Old Ladies Read and More

Chicken Hill residents may have no money; they may live in shacks with tin roofs on muddy roads with open sewers; they may be the rejects of society.  But they are beautiful; they are strong and resourceful; they are loved. Their skills are born of necessity – they know how to launder, fix the plumbing, and mix the cement.  McBride has created a vivid picture of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and blacks from the deep South who have built a web of connection to help them negotiate the scornful and belittling white world.

The stars of the show are Moshe, a theater owner who brings jazz to the hill; his beloved wife Chona who follows the Jewish tradition of “tikkun olam,” (repair the world), her best friends Bernice and Addie (blacks), and Addie’s husband Nate, who becomes the hero.

On the other side is Doc Roberts who loves to march in his white robe and pointed hood but is still besotted with the Jewess who ignored him in high school. There is Gus Plitzka whose machinations with the city water supply both in town and on Chicken Hill make up one of the two main story lines.

Young Dodo, deaf after an accident at home, is raised by his aunt Addie and Nate with the help of the childless Chona who loves him.  When the state wants to take him away and put him in a “school,” the community of Chicken Hill closes ranks.  Working together by using extended family contacts and calling in favors, they hatch a risky plan to save him.

While the two story lines are fine, they exist only to give McBride a platform for his exploration of race relations in small town USA in the 30s.  The main strength of the novel is in its richly detailed characters and the beauty of their descriptions:

Nate peered into his wife’s searching…brown eyes, then down at her hand…the long fingers that wiped the sweat off his face after work, that knitted his pants and stroked his ear and cared for him in ways that he’d never been cared for as a child.  And the rage that overcame him eased.

Rachel, her background Puerto Rican, is an ambitious art student at Brown, working to make a place for herself in the very white male art world.  She has never heard of Anita de Monte, the Cuban artist whose work is already forgotten, only thirteen years after she died.  But Anita, although dead, is not finished.

The professional lives of the two women echo each other as they deal with the indifference to voices that are female and Latin, and fight against curbing their artistic visions to gain approval.  Their relationships with the men they love have similar conflicts.  Both want to support their successful white partners.  Each has to deal with that partner’s “help.” Maybe she should wear her hair in a neat, more elegant bun; maybe she should wear the dress he has chosen.

Fiery Anita who has died but cannot give up her anger, discovers she can still control some things on earth. For those she hates, she can turn into a bat that can terrorize and bite.  For those she loves, she becomes a wind, flipping a page to a significant picture. 

When Rachel eventually discovers Anita’s work buried in storage, it is an epiphany to learn that she is not the first; there have been other talented Latina artists before her.  Anita is happy to be resurrected; Rachel is happy to have found her; they will help each other.

What was used beforehand?  Maybe nothing.  Maybe authors felt their audience would be offended if it was assumed they knew such words.

In it, she talked about the women who have run for high public office in the past and exhorts us to work together to make Kamala the first woman president.  She ended with:

I want my grandchildren and their grandchildren to know I was here … that we were here…. This is our time, America. This is when we stand up….

It is the “we were here” part that caught my attention. 

In Henry V, King Henry, in the field, before the battle of Agincourt, inspires his fearful and badly outnumbered troops by telling them how their courage will be remembered and how others will be sorry they were not there for that glorious fight:

This day is called the feast of Crispian:… 
He that shall live this day, and see old age,… 						                     Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours… 						                      And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian’,..							                             This story shall the good man teach his son;…
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars….					        
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here…

So – hopefully – we will be here…when the first woman is elected president of the United States. 

For the immigrant enclave of Indian Americans living in Georgia, gold symbolizes success.  It is what they have left India to find – wealth and status.  They expect their children to fulfill this ambition and there is no doubt they will.  Constant study, AP classes, extra tutoring, summer internships, charitable volunteering; their resumes will be outstanding, and they WILL go to Harvard or Duke.

A few teenagers thrive in this competitive environment; they are naturally ambitious.  But the two main characters, Neil and Anita, do not, until help arrives in an unexpected way from Anita’s mother.  She knows a secret formula passed down from grandmother, to mother, to daughter and has the alchemical ability to melt gold into a drinkable liquid.  The resulting potion helps the drinker fulfill ambitions; it is a very special “lemonade.”  Both teenagers use the drink.

Magic realism mixes well with reality. Gold Diggers tells us a lot about Indian history in the US (they participated in both the California and Georgia gold rushes for example).  We learn about the culture of food and dress. We see the extremely high-pressured method of child rearing and demand for success. This exploration of identity and ambition is done in an imaginative way as we watch the liquid gold seep into the futures of our characters and those they love.

