's reply of Dec 12: No. I read 74 pages and decided today that the book just isn't keeping my attention. And the story can be confusing if you're not fully engaged.
Pam

The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit

First of all: Yes. I'm going to be in Silver Spring Feb 11-24. Hope we can get together.

Now I'll tell you what I'm not reading: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I disliked it intensely.

OTOH what I just finished is The Man in the White Sharskin Suit. Written by the youngest child from a Jewish family that left Cairo in 1963. As one of the reviews suggests, it's a real "riches to rags" story. The narrative is helped by the fact that the author now writes for the WSJ. Her portrayal of life in Cairo -- even after the establishment of the State of Israel and another war in '56 -- is all the more poignant because you know what has to happen. It's just a matter of when and how. And of course what happens after they leave Cairo. I know there is no lack of memoirs that search for a missing family or a missing life. But this one is different.

I'm debating about my next read. I'm considering Divisadero (Michael Ondaatje), On the Road (Kerouac) and Kafka on the Shore by Murakami. I've also got The Reluctant Fundamentalist but I think given the events in Mumbai last week I may postpone that for a while.

That's it for now.

Ed.

What's everyone else reading?

I just read this. Good book. Characters really get into your head.

Oh yeah. Anyone want to pretend we're reading a book together?

I just got Mercy by Toni Morrison out of the library. I might read it in the next few days.

Ed is coming to town

Arrives DC 2/11/09, returns to Israel 2/24. Traveling alone this time.

I'm reading Lush Life right now (Richard Price). About cops, crime, and poor people in lower Manhattan. I feel like I'm living there, a sign of a very good writer I think.

What Larry F. is reading next: "2666" by Roberto Bolano

Larry said:

Anyone interested? I have read all of his books.

2666 by Roberto Bolano. 912 pages.

http://www.slate.com/id/2203471/pagenum/all/#p2

$18 from Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/2666-Novel-Roberto-Bolano/dp/0374100144/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225722362&sr=8-1

I started reading this odd collection of essays today. Cover was too beautiful to pass up in the library.

Pam

Ramblings

I just saw your (Pam's) note about Luncheon of the Boating Party. I read about 30 or 40 pages and haven't read any more. More, I think, because I've been incredibly busy and also doing a last minute check of the cookbook I'm editing (last minute changes by the author) than because I lost interest. Guess I'll pick it up and try again.

As for the books and discussion on religion -- sorry if I sound shallow -- but I'm so politicked and philosophied out that I'd rather disappear into some fiction instead for now. I'd probably lurk and eavesdrop on your discussion; maybe I'd be inspired to chime in from time to time.

T. C. Boyle sounds good to me or Diviserado -- I'd be willing to try both or either.
Paula

A few suggestions:

Ed wrote:
How about Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient). Check it out and let me know what you think. I brought it back so I'm good to go if you're interested.

BTW, on my last trip to Costco my eye caught The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Never heard anything about it but it won a Pulitzer so I figured how bad can it be. It's actually pretty amusing so far (just started this afternoon). It's one of the few instances of a book with long footnotes that are funny. But not particularly relevant for a book club.

Anyone interested in considering something by TC Boyle? I'm thinking about Talk, Talk. I really enjoyed Drop City. Enough that I'm willing to try something else.

Larry responded:
Hi all

I do want to read this book but I am committed to reading 3 or 4 other books first. Ed, I got a book on the Talmud and find it fascinating. I would like to see us tackle the 5 great religions (Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam) and really have some heated discussions. Does anyone realize how wonderfully weird Hinduism is?

Yes and No

Hi. . .

Yes Ryan is adorable. No I didn't drop off the face of the earth.

I just figured since we aren't reading anything as a group I didn't have anything to say. But I have been reading.

I've finished two books by Jonathan Lethem: Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn. They're extremely different -- to the point of seeming not to be written by the same author. Ironically about the only thing they have in common is that they both take place in Brooklyn.

In the past week I've started reading TC Boyle's Drop City. Have you read anything by him? Interesting reading about the Sixties. Perspective is an amazing thing. I've read about a third of the book. He's still setting the scene. What is coming through loud and clear is how anti-women communes were. Perspective again: Shula grew up on a commune and it's definitely not anti-women.

As for what we're going to read when Hagit and I are there . . . dunno. I'll think about it. Whatever it is I guess we have to decide soon. Don't know if I want to read the Vreeland book. It's tempting in that we've made several pilgrimages to see the Impressionists all over France. We went to the homes of both Matisse and Renoir in Nice. The Matisse House is now an amazing museum. The exhibition changes (we've been there more than once). The first time they had several paintings hung next to the windows he was looking out when he painted them. Talking about being blown away! OTOH Renoir's house is a bit disappointing. You can go into his studio but there really isn't much of his work hung there.

I have the feeling that Luncheon of the Boating Party may be too similar to Girl in Hyacinth Blue. Go ahead, tell me I'm wrong.

Ed

Today is Ryan's 2nd birthday...

So I thought you might indulge me by allowing me to add a photo of him!
Paula (otherwise known as BUBBA -- I really need to buy that pickup truck...)
P.S. His shirt says "I'm listening to Led Zeppelin with my Daddy"

Graphic novels in the news.

I finished "The Quitter" and probably won't be reading many more graphic novels. It DID leave an impression, and I DID love flying through the story, such as it was. But I don't think these glorified comics will ever replace words on a page for me. I was surprised to find out last night, after I finished the book, that the Post ran a very long article yesterday about graphic novels (in the "Style and Arts" section). It helped, sorta, explain the phenomenon of graphic novels, but it didn't make me any more likely to read others.

Sorry that I've hijacked the book blog but my attitude is that it's here for the hijacking. And bless Paula's heart for at least chiming in from time to time.

Pam

Finished the Rimington book. What's everyone else reading?

Let me know if you read "At Risk" Paula. I finished it today and will probably forget everything about it in a few weeks, certainly a few months. But it was just what I wanted for August. Some of the amazon.com reader comments were interesting, especially those that pointed out the book's surprising factual errors.

In the meantime, and trying to ignore how pathetic this sounds, does anyone want to start reading a novel in the next week? I'm up for anything under 400 pages.

I'm half-way through my first graphic novel: "The Quitter" by Harvey Pekar. Interesting. Not sure I'll read more of these but I'm glad I'm reading this one.

And I also started reading "The Great Derangement" by Matt Taibbi, which I'm loving. Mostly because the author makes me laugh.

Doug and I ran into Larry and Camy last night just as we were going into the Greenbelt theater to see "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." (We actually talked only to Larry b/c by the time Camy appeared we were being whisked into the theater.) They had just seen the movie and liked it, as did we. Amazing that we're still getting good Woody Allen movies after all these years.

Pam

I have been totally out of this link and I'm sorry I missed it. It's been insane around here; I've barely been at home. Since the blog seemed to have been abandoned, I thought that when we started posting again, someone would send an email first. Glad I checked back. Sorry my post will be old news but here goes. First, Pam, thank you for telling us about the Rabb article. Remember I was so confused about the young adult classification of TBT? That article and response to it was very helpful. Glad to know that even the authors are nonplussed ;-)

I never heard of The Risk -- was it nominated? Sounds like a good book and I love mysteries -- I'll get it, maybe today, and start reading. I'll get back to you when I get into it.

I read Barbara Walters Audition and enjoyed it. What an amazing life she had, not always happy. And what wonderful insights she gave about just about every "important" person in the world.

So, are we all going to get together when Ed and Hagit are here?
Paula

Started "At Risk"

Easy to read, except for all the references to places in London and the UK in general. Very straightforward read so far.
Pam

Anyone out there?

I'm going to read At Risk by Stella Rimington and hope maybe someone else wants to join me. I heard Bob Edwards interviewing Rimington and it got me interested in her. I don't normally read mysteries but I want to change that. A few friends are avid mystery readers and they always seem so eager to read everything written by a particular writer. Sounds like a healthy addiction. Years ago I got hooked on the "Rabbi" mysteries -- you know the series -- "The Rabbi Ate Too Many Bananas on Thursday" or whatever -- and I read them all in one big rush. I've also read a few P.D. James novels, but nothing in the past 15 years. Stella Rimington was the first woman head of M15, the UK's counter-intelligence and security agency, so she has impressive credentials to write such a book. I don't have the book yet but will order one tomorrow (if I can't find a copy at the library) so I may start reading as early as next week.

If anyone wants to start any of the other books nominated for No. 3, just let me know and I'm in. (Wish I could say that applies to Atlas Shrugged but I just can't. It's too long and I'm too slow.)

Hope someone reads this. I'll probably report on the book even if I'm talking to myself.

Love to all, Pam

More about TBT in today's NYT

On July 20, in a comment to the post below, I mentioned an article by Margo Raab in the NYT book review section about Y.A., Young Adult fiction. Today, the Times ran four letters to the editor about the Raab article, including this one:

To the Editor:

Rabb’s essay clearly illustrates one of the challenges that we booksellers face every day in helping books to find their readers. My favorite example is Markus Zusak’s “Book Thief,” a gorgeous novel to which everyone should have access, but which is relegated to the last shelf (Z) of young adult fiction. Our in-store book group reluctantly agreed to read it and fell in love, but the casual reader won’t find it or won’t consider it because of the Y.A. classification. Special “book group editions” of selected Y.A. titles would greatly increase the audience for those special books that cross the age divide.

