Hotel du Lac and Anita Brookner

It's important to say that I'm only a chunk more than halfway through Hotel du Lac. I'm fascinated by it, particularly by Edith's immersion in the characters and lives of the people staying at the hotel on Lake Geneva. As a reader, I know she's been through a hard time, I feel quite intimately what's gone wrong with her paramour David, and I want to protect her. I'm worried about her, actually. I'm at the point where I hope Mr. Neville is not going to prove himself to be a disgraceful element. But I don't think so; not in the long run. I identify with  Edith wholeheartedly. How did Brookner accomplish that? I'm quite in awe of her literary powers at the moment. I wish the novel will go on and on; so, if I came to more than halfway so quickly, the reading most assuredly will not last.

That's my note for today. I hope you'll join us for the Anita Brookner Month of July. Please see my previous post for links!

Last evening I visited several college library databases and read several biographical and critical essays about Brookner. I was saddened when I read about her life. She's still alive, however! Born in 1928, which makes her the same generation as my mother. Surprising to realize that. Do investigate!

Algerian Fiction by Assia Djebar! and Anita Brookner Month--Join Up!

Thanks to the wealth of my libraries, I have both novels now at my side. I'm sure I can finish them in July.

I'm so excited to learn more about Assia Djebar and the importance of Children of the New World: A Novel of the Algerian War, which I'm reading for Caroline's (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat) July Literature and War Readalong, due on the 28th, I believe. My edition is a beautiful paperback from the library, if such things can be imagined. It's published by The Feminist Press in New York and is translated by Marjolijn de Jager. Clarisse Zimra, who teaches at Southern Illinois University, is the North African literary scholar who wrote the "Afterword."  I am so psyched to read a novel of the Algerian War written by a woman, and one that has been declared a feminist text and is taught in so many U.S. Comparative Literature classes. Can't wait to get to it. If you are at all tempted, please do join the readalong this month!

Thanks to JoAnn at Lakeside Musing, I've learned that July is Anita Brookner month, hosted by Heavenali  I don't know why I've never read a novel by Brookner. But that is due to change. I'm reading Hotel du Lac and today I actually dived in head first to Chapter 7, to be exact. I had no problem understanding what was going on, as this chapter delineates a major conflict for Edith as played out with the insufferable Mr. Neville. I was pulled in by the dialogue, the conflict, the philosophical rendering, and was reminded that it all was oddly reminiscent of the major conflict for Nora Eldridge in Messud's A Woman Upstairs! Can you imagine? I'm fascinated, though I'm wondering if I've gone crazy.

"Let's Play Library"

Playing "Library" was one of my pastimes over the weekend. The weather has been abysmal. Hot and disgustingly humid--even a walk at a slow pace leaves us dripping and soaked through. And it keeps raining from time to time. The long-range weather forecast is only reservedly hopeful for the future, as in maybe late this week. Fortunately air-conditioning makes indoor life tolerable.

So back to "Let's Play Library." On my older brother's vacations home from school, we would play this game in foul weather, or whenever we had a spare couple of hours. Doug had scads of books. Many of his books were at college with him, but he kept lots of bookshelves full at home as well. Yes, he was an English major. And after that, he got his masters in English and American Lit.

I raided his bookshelves constantly. That's where I found A.J. Cronin's novel The Citadel, about an idealistic young doctor braving the medical establishment (oh, I loved this book!), Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, George Orwell's 1984, The Red and the Black by Stendhal, lots of Dostoyevsky, The Stranger by Camus. I can see those shelves before me now.  I loved most of the books I read, and puzzled over parts of most of them, because I wasn't reading them as part of a class and I had no one to answer my questions. And because the Internet was decades away from being public, I just tried to figure the books out on my own, which was fine with me.

How to "Play Library:" Don't use us as models, but we would move books from shelf to shelf, from bookcase to bookcase, according to a never-endingly whimsical variety of semi-organization. Doug would talk about the books and then put aside the ones he thought I would like. We talked about the ones I had read in his absence. It was a literary mentorship, for certain. He was five and a half years older, and I took his words about literature as gospel. 

So foul weather upon me in 2013, I pruned and weeded and reshelved and literally gasped when I found book upon book that I must read, all of them nearly forgotten. How does that happen? So for that reason alone, I'm so glad I decided to play. I must confess I was just a tad lonely without a bookish companion to help me make decisions, but most of the time I was overwhelmed by the fact that I have too many reading interests. Yes, I'm a Reader LOST in her Wilderness of Books!

