Soldiers' Books Post Revised

Just wanted to let my loyal readers know that this morning I revised my previous post of last evening. I apologize for last night's entry being too, too much "over the top." I'm satisfied with the way the discussion reads now. Thanks for bearing with me! I'll be posting later today. Keep reading!

Vietnam Must Be Revisited: Matterhorn

I may be a woman, and I may be gray-haired, but that doesn't mean I'm blind. Not yet, not by a long shot. I grew up during the Vietnam era; I remember each time a friend's brother was killed. I was not so young that I was not permitted to hear the agonies these soldiers suffered when they died of burns from explosions, and their families all gathered at their kin's deathbed in a Texas military hospital. Oh, I remember, all right. Maybe I remember too much. After all, I was thirteen to fifteen years old at the time, a very impressionable age.

All my life I've studied dozens of soldier's narratives, from the U.S. Civil War to World War I to World War II to Vietnam to the Iraq War, I've read them. I know what the soldiers say. If only more Americans would read them.


If people would allow themselves to hear and read the voices of soldiers--the new novel Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes and Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller and All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Marie Remarque, and the dozens of similar soldier narratives, this war madness would stop.

I drove today to take my dog to a vet appointment, another long drive to Glens Falls. And on the way I listened to an in-depth discussion of the War (yes, War) in Afghanistan on NPR. Onward now, Americans, let's battle to build a nation state in a tribal country, one speaker said.

How many young people in their late teens and very early twenties are we going to sacrifice to that? (Don't tell me they're adults and happy to serve their country. I heard that lecture in other wars when they were slaughtered.)

People's lives are destroyed in combat. Read the literature--both the fiction, the autobiographies, and the psychiatric literature. The military hospitals are full of the suffering. Just for a change, let's try building this country instead of spending billions and killing thousands to build them in distant corners of the world.

Visiting Yorkshire

Not really, of course. But I'm very keen on the concept of Virtual Travel.

Today I had the good fortune to drive to Glens Falls so I could download Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte onto my Kindle. The damn machine even managed to cooperate a bit so I didn't have to curse in front of the dentist and his assistants! (How I wish I could put the proper two dots on top of the letter e in Bronte!)


I'm joining the All about the Brontes Challenge 2010 hosted by Laura's Reviews.

I visited a huge bookstore to drop off a job application and resume, and was so overwhelmed by the vast selection, I had to run out the door! Has this ever happened to you? Too many books that look too luscious for words?

Snowy Doings

Last Sunday at this time it was 80 degrees F. Right now, at 5pm, it's 36 degrees. It's been snowing and sleeting a bit off and on since last night. I loathe the heat so I don't mind the chill at all.

After 2 1/2 hours of reading (and loving) every word of Elphinstone's The Gathering Night this morning, I got to thinking about Anne Bronte, the youngest of all the Brontes. (This was one of those odd, nonsequitor kind of thoughts). I read just a bit about her online and was alarmed to discover she died at age 29 of tuberculosis.

My older brother died at the same age, and I have often thought that people only begin to realize their potential in their twenties. A death at 29 is so tragic because there is no time for the thirties and forties to bring those possibilities to full fruition.

I'm looking forward to reading The Tenant at Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte, a book I bought recently, but this was her second novel! I didn't know that. I feel compelled to read her first novel first, Agnes Grey, based on her experiences as a governess.

I discovered that it's available for 95 cents on the Kindle. Maybe I'll try that, though my Kindle's battery has been going through delirium tremens for over a week now, in spite of all the Amazon-authorized cants I've chanted over it.

Janet Malcolm & Sylvia Plath

Today: My Home Book Tour. (See Friday's post.) I knocked over a pile of CDs in the process, but quickly latched onto the "Grab Me and Read Me Now!" book to get me back to reading books again.


The book is The Gathering Night, the one by Margaret Elphinstone that I purchased for my Scottish Literature challenge. Early this morning, the temperature outdoors a mere 40 degrees F, I snuggled into the couch in front of the gas fire with Elphinstone's tale of Mesolithic Scotland--an era set between the end of the last Ice Age and the advent of the agricultural revolution, sometime between 10,000 and 4,000 years ago. I have much to say about it, but today it suffices to say I'm back in the saddle, as engaged in a book as ever.

Janet Malcolm: As I wrote yesterday, she is an incredibly skilled writer and, if I may say so, a mesmerizingly manipulative journalist. But she is so good at what she does! That's what I admire about her work. She is tough and unyielding, and holds fast to her odd analyses and conclusions, without a care about anybody else. If I had to choose one adjective, I'd call her writing "provocative" with a capital P.


This week I devoured Malcolm's latest article, a very long manifesto in The New Yorker issue of May 3, 2010, entitled "The Iphigeneia of Forest Hills," the true story of a murder trial in Queens that pitted two warring Burkhan Jewish families against each other, and which exposed the injustices of our criminal justice and social welfare systems.


All week, I remembered Malcolm's 1994 book, a combo of biography and literary criticism (sounds dull, but it's HOT), The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. When I read it in 1995, Malcolm's work provoked me to rage on multiple occasions; so much so, that I composed many venomous letters to her in my head.