Kristine Williams
Encino, Calif.
The writer is the community relations manager of Barnes & Noble Encino.

Pam

Little, Big

About two weeks ago I was rearranging my books and Little, Big caught my eye. I had been thinking that it was kind of a shame I hadn’t finished it. I decided to give it another try. But this time around I established some ground rules.

Basically I read much faster than my usual pace. Kind of a slow scan at times. Anything that seemed too detailed or too weird I skipped. Don’t remember doing that since college.

Yesterday I finished it. I will not give away the ending. Suffice it to say that with the exception of the development of a very strange character, he pulled it off.

Did I understand everything that happened? Definitely not.
Might I have understood more if I read slower? No doubt. But I probably would not have finished the book.
Am I glad I finished the book: Yes.
What was the highlight of the second half: Auberon (Smoky and Alice’s son). He has two relationships and an adventure that are by and large beautiful and insightful. Sometimes touching.

There is still the plethora of characters to get through. Some are annoying; some endearing, and some totally perplexing. Bottom line: There are too many characters.

Then there’s the issue of his punctuation. Although it’s extremely correct I sometimes find his syntax bordering on unintelligible. Or maybe undecipherable. My bias is that I get lost in long sentences. And this book is full of long sentences. Overly long.

That’s the thing about Crowley’s writing. He has a wonderful command of English. That part is a pleasure. OTOH I think he gets carried away in detail. In addition there are numerous subplots in this book. I don’t think the story would suffer at all if about one-third of them weren’t included. OK, I’ll say it: The book is too long.

If I’ve inspired you to think about considering possibly trying to reconnect with this book I have a suggestion. Go ahead. Read the last paragraph. I dare you.

I’ll just say this: It’s really beautiful.

Ed

Comments from the Land of Anti-German Obsessions

I finished reading TBT during the night Friday night. Actually I was almost finished and I must have started dreaming about the ending because it woke me up around 4:00 a.m. and I finished the last 20 pp.

A number of things are clear(er) to me now.

Someone mentioned not knowing what to say about TBT. I didn't really understand that then. I took it on faith (not having started the book at that point). Unlike Little, Big where we could read 50 pp and have a lot to say, with TBT that didn't happen. Ironically, no one liked Little, Big and everyone (who commented) liked TBT.

I absolutely agree with what you've said about the book's sensitivity, etc. What surprised me is that I didn't think I would read another book about Germans during the war that would make me feel sympathetic to their plight.

When I say "another book" I'm referring to Stones from the River by Ursula Heigi http://www.amazon.com/Stones-River-Ursula-Hegi/dp/068484477X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214151953&sr=1-1

What's interesting about the two novels -- which I hadn't thought about until now -- is that they both deal with books in the everyday lives of Germans around WWII.

What perplexes me is that I never thought I'd be able to be able to relate to/feel sorry for/sympathize with Germans of "that" generation. Yet in both cases I was able to put aside my natural predisposition to hate them and read the books. More than that, I enjoyed the books.

I can't say there was no pain involved in reading TBT. There was. Part of the pain was what Zusak writes about. Part of the pain is what he doesn't really write about. In case it isn't obvious multiply Max's story by 6 million and you'll understand what bothers me.

Having said that, what spurred me to keep reading TBT? First, the concept of having the Angel of Death as the narrator was amazing. Second, I wanted to know what would happen to Max. I got the clue early on that Leisel would make it. Putting the two of them together was perhaps obvious. But nothing wrong with a happy ending.

There are other things that I could perhaps revisit: his use of colors, for instance. The anti-Hitler comments he has people say.

I just looked for his description of why Germans like fire so much but I couldn't find it. That was incredible.

Of course, Max's fight with Hitler is probably the highlight of the book.

There are some other points that are still unclear or perhaps purposely ambiguous. What really happened to Leisel's parents? Were they Communists and as such, sent to a camp? And if that's the case, how did they make the connection with the Hubermans? Is Zusak suggesting that there was a sort of underground railroad in Germany to help "certain" people in need?

At Yad Vashem, the Israel monument to the Shoah, there is a special section about Righteous Gentiles. That is, those who risked their lives to save Jews. But here we have people who risked their lives to save Germans. Interesting juxtaposition.

I feel like I have more to say but it isn't coming at the moment. I'll try to revisit my thoughts later.

AND NOW A TECHNICAL COMMENT. When we first discussed TBT we agreed to start reading it on June 15. I knew I would be busy until about then. The fact that I couldn't comment was because I hadn't started the book. I didn't want to rain on anyone's parade so I maintained my silence which is totally out of character for me. The effect of this is that it's old news for you while I've just finished reading the book. Don't get me wrong, I'm not annoyed or anything negative. It's just kind of frustrating that we weren't on the same page so to speak.

So my suggestion is that before we choose another book we have to agree to the ground rules.

As a possibility, Hagit and I have tkts to come see my mother Sept 9-22. Perhaps we should have our next discussion in person. Maybe that will get us on track for having discussions in blog format.

Comments?

Ed

Nonplussed

This isn't exactly off-topic, because I'm responding to Paula's post about the power of words, and even if it is, so what? Paula writes "I am often nonplussed when someone flings words as weapons; the very knowledge of their purpose seems to render me invulnerable to the attack." I was analyzing that sentence --- trying to decide if (a) I understood it and (b) I felt the same way --- when I decided to look up the word "nonplussed." I was reasonably sure I knew the meaning. Well, no, I didn't know the meaning. I thought it meant "unaffected" or "indifferent" or "not surprised." Instead, it means "bewildered" or "perplexed," almost the opposite of what I thought. I'm happy to report that I'm not alone in my misunderstanding of the word. I learned that both Doug and Marv also thought it meant "indifferent"---maybe we've had a bad influence on each other over the past 30+ years. And it's a big enough problem that the most recent edition of the New York Times Style Manual includes an entry on the growing misunderstanding of the word.
Here's one discussion, from a Google search, that neatly sums up the problem:
Question: What is going on with the word nonplussed? In the last year I've seen it used everywhere from The New York Times to the ESPN web site to mean 'unimpressed' or 'indifferent', when, as far as I can tell, the only correct definition is 'confused' or 'perplexed'. Example 1: New York Times caption, late January: "Despite aggressive television reporting, patrons at the bar at the Delano Drive restaurant in the Waterside Plaza apartments in Manhattan said they were nonplussed by President Clinton's State of the Union message." Example 2: ESPN web headline: "Brewer's Pitchers Nonplussed at Joining History." Has the usage of this word changed to mean 'unimpressed' instead of 'confused'? Frankly, I'm nonplussed.
Answer:The correct meaning of nonplussed is ‘utterly perplexed; completely puzzled’. It’s derived from the Latin phrase non plus ‘not more, no further’—referring to a state in which nothing more can be done. To be nonplussed is to be at a total loss as to what to say or do. hIt’s puzzling as to how nonplussed has come to mean ‘undisturbed, unimpressed, indifferent’. The prefix non- means ‘not, no’, but the word plussed has no meaning in English. It’s likely that the negative prefix makes one think the meaning must be ‘not something’ rather than ‘utterly or completely something.’ Or there may be an analogy with unfazed, a word with a similar meaning.
The correct meaning of nonplussed does prevail, although there are quite a few instances of the new meaning to which you refer. A few examples: “Gates seemed nonplussed by the Net until late 1995. By 1996 he became a fanatic.” (ZDNet, 1999) “Both authors are nonplussed by the notion of dog fashion shows. ‘If you don’t compromise the dog, what the hell?’ Ms. Knapp said.” (TheNew York Times, 1999)
I must say I was utterly perplexed by the entry in the recently published The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage: “Nonplused does not mean fazed or unfazed. It means bewildered to the point of speechlessness.” To me, it does (more or less) mean ‘fazed’ but does not mean ‘unfazed’. Despite this confusion, perhaps The New York Times copyeditors should pay more attention to the basically sound advice in their usage book. The fact that this book takes on the topic shows that the meaning of nonplussed has indeed become an issue; the previous edition did not have an entry for this word.
From http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19991221
Back to Pam speaking: I'll never read or hear that word again without wondering if the writer / speaker is using it to say "bewildered" or "indifferent."
Now, on to the second half of Paula's compound sentence:
"...the very knowledge of their purpose seems to render me invulnerable to the attack."
I really wish I could summon up a feeling of invulnerability in the face of harsh words. But one of my greatest weaknesses is carrying grudges. An unkind word, especially if it's used intentionally but even if it's not, can bring about obsessional thinking. Not constructive thinking, just a looping tape in my head that says "I'm hurt. I'm hurt. I'm hurt."
The lesson I'm going to take from this is first, to watch my own words more carefully so I'm less guilty of causing harm, intentionally or accidentally, and second, to remember Paula's observations about her cloak of invulnerability.
Back to the book....
My thoughts about the book are so shallow that I should be embarrassed, but frankly I'm not. Life is getting way too short for such trivia as embarrassment. I hope that in the fantasy world that exists around this book, it was Max who Liesel married and had those kids with in Australia. (And if I read too fast or carelessly and missed that detail would someone inform me please?) I thought the book was beautifully written, cleverly presented, and emotionally honest. And it's an example of how great writing can be as informative as non-fiction. Fiction has a way of communicating the feel and tone of a time in history that nonfiction often misses. The descriptions of everyday events and scenes, what food was eaten, how the houses looked, how people got their news, all help paint a picture of a time past.
So I'm ready to move on to Book 3. Anyone else? I'll nominate a couple more books, wait a week or so to see if we are now reduced to just the Pam and Paula book club, and then maybe we can pick No. 3.
Pam

I finished it...