Do you Play Library too? Do tell!

Messud's Powers, The National Book Award, and Other Ramblings

Well, you may as well know that I write fiction (AS A HOBBY!) and that I read fiction partly from a HOBBY NOVELIST'S point of view, but, and this is a BIG BUT, Claire Messud's A Woman Upstairs should--yes, should--unequivocally be considered for the National Book Award this year.

BUT because too many male judges will read it and dismiss this brilliant tour de force as a "Women's Novel," it will most likely not be named a finalist, and, if by some bizarre chance it should be declared a finalist, it will never win the award. (I am a feminist cynic, aren't I? You bet!) And that will be because the most significant characters are women portrayed living their lives in women's traditional roles. Yes, I can go out on my tree limb overhanging a cold, dark lake and say with a certitude, which comes from reading contemporary American literature for many decades, and also because I have been steeped like a moist teabag in the thick of American intellectual culture, that this will be the end result. American culture is still so male-dominated.

Oh, well, I say to myself, I and the rest of the 51 percent can collectively shrug our shoulders and say, "Messud is too brilliant a writer for men to figure out anyway."

It's not a totally comfortable read, but if you have had dreams and an intellectual life, and you are a woman (or a man), read it!

Wilderness Explorations, Wimbledon, and Wishing for More Time to Read!

A superb wilderness exploration today with three people who know plants of all stripes inside and out! The dewpoint was in the low 70's (considered oppressive humidity by our meteorologist friends) and the heat was in the low 80s, but we managed to explore a wild area for four hours. I'm a dedicated wild plant student, but have so much to learn. My companions are so knowledgeable, I enjoy following along, snapping photos, and try to learn as much as I can. Rare wild orchids! Vividly colorful slime molds! Lots of fun. If you have any interest at all in the wild plants of the northern New York State region, visit one of our companions' nature blog at Saratoga Woods and Waterways. Gorgeous photographs!

Yes, Wimbledon is occupying our evenings and then some. Crack out the champagne. We want our Wimbledon picnic to be as close to the real thing as possible. Go, Andy Murray! Okay, I have a weak spot for Djokovic as well. On the women's side, the most enthusiastic players I've seen have been Marion Bartoli and Sabine Lisicki. We'll have to see. But if it's Independence Day, it's Wimbledon at our house.

Reading. No time today, but I'll be continuing my read of The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud before I fall asleep.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. Have you read this remarkable debut novel, published quite a few years ago now? I've read everything else by Patchett but this debut, so I'm going for it soon.

I need to post a definite list of the books I'm reading this summer. I don't want it to end. July-August live on!

Reading Claire Messud and Other Books of a Vacation Sunday

As I mentioned, my first day of vacation was probably June 27th. But I didn't feel like I was on vacation until today, Sunday, June 30th.

I read books like crazy today, mostly because I've been feeling unwell and unfit for doing anything more enterprising. I'm glad! I often manage to come down with something right before a school vacation, or at the end of the semester, or a summer session. And here I am, feeling too tired and ill to do much more than read, although that I'm capable of doing enthusiastically!

I'm reading The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud very, very slowly, only because the novel is so deep, so heavily laden with the grist of genuine familial relationships, with real life. I cherish every passage and reread as I go along. I cannot bomb my way through the way I would an "ordinary" novel, whatever that is. Quite the opposite! I heartily recommend! So affecting...  I will have more to say later.
I am so in awe of Messud's literary power. She is truly brilliant, in the way I believe Paul Auster is brilliant. By the way, I did the smart thing, as it turns out, and ordered a hardcover edition of this book. So glad I did because I will enjoy rereading.

I'm also reading Long Distance: A Year of Living Strenuously (2000) by Bill McKibben, the environmental journalist, now famous for his pioneering work with the organization he founded 350.org. Bill was the first in this country, anyway, to herald the fact that our world will never again be the world we once knew--it is gone forever due to what we have done to it and unremitting climate change, as he discusses in his landmark book The End of Nature (1990). Yet in this title, he is following his desire to become a cross-country ski racing phenom. As a weakling [his description], he had an uphill battle to become the ultimate fitness freak. The book is an incredibly witty memoir, satire, and so laugh-out-loud fun, that I've been enjoying every word.