But this is not like Watson telling a story about Sherlock. (Watson after all, was not a real person.)  Character Horowitz is just like real writer Horowitz with many details that are true. This is the fun of it.  Truth blends so seamlessly into fiction it is a bit jolting to realize you’ve been reading along and have been taken in.

That twist adds interest, but it is the mystery itself, with its satisfying plot and pacing that keeps the pages turning.  In this book, writer Horowitz who is the character, is on deadline and can’t wait for another murder so he asks Hawthorne to tell him about an old case.

The murdered man had just moved into the luxurious gated community.  None of the neighbors, who got along well with each other, liked him.  He and his family blasted loud music, the children were unruly, there were too many cars and an ugly camper.  And now, he wants to dig up a beautiful garden and install a swimming pool and jacuzzi.

When he is found dead, the neighbors are under suspicion.  Since they all have the same motive, it is a tough case to untangle so Hawthorne and Horowitz are called to consult. Fairly soon, the police say the mystery is solved, but is it?  Hawthorne proposes a different solution; is it the truth?  Or… is there still something else?  And maybe just one last surprise?

It is not clear cut.  Switching from fossil to electric cars may be necessary in this time of global warming, but getting the lithium for the batteries is a challenge.  Currently, the US produces only 2% of the world’s supply leaving us at the mercy of foreign governments.  Mining it here (in the book) trespasses on Native American land and private ranches; it is a polluting business with the consequences of poisoned ground water for centuries to come.

The niceties of clean energy production are the background with a bit of tutorial on the Supreme Court.  But the forefront is an excellent mystery involving a murdered Supreme Court clerk, a pompous crooked senator, a lobbyist with connections to special ops, a mining company, and a coalition of ranchers and Native Americans.  The cowboys and Indians are on the same side in this one.  Riding to the rescue is more-than-spry Ethel with her wily intelligence and many contacts in the FBI and CIA.

In it Dench is interviewed by Brendan O’Hea, theater director at Shakespeare’s Globe, about her many roles in Shakespeare’s plays.  A book by two extraordinarily literate people about a man who was one of THE most talented writers has to be a winner.

It is not necessary to know the plays.  I read the book from cover to cover and knew the plots of very few.  It was enough to read about the complex characters and their motivations – how Dench chose to portray them and what Shakespeare may have meant. 

Also, there are the historical details.  For example, we are reminded that Juliet is only thirteen; her mother wants her to marry (not Romeo) and tells her there are other girls, younger, who are mothers already.  Child marriage is a long-standing thing.

Discussions of language, words, prose, rhyme, iambic pentameter
are lightly done and understandable.

This is a story of a performing lifetime and one of the nicest touches are the two photos of Dench. At the beginning of the book, she is in her dressing room in costume looking very young and stunningly beautiful.  At the end, she stands in a blurred snow background in a heavy coat.  It is a portrait of a woman in the winter of her life.

Does Shakespeare have a future?  Yes, she says.  He will always be relevant; he is a bridge across cultures; there’s something for everybody; he has examined every emotion; his writing has the capacity to make us feel less alone.

Dench’s obvious love of theater and joy in performing added to the pleasure of reading about her. How lucky she was to have found the perfect life’s work.  

 What he was really looking for was that elusive Northwest Passage across North America.  Unlike many others, he would try it from the west coast not eastern. Cook’s ships left England, sailed south along Africa, crossed into the Pacific, turned northeast, and stopped in Tahiti.  This was a place he did know; many of his crew had signed on specifically to return to the beautiful islands and sensuous women.

After refueling and R&R, they left with only the gray cold of Canada and Alaska to look forward to.  Thousands of miles of the Pacific with nothing between.  And then…as had happened before with Cook…some infallible sense…some uncanny luck…land is sighted.  They can hardly believe their good fortune.  But they can stop only briefly in Hawaii as they must get to the Pacific Northwest with time to explore before cold weather.  After that unsuccessful search, with no passage found, they needed a safe place for the winter.  It could be a sheltered harbor in rainy Oregon or Washington, or if they sailed further…it could be Hawaii. And so they headed south to return.

Sides tells the Hawaiian legend of Lono, the God who had been around before the world was born and before time.  When he lost his wife, he established the yearly festival of the Makahiki to honor her.  When all was to his satisfaction, he built a great canoe.  He would be gone for many eons but would return.  The festival was always the same time of year, in the same place. When Lono returned, he would come from a certain direction; the priests prophesied it would happen soon.

It makes my hair stand on end to think about the coincidence of Cook’s arrival, the correct time, place, and direction, in the middle of their festival.  The incredible ship; the imposing commander; a myth fulfilled.  Throughout the book, Sides presents many of the native views. He has listened to oral histories and read scholarly research. There’s a lot of discussion about first contact and the clash of cultures. 

