Archive for March, 2008
« Previous Entries Monday, March 31st, 2008Utopia, Dystopia, Messtopia - An Essay
Cynthia Ozick is an American writer who has written poems, novels and essays. She was on the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize in 2005 for her novel Heir to the Glimmering World (aka: The Bear Boy). Reviews for her work can be found on this site.
Recently I discovered a short essay authored by her for Zoetrope All-Story in which she writes (with a great deal of humor) about the concept of Utopia. Ozick has us consider the idea that Utopia is really about less about inspiration and more about tyranny: ‘A utopian society, even when it pledges the abolition of tyranny, is tyranny’s dollhouse.‘ She points out that the twentieth century has experienced failed utopia in the guise of Hitler and Stalin.
Instead of striving for a utopian society, where a universal view is promoted, Ozick offers another choice - that of Messtopia.
It is characterized by a thousand asymmetries, a thousand dissonances. No arms lift in unison; there is every variety of dress and face.
She envisions a society where citizens are not required to behave alike or think alike; where the idea of a carefree childhood still exists. She challenges utopian thinkers to give up their views of perfection and instead embrace the messy freedom of Messtopia.
Orzick’s essay is brilliantly constructed to challenge our current wave of thinking - our view that to be united we must all be the same. She uses humor effectively to show the folly of utopian thinking.
Readers wishing to read the essay in its entirety, may find it on line here.
Monday, March 31st, 2008Embers - Book Review
One spends a lifetime preparing for something. First one suffers the wound. Then one plans revenge. And waits. He had been waiting a long time now. -From Embers, page 16-
Sandor Marai was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1900 and became famous as a literary novelist. He was driven from Hungary after WWII due to his strong antifascist views and never again lived in his native country. Recently his work has been rediscovered and translated into English. Embers was first published in Budapest in 1942, and this translation was released in the United States in 2001.
The novel opens in a castle in Hungary sometime in the early twentieth century when an elderly General receives a letter from a boyhood friend he hasn’t seen or talked to for over 41 years. Marai then spirals back in time to orient the reader to the General’s early years growing up as the privileged son of the Officer of the Guards. Henrik’s future was laid out for him to become a soldier of status, and early in his life he meets Konrad - a poor, musically gifted boy whose roots lie in Poland. The two boys become unlikely friends. The reader is also introduced to Nini - a nursemaid who has been with Henrik for 75 years having helped birth him. She is a mysterious figure and the only person with whom Henrik seems to have developed a lasting and meaningful relationship.
And because she was always in the right place, nobody ever saw her; and because she was always good-humored, nobody ever asked her how it was that she could always be good-humored when the man she loved had abandoned her and the child who should have drunk her mild was dead. She suckled the General and raised him, and seventy-five years went by. From time to time the sun shone over the castle and the family, and at such moments of universal well-being people were surprised to notice that Nini was smiling too. -From Embers, page 10-
Once the stage is set, Marai returns the reader to present day - a day swathed in anticipation and secrets as Konrad arrives at the castle to dine with Henrik and discuss the last time they saw each other. Henrik has become a man of solitude, living mostly alone in the castle and waiting for the day when Konrad would return to reveal his motivations for abandoning Henrik.
A man who has signed away his soul and his fate to solitude is incapable of faith. He can only wait. For the day or the hour when he can talk about everything that forced him into solitude with the man or men who forced him into that condition. -From Embers, page 104-
Marai’s writing is drenched in mood and suspense. The castle stands in a wilderness filled with deer and bear, candles flicker, and the dead are brought back to life with Henrik’s recollections of a time long gone. The beautiful Krisztina, Henrik’s wife who has now been dead more than eighteen years, now seems to hover in the background.
With tremendous skill, Marai writes of guilt, betrayal, love and revenge while he unravels the story of Henrik and Konrad and why they parted many years before.
By the end, everything has happened and the sum total is clear. And yet, sometimes facts are no more than pitiful consequences, because guilt does not reside in our acts but in the intentions that give rise to our acts. Everything turns on our intentions. -From Embers, page 112-
Marai is a skilled writer who crafts a story of two men and their friendship. He asks difficult and thought-provoking questions about the nature of humans and why they do what they do. Marai’s writing is eloquent. His narration is magnificently constructed which creates the suspense in what is largely a character driven novel.
In the end, two questions are posed which are left for the reader to answer - not a neat ending, but a thoughtful one.
Highly recommended; rated 4.5/5.