A powerful, poetic, thought-provoking, emotion-charged story which both lauds and fears the power of words. Because I am so aware of the power of words and their immortality, I want to address that briefly; I realize that everyone else's discussions will go in different directions (which I am also eager to explore). I am always,even in the heat of anger or pain, careful not to say something that does not need to be said and to use words constructively rather than destructively. I counsel others to do the same and have never understood why so many people don't appreciate the great power they have to hurt or heal with just a word. I am often nonplussed when someone flings words as weapons; the very knowledge of their purpose seems to render me invulnerable to the attack. On the other hand, a consoling word wraps around me and is remembered forever. I don't mean to belabor the point, I know you all get it; but I really do live my life hyper-aware of language usage. I did love reading the book and am looking forward to your reactions as well.
Paula

Boxing match

This won't mean much to those of you who haven't read as far as I have (just over half of the book) but Max's imagined boxing match is one of the most powerful things I've read in a long time. You'll see.

I'm going to re-start the nominations for Book 3, starting with Atlas Shrugged and People of the Book.

Pam

Something small to say. Sort of.

Hello all,
I'm progressing slowly, way too slowly, through this excellent book. It's always interesting to read a book written by a man (or woman) in which the main character is a woman (or man). I've come to identify strongly with Liesel. Her tentative nature, her passion for books, and her fears about the larger world around her seem just about right as I recall being 11 and 12. While reading TBT, I'm also reading "O Jerusalem" and flipping through Jimmy Carter's book on Palestine. I have the latter book because Marv, who you all know (except maybe Shula...not sure you've met him), forced the book on me a year or so ago and demanded that I read it. So you can see that I've got a lot of overlap in my reading.

Back to TBT:

The hand-made book that Max gave Liesel for her birthday was a wonderful addition to the story, and also to the physical book itself. I'll probably remember that long after I've forgotten details of the story.

Every few pages or so my mind flips back to 6th grade at McCormick Elementary. I remember sneaking into the girls' room with my copy of the Diary of Ann Frank and reading a few pages before I dashed back to the classroom. I also can feel the same inner turmoil about how to accept that friends of mine had relatives who suffered the same fate, and worse, as Ann Frank and Max Vandenburg. So hard to absorb into my mind and heart that such evil exists, such prejudice exists, such cruelty is committed over and over again.

And then there's the issue of Hans and Rosa, Germans who could have been related to me. (I'm half German on my dad's side and half German on my mom's side, which makes me half German and half English. And let's face it about the English. They are not noted for their open-mindedness either.) All of my German ancestors came to America long before the 20th century, but I certainly have distant relatives who were in Germany during the Nazi era. Do I feel some guilt? Yes. Should I? Don't know.

So that's my little report.

Who else is reading? Shula, Paula, and Larry F. Did you start Ed?

Pam


*

Wait! I didn't mean to un-nominate those 2 books...

Hey guys. I guess I owe someone an apology. My comment on one of the two books nominated (anonymously) for book 3 wasn't a complaint, although I guess it sounded like that. I was just pointlessly commenting, as is my way, on Atlas Shrugged. Just b/c I don't want to read a particular book doesn't mean the book shouldn't be nominated. Maybe I should treat this blog a bit more seriously in the future instead of posting whatever random thoughts pop into my head. (But I sort of thought that would be part of the fun of the blog...you know...posting random and pointless thoughts among long-time friends. Isn't that the way we've been talking to each other for half a century? Maybe it was just me....that's depressing.)

On another topic: I'm about half-way through TBT, am enjoying it immensely, but frankly can't think of anything to say about it. Maybe I'm not suited to a book discussion group? Should I have more to talk about? My edition has a book discussion guide in the back. I've been avoiding it b/c I didn't want to be influenced by it. But I may resort to checking it out.

I will say this: The device of making Death speak, from time to time, in the first person is an extremely effective way to convey the horror of Germany in 1939. "We'll give him seven months. Then we come for him. And oh, how we come."


Greetings to all, lurkers and others. I promise to be more serious in the future.
Pam

remember to sign your posts & comments please

I'm guessing that Paula wrote the post titled "People of the Book" and that Fox suggested the 2 new books for Book 3. On second thought I decided that it was actually Ed who nominated the 2 new books...
Pam

PS: I won't be voting for, or reading, Atlas Shrugged. There is no power on the face of this earth that could make me read 1,200 pages of Ayn Rand. I read the Fountainhead & that was enough. But I would read something shorter by her---maybe Anthem? I think it's a novella (I like that length), but it's science fiction... Or maybe "We the Living"?

People of the Book

I already read it. I remember it being interesting, although somewhat predictable -- appealed to my love of both books and Judaism! I would read it again if everyone else wants to read it.

Me too!

I started the book today in the doctor's office, am on page 55. I love it so far. Intriguing perspective and beautifully written.
Paula

Started!

I finally started The Book Thief and am loving it. Anyone have ideas for how we should discuss it? It's such a fast read that maybe we should finish 1/3 or 1/2 and then discuss? I'm not even to page 100 yet but I suspect that many of you are far ahead of that.

Pam

(Happy Mothers' Day to all the moms, and Happy (Israel) Birthday to Ed and Shula and family! )

Going it alone?

So Ed. I feel bad leaving you behind with the likes of the Drinkwaters and the Mouses, but it's finally come to that. Please report to us whether you also gave up on the book. Better yet, maybe you'll continue reading, the book will finally click for you, and you can tell us what it was all about.

I feel pretty good about my 245-page investment of time. Larry has said a couple of times that he feels bad having guided us to this book but I think he must stop that. If we continue reading as a group (boy is that an overstatement) each of us may go through the same thing. Even worse, we're going to come across a book that one of us hates and another one loves. Or maybe that's better for a book discussion blog.

Pam

230 - 240

I must grudgingly admit that when confined to 10 pages I can find some interesting things in this book. The musings on the joys of reading and books (pp 230-231) are nice. The book Auberon shows to his dad ("is this book true?") seems like it may touch on a significant piece of this story: that someone has written down the story of this family in advance.

I get that 2 of Lilac's great grandparents were brother and sister and therefore some people, Daily Alice for example, are somewhat embarrassed about this intermarriage, if that's the right word. But why does Auberon act like Lilac is an imaginary friend? Maybe there are 2 Lilacs: one real, one imaginary?

And is Momdy another name for Sophie Dale? (probably something else I missed in my half-assed reading).

What does this mean?
Parturient montes et nascetur ridiculus mus.

The passages about Smoky and Daily Alice passing the time (bottom of page 240) are nice.


This may be it for me.... I gave it good try, found it worth my time, but that time is running out.

Pam

Genre

From wikipedia:
Fantasy is a genre that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, and/or setting. The genre is usually associated with the overall look, feel and themes of the European Middle Ages (including architecture, dress and technology), while the actual setting is often a fictional plane or planet where magic and magical beings are commonplace.
Fantasy is generally distinguished from science fiction and horror by the expectation that it steers clear of technological and macabre themes, respectively, though there is a great deal of overlap between the three (collectively known as speculative fiction).

The characters in Little,Big continue to stay vague to me, and apparently if I can’t describe what a character is like (“character A was in her mid-30s living in New York in the 1930s and blah blah blah”) then I can’t find a reason to keep reading. Am I being narrow in my inability to find the rhythm of a fantasy? Lots of books move back and forth in time and place, but this novel seems excessive in that regard. I wish I just bounce along easily, reading a few pages about one slightly “off” character followed by another. A great deal of the writing is nice.

I’d like to pose some questions to the remaining reader(s), god knows a bunch of them pop up on every page, but I don’t care about the answers.

Here’s my new plan, developed as I sit here at the computer, 12:30 late Friday night, trying to find something worthwhile to say. I have arbitrarily picked page 230 (“It wasn’t until Auberon was past seven years old that….”) and read straight through for 10 pages. I’ll report back about those 10 days in my next post. Might be just another harangue.

We watched the movie Atonement tonight. Missed it at the theater. Very nice. So true to the book, which I like.

Pam

Another view

Seriously folks. How about if we agree to make a final decision when we get to about p. 350.

As for me I'm skimming the annoying parts such as the Noisy Bridge Rod and Gun Club and Ariel Hawksquill. (BTW, Ariel is a Hebrew name that means "lion of God.") Instead I'm concentrating on the parts I'm enjoying like the story of Auberon coming to NYC. With all the people centered around Edgewood I was finding it claustrophobic. Someone had to leave.

I think what's bothering me (us?) is that we're halfway through the book (more or less) and we still can't figure out what's going to happen. Perhaps, like the gift-wrapped box in Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, that's what's going to happen. It's just a vehicle to tell a story.

ITMT, in addition to shades of Through the Looking Glass, Crowley has added possible nods to The Wind in the Willows and also Doctor Doolittle. We've also determined that George is known for his use of and generosity with his stash of hash. Other parts of the ambiguity have also become clearer.

Does this make it a tour de force? Let's try to reserve judgement until p. 350.

As for me personally I'm less enamored of his language now than I was 100 pp. ago. But there are still parts of the narrative that I'm enjoying. The development of Auberon is lovely -- esp when contrasted with Ariel Hawksquill. And the notion of this bizarre farm (commune?) in the Bronx. . .