There is also the sheer gall, the effrontery, of England/France/Spain, those relatively small sized European countries, to claim that the independent, well governed, self-sustaining cultures they found belonged to them.  They could only see the people who already lived there as inferior curiosities – without firepower.  Spain claimed the whole Pacific Ocean and its lands for itself. This colonial attitude of the 1770s has suffered some blows, but the sense of superiority is still alive and well.

In addition to very likable, well drawn main characters, the subject matter is appealing – budding authors, a writing retreat, and a book club.  There’s Wordle and The Guardian.  How nice and booky.

But – I was disappointed. There are too many secondary characters!  There are more than a dozen with an equal possibility of being the murderer.  Plus their relatives.  All interrelated.  Plus the police.  Plus friends of the police and private detectives.  At first, I wondered if it was me.  Am I getting forgetful – or becoming a lazy reader?   I don’t think so.  There are serious books where I am willing to keep a list to keep the characters straight.  But difficulty is not what I want from a cozy mystery.

It is beautiful because of the love among the main characters – lovers, spouses, parents, children.  It is devasting because the setting is the revolution at Euromaiden, Ukraine, in 2014, where over one hundred people were killed.

The book intertwines the stories of four main characters who are brought together at the demonstration at Kyiv. There is Misha, the mining engineer who lost his wife and father to radiation poisoning; Katya, the volunteer doctor whose young child died from heart failure; Slava, the political activist whose mother sold her into prostitution, and finally Alexandre, the musician who spied for the KGB.

It is the warmth and resilience of these people who have survived Chernobyl, the police state, corruption, betrayal, and prison that makes this such a compelling read.  Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, that celebration of the regenerative life force, is an apt image for our characters who can continue to love and cherish.

The book isn’t easy.  Time is not chronological. The cast of characters gets confusing and keeping track of their (possible) relationships takes effort. I finally started a chart. The names are Russian, meaning there are two names for some. The book’s structure is varied.  There are folk tales and songs, lists, newspaper articles, first person intimate story telling. Luckily, the chapters are short – sometimes just a few paragraphs that capture the essence and move the story along. The prose is spare. The disordered structure reflects the chaos of war.

This novel is a must read for anyone who thinks government by an autocratic strongman might be a good thing.

The truth of international questions doesn’t just float onto the page but is ferreted out by international news correspondents. In Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life, Nicholas Kristof, journalist for The New York Times, tells his story.

This memoir gives an idea of the bribing, manipulating, scheming, lying, trickery and courage needed to get information out of the reluctant.  International news correspondent is not a desk job; it is in the field – with pit toilets filled with bats, spitting cobras, flooded roads, suspicious armed militia, and murderous warlords.

As his interest matured, Kristof began to write more about social issues: global, such as child prostitution and forced marriage; local, such as homelessness and drug addiction. There’s philosophizing about how much good a news story can actually do.

Although Kristof has written about and seen some of the worst of humanity, he counters with stories of heroic individuals and selfless charities.  There is an acknowledgement that so many news stories about terrible things give a skewed portrait of the world.  Actually, we are told, medical care is the best it has ever been and illiteracy is disappearing.  The difference education makes is stressed again and again.

It was also interesting to read about his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist too, who was with him in China when they covered Tiananmen Square. Now that she is a mother of three, she has shifted to the less harrowing world of finance.

When one of the boarders is murdered in front of Ethel’s house, Jesse is startled to see his older cousin take charge, including personally calling the head of the Secret Service.  There is a lot that Jesse doesn’t know about Ethel.

Hs is a fast learner.  Soon the two are on the trail of possibly three rogue agents who are running a cryptocurrency fraud.  At the center is half a million dollars until they find an additional wallet containing two billion.

This is a well plotted mystery with two charming lead characters.  Perfect summer reading.  The bonus is that I learned a little more about how Bitcoin works.

One night, she crossed the shallow frozen river intending to spend a few days sightseeing with distant relatives.  In her memoir, The Girl with Seven Names, she tells about that fateful crossing and the years of hardship and fear that followed.

The book is chronological, so we first meet her when she is a happy child, living with her family in a land where relatives are most important.  Her parents, well versed in the bribery and illegal trade necessary for survival, provide a comfortable living.  As she gets older she starts to question the omnipresent political indoctrination; she sees the hunger of so many North Koreans and notices the well fed Chinese.  She wants to look closer. When she does, fate intervenes, and she is trapped in China.