Soup’s On - A Culinary Reading Challenge
April 1, 2008 - March 31, 2009
Sharon at Ex Libris is hosting this one - and although I tried to resist, I have discovered I am a hopeless addict when it comes to certain reading challenges…and this one combines cooking (which I LOVE). What’s a girl to do? So, I’m joining in the fun. Here are the rules:
Select six cookbooks to read (you don’t have to read each individual recipe…just enough to give an overview of the book) and make at least one of the recipes. These can be any cookbooks of your choice - brand new ones, old stand-bys that you can’t live (or cook) without, or even heirlooms. You do not have to decide on the cookbooks ahead of time (unless you want to, of course). Then post your reviews either here or on your own blog. If you want, you can even post pictures of your creations along with your reviews!
I have my favorite cookbooks of course:
- Beth Hensperger’s Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook
- Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking (which is more of a series of vignettes with recipes interspersed)
- Ranck and Good’s Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook
- Rosso & Lukins The New Basics Cookbook
- Betty Crocker’s Cookbook (my old standby from my early 20s when I didn’t know the difference between a saucepan and a fry pan)
I might give you a review of those…but I decided since this was a challenge, I should pick cookbooks from my shelf that I’ve bought but never read, nor from which I’ve made a thing. I found five (which means, I guess, I will need to buy a new cookbook before the challenge is over *sly grin*):
Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook, by Beth Hensperger(reviewed April 20, 2008; rated 4/5; read my review)Smith & Hawken - The Gardeners’ Community Cookbook, by Victoria Wise(reviewed April 13, 2008; rated 5/5; read my review)- Best Recipes from American Country Inns and Bed & Breakfasts, by Kitty and Lucian Maynard
- Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, by Marcella Hazan
- Great Good Food, by Julee Rosso
What Kind Of A Flower Are YOU?
With Spring in the air, I couldn’t resist this. I am a Sunflower: “When your friends think smile, they think of you. There is not a day that goes by that you can’t find something good about the world and your fellow human.”
Sunday Salon - March 30, 2008
March 30, 2008
8:00 AM
Good morning, Saloners! I hope you are all enjoying your last Sunday in March. It looks to be a gorgeous day in sunny California, albeit a little chilly.
Several lit bloggers are commenting on their best books of the first quarter of 2008, so I thought I’d join in. I catalog my books at Library Thing, and one of my tags is Best of 2008. I’ve been a bit more selective this year than I was in 2007. So far, six books have made their way onto the bests list:
- Cat’s Eye, by Margaret Atwood
- So Big, by Edna Ferber
- The Translator, by Daoud Hari
- Ghostwritten, by David Mitchell
- Belong To Me, by Marisa de los Santos
- Resistance, by Owen Sheers
Which books are the best you’ve read so far this year?
This week I finished Belong To Me, by Marisa de los Santos (read my review), and loved it (as you must have surmised from my list above). Then I read Jackfish, The Vanishing Village (read my review) which was a tough, literary novel. My thoughts about it changed as I read it - from wanting to put it aside to not being able to stop turning the pages. There are readers out there who won’t appreciate this book because it is not a feel good book, it is difficult and heartrending and just…well, sad in many ways. But, the writing is wonderful; and if you stick with it, I think you’ll find it is a book which is hard to forget.
In between novels, I re-visited my childhood by reading a couple of Dr. Seuss books (read my post) in honor of this amazing author’s birthday. I managed to salvage some books from my youth - and these were two of them…well worn and loved. I cherish them more than the newer books on my shelf!
Last night I picked up Embers, by Sandor Marai. Written and published first in 1942, the novel has been recently translated into English by Carol Brown Janeway. Marai was a gifted writer who was driven from Hungary after WWII because of his anti-fascist views. That alone makes me want to read his work. Last night I stayed up late and read 100 pages into this 215 page book. The writing is amazing - I feel like I’m there in a castle between the mountains of Austria and Hungary. I think I’ll finish this one today without a problem.
That’s all for now. Have a wonderful Sunday!
Saturday, March 29th, 2008Jackfish, The Vanishing Village - Book Review
“I know some people - feminists, academics, professionals - think it is incorrect to ask a person where they are from. And maybe they are right. But I need to get a deeper sense of a person by learning about where they are from and how that place shaped their past and their identity. How can we remove ourselves from that? I guess I believe that at some spiritual level the physical land we are from is always part of who we are, even if we are separated from it.” -From Jackfish, The Vanishing Village, page 80-
Jackfish, Ontario - located on the northern tip of Lake Superior - is a real place; a place where fishing and coal represented survival until modern technology doomed the town. It is this location where Sarah Felix Burns sets her fictional story, using the barren village with its dislocated people as a backdrop to the story of Clemance-Marie Nadeau.