I have this feeling that at some point we have to get over the hump. Maybe we will.

My thoughts for tonight. One last thing: Can we try to post a bit more regularly?

Ed

I'm back at it.

I'm back to reading the novel. Eddie guilted me into it. We (he and I) agreed to read to page 350 (gasp) and then reassess. Join us if you will.

While I was shopping for fruit just now I had a thought: I'm going to stop thinking about plot and time and family structure. I have an inkling of some sociopolitical intrigue (maybe BladeRunner-ish?) coming up so that also makes me want to continue. I'm just starting book 2 on page 204.

Nesting Canada goose from the pond next door to our house.

Pam

"goats laughed and bewailed in the garden apartments and ate orts from claw-foot bathtubs."

I think it was that sentence that led me to say, finally, I give up, I just can't finish this book. Or maybe it was the introduction of the Noisy Bridge Rod and Gun Club. Or the Cosmo-Opticon.

I guess we can safely say that Little, Big is a fantasy, set roughly in the 20th century somewhere near New York City. The world inhabited by Smoky and his relatives, as well as some talking fish and highly literate mice (rodent-type mice), isn't governed by the same laws of time and space that we are familiar with. Maybe I simply don't have the kind of brain that can fully appreciate fantasies, but I just didn't find any charm in all this. I read some lyrical passages, but that wasn't enough for me to truly engage in the "story." And the quirkiness of the characters was enjoyable and sometimes entertaining but the hopping back and forth in time (am I right about that?) made it hard for me to know who these people are in relation to each other.

I don't think this is a bad book, but I know it's not giving me the kind of reward that well-written books or cleverly plotted books can offer.

I feel bad leaving Ed, and maybe Larry and Paula behind, but I'll read your comments with interest and maybe even chime in if I have something worthwhile to say. Meanwhile I plan to finish reading "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan (not just an interesting book but an important one that I highly recommend) and then I'll start The Book Thief.

Sorry guys, I gave it a good try but I'm 61 and the shelves are sagging with good books I want to read before the end.

Pam

Website

I just found an interesting website about a special edition -- fancy one for $95 -- of Little, Big. There is an interview with Crowley who seems to be about as odd as his characters.

http://www.littlebig25.com/
Paula

Dreams

pp. 153-154

She [Sophie] had always lived her best life in dreams. She knew no greater pleasure than that moment of passage into the other place, when her limbs grew warm and heavy and the sparkling darkness behind her lids became ordered and doors opened; when conscious thought grew owl's wings and talons and became other than conscious.

Starting from the simple pleasure of it, she had become practiced in all its nameless arts. The first thing was to learn to hear the small voice: that fragment of conscious self which like a guardian angel walks with the eidolons of self with which we replace ourselves in Dreamland, the voice that whispers you are dreaming. The trick was to hear it, but not attend to it, or else you wake. She learned to hear it; and it told her that she could not be hurt by dream wounds, no matter how terrible; she woke from them always whole and safe -- most safe because warm in bed. Since then she had feared no bad dreams; the dream Dante of her leaned on the dreaming Virgil and passed through horrors delightful and instructive.

This lyrical description continues (p. 154)

Don't you wish you could dream like that.

Some other comments:

When George Mouse shows up in Part III Crowley writes (p. 147) that he had taken 500 mg. of Pellucidar. Google this.

On p. 159:
One mouse late at night. I don't want to ruin this scene. For the author who is so particular about punctuation AND capitalization, I doubt that he mistakenly made this reference to George Mouse lower case. Especially considering it comes after the section about the Meadow Mouse (c + lc) trying to discover the secret of winter (from p. 129).

Names are obviously important and seem to represent more than just what characters are called.

Ed

And the winner is . . .

The next book we plan to read is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It has been published in English and Hebrew. Take your pick. It's available from Amazon (in English). We plan to start reading it in mid-June.

Ed

Stalled, but restarting.

A few days ago or more I stopped reading at page 114, for no particular reason. Other reading, and other stuff, interfered I guess. But tonight I will resume reading. At least that's the plan. Hope others are still engaged in the story and plowing ahead.

Pam

What's going on

The family (really indistinguishable from the house) protects what is in the woods from people and vice versa.

Through the Looking Glass

I'm taking the dope metaphor one step further. To Through the Looking Glass.

Is this reminiscent of something you read a long time ago:

p. 108
. . . Over the water a kingfisher shot, laughing, iridescent in the sun, just above the evening which had already obscured the stream. I'm not mad, August thought.

p. 109
. . . August, fish in his creel, went to the bank and sat, waiting. The kingfisher had laughed at him, not at the world in general, he was sure of that, a sarcastic, vindictive laugh. Well, perhaps he was laughable. The fish was not seven inches long, hardly breakfast. So? Well? "If I had to live on fish," he said, "I'd grow a beak."

You shouldn't speak," said the kingfisher, "until you're spoken to. There are manners, you know."

"Sorry."

"First I speak," said the kingfisher, "and you wonder who it is that's spoken to you. Then you realize it's me; then you look at your thumb and your fish, and see that it was the fish's blood you tasted, that allowed you to understand the voice of creatures, then we converse."

"I didn't mean . . ."

"We'll assume it was done that way." The kingfisher spoke in the choleric, impateient tone August would have expected from his upshot head-feathers, his thick neck, his fierce, annoyed eyes and beak: a kingfisher's voice. Halcyon bird indeed!

"Now you address me," the kingfisher said. "'O Bird!' you say, and make your request."

"O Bird!" August said, opening his hands imploringly, "Tell me this: Is it okay if we have a gas station in Meadowbrook and sell Ford cars?"

"Certainly."

"What?"

"Certainly!"

It was so inconvenient speaking in this way to a bird, a kingfisher seated on a branch in a dead tree at no more conversational a distance than any kingfisher ever was, that August imagined the bird as seated beside him on the bank, a sort of kingfisher-like person, of a more conversable size, with his legs crossed, as August's were. This worked well. He doubted that this kingfisher was a kingfisher at all anyway."

And so on. I'm don't want to type any more. But I suggest you revisit where I left off on p. 110.

Ed

In the Andes

In the Andes

The Fox peaks into the pages

Here are some things that puzzle me or ponder me:

Family tree - Auberon Drinkwater reveals the key.

I think it is New York and up along the Hudson. As Smokey leaves the city, things become "disordered." According to whose definition? Perhaps the opposite walk toward the city brings disorder.

Smokey: born when his father was nearly 60; inherited the Barnable anonymity (pages 5 and 9.)

I think he remains somewhat anonymous with his new family.

Smokey's ideal was the Dreamland of the comic book where boys could dream.

"...he would be the one that it had been promised she would find or make up."

"Take Smoky upstairs. He's in the imaginary bedroom."

What is going on here?


Last paragraph, page 37. Who is Sophie talking about?

The house is the world of Edgewood, inside and out.

My favorite "shiver maker": page 79. "And he found the faces."

Nice, page 102

“Before the war, things were different. Nobody knew anything. You could go walking in the woods and make up stories and see things if you wanted. But there was no excuse now. Now knowledge was there to be had, real knowledge, knowledge of how the world operates and what must be done to operate it. …. August drew these knowledges on, reasonable and close-fitting, over the mad muddle of his childhood, as one draws on a duster over a suit of clothes, and buttoned them up to the neck.”
Pam

Nominations for next book?

Is it too soon to start nominating books for the next round? We could always just recycle the losers (such a harsh word) from the last round. But maybe we could have a rule that if a book doesn't make it in one round it can never be nominated again. There are so many books that this forces us to always have fresh books on the list...

Pam

An Odyssey

As with many novels Little, Big is an odyssey. I expected it to be a journey for the characters. What kind of surprised me at first is that it's also very definitely an odyssey for the reader. There's more: Little, Big is definitely unusual (grammar, layout, language, events -- and certainly the characters). As the odyssey progresses I'm getting used to it.

As a case in point vis-a-vis the dual odyssey (characters and readers) I was definitely confused at first but so was Smoky. He seemed to deal with the strange events which made me realize that I could as well. As I think I said previously I don't mind being confused. There are certain things I'm willing to take on faith. Either the author will resolve them or he won't.

I was waiting to see how Crowley was going to pull off the wedding. I was not disappointed. I loved the way he described the vows. He may not have been the first person to mimic what people hear or how people talk. But he was definitely successful. And highly original.

I think his originality is what I'm dealing with. So far there is almost nothing in this book that I've expected. The names, the places (esp the house), the people. . . they are all cut from a different cloth. But that's not a bad thing. It's just, well, different.

I'm reminded of The Time Traveler's Wife where I don't think I got it for about the first 100 pp. This isn't taking me as long.

This is definitely not the usual kind of book I would read so that's a very good thing. I've also never been in a book club so I'm enjoying discussing different points.

So now I want to get into the gist of what I have to say.

Other authors would have included a bit more passion -- or sex -- leading up to a wedding. Crowley doesn't do that. (He may do it afterwards but I haven't gotten there yet.) I'll assume that Smoky and Daily Alice will get together so I'm willing to wait. What surprised me a bit was that Sophie (Daily's sister) seemed to have a bit of a "thing" for her sister. I wonder where this is going.