The harrowing journey from North Korean defector through China to safety in South Korea goes on for years with one setback after another.  There is a lot of information about the different countries, their rules on immigration, the behavior and plight of the illegals.  Lee’s imagination and tenacity get her out of trouble many times.

Since her book was published in England, we know how the story ends.  But does it really end?  In the final chapter, she talks about the present time and how she feels about herself, her family, and the things she has done. 

The book provides insight into a certain kind of immigrant.  I’ve read several books about the immigrant experience, but I don’t think there has been another where the characters worried about being apprehended and executed by their mother country because they dared leave.                               

Stella’s mother (almost an evil stepmother) dies and leaves her a small inheritance with the caveat that she must go to Paris and spend it there.  Mousy Stella, having barely survived the uncaring mother, abusive boyfriend, and absent father is afraid to do something so daring. 

When she finally finds the courage, the trip changes her life.  First, she meets the mysterious shopkeeper who declares the gorgeous Christian Dior chiffon dress, with accompanying slippers, to have been waiting for her – and allows Stella to wear it for a day.  But there are rules.  She must go to a magnificent restaurant for lunch, order oysters and Chablis, visit a particular Parisian art gallery, have a dinner that only Paris can provide.

Thus, Stella is propelled into a sensuous world beyond her self-imposed restrictions.  Dressed in the couture dress, she looks –  beautiful.  As she is introduced to some of the great art of Paris, she develops an admiration for one painting in particular and finds a mystery waiting to be solved.  This leads her to the literary world of Shakespeare and Company and the “tumbleweeds” who live in the English language bookstore. 

Most of all, she discovers a talent for and appreciation of food and cooking.  Reichl was a food editor, restaurant critic, and editor of Gourmet for years.  She draws on her experiences of unforgettable meals for the mouth-watering descriptions found in the novel.

At the end, we’re happy for Stella who, as a modern Cinderella finds not just the prince, but her own special talent as well.  

A widow is suing a tobacco company for causing the lung cancer death of her husband. Others have tried this, but the tobacco companies have always won.  Will this time be different?  Both sides will spend whatever is needed to win, but the actions of the tobacco company are the more egregious.  If they can’t buy the juror directly, there is a spouse’s business to purchase or a doctor to bribe for embarrassing private information. 

Maybe a comeuppance is at hand.  A quiet unassuming young juror insinuates himself into the confidence of the other jurors. Suggestions are made. Outside the jury, there is a mysterious young woman calling the “fixer” of the defense with information about what the jury members might do on a particular day.  How does she know?

Grisham does his part in the anti-smoking campaign by having his characters detail the damage that smoking causes and the actions of big tobacco to keep people puffing.

The story is a bit farfetched and we’re not too surprised by the ending. But getting there is well worth the trip, and it does have a satisfying little twist.

2019 sets the scene for the five main characters. Robbie, the brother, lives with his sister Isabel and her husband Dan and their two children. Robbie is asked to leave what was supposed to be temporary accommodations and find his own place. Dan’s brother, Garth, agreed to be a sperm donor when approached by his lesbian friend Chess and unexpectedly finds himself wanting a family relationship with the woman and her son.

Even though we are with each character for only a day each year, we get to know them well.  Each person has a chapter and speaks in his or her own voice.  They all have a difficult time.  Living life in the 21^st century when roles and expectations are changing is not easy.  The women have careers and don’t want marriage and children as the center of their lives.  The men take on child rearing and have chosen jobs that should have been fulfilling – art, music, teaching.  Despite privileged middle class lives, they are unhappy.  Ennui, boredom, and self-doubt fill the pages (maybe too much).

Except for Wolfe (the fake online creation of Isabel and Robbie) whose engaged energetic life, detailed in several posts per day, is self-assured and content. He is wish fulfillment personified and gets many likes.  Through the contrast between made up Wolfe and the real characters, Cunningham makes it plain that “happiness ever after” is available only in a fairy tale.  In real life, success and happiness come in small hard-won doses. 

As he lives with the birds daily, he becomes convinced that the turkeys play and find joy in their everyday lives. If so, it was easier for the turkeys to find happiness than it was for Cunningham’s characters!  Maybe too much choice is more a burden than a pleasure.

Now that I am in my 80s, it isn’t so easy to find an admirable woman my age in the media.  And finding one as a main character in literature is almost impossible.  I can think only of Miss Marple and Olive Kitteridge – but now there is also Mimsy Bell.

The feisty Mimsy is introduced to us in The Buoyant Letters of Mimsy Bell, the debut novel by Laurel Dodge.  Mimsy, 81, has returned to her childhood home in small town Maine, and we meet her sending letters to the love of her life, her teenage boyfriend who drowned sixty years ago.  She puts each letter, about what she is doing, the local gossip, her worries and regrets, her memories, into a bottle which she tosses into the river where he was lost.  These thoughtful, bitter-sweet letters make up the novel.