You see, I grew up in the town where Plath grew up, close to Boston. I attended the same high school she did, the high-school English teacher she wrote about in The Bell Jar was my English teacher, Plath's mother and my mother were members of the same Unitarian Universalist congregation, a close friend of mine from both high school and college wrote a biography of Plath that was picked up by Little, Brown. This friend told me EVERYTHING she uncovered about Hughes & Plath over the course of two years traveling around England. [Little, Brown tried for many years to publish the book, but Hughes threatened to sue if it were. LB attorneys tried for years to negotiate, to no avail, and the book was never published.]

So, I was not a neutral reader on the subject, not by a long shot. But I admired the way Malcolm skewered Plath (ouch!) and Hughes and especially his sister, Olwyn. What a great piece of writing! I had never read a writer who could press so many buttons and do it so well. She wields an uncanny scalpel.

Setting Books Aside: No Guilt, No Self-Blame

Some free time tomorrow! Coming up: My take on the brilliant journalist and author Janet Malcolm, whose work I adore, even when she is provoking me to spout furious diatribes. &%*$!


Tonight, a word about my struggles getting into Sue Miller's new novel, Lake Shore Limited (2010).

I have a theory: When one has been regularly reading one book after another, and then dives into a new book, only to hit one's head on the proverbial swimming pool bottom, the problem is with the book, not the reader. People blame themselves unnecessarily for these "falling outs," and it's a shame, really. Such a stalemate can leave you not reading for days, as you try to figure out what's wrong with you and this book.

My advice to my fellow readers? Set aside the book that has you stuck. Do not over-analyze the problem.

Instructions:
1. Take a book tour of your home from top to bottom. A cup of tea in hand, a cookie, or a wee glass of wine can be comforting in such difficult circumstances.

2. Search for a book that leaps out at you lovingly and shouts, "Read me!"

3. Stroll amongst all of your piles of books--on the floor, beside the desk, (watch out for your ankles and don't stub a toe!), the side-tables, and even on the bookshelves, if you're lucky enough to own some. I guarantee you, a book that you are dying to read will fall into your hands.

4. Grab it and read it immediately.


This week I started Lake Shore Limited and stopped dead at page 33. Why? I kept asking myself for several days as I substituted The New Yorker magazine for a book. Finally, yesterday, I told myself that Miller's characters are not compelling--by page 33 they are still FLAT. I can't go on in this state. So, farewell to Lake Shore Limited.

Too bad--I loved Miller's While I Was Gone. Now that is a stellar read. Check out the link for an interview with Miller.

Stay tuned to the report of my Home Book Tour--Saturday!

American Wife & the Laura Bush Memoir

Hordes of reviewers have disagreed with me and more have relegated Curtis Sittenfeld's American Wife to the garbage cans of our nation, but all of that was knee-jerk, hysterical nonsense. (The book's longevity on the bestseller list was proof of this. And yes, the New York Times had the good sense to make it a Notable Book for 2008.)

I have never been a conservative nor will I ever be, nor was I a fan of Laura Bush when I decided to read American Wife in 2008. Yet, from the first chapter, I knew a great, compelling read once I plunged into it.

I had felt so lukewarm (perhaps tepid is a better descriptor) about Prep, Sittenfeld's first book, another big bestseller. But American Wife was so well done in comparison, so completely different, that I had a hard time reminding myself that the author of Prep wrote it. Prep was trivial, American Wife walked onto the grand stage of life.


I will admit, however, that American Wife's greatness ended when Charlie (the George Bush character) enters the White House. The last part of the book is anti-climactic and quite dreadful, but it lasts for much less than 100 pages out of a huge book.

It's worthwhile to remind potential readers that the book has nothing to do with Charlie or George Bush. This is Alice Blackwell's story. In fact, much more than half the book transpires before Alice even meets Charlie.

American Wife is about a lost, serious girl, an only child of equally serious parents, who causes a tragedy in a very small town--the death of a close friend, a high-school student. Sittenfeld is so skilled, she handles the central event of Laura's young life with enormous empathy, and it is a heart-rending tale.

Exactly how did Laura Bush end up married to George? We need only look to the enormity of the tragedy in her teens to explain her overwhelming need to help and to heal lost people.

So, what can we say about Spoken from the Heart, Laura Bush's memoir appearing in bookstores this week? Whatever will be said about it, Laura must want to set the record straight about her life. I can't imagine anything more dreadful than a novelist writing a bestseller about my oh so personal past. I hope that Laura, for her sake, gets the last word.

Back to Fiction Tomorrow!

Taken too many days to blog about science and nature writing. Back to fiction (or memoir) tomorrow!

Spring Has Been My Undoing

That's true as far as my blogging is concerned. The past weekend brought a tremendous influx of migratory songbirds and it was hard to stay inside. Cindy was around, so that meant lots of walking and exploring. [Yes, all this drivel is leading to a book.] Wildflowers are everywhere, too, so I'm never sure whether I should be looking down or gazing up into the trees.


This afternoon my fingers trembled over the keyboard when I purchased yet another nature book to add to my collection, a relatively new title by my favorite nature writer, Bernd Heinrich. This 2009 book, Summer World: A Season of Bounty, will be shipped to me tomorrow.[Scroll way, way down on the Amazon listing for an interview with Heinrich. Cool!]

I had a library copy for several weeks, and realized that once again, like Winter World (sensational!), The Trees in My Forest (an essential reference!), A Year in the Maine Woods (loads of fun!), and all his other books, a single reading never suffices. I continually refer to these books, over and over again. So I need Summer World, the way a writer needs a thesaurus or a dictionary, or a beauty queen needs cosmetics.