Character development. I think it's in the details. Daily's great aunt is a honey. As the first person Smoky meets when he gets to Edgewood it's fitting that she should accompany him to his wedding. BTW I personally think that someone from his extended family should be there with Smoky. But again, I'm willing to accept that there's a reason that he gets married alone. I also found it somewhat quirky that Daily's mother was berry picking the day before the wedding. Again, that's my reality sneaking into what I'm reading.

That's leading me to one of my conclusions. This is a novel. Crowley sets the rules. He doesn't have to be bogged down by "annoying" details like chronology, accepted behavior and missing pieces of the puzzle.

We've already discussed language. And I'm certain we'll continue. I want to add that I'm also enjoying the names.

I think that's about it for now. It's mid-morning here and I'm playing hooky from my appointed tasks for the day. I'll try to get back to this later today.

Does that mean I'm hooked? Yep.

Ed

Time and place

The explanation of the worlds "composed of a series of concentric rings" is quite beautiful (pp 43-44). Sounds plausible to me.

I have to get over this feeling that I'll never engage in this novel if I can't pin it down in time. Are we being introduced to an entire family without regard to chronology? It never occurred to me that time and place are so important to me, but apparently they are. Onward!


Larry said:
"The comments on punctuation, grammar, layout and general oddness comments were unexpected. But I do see how that makes reading this cumbersome. I just try to give my self up to the story."

Pam's thoughts on above:
I KNEW you would say something like that. I just knew it. This crowd has been talking about such matters for so damn long that we can hear conversations before they've occurred.

Pam

Pronouns and Language

"When Dr. Bramble finally showed him to a bed, it was only because if he had not Drinkwater would have got out of earshot; as it was he had ceased to understand anything Dr. Bramble was saying."

I'm going to be picking a lot of nits, grammatically speaking, as I read this book. I'm not finding it easy going so far. In some cases, it's because of pronouns. I'm not sure if this is a personal idiosyncrasy, or a late-life idiosyncrasy, or even the result of being an editor for so many decades, but I don't do well with writing that makes me hesitate to ask "which 'he' are you referring to?" It's almost immediately apparent that the first 'he' is one character and the second 'he' another, but I don't like to hesitate when I'm reading. At least I don't like to hesitate to ask such questions. Re-reading a sentence because it's beautiful or dense is one thing. Re-reading to find out who 'he' refers to is another.

But I'll echo Ed's comments about amazing language: ewer, infundibular, marmoreal (pp 41-44)

We just got back from 2 days in Manhattan so I'm just finishing up our assignment this morning. So far, I'm glad we're reading this book, but if I had been reading on my own I would have long since given up. More later...

Pam
Update: The characters have potential, smart, quirky & all that, but so far I haven't found myself drawn to one or the other. I'm discovering through this process that I may be overly critical when I start a new book. Almost a "prove to me you're worthy of my time" attitude. So all this early negative stuff on my part may end soon.


I love this. Page 4.

"...a confetti-colored gas-station road map. ...There was a mighty double red line that went near there, round with exits and entrances; he couldn't walk along that. A thick blue line (on the model of the vascular system, Smoky imagined all the traffic flowing south to the city on the blue lines, away on the red) ran somewhat nearer, extending corpuscular access to towns and townlets along the way. The much thinner sclerotic blue line he sat beside was tributary to this...."

You may all know this but. In our bodies, oxygen-deprived blood flows into the heart in veins. It gets oxygenated by the lungs and then flows back out of the heart to the body via arteries. When these veins and arteries are illustrated in textbooks etc, the veins (coming into the heart) are almost always shown in blue and the arteries (flowing out of the heart) in red. cute...

Language

First of all, Crowley's use of semicolons is amazing.

But even more amazing is his language.

Page 14: "Her brown eyes were deliquescent in the lamplight."

I don't remember the last time I actually got up while reading to look up a word.

So far so good.

Ed

Lie Down in Darkness (Styron)

I enjoyed this re-review by J.Yardley in the W.Post. I read Lie Down a long time ago, maybe 1965? 66?, and although I recall being impressed by the book & feeling like I'd read something meaty, I've always had a slightly bad memory associated with it. I thought this was b/c the story is, you know, a touch depressing, but in retrospect maybe I had bad memories for the same reasons Yardley cites now.
Pam

William Styron's 'Darkness,' Dimmed by Age

By JONATHAN YARDLEY
Friday, March 21, 2008; C01

An occasional series in which The Post's book critic reconsiders notable and/or neglected books from the past.

To me the biggest surprise about this series, which has run for five years and covered about 75 books, is how unsurprised I have been by what I found the second time around. A couple of books that were immensely popular in their day -- Edna Ferber's "Giant," Philip Wylie's "Generation of Vipers" -- turned out to have weathered the years poorly, but other books that I remembered fondly for literary and other merits revealed themselves, on second reading, to be as good as I remembered them, in some cases even better. I have had no significant disappointments.

Until now. Reading William Styron's "Lie Down in Darkness" 40 years ago, I was swept away. Over the ensuing years I read all of Styron's other work, reviewed much of it, and held it in high esteem, especially his celebrated novel "Sophie's Choice" and "Darkness Visible," his harrowing memoir of depression. Yet through all those years I believed that "Lie Down in Darkness," his first book, remained his best. I regarded it as a monument of American fiction, cut out of Faulknerian cloth, to be sure, but a monument all the same. Now, though, I realize that the tone of the novel is relentlessly downbeat and that it is far more derivative than I had first understood.

I first read "Lie Down in Darkness" when I was 28, only a few years older than Peyton Loftis, the beautiful, spoiled and troubled young woman whose suicide is the event at the center of the novel. I remember responding ardently to the devastating scene in which her father, Milton Loftis, wanders drunkenly through a football weekend at the University of Virginia, a "nightmare" that struck me, not so long removed from four years at Chapel Hill, as entirely, breathtakingly real. I thought that the collapse of the Loftis family was tragic, not in the glib American sense but in the profound terms of the ancient Greeks.

I was scarcely the only person to have been captivated by the novel. A few weeks ago a reader of this newspaper, noting that Styron's book was to be discussed in this series, reported that when he was younger he had been "mesmerized" by it. In the late 1970s I had dinner with a young writer who was eager to talk about the novel. From memory, he recited in full the long quotation from Sir Thomas Browne's "Urn Burial" that Styron took as his epigraph, and then went on and on about his passion for the book.

When "Lie Down in Darkness" was published in 1951, most reviewers felt the same. It was treated not merely as a serious and substantial work of literature, but as something of a phenomenon: Styron at the time was a mere 26 years old. Himself a Virginian, he had joined the Marines as World War II was ending and returned to enroll at Duke University and study under its legendary teacher of writing, William Blackburn. After college Styron worked as an editor at the New York publishing firm McGraw-Hill, a job he hated with a passion, an experience he describes with great wit in the opening pages of "Sophie's Choice." After he was fired, he spent three years writing "Lie Down in Darkness," which was awarded the Prix de Rome by the American Academy in Rome. He was off on a career that included only six other books; he was a slow writer and sometimes was derailed by depression. He won just about all the major prizes except the Nobel and had, in "Sophie's Choice" and "The Confessions of Nat Turner," two national bestsellers. He died in 2006 at the age of 81.

His first novel still offers much to admire. As readers of "The Confessions of Nat Turner" will recall, Styron had an extraordinary, visceral kinship with Tidewater Virginia, and wrote about its bleak yet beautiful landscape with great power. His prose had not yet achieved in 1951 the suppleness and force of "Sophie's Choice" in 1979, but at moments it achieves real beauty and in a few -- too few -- wit shines through. Here, for example, the Tidewater gentry reacts to gossip about Milton Loftis and his mistress, Dolly Bonner:

"Hell, they'd say in the country club locker room, you know how Milt's getting his. Everybody knew, bearing testimony to the fact that suburban vice, like a peeling nose, is almost impossible to conceal. It went all over town, this talk, like a swarm of bees, settling down lazily on polite afternoon sun porches to rise once more and settle down again with a busy murmur among cautious ladylike foursomes on the golf course, buzzing pleasurably there amid ladylike whacks of the golf ball and cautious pullings-down of panties which bound too tightly. Everybody knew about their affair and everybody talked about it, and because of some haunting inborn squeamishness it would not have relieved Loftis to know that nobody particularly cared."

Loftis is in his early 50s, married to Helen, with whom he has had two daughters. A lawyer, he has abandoned his youthful political ambitions in favor of the solace of drink. His elder daughter, Maudie, was a cripple who died at the university hospital in Charlottesville, after her father's terrible long weekend there, leaving Helen bereft and bitter. Peyton, who is in her late teens when Maudie dies, is stunningly beautiful and obviously intelligent, but her doting father -- on his side their relationship has strong sexual undertones, and probably on hers as well -- has spoiled her so thoroughly that she expects all of life's pleasures and rewards to come her way without any effort on her part, merely as her due; precisely what anyone sees in her beyond her beauty is never made clear.