She had quite a life after she left home in the 60s – flower child, talented fiddle player, wife of a famous rock and roll star, touring with the band.  Now the husband is dead, there has been a falling out with the band, there are no more drugs except for blood pressure, and she has returned home.  Her perceptive thoughts about grief and loss, her determination to live in the present, to build a new life with new friends, her interest in preserving the beauty of the countryside around her – all give a second meaning to the book title’s “buoyant.”

I like that literature is starting to acknowledge the importance of the music of the 60s and 70s.  Besides this book, I’ve recently read Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood (click to see my blog Nostalgia) and Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad (Obscure Puzzles) and The Candy House (Now and Soon).

Although Buoyant’s main character is an octogenarian, the novel speaks to all ages.  Fitting into a new environment, finding purpose in life, making oneself useful, overcoming hardships, all are universal issues.

As a bonus, it is beautiful book – with a lovely translucent orange front page.  I didn’t find it in any libraries yet and it isn’t on Amazon, but it can be ordered from Littoral Books, Portland, Maine. https://littoralbooks.com

In Bill’s, the novel is suspenseful from the beginning.  President Duncan faces a terrorist threat so dire that he takes the extraordinary step of leaving the White House and his security detail to meet with someone alone.  The threat is a computer virus that has been patiently infiltrating all computer systems for three years: banks, Wall Street, insurance companies, hospitals, utilities, military, plus the Internet of Things which was a new term for me.  It means the connections of our appliances, phones, thermostats, engines, etc to the internet.  When the virus is activated, it will wipe clean all software, thus getting rid of all records at one time.  Its nickname is “Dark Ages.”

Patterson keeps his plot with its many twists moving along.  The President’s part is slower.  We hear about vicious struggles for power within the government and the delicacy of international relationships. There is a long political speech at the end.  But the President is brave and honorable and puts his country first; he reminded me more of Biden than Clinton.

Possession is a tour de force.  There are parallel love stories – one today and one in the 1800s.  In today’s, Roland, a young scholar studying the poet Robert Ash stumbles upon the original drafts of Ash’s letter to poet Isabel LaMotte. Roland seeks advice from a LaMotte scholar, herself young and beautiful (played by Gwenyth Paltrow in the movie). Together they follow the clues of old letters and journals to discover a month-long tryst between the two Victorian poets with far-reaching consequences.

It’s a lovely story and, with lots of skimming, can be read just for that. Or – the reader can ponder the many ways the author presents the idea of “possession.”  What and who exactly is being possessed? Plus, there is the gorgeous language:  “…the sighing song of the West Wind, full of fine rain and glancing sunshine, streaming clouds and driven starlight, netted him around and around.”

On the downside – this is a dense book, slow to start and full of pages-long tedious poetry, purportedly written by Ash and LaMotte. There are mystical fairy tales; there are flowery Victorian letters full of obscure allusions.  Byatt was an intellectual and proud of it. 

The book is beautifully written, has very engaging characters, a plot with a mystery to be solved, a satisfying ending.  The reader can choose just how much of the “richness” Byatt has provided to read.  If you want the poetry and letters, they are there to enjoy; if they get tiresome, just skip them and read on.

Bennie Salazar was a bass player in a teenage rock ‘n roll band that he managed with his buddy Scotty, a talented lap steel guitar player.  Bennie wasn’t a good musician, but he had an ear for music and a sense of what would work. He is discovered and mentored by thrice married producer Lou who loves music and women in their 20’s.  For a time, Bennie’s capable assistant is Sasha, but she steals – often, is fired, and eventually finds herself penniless in Naples.

The story is not chronological; time fluctuates from the 90s to the 70s to the future. Characters are close to one another, they separate, and years later reconnect.  Different chapters have different main characters; a minor character may star in a later chapter – but the time of that chapter is earlier.  I think that Egan may be replicating memory which surfaces in unpredictable ways. She is interested in the passage of time and wants us to compare the ideals of the young with the behavior of the mature (in age). 

The settings are vivid and memorable – the drug-soaked music world, the snobbish white tennis club, the lions in the African bush.  Nevertheless, keeping track of the different scenes and characters is a challenge and I’m not sure that such difficulty is necessary to fulfill her aims.