Winter in Wartime by Jan Terlouw

For Caroline's (of Beauty is a Sleeping Cat) Literature and War Readalong for June:

I especially appreciated the strong characterization of Michiel in Winter in Wartime. I suppose one could call this a YA novel, yet the book was written before young adult fiction became an established genre. It was published in 1972 in the Netherlands, named the Best Dutch Juvenile for 1973, and received a Certificate of Honor from the International Board of Books for Young People.

I'm not familiar with the latter award, which makes me wonder if the organization is still in existence. It was published in Great Britain in 1975 and in 1976 in the U.S. It is still in print, no doubt with the help of the Dutch film of 2008.

Michiel, at age 16, is strong, stoic, heroic, yet full of self-doubt and, occasionally, low self-esteem, particularly when he judges his resistance actions and missions harshly when they do not come off as he planned. These characteristics make him an ideal YA protagonist.

I had a strong personal reaction to one of the characters, Dirk.
Dirk is twenty-one, supposedly an adult, yet to my mind, he does not have the foresight, fortitude, inner strength, or heroism of Michiel.

The author lets Dirk off the hook easily, and Michiel does as well, though a bit more reluctantly. Dirk was the one who killed the German soldier, whom the Germans found and then punished the entire town, including killing Michiel's father, the mayor. First of all, Dirk was fully aware of the repercussions for the town, because, as he noted, town-wide reprisals had taken place before. Dirk said he "tried" to hide the German soldier's body, by wrapping the body in a parachute and then executing a shallow burial. Dirk noted that the ground was too hard, and he couldn't bury the body as deeply as he wished. How stupid is that? Was there no other solution?

So, then, why didn't Dirk the Dimwit ask for help? He was connected with the resistance. His comrades would have known as well as he that many, many people would suffer if the Germans found the soldier's body. And, if the body had disappeared without a trace, there would likely have been no evidence and no reprisals.

Dirk was not a traitor as was Uncle Ben, it's true, but he may as well have been, given the consequences of his screw-up.

I did enjoy this novel and all the twists and turns, and I do look forward to borrowing the film very soon. Michiel and his sister Erica? (I think that was her name) were the noblest of characters, and I'm glad to have met them.

I will include this title in my Children's and YA Literature course, as one of the books that students may choose from in the project entitled "Children's Literature in Translation."

Sebastian Faulks for the Summer Reading List

I bid a sad farewell to my class, did errands, and came home to find that "the muggies" are holding strong in the weather department. I am little more than a limp dishrag in this kind of weather.

I actually have a Word file entitled "WannaReads." Of course, included in the file are the titles I've already mentioned that I'm dying to read this summer, but I found another book, which has had predominantly 5-star reviews from readers and excellent reviews from critics, which I have added to the list. It is Sebastian Faulks's  A Possible Life: A Novel in Five Parts. Critics love to argue whether it is a collection of short stories or a novel; obviously, the five war-related stories are linked. But it's the rave reviews from readers and critics that interest me. So I will add the book to my summer list. Have you read some of the novels of Sebastian Faulks? Would love to read your thoughts.

Helen Dunmore's The Greatcoat is now on my forest green reading couch. Not a long read at all. I should be able to gobble it up shortly, after Winter in Wartime.

Interview/article about Claire Messud, author of this spring and summer's A Woman Upstairs, which I've ordered in hardcover. (Please see my previous post.)

More to come!

Blast Off! First Vacation Reading Choices

My vacation officially begins tomorrow afternoon.

Thursday is supposed to be a rainy day.
My reading plans:

• Finish A Winter in Wartime by Jan Terlouw (translated from the Dutch) for Caroline's June Literature and War Readalong.
• Just ordered A Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud, which should arrive on Friday. This read will be next. 
• I hope to keep a Nature book going at all times. Oftentimes it will be a nature-related memoir.

Since Sunday our weather has been intensely humid, with dewpoints in the low-to-mid 70s. Our temperatures have been in the low-to-mid 80s, which in and of itself is not bad, but the humidity is what stops us dead in our tracks, both Sasha and me. Ken complains as well and he cannot do any outside work. Fortunately we do have air conditioning for these desperate times. And I will say that it is not typical for us to have such high humidity levels in June. They are more typical of late July through late-August. Double Ugh! Great weather for doing projects indoors, but being physically unable to enjoy the outdoors is a sacrifice indeed.

My Summer Session Children's Literature class has been the most enjoyable class I've ever taught at the college. I have been so lucky to have had such interested, dedicated, thought-provoking students. It has made the past six weeks a joy. Tomorrow is our last meeting. I feel sad to let them go after all of our intense, fascinating discussions of children's and YA fiction. This class has been amazing.