The Loftis marriage is a wreck. Early in the novel Milton is caught up in a "surge of anger and futility [that] rose up in his chest -- and sudden shame, too, shame at the fact that their life together, which had begun, as most marriages do, with such jaunty good humor and confidence, had come to this footlessness, this confusion," but things only get worse as the story unfolds. "Sober," Milton "feared Helen; for what seemed ages he had lived with her not so much in a state of matrimony as in a state of gentle irritation, together like the negative poles of a magnet, gradually but firmly repelling each other." In time "gentle irritation" descends into something very like hatred. For a time Helen takes her troubles to a kindly, well-intentioned Episcopal minister, who tries to help but finds himself sucked into a place he'd rather not be:

"And he thought briefly about madness, and this family, which had succeeded -- almost effortlessly, it seemed -- in destroying itself, and he became so overwhelmed by melancholy that his stomach rumbled and his hands and wrists became limp and trembled on the steering wheel. He thought of the wild evening after Maudie's funeral when, with Peyton absent and Loftis, he supposed, hiding upstairs, Helen had told him that everything was finished, there was no God, no anything, behold (with a nod upstairs toward Loftis, and which included, he gathered, Peyton too) this breed of monsters. God, what words she had used! . . . Who was to blame? Mad or not, Helen had been beastly. She had granted to Loftis, in her peculiarly unremitting way, no forgiveness or understanding, and above all she had been beastly to Peyton. Yet Loftis himself had been no choice soul; and who finally, lest it be God himself, could know where the circle, composed as it was of such tragic suspicions and misunderstandings, began, and where it ended?"

Unquestionably, that passage has intensity, power and intelligence. No doubt many readers will find it, as I did four decades ago, deeply moving, haunting. Yet now it mainly strikes me as lugubrious, and so does too much of the rest of the novel. By the 1970s, when he was writing "Sophie's Choice," Styron had come to understand that catastrophe and/or tragedy must be alleviated (and thus in a way illuminated) by humor, but in his mid-20s he had yet to learn that lesson. The passage quoted above about the Tidewater gossips is the exception rather than the rule in "Lie Down in Darkness." Setting out to write the story of a family doomed by its inability to love, he became so bogged down in the agony of it all -- as Peyton ruminates, "everywhere I turn I seem to walk deeper and deeper into some terrible despair" -- that he ended up writing a 400-page dirge that ultimately is far more stifling than enriching.

The book suffers from other problems. Set as it is in Virginia during and immediately after World War II, it employs the racial language and stereotypes of its time and place, as do many other books reconsidered in this series. Today's reader will be startled and probably offended by its frequent use of the most common racial slur, not merely in conversation but as a descriptive adjective. Beyond that, the novel's closing scene, in which the jubilation of black worshipers is clearly meant to provide noble and uplifting contrast with the cynicism and desolation of the Loftis family, is sentimental and patronizing. It does not withstand comparison with the scenes in Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" in which the quiet dignity of the black servant Dilsey is juxtaposed against the self-destructiveness of the white Compson family.

Styron always insisted that he was not influenced by Faulkner in writing "Lie Down in Darkness," but in fact the influence is self-evident: in the closing account of the worshipers, in Peyton's long interior monologue (which also shows much evidence of the Molly Bloom soliloquy in James Joyce's "Ulysses"), in the rich, at times overripe prose, in the story itself, which bears more than passing resemblance to the story of the Compsons.

There's nothing wrong with influence: All writers are touched by it and many benefit from it, just as do all other creative artists. But apart from its almost funereal tone, what now strikes me most emphatically about "Lie Down in Darkness" is its sheer derivativeness. That William Styron was, as a young man, a supremely gifted writer, is beyond question, but he had yet to become his own man.

"Lie Down in Darkness" is available in a Vintage International paperback ($14.95).

Who's in the boat?

Great river picture Larry. What do you hear when you're drifting in such a place? I imagine intermittent deep low loud bird calls from far away.
And no rustling of trees.
Pam

While we are waiting to start

I enjoy reading books about books, reading and publishing. I am reading "The Solitary Vice: Against Reading" (Counterpoint, 2008) by Mikita Brottman. She is a literature professor at the Maryland Institute of Art in Baltimore and is a practicing psychotherapist. In the book's title, "the solitary vice" is a Victorian euphemism for masturbation. In this book, it refers to reading. She uses the comparison between the two to make her primary point.

"Like the other well-known solitary vice, reading is ultimately not an act of pleasure but a tool for self-exploration."

The reading she discusses here is the addictive kind of reading some of us share.

Here are 11 questions she posed to 56 readers for one of her chapters. My answers to the questions led me to realized some interesting facts about my own reading.

1. What book are you reading now?
2. How do you decide what book to read next?
3. Do you always finish books, or do you give up on them? If you give up, how many pages does it usually take?
4. Do you generally separate your reading into "work" and "fun"?
5. Do you ever reread books you love? Please give examples.
6. Can you read books in noisy places?
7. Can you remember if a book has ever made you laugh out loud, or shed tears? Give some examples.
8. Where do you buy most of your books? How much do you spend each year on books? Or do you use the library primarily? Bookstore or online?
9. Do you use bookmarks, or dog-ear the pages of your books? Do you make marginal notes? If so, do you use pencil or pen?
10. How quickly do you read? Do you skim through pages at top speed, or do you stop to savor the sentences along the way?
11. Where, and when, do you do your best reading?

I'm not taking a survey or looking for your answers here in the blog. The questions raised some interesting observations about my own habit.

I bought this book ($14.95 paperback) at Vertigo bookstore in College Park. Vertigo is one of the last, great independent bookstores in the Washington area. The book was face-out in the front of the store.

Fox

Ok, so all of the above sounds great to me except that I can't find a copy of the book. I've checked with Costco, Barnes & Noble, and Borders and no one has a copy in stock. I will order one but I probably won't have it until later in the week (I hope!) "So, I'll catch up when I catch up," she said with relish as she mustered up all of her courage to be different from the rest. Paula

Sunday night

Larry said/asks:
"Can we read along and post comments as we have them?"

Ed said:
"No reason we all have to read at the same rate. As long as we're not reading a mystery it shouldn't really matter if we're not all reading at the same pace."

Pam says: OK with me.

Larry said/asks: "I don't think a 20-page-a week commitment is burdensome. I think we are all voracious readers and 20 pages would not cause a sweat."

Ed said:
"As for the weekly budget, I'm willing to try 50-100 pp."

Pam says: I like 50 pages a week. In the case of Little, Big we could start with the first 3 chapters, which in my edition ends on page 58.

Paula/Camy/Natalie: Do you want to weigh in on any of this?

Natalie: Have you been able to get into the system yet? If not, feel free to call me (301 622 6511) and we can try to puzzle it out on the phone. Since we haven't heard from Larry yet should we assume he wants to skip this round?

Pam

I haven't checked in on the blog in several days because we've been incredibly busy and Maya spent two days with us. Unbelievable how much time and space a 10-month old, 16 lb. baby can take up. Anyway, sorry I didn't vote but I am happy to read Little Big. Whatever everyone else wants to do about a discussion timetable is also fine. Greg will not be joining us on this one. The sheep photo is cool! Paula

A suggestion

As always, I agree with Ed (right!) Vote is over, Little, Big is the book. To me, it looks like Pam, Ed, Paula, Natalie, Camy and I are the participants for this round. Can we hear directly from Doug as to what he is going to do? It's not clear to me.

I've started Little, Big but put it down when the book club came into existence and it was nominated.

A Suggestion

Can we read along and post comments as we have them? I realize that the problem with this approach is we won't always be on the same page (so what's new?) But if we do read that way (a little at a time) the blog stays dynamic and alive. As opposed to discussing a large section at once on an assigned day or week every 3 or 4 months.

I know this can't work unless we commit to a certain number of pages a week. I would go for that. To read 200 or so pages (perhaps in a couple of sittings) and then discuss it 3 or 4 months later seems static and uninteresting. If we are reading a 400 page book and read 20 pages a week, we'd be done with that in 20 weeks and we could move on to the next title. That works out to about two 400 page books a year with some slack built in. We could also read more books with smaller page counts. We could have a summary discussion when we are done with each book. This way the discussion stays alive and kicking. I don't think a 20-page-a week commitment is burdensome. I think we are all voracious readers and 20 pages would not cause a sweat.

For me the pleasure draws equally from the book and the ongoing dialogue with all of you. The book is a structure on which we hang our contact with one another.

So I am offering this up as an alternative. But I will certainly participate in whichever way the group desires.

lrf

Third, how do we do this?

I guess the first big question, after we pick the book, is are we going to discuss it in person or online?

If the former, we obviously will get through only 2 books a year, which might be just fine. (Both Doug and I are always prone to getting sidetracked into other books or magazines, and I don't finish about half of what I start.)

Is anyone thinking we can discuss the book, or sections of the book, online? I think the jury is still out on whether people want to communicate this way. An online discussion might be Ed, Fox, Pam, Paula, Doug (probably), and (maybe?) Camy. Natalie might not be able to join in b/c of those technical problems.

So I leave you with those questions. Meanwhile I'm going to go knit another scarf. (I heard that Camy got bit by the scarf-knitting jones in the fall, and that she picked it up from Kate. Is that true? And Paula are you still knitting those great sweaters?) I got this great book from the library and I'm trying out one of the patterns:
Knitting New Scarves: 27 Distinctly Modern Designs (Paperback)
by Lynne Barr


Pam

Second, choosing the book

Here's how I see it: There are nine of us in this round (is that a good noun for this purpose?). (BTW Ed, I'm happy to hear that we might have a book in both H. and E. so Shula can join us in a future round.) Doug voted for "Song Yet Sung." I voted for "Little, Big" as did Ed and someone else (blog doesn't let me see who but it was probably Fox). Paula and Camy haven't voted yet, and Natalie probably would have voted but she's had trouble logging in and decided to just go w/ the consensus. Larry and Greg might want to vote.