Through them, we get a glimpse of her childhood, her first jobs teaching in China and Saudi Arabia, her developing love of music, especially opera and Handel, and a late life interest in bee keeping.  What we don’t get is anything remotely personal.  After finishing this memoir, I have no idea if she ever married, had a partner, had an affair, had a child.  She refers to dinner parties and having a best friend but gives no more information than that.  There is a casual mention of being a “crime writer” but nothing about her huge success with Venetian mysteries and the much-loved Brunetti.

Well…this is not an autobiography.  I had to look up the difference and this book is rightly called a memoir – a series of things chosen by the writer to make a point, perhaps in this case, to illustrate the joys of a certain way of living.  It is not meant to be a complete story of her life. Once I realized this, I was much happier with the book.

Too many technical musical terms, too many obscure references, too many Italian phrases without translation, too many mistresses!  This book may appeal to a musician or researcher, but I’m sticking with the old crew at the Venice Questura.

It stars Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton, and Sara Paretsky.  Each is interviewed so we get a peek at her personal life and hear her speak about her relationship with the sleuth she has created.  The three together were among the innovators.  Their main characters are not helpless females waiting to be rescued by the hard-boiled male police chief or detective.  Rather, they are the detectives, capable, resourceful 20^th century women solving crimes on their own. 

The movie is a thought-provoking discussion about the changes female detectives have brought to the genre. It is dated as Sue Grafton has since died, but both Muller and Paretsky, in their 70s, are still writing and bringing Sharon McCone and V. I. Warshawski into the 21^st century.

I watched this on Kanopy, our free library streaming service. I also found Possession at the library, but it was a DVD.

Joined by filaments of fungi, the roots can share nutrients and water with their nearby neighbors and offspring according to choice and need. Grouping different species with varying strengths and weaknesses allows them to help each other. The implications of this cooperation are important for forestry companies that need to restore clearcuts in the most economical way and for the government agencies tasked with maintaining healthy forests and parks.

To balance the meticulous details of her scientific work, Simard intersperses the story of her personal life: marriage, children, a cancer diagnosis, a discovery about her sexuality.  There is also the history of her timber family, along with photos, that goes back several generations.

In the 1980s and 90s Simard was a young woman working in a man’s business, and the reception her revolutionary insight received was the one we can all imagine.  The idea that the forest was an entity that cooperated and shared among its parts was not an idea important men could take seriously.  They didn’t care that this had been the indigenous view for centuries.

Success is slow in coming.  Although there have been many scientific articles, speeches, YouTubes, letters in support, despite the fact that her findings have been replicated and enlarged by scientists all over the world, despite seeing that her test plots flourish while theirs decline, timber companies are still enamored of monoculture, the clear cut, and herbicides. 

To learn more about Simard’s work you can join the group she founded, the Mother Tree Project, directed at furthering research and keeping the general public informed.  Look for them at http://mothertreeproject.org

It’s a surprise that it was written by a woman. I think of Japan as male dominated, authoritarian and aggressive. But those qualities come from a later period which was controlled by the samurai and martial arts. During this earlier time, the Heian, culture and fine arts were most important and their influence is seen in the softer traditions of Japan: beautiful silks, woodblocks, the koto, haiku, cherry blossoms.

Genji is a story of court life.  Followers of The Crown will recognize the many prescribed rituals and traditions, the intense interest in pedigree, the jockeying for position, the jealousy and intrigue. Genji, the emperor’s son by someone other than his wife, is the most beautiful and brilliant of all, but cannot be the heir.  He is so beautiful that people wish he were a woman, a concept typical of the time when male and female beauty were not so differentiated as now. 

Genji, like all the nobility, excels at the arts. He writes poetry, sings, dances, and plays the flute.  Also like others in his position, he is a master of the art of seduction. The first section of the manuscript deals with his many pursuits, repeatedly describing the women and his affairs in detail.

From our 21^st century point of view, Genji’s morals are deplorable.  He pursues married women, including those married to his relatives, one to his father; he is interested in beautiful little girls.  Although he is willing to “wait” he adopts and grooms them.  He knows he is very attractive and acts accordingly.  But, the author tells us, he is very good to his women – gives them presents, cares for them in need, is kind and respectful.  It was a different time and place and I had to keep reminding myself not to judge the shining prince by current standards.  There is no tone of disapproval in the novel.

Why bother to read this?  The repetitious plot becomes tiresome; there is a huge confusing list of characters; the book is about 1200 pages.  But there is so little literature that shows life from a thousand years ago.  The picture of the Japanese aristocracy that emerges is vivid and detailed; it is a window into a time long gone. Many of the book’s themes are current today: the impermanence of youth, love, and beauty; choosing between a marriage of love or one leading to advancement; the secondary role of women.  It is a classic often referred to in literature and art.