The novel begins in the middle of Clemance’s life, long after she has left her homeland of Canada and settled down with her husband Bernie in a rural, backwoods Colorado town. The discovery that she is pregnant catapults Clemance into a downward spiral of depression and repressed memories. The novel’s narrative structure alternates between Clemance’s present life and that of her past. She remembers growing up in Jackfish with her alcoholic father, passive mother and many siblings; she recalls her first love - an Indian man with a troubled past and even darker future; and relives her desire to leave Jackfish to follow her dreams. Clemance’s past includes domestic violence and a secret which has eroded her self-worth and the belief that she is a woman worthy of love.
Thematically, the novel centers around the idea of imprisonment. Clemance lives only blocks from a prison, her old boyfriend is jailed, and Jackfish was a site of internment for Japanese Canadians during WWII. These external symbols of the loss of freedom parallel Clemance’s self-imprisonment. She is reluctant to forgive herself, thereby setting herself free to find happiness. The idea of returning to one’s roots, of “coming home,” is also replayed in the novel. It is only through understanding where we come from that we can move forward into the future.
Burns has written a dense book - only 221 pages long - but one which is crammed with emotion. This is a novel about the scars of abuse, the search for oneself, the connection we have to our roots and the road to redemption. Dark and unrelenting, it is a novel which is hard to read. Burns takes her time developing Clemance’s character, and at times I struggled to stick with the book - not because the writing is not wonderful (it is), but because the story is so hard to hear. Eventually, however, this book became impossible to put down. I wanted to know what happened to Clemance; I ached to see her finally realize her worth in a world which challenged her faith in others and in herself; I cared about her.
Burns is a talented writer. She has written a novel of importance to women, especially women who have suffered at the hands of another or who have made choices in their lives they regret. Within the darkness of the subject matter, Burns allows a ray of hope and enlightenment.
Jackfish, The Vanishing Village is recommended for those readers who enjoy good, literary fiction and are not afraid of taking a harrowing journey with a character who could be any one of us. Rated: 4/5.
Thursday, March 27th, 2008Reading With Dr. Seuss
In honor of the birthday of Dr. Seuss (March 2, 1904), I dragged out two of my favorite Seuss books. One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish was a gift from my Nana on my 2nd birthday. The cover is tattered and worn - a sign of being re-read many, many times. I remember giggling as I read this book - laughing at the Yink who ‘likes to wink, he likes to drink. he likes to drink, and drink, and drink. The thing he likes to drink is ink.‘ And Zans who was adept at opening cans: ‘Have you a Zans for cans? You should.‘ The interesting thing about reading Seuss as an adult, is that I see the underlying message…in this book, he shows how the world is made up of all different kinds of creatures; creatures who don’t look like us, and are even different from each other (like the fish who can be black or blue or old or new or have a star, etc…). Seuss demonstrates how full and wonderful the world is with all these individuals in it. He gives kids an appreciation of being different and unique. What a great message!
The second book I pulled from my bookcase was McElligot’s Pool - which I got for my third birthday in 1963. Oh how I adored this book. The idea that a tiny pool might connect to the huge ocean and beyond just entranced me. In McElligot’s Pool, hope springs eternal:
‘Oh the sea is so full of a number of fish, If a fellow is patient, he might get his wish!‘
Once again, Seuss shows us a bigger message - to dream, to hope, to not let disappointment stop us.
Dr. Seuss was a wonderful, classic children’s author. His illustrations and magical rhyming words take children (and adults) into a world full of wonder and joy. Thankfully, I will never be too old to read Dr. Seuss!
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008Belong To Me - Book Review
It seemed impossible that you could stand in a kitchen making hot chocolate and grilled-cheese sandwiches with your best friend dying in the next room, the voices of her children tangled up with the voices of your own, that you could butter bread and watch, through the window, the trees relinquishing their leaves and hear the silvery tumble of water into a kettle, and be suddenly aware that what resided at the heart of every shape and sound was peace. A rightness hovering above all that was wrong, shimmering, like heat rising from a street in summer. -From Belong To Me, page 85-
Marisa de los Santos has penned a novel filled to the brim with laughter, tears, friendships, dreams, and love. It is a novel so genuine and real that I found myself nodding and thinking ‘exactly!’ over and over again.