So. Here's what I propose. Those who want to vote can either post a comment tonight or tell me via email (dougpamjones@comcast.net) and I'll post it.

I'm not going to send everyone an email about this...seems a little pushy, and I know not everyone will want to participate each time around. Which reminds me...Doug said he's not entirely sure he'll finish on schedule, but I'll get to that in post No. 3.

Ed, Love the sheep! Perfect.
Hope others will add to the photo collection. We can have as many as we want. I promise not to post my worms again.

Pam

First, a word from our leader

I can't resist posting this.

March 15, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
George Speaks, Badly
By GAIL COLLINS

Watching George W. Bush address the New York financial community Friday brought back many memories. ...

The president squinched his face and bit his lip and seemed too antsy to stand still. As he searched for the name of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (“the king, uh, the king of Saudi”) and made guy-fun of one of the questioners (“Who picked Gigot?”), you had to wonder what the international financial community makes of a country whose president could show up to talk economics in the middle of a liquidity crisis and kind of flop around the stage as if he was emcee at the Iowa Republican Pig Roast.

We’re really past expecting anything much, but in times of crisis you would like to at least believe your leader has the capacity to pretend he’s in control. ...

The country that elected George Bush — sort of — because he seemed like he’d be more fun to have a beer with than Al Gore or John Kerry is really getting its comeuppance. Our credit markets are foundering, and all we’ve got is a guy who looks like he’s ready to kick back and start the weekend.

This is not the first time Bush’s attempts to calm our fears redoubled our nightmares. ...

O.K., so he’s not good at first-day response. Or second. Third can be a problem, too. But this economic crisis has been going on for months, and all the president could come up with sounded as if it had been composed for a Rotary Club and then delivered by a guy who had never read it before. “One thing is certain that Congress will do is waste some of your money,” he said. “So I’ve challenged members of Congress to cut the number of cost of earmarks in half.”

Besides being incoherent, this is a perfect sign of an utterly phony speech. Earmarks are one of those easy-to-attack Congressional weaknesses, and in a perfect world, they would not exist. But they cost approximately two cents in the grand budgetary scheme of things. Saying you’re going to fix the economy or balance the budget by cutting out earmarks is like saying you’re going to end global warming by banning bathroom nightlights.
...

...
And then, finally, the nub of the housing crisis: “Problem we have is, a lot of folks aren’t responding to over a million letters sent out to offer them assistance and mortgage counseling,” the president of the United States told the world.

But wait — more positive news! The secretary of Housing and Urban Development is proposing that lenders supply an easy-to-read summary with mortgage agreements. “You know, these mortgages can be pretty frightening to people. I mean, there’s a lot of tiny print,” the president said.

Really, if he can’t fix the economy, the least he could do is rehearse the speech.

Doug votes for the McBride book

So it's now:
3 for Little, Big
1 for Song Yet Sung
1 (Natalie) for whatever we decide

Summaries of the 7 nominees

1. Little, Big by John Crowley
Little, Big tells the epic story of Smoky Barnable -- an anonymous young man who meets and falls in love with Daily Alice Drinkwater, and goes to live with her in Edgewood, a place not found on any map. In an impossible mansion full of her relatives, who all seem to have ties to another world not far away, Smoky fathers a family and tries to learn what tale he has found himself in -- and how it is to end.


2. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Zusak has created a work that deserves the attention of sophisticated teen and adult readers. Death himself narrates the World War II-era story of Liesel Meminger from the time she is taken, at age nine, to live in Molching, Germany, with a foster family in a working-class neighborhood of tough kids, acid-tongued mothers, and loving fathers who earn their living by the work of their hands. The child arrives having just stolen her first book–although she has not yet learned how to read–and her foster father uses it, The Gravediggers Handbook, to lull her to sleep when shes roused by regular nightmares about her younger brothers death. Across the ensuing years of the late 1930s and into the 1940s, Liesel collects more stolen books as well as a peculiar set of friends: the boy Rudy, the Jewish refugee Max, the mayors reclusive wife (who has a whole library from which she allows Liesel to steal), and especially her foster parents. Zusak not only creates a mesmerizing and original story but also writes with poetic syntax, causing readers to deliberate over phrases and lines, even as the action impels them forward. Death is not a sentimental storyteller, but he does attend to an array of satisfying details, giving Liesels story all the nuances of chance, folly, and fulfilled expectation that it deserves. An extraordinary narrative.

3. The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
If there still remains any doubt, this novel confirms Lethem's status as the poet of Brooklyn and of motherless boys. Projected through the prism of race relations, black music and pop art, Lethem's stunning, disturbing and authoritatively observed narrative covers three decades of turbulent events on Dean Street, Brooklyn. When Abraham and Rachel Ebdus arrive there in the early 1970s, they are among the first whites to venture into a mainly black neighborhood that is just beginning to be called Boerum Hill. Abraham is a painter who abandons his craft to construct tiny, virtually indistinguishable movie frames in which nothing happens. Ex-hippie Rachel, a misguided liberal who will soon abandon her family, insists on sending their son, Dylan, to public school, where he stands out like a white flag. Desperately lonely, regularly attacked and abused by the black kids ("yoked," in the parlance), Dylan is saved by his unlikely friendship with his neighbor Mingus Rude, the son of a once-famous black singer, Barnett Rude Jr., who is now into cocaine and rage at the world. The story of Dylan and Mingus, both motherless boys, is one of loyalty and betrayal, and eventually different paths in life. Dylan will become a music journalist, and Mingus, for all his intelligence, kindness, verbal virtuosity and courage, will wind up behind bars. Meanwhile, the plot manages to encompass pop music from punk rock to rap, avant-garde art, graffiti, drug use, gentrification, the New York prison system-and to sing a vibrant, sometimes heartbreaking ballad of Brooklyn throughout. Lethem seems to have devoured the '70s, '80s and '90s-inhaled them whole-and he reproduces them faithfully on the page, in prose as supple as silk and as bright, explosive and illuminating as fireworks. Scary and funny and seriously surreal, the novel hurtles on a trajectory that feels inevitable. By the time Dylan begins to break out of the fortress of solitude that has been his life, readers have shared his pain and understood his dreams.

4. The Republic of Suffering by Drew Gilpin Faust
Battle is the dramatic centerpiece of Civil War history; this penetrating study looks instead at the somber aftermath. Historian Faust (Mothers of Invention) notes that the Civil War introduced America to death on an unprecedented scale and of an unnatural kind—grisly, random and often ending in an unmarked grave far from home. She surveys the many ways the Civil War generation coped with the trauma: the concept of the Good Death—conscious, composed and at peace with God; the rise of the embalming industry; the sad attempts of the bereaved to get confirmation of a soldier's death, sometimes years after war's end; the swelling national movement to recover soldiers' remains and give them decent burials; the intellectual quest to find meaning—or its absence—in the war's carnage. In the process, she contends, the nation invented the modern culture of reverence for military death and used the fallen to elaborate its new concern for individual rights. Faust exhumes a wealth of material—condolence letters, funeral sermons, ads for mourning dresses, poems and stories from Civil War–era writers—to flesh out her lucid account. The result is an insightful, often moving portrait of a people torn by grief.

5. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
With its spotlight on elephants, Gruen's romantic page-turner hinges on the human-animal bonds that drove her debut and its sequel (Riding Lessons and Flying Changes)—but without the mass appeal that horses hold. The novel, told in flashback by nonagenarian Jacob Jankowski, recounts the wild and wonderful period he spent with the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, a traveling circus he joined during the Great Depression. When 23-year-old Jankowski learns that his parents have been killed in a car crash, leaving him penniless, he drops out of Cornell veterinary school and parlays his expertise with animals into a job with the circus, where he cares for a menagerie of exotic creatures[...] He also falls in love with Marlena, one of the show's star performers—a romance complicated by Marlena's husband, the unbalanced, sadistic circus boss who beats both his wife and the animals Jankowski cares for. Despite her often clichéd prose and the predictability of the story's ending, Gruen skillfully humanizes the midgets, drunks, rubes and freaks who populate her book.

6. Song Yet Sung by James McBride
Escaped slaves, free blacks, slave-catchers and plantation owners weave a tangled web of intrigue and adventure in bestselling memoirist (The Color of Water) McBride's intricately constructed and impressive second novel, set in pre–Civil War Maryland. Liz Spocott, a beautiful young runaway slave, suffers a nasty head wound just before being nabbed by a posse of slave catchers. She falls into a coma, and, when she awakes, she can see the future—from the near-future to Martin Luther King to hip-hop—in her dreams. Liz's visions help her and her fellow slaves escape, but soon there are new dangers on her trail: Patty Cannon and her brutal gang of slave catchers, and a competing slave catcher, nicknamed The Gimp, who has a surprising streak of morality. Liz has some friends, including an older woman who teaches her The Code that guides runaways; a handsome young slave; and a wild inhabitant of the woods and swamps. Kidnappings, gunfights and chases ensue as Liz drifts in and out of her visions, which serve as a thoughtful meditation on the nature of freedom and offer sharp social commentary on contemporary America. McBride hasn't lost his touch: he nails the horrors of slavery as well as he does the power of hope and redemption.