One thing to do is look at Project Gutenberg (a website that allows anyone to read classics online for free) and choose a few chapters.  It uses the translation by Arthur Waley which was the first in the Western world. This will be enough to get the flavor of the wonderful descriptions and poetry:

A child’s guardian, who is ill, looks at her fondly and recites: ‘Not knowing if any will come to nurture the tender leaf whereon it lies, how loath is the dewdrop to vanish in the sunny air.’ To which the waiting-woman replied with a sigh: ‘O dewdrop, surely you will linger till the young budding leaf has shown in what fair form it means to grow.’

“When love is unrequited, it becomes a bittersweet melody that echoes through the soul.”

“In the garden the natural vegetation of the hill-side had been turned to skilful use. There was no moon, and torches had been lit along the sides of the moat, while fairy lanterns hung on the trees… A heavy perfume of costly and exotic scents stole from hidden incense-burners and filled the room with a delicious fragrance.” 

When Chief Elmore is called to investigate a suicide on a nearby farm, he sees right away what the sheriff, a good old boy whose limit is dealing with feisty teenagers, cannot.  This is a murder and the victim’s wife and son are missing.  Around the same time, he learns that a convict on death row has escaped.

The setting is rural Arkansas and the author, who lived there, has a very sure way of creating his characters and setting. This evocation of community is one of the strongest parts of the novel. At the end, we hate to leave his perceptive college educated deputy Ricky and his young family; Elmore’s good looking wife Ellen Mae, loving, loyal and unsure of herself; his first love Grace, who married someone else when he was too long getting home from the war;  his car obsessed teenage boys.

The time of this novel is November 1963 and a third story (but not a murder) involves civil rights activism in the South.  Chief Elmore did not like President Kennedy and the novel offers some basis for that.  We hear about state troopers preparing for Kennedy’s visit after he leaves Dallas.

This mystery is not as “cosy” as I like; the murders are graphic and corpses detailed.  I prefer my murder off stage.  But it is a page turner!

This is a love story situated in the present time in rural India where two idealistic young people, one Muslim and one Hindu, marry in the hope that their love will overcome the hatred and prejudice of their communities. It does not. The leader of the bride’s village considers their union such an affront to God, not to mention his own domination, that he persuades her brothers to burn them alive. They kill the young husband and badly maim the wife.  While most of the village including the police shrug, a city attorney represents the surviving widow and charges her brothers with murder.

An Indian American journalist reluctantly returns to India to cover the story.  She has bitter memories from her childhood when her brother and she were accosted by a mob of their neighbors. Their father, a Hindu scholar who was a Muslim, was a symbol of the tolerant future their family hoped for.  It was not to be; they were the wrong religion and driven out.

The journalist’s weekend in India stretches into weeks as the verdict is delayed.  Luckily, she has been assigned a handsome sensitive driver, and their story, juxtaposed with the first, saves this novel from too depressing a tone.  Misogyny, pride, and vengeance are not overcome.

The book is not written as a cartoon; Flush does not speak.  His observations and feelings are sensitively conveyed by a warm-hearted dog lover.

Like Woolf herself, Flush is an aristocrat with all the fine points of his breed.  He is happy as a puppy, romping outside chasing hares.  A great change comes to his life when his owner gifts him to Elizabeth Barrett and he must live inside her darkened room as she convalesces from a long illness. Things improve greatly when Barrett secretly rekindles a romance with Robert Browning and elopes with him to Italy.  Of course, Flush goes along.

He astutely compares his upper-class life in London with the poverty he sees around him. Flush is grateful for his comforts, but respectability has its price.  There is no more running free to visit the little spotted dog or their offspring.  He must walk on paths on a chain.  What a great metaphor.  Woolf, that is Flush, has other pointed observations to make about London society both in Barrett Browning’s Victorian time and Woolf’s WWI. 

In real life, both Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Virginia Woolf owned cocker spaniels. Woolf, whose spaniel was named Pinka, read about the Brownings’ dog, Flush, and was moved to memorialize him (and the Brownings) using the behavior of her own Pinka. The resultant dog is a delight.

They are invited to a writer’s conference on Alderney, a small island in the English Channel, to promote their newest book. Horowitz looks forward to it.  For once, they will be in his territory, and it will be Hawthorne who is out of his depth not him.  Yet, Hawthorne is mysteriously enthusiastic about attending.

They are at the conference only a couple of days when the first murder occurs. Which one of this eclectic group of writers is not who he or she seems to be?  Or – maybe the murders are about local politics. Only a few residents are in favor of the planned electric line that will connect England and France but ruin scenic views and desecrate WWII war graves.