Cornelia Brown moves with her oncologist husband, Teo, from the city to the suburbs - envisioning a perfect life complete with manicured lawns. Instead she finds a world filled with a grounding reality; a world more rewarding than she could ever have imagined.
All of Santos’ characters are authentic - flawed and all too human at times, they wiggle their way into the reader’s heart. Piper, Cornelia’s queen-bee next door neighbor, introduces Cornelia to the neighborhood with biting judgment tinged with anger - but, later reveals herself to be a person filled with self doubt, a character whose depth and honesty made me love her. Dev, a thirteen year old boy with an absent father, embodies the awkwardness of adolescence mixed with a maturity beyond his years. Lake, Dev’s single mother, holds a devastating secret - one that will rock all the characters to their core when it is uncovered. Santos draws her male characters splendidly…Teo, Toby, Rafferty and Tom all made me wish I lived in Cornelia’s neighborhood.
Santos is an award-winning poet (and best selling author of her first novel: Love Walked In), and her love of language shows in her radiant descriptions and acute ear for dialogue. Santos builds the tension slowly, revealing her characters chapter by chapter, until the final and unexpected end. Belong To Me is not just Cornelia’s story, but the story of all women - and it ultimately reveals the redemptive power of love and forgiveness.
This was a novel I resisted putting down for even a few minutes. It is Women’s Fiction at its best. I loved it, and I can’t wait to read Love Walked In.
Santos is a talented writer - one who will touch the reader’s heart and make you wish the book will never end.
Belong To Me is highly recommended. Rated 5/5.
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008Sunday Salon - March 23, 2008
March 23, 2008
10:50AM
Good morning Sunday Saloners and Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate this religious holiday! This morning I slept in later than usual with my husband on one side of me and little Gizmo curled up on the other side. The sun shining between the trees and a cool breeze blowing through the open window eventually roused me. In celebration of Easter, I made a special Brunch Bake (recipe below for those of you with culinary interests). I have yet to sit and read this morning, but plan on some quiet time later on the porch if the sun and warm weather holds this afternoon.
I finished reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin (read my review) this week. It took me longer than I thought it would, but was well worth it. It got me thinking about the idea of book banning (again). I don’t understand the concept, try as I might. I have never felt that the way to deal with material offensive to oneself is to prevent others from reading it. In fact, if I find a book offensive, the first thing I want to do is talk about it with others…not burn it, hide it, make it unaccessible or otherwise pretend it doesn’t exist. Most books that garner the attention of the book banners are those with important or difficult messages; or those which explore subject matter which horrifies or creates a feeling of discomfort. Wouldn’t it be better to use this information as a way of educating or opening lines of communication? Of course, this excludes illegal acts, such as child pornography…which naturally I feel should be abolished. But, really, look at the books which appear on the lists of banned books: To Kill A Mockingbird, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, East of Eden, The Grapes of Wrath, and A Prayer for Owen Meany to name a few (all these are reviewed here on my site - just follow the links). What do they all have in common? They are classics written by very talented writers. Why anyone would want them removed from library shelves is beyond me.
On a more positive note, I started reading Belong to Me, by Marisa de los Santos yesterday. Some of you may have read her bestseller Love Walked In. I’m only 40 pages into the book but I love it! The main character - Cornelia Brown - is someone to whom I instantly related. She’s funny and sarcastic and doesn’t fit in with the women within her social circle. I like her. I want to get to know her. I have a feeling this book will be a quick read!
As promised…here is the recipe for the Brunch Bake (ripped from Enjoy Magazine - March 2008 edition):
- 1 package (17.3 oz) frozen puff pastry (2 sheets) thawed
- 6 eggs
- 1 cup ricotta cheese
- dash hot pepper sauce
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp ground pepper
- 2 packages (10 oz each) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well drained
- 6 slices cooked bacon chopped OR 1 cup diced ham or chicken (I used ham)
- 1/2 cup chopped green onions
- 1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
- 1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
- 1 cup chopped red peppers
- Sour cream and chives for garnish (optional) - I also think that cranberry sauce would taste good with this too.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Unfold thawed pastry sheet and roll out one sheet to about 11-inch square and one to 12-inch square. Line bottom and side of greased 9-inch spring-form pan with 12-inch pastry sheet. Beat eggs, salt and pepper with a wire whisk; reserve and set aside one Tbls of egg mixture. Add ricotta cheese, pepper sauce and spinach to remaining eggs; mix until well blended. Layer half of the bacon, ham or chicken, onions, cheeses, spinach mixture and red peppers in the pasty lined pan. Repeat layer of ingredients. Place remaining pastry sheet over mixture; fold and tuck pastry edges in pan. Pinch edges to seal. Brush top with served one Tbls egg. Cut 5 or 6 slits in top crust with tip of sharp knife to allow steam to escape. bake for 45 to 55 minutes or until golden brown. Cool 10 minutes. Run small knife around edge of pan before removing rim. To make ahead, assemble and bake pie as directed. Cover, refrigerate overnight (or several hours). When ready to serve, uncover. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes or until heated through. Serve topped with sour cream and chives if desired. Serves 10-12.