7. The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian
Best known for the provocative and powerful novel, Midwives (an Oprah Book Club® Selection), Chris Bohjalian writes beautiful and riveting fiction featuring what the San Francisco Chronicle dubbed "ordinary people in heartbreaking circumstances behaving with grace and dignity." In his new novel, The Double Bind, a literary thriller with references to (and including characters from) The Great Gatsby, Bohjalian takes readers on a haunting journey through one woman's obsession with uncovering a dark secret.

The count so far

1. We've got 3 votes for Little, Big (Ed voted in his most recent post, not in the poll).
2. Natalie says she'll read whatever we choose.
3. Doug will vote before the deadline on Saturday.

Pam

Time to vote

Hi Group:

Forgive my abruptness but I think the time has come to make a decision.

I am voting in this format because I want to vote for two books: Little, Big (which I have) and Fortress of Solitude (which I can get). Actually I would also like to vote for Song Yet Sung -- for next time. It doesn't seem to be available here yet. Did anyone check out The Book Thief? Pls do. I think it would be a decent choice as well.

BTW, there's a novel by Gilad Elbom, an Israeli living in the US (Fargo, ND), that is being translated into Hebrew. Yes, that's what I meant. He wrote it in English. It's on Amazon: Scream Queens of the Dead Sea. Doubt that this book is appropriate for our august group but it's interesting that an Israeli is writing in English -- and then has his work translated into Hebrew.

But I digress. Time to vote!

Ed

PS: Is anyone else having difficulty reading the blog in living color?

Yes, Pam, I pore over every diagram. Sometimes, I try to figure out the sentence from the diagram; sometimes, I try to diagram the sentence. Some of those sentences are quite daunting to figure out either way! I did finish the book, enjoyed every word of it.

I am now reading People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks (Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March). It is intriguing so far. It's a fictionalized account (what's that called Larry? I'm 60; I can't remember) of the history of one of the earliest illuminated Jewish texts, the Sarajevo Hagaddah. A rare-book expert is summoned to restore the book and she finds clues to its history. I am enjoying the investigation as well as the discussion of the book itself.

I'm not sure how I feel about discussing the book piecemeal because we may all be reading on different timetables and it's easier to have one deadline rather than several. On the other hand, it may be more interesting to talk as we go and easier for us to remember details. I guess if someone isn't up to an interim deadline, he or she can opt out of the discussion or just make something up!

As for the apostrophe issue et al: As an editor, I say, "Hurrah for E.B.White and AP!"
Paula

Russell Banks

In the next couple of months I hope to read The Reserve, the new novel by Russell Banks, so I guess I'll nominate it for the next round. I've loved his novels for years. (Hey Eddie: I started to write "...Russell Banks' new novel..." but decided to avoid the entire AP/S&White dilemma.)

Assuming we actually (a) get around to picking a first book and (b) agree on some general plan for discussing it, Ed suggested that instead of reading the entire book before a discussion we could:

"...agree to read each part by a certain date. That way we could discuss one part of a book while reading the next part." I like that idea. Others?

Paula, you mentioned reading something with a "little lighter subject matter." I like that idea too. I might post a short note about the diagramming book when I finish it. I'm only reading a few pages a day. I love seeing selected sentences diagrammed (Kerouac, Faulkner) and I actually study them. do you? Fox, do you?

I saw the movie Notes on a Scandal the other day and decided to buy the book (which is called "What Was She Thinking: Notes on a Scandal). I can't resist those 1 cent Amazon sales. The book jacket says "A complex psychological portrait framed as a wicked satire, it is by turns funny, poignant, and sinister." That's a tall order.

Pam

Day and Night

Hi:

I'm beginning to realize that I'm going to have to cope with the time difference. When it's daytime for me most of you are asleep. When my day is winding down you're just hitting your stride. As a Grumpy Old Man (did you see that BBC TV series in the US?) I made two comments the other day that seemed different the next morning.

Specificially the apostrophe and the name of our literary benefactor. I can live with both. Thing is, when I think of reading I think of Mr. Vincent and Comp Lit. Most of my memories of Mrs. Biggs have to do with her temperament.

Pam: We could discuss the use of the AP style book for professional work. But since you're not doing that anymore I guess we can pass. After all these years it actually looks funny to me to see "Biggs'" without the "apostrophe s" at the end. No big deal.

Ed

Boyle nomination withdrawn because...

...Blogger.com (wisely) won't let you add items to the poll after someone has voted. So I guess we'll leave the first round of voting at 7 nominations. Boyle can be moved to round 2. (See how optimistic I am, assuming there will be a round 2?) I could always re-set the poll and add more books but I won't do that unless there is a groundswell of support for that move. ("Groundswell" used advisedly since it looks like only 5 people are participating so far---although I'll force Doug to vote on a book before the deadline.)
Pam

East is East by T.C. Boyle

This book is not exactly "lighter," as suggested by Paula, but it's close. It also didn't get uniformly good reviews but as Fox notes good reviews don't necessarily mean a good book (so therefore bad reviews don't necessarily mean a bad book, right?). And I hear via rumor that Natalie likes T.C. Boyle. (I actually think he's hot, hot, hot too...) Finally, you can get a used copy on Amazon for 1 penny plus shipping.
Pam

Voting Deadline: 11:59 AM (DC time), Sat March 15

Someone, Ed?, suggested a deadline for picking a book and someone else, Fox?, suggested March 15 as that deadline. So until someone else changes it, that will be our working deadline. I'm not yet sure if the poll at the right will work but we'll find out. I'm not sure b/c the program may be set up to take only one vote per Google account. And since we're all logging in using the same account name ...well, you get it. If that happens we'll deal with it then.
Pam

Suggestions

Hmm, Song Yet Sung does sound interesting to me -- and I enjoyed his first book, The Color of Water. Does anyone know anything about The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian? I've never read his books but I've heard good things about this one. Also, Then It Came to the End has been recommended to me and it's on the NY Times 10 Best Books of 2007 list. Okay, it's now 2am and I am getting very tired -- go to sleep Larry D!
Paula

Oops,

Okay, so I'm not smarter than a fifth grader -- last post was from Paula. I forgot to sign it. Maybe 1am isn't the best time to be doing this. I'll try to stop using space for fluff...
Paula

From the Little Engine Who Could

Yay, I am smarter than a fifth grader! Okay, now that I'm here, I really don't have anything to say except to request that you ignore my vote that I posted in error and don't know how to delete. Is anyone interested in a book with a little lighter subject matter? Guess I've been overloaded lately with bad news and could use a laugh or two...

Miscellaneous

First of all, try to remember to sign posts and comments. Since we're all signing in with the same name, if you don't sign we won't always know who wrote what.

Second, the idea of trying to make a decision by mid-March seems reasonable.

As for Camy's suggestions (pls don't take this personally): I really don't want to read a book about the high price of war. I read it in the papers daily.

As for Water for Elephants. I read it last fall, liked it but am not particularly interested in reading it again.

Your suggestion about the Eastern Shore sounds interesting to me. I'll check it out on Amazon later.

That's about it for now. Must start my day.

Ed

Camy's suggestions

The Republic of Suffering by Drew Gilpin Faust (hc). The impact of the Civil War's enormous death toll, by the new president of Harvard.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (pb). A young man -- and an elephant -- save a Depression era circus. Many friends have recommended this book to me.

Song Yet Sung by James McBride (hc). Set in Maryland's Eastern Shore, slaves escape on the Underground Railroad. Strong review in 3/2 NYT Book Review. -- Camy

Comments on recommended books: The Fortress of Solitude

Jonathan Lethem was the speaker at Kate's graduation. He is a Bennington dropout. He impressed me so much with his humor and humanity I read this when we returned from Vermont. Wonderful book.

See his entirely plagarized article on cultural borrowing
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/02/0081387

Fox

A favorite passage from Fox

And then I left Strasbourg and went to Avignon, to the church of Our Mother of Noon, in the parish of Fr. Fabrice, whose falcon, called Ta Gueule, was known throughout the surrounding area for his voracity and ferocity, and my afternoons with Fr. Fabrice were unforgettable, Ta Gueule in full flight, scattering not just flocks of pigeons but also flocks of starlings, which in those long-gone, happy days, were common in the countryside of Provence, where Sordel, Sordello, which Sordello? wandered once, and Ta Gueule flew off and disappeared among the low clouds, the clouds descending from the desecrated yet somehow still pure hills of Avignon, and while Fr Fabrice and I conversed, Ta Gueule appeared again like a lightning bolt, or the abstract idea of a lightning bolt, and stooped on the huge flocks of starlings coming out of the west like swarms of flies, darkening the sky with their erratic fluttering, and after a few minutes the fluttering of the starlings was bloodied, scattered and bloodied, and afternoon on the outskirts of Avignon took on a deep red hue, like the colour of sunsets seen from an aeroplane, or the colour of dawns, when the passenger is woken gently by the engines whistling in his ears and lifts up the little blind and sees the horizon marked with a red line, like the planet's femoral artery, or the planet's aorta, gradually swelling, and I saw that swelling blood vessel in the sky over Avignon, the blood-stained flight of the starlings, Ta Gueule splashing colour like an abstract expressionist painter, ah, the peace, the harmony of nature, nowhere as evident or as unequivocal as in Avignon, and then Fr Fabrice whistled and we waited for an indefinable time, measured only by the beating of our hearts, until our quivering warrior came to rest upon his arm.

Roberto Bolano
By Night in Chile