Alderney is a real place and Horowitz has given his novel an historical basis.  Ten miles from France, it is the only part of England that was occupied by the Nazis, who used it to build four concentration camps.  The lingering menace makes a good setting for a present-day mystery.

Very coincidentally, on the day I finished the book, the New York Times published an article about Alderney and its place in World War II, “This Small Island Has a Dark History.”

Thea Kozak, helping to run the conference, has flown in from the East Coast hoping for some Hawaii sunshine but already missing the hot lover left behind.  She has a habit of involving herself in murders and is on the island only one day when she discovers why Martina has not been answering her door.  Thea’s hope for time off disappears.

I’m always excited to hear about a new mystery writer and Flora has given us a well plotted novel as well as a romance.  On the minus side, there is too much exposition. Actions occur and then are repeated when one character tells another what just happened.  She also has Thea give information about herself too often – “I’m a take charge person, a go-getter; I hold up well in a crisis.”  At the end, possible murder scenarios are reviewed and discussed by the characters. This repetition does help the sleepy reader keep up, but the new-to-me author is not thumbs up or thumbs down, but in-between.

The book pretends to be an autobiography, and part of it is.  The futility of trying to separate what is true from what is not is one of the main themes of this novel.  Dealing with the fear of death and realizing that “right” and “moral” are concepts that no longer apply are some others.

The strength of O’Brien’s writing is his ability to make the reader feel the ineffable, to understand what is unsayable, to tell a story that elicits strong emotion without causing a turning away.  There are twenty-two compelling loosely connected non chronological chapters.

There is the wrenching story of the gifted student who must choose between obeying the draft notice to fight in a war he hates or endure the disapproval of his community and the shame of running away to Canada.  There is the young man who makes it back to a home he can’t live in, unable yet desperate to tell what he has done. There are those who are unlucky and die, by chance, but live in the stories their buddies tell.

“And what is the best kind of war story?” O’Brien asks.   It is the one that conveys how people felt not what factually happened. “The greatest truth of a war story is the visceral feeling it fosters in the listener/reader.”  At this, O’Brien excels.

The emphasis is on factual information. But even the graphic novel with its helpful pictures isn’t enough to rescue Satrapi’s confusing treatment of the revolution.  Explaining the complexities of overthrowing the shah, how he got into power in the first place, and the takeover by the religious right is too complicated a subject to briskly gallop through.

When Satrapi leaves the history lesson behind and illustrates the effects of war and repression on her family and home in Tehran, her work shines. The story is told from the point of view of a child as she lives through the chaotic times.  Her liberal parents, determined not to be cowed, continue to bring up young Marjane as an independent thinker able to speak her mind to anyone. This would be unusual for a child in any locale, but in Iran, at this time, it was dangerous.  Her parents decide to send her to school in Vienna. 

In the second part of the book, the author details the double difficulties of being an immigrant during adolescence. When she returns home at nineteen, readjustment is equally hard as she tries to find herself amid the many restrictions of an oppressive regime.

Graphic novels are a format not a genre.  They use sequential art to tell a story which can be, for example, fiction, non-fiction, historical, or biographical.  I’m very glad to have read one as I had previously dismissed them as too juvenile.  Some of my co-readers did feel this one was superficial; little motivation is provided and emotions are not subtle.  It felt flat and we wondered if it is because the omniscient narrator is missing. On the other hand, the book deals with very serious subjects, war, theocracy, coming of age, assimilation.

I wonder if graphic novels are gaining in popularity because the interest in visuals from computer games is spilling over into books and making pictures a more acceptable form of adult storytelling.  First there was the oral story and theater, then the written word, movies, and now, the interactive possibilities of computer games and visual impact of comics and graphic novels.  Ways to tell a story evolve and we should be open to occasionally trying new forms – but I won’t be giving up the traditional well-written novel any time soon.

I went to see a new version of the old time Waikiki Kodak hula show.  The best part was the “aunties” dressed in their long muumuus singing and playing ukuleles and guitars beneath a mature hala tree.  They may have been off key now and then but they were having fun and were the most authentic part of the show.

The screen actress Evelyn Hugo is everything we expect of a movie star – a blond sexpot, wealthy, divorced seven times, manipulative – reminiscent of the movie magazines of our teenage years.   But she has a secret we do not expect.  Evelyn, near the end of her life, contacts a magazine offering an exclusive on her life story – if one of their junior reporters does the interview.

What is Evelyn’s secret and why has she insisted on this particular reporter?  Well, the novel has to have at least a part of a plot we don’t already know.  This is a great book to pick up when you want to relax and reading seems like a lot of effort.  It lulls you along and is interesting enough to encourage reading to the end to find the answer to the young reporter’s identity.