ENJOY!
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008Uncle Tom’s Cabin - Book Review
So long as the law considers all these human beings, with beating hearts and living affections, only as so many things belonging to a master, -so long as the failure, or misfortune, or imprudence, or death of the kindest owner, may cause them any day to exchange a life of kind protection and indulgence for one of hopeless misery and toil, -so long it is impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable in the best-regulated administration of slavery. -From Uncle Tom’s Cabin, page 8-
When Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1851, it outraged people in the American South and was criticized by slavery supporters. The novel was declared ‘utterly false’ by Southern novelist William Gilmore; others referred to it as criminal and slanderous. A bookseller in Mobile, Alabama was driven from town for selling the novel and Stowe received threatening letters, including a package containing a slave’s severed ear.
Any book which garners such reaction is bound to be a powerful work.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin is set in the South in the 1800s and begins with the story of Tom, a slave from Kentucky, just before he is sold by his “mas’r” to settle a debt. A parallel story follows the life of Eliza, her husband George and their young son, Harry, who flee to Canada when they learn that Harry will be “sold down the river” and separated from his family. Stowe’s writing is accessible, albeit a little preachy at times. She creates characters which resonate with the reader - pulling them from the comfort of their 21st century lives back to the days when American law allowed the brutalization of other human beings.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin has faced recent bans and challenges in Illinois schools and Southern States, and has been challenged by the NAACP for its alleged racist portrayal of African Americans and the use of the “N” word. Many people find the work offensive. But, I believe those sentiments are misplaced. The novel is not offensive - what is offensive is that it is a true portrayal of one of the most shameful periods in American history; things like this actually happened. It is offensive that white individuals were allowed to buy and sell blacks as though they were livestock; that the law allowed murderers to avoid justice because the victims were black; that families were ripped apart and children as young as two years old were taken from their mother’s arms to be sold. This novel is painful and powerful. It is not racist, but exposes racism for what it is - a crime against humanity. It is a slap of reality when a character is murdered, and a slave owner say: ‘It’s commonly supposed that the property interest is a sufficient guard in these cases. If people choose to ruin their own possessions, I don’t know what’s to be done.‘ OR when a wealthy, white plantation owner’s wife justifies separating a black mother from her babies by saying: ‘Mammy couldn’t have the feelings that I should. It’s a different thing altogether, - of course, it is,-and yet St. Clare pretends not to see it. And just as if Mammy could love her little dirty babies as I love Eva!‘
Stowe notes in the final chapters that although Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a work of fiction, it is based on actual events and the characters are created from people she knew or were told about. Perhaps this is why her prose rings true and clear, and the characters spring to life on the pages. Stowe’s portrayal of the black characters is stereotypical in many ways, a sign of when this work was written. Despite this, Stowe seems ahead of her time, exposing the hypocrisy of the “good masters” and the religious people (including the Northern abolitionists).
“…You loath them as you would a snake or a toad, yet you are indignant at their wrongs. You would not have them abused; but you don’t want to have anything to do with them yourselves. You would send them to Africa, out of your sight and smell, and then send a missionary or two to do up all the self-denial of elevating them compendiously. Isn’t that it?” - From Uncle Tom’s Cabin, page 176-
If Stowe has one fault with this novel, it is that she wraps it up a little too perfectly in the end. Her optimism in happy endings is perhaps her one denial of how terrible things usually turned out for slaves.
This is not an enjoyable book, but it is an important one. As philosopher George Santayana said: “Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.”
Uncle Tom’s Cabin is as relevant today as it was when it was published more than 150 years ago. When I look at our current world with genocide in Darfur; genital mutilation of women in certain parts or the world; “hate” crimes; and other atrocities…some perfectly legal or (even worse) ignored…I realize we still have a long way to go before we have equality or justice. Reading Stowe’s novel should be required.
Highly recommended; rated 4.5/5.
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