Since I’m traveling, my reading gets a bit neglected, but here are two recent book recommendations I’m happy to share.
Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead. Shipstead is the author of Seating Arrangements and this is her second novel. It takes the reader into the somewhat cloistered world of ballet. The main character is Joan, who had a short-lived career as a ballerina and then left when she realized she wasn’t good enough. She marries and raises a son. Her compatriot Sandy with whom Joan has a somewhat ambivalent relationship, makes a career as a dancer. Added to this mix is a Russian dancer whom Joan helped to defect. Stir in some other complex relationships—that of Joan with her husband and son and that of Joan and Sandy with the defected dancer and you have lots of interplay. I liked this book the farther along I got and had figured out the “surprise” revelation.
To Dwell in Darknessby Deborah Crombie. This latest mystery is one of Crombie’s best in my opinion. Very up-to-the-minute with its themes of environmental activism and potential terrorist threats, it brings together British detectives Gemma Jones and Duncan Kincaid and several of their colleagues from earlier books to solve two crimes. When a protest in the busy St. Pancras train station results in an unexpected death, there are questions of suicide, murder, an unintended victim, and multiple threads to unravel. What I especially like about Crombie’s mysteries is that even the secondary characters (the other detectives, for example, and Jones and Kincaid’s children) are well fleshed out and you get a portrayal of the daily life of these people when they are not tracking down or interviewing a suspect.
We left home several days ago and you might say we’re rambling through our past. By the time October has ended, we will have visited almost every place we’ve lived during our married life and then some. It’s a journey with many stops and numerous opportunities to re-connect with old friends and touch what once was.
First stop, a town we never lived in–Lake Placid, NY. This is in the North Country. In New York State, there’s New York City and, in the eyes of Manhattanites, everywhere else. For them, upstate NY begins at about Poughkeepsie. If you’re a true upstater, however, then you know that upstate means Albany and then proceeding west Utica, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo. That’s real upstate, complete with snow and cows. Farther north than upstate is the North Country, dotted with rugged small towns, little lakes, and the expansive and very protected Adirondack State Park.
Located within the park, the village of Lake Placid sits mostly on Mirror Lake and close to the lake whose name it bears. It was the site of both the 1932 and the 1980 Winter Olympics and we encountered Olympic memorabilia and reminders throughout the town. The architecture here with its emphasis on dark wood and heavy beamed ceilings made me think of Aspen, Colorado, although Placid is a much more modest place.
A little jewel, Mirror Lake is ringed by boat clubs and tidy beaches, elegant homes, tasteful shops and restaurants, charming inns, and here and there an inviting park bench. The lake is small enough that we easily walked the circumference in about an hour, keeping up a fairly brisk pace.
One day we drove over to Saranac Lake, dubbed the capital of the Adirondacks. This lake is pleasant enough, but sadly, the town has suffered economically and is marked by empty storefronts and not a lot of activity that would attract a visitor. At least not this time of year, perhaps during ski season.
Our next excursion was to Whiteface Mountain, about a 30-minute drive from Lake Placid. Whiteface has the distinction of being the 5th highest peak in New York State (just under 5,000 feet), but is the only one which has a special highway which takes you to just shy of the summit. Two enterprising men began lobbying the state government in the 1920’s for this highway and it was finally approved by then Gov. Franklin Roosevelt. Construction began in 1931, but the road didn’t officially open until 1935 when President Roosevelt dedicated it as a memorial for veterans.
The Castle
It’s a beautiful road with lots of places to stop and admire the views. And, you could also say it has the grandest visitor center one could imagine. The Castle is made of granite (recovered from the construction work) and is an imposing presence there at the top. After we parked and briefly visited the Castle, we had the choice of doing the last 275 feet to the actual summit on foot over jagged and slippery rocks or by elevator. We chose the latter and walked down the drive and then into what was a long low tunnel (lighted, but somewhat claustrophobic for my taste) to the elevator.
The operator operator was a bit mechanical in manner, but did share a number of facts about the conditions above and the best times to see the views. The ride was slow, up the equivalent of 27 floors, and we exited into an enclosed space. Going outside we walked around for views on all sides.
The sky was blue with a few high clouds and we could see not only Lake Placid and Mirror Lake, but also over to Lake Champlain and into Vermont. Lovely, despite being 48 degrees with a very stiff wind! It’s worth noting that Roosevelt wanted to ensure access for everyone (and he used a wheelchair at this point), hence the elevator.
After an absence of several years, we returned to Philadelphia for a friend’s birthday party. We were blessed with mostly overcast skies and comfortable temperatures—perfect for all the walking we planned to do. We did walk a lot one day, but mostly we gorged on art. In two days, we visited three art museums and re-appreciated how much this historic city has to offer.
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts was the first stop. This museum and school is the oldest of its kind in the country and was established in 1805. Philadelphia was a cultural center even then, known for a time as the “Athens of America” and from 1790 to 1800 served as the nation’s capital. As you might expect, therefore, there are paintings and sculptures of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and John Paul Jones by the likes of Charles Wilson Peale and Gilbert Stuart, along with marble statues of figures from the classics such as one of Penelope by Rinaldo Rinaldi done in 1851.
Benjamin FranklinPenelope
What was equally, if not more appealing, was the Academy’s theming of several of the galleries. One, entitled “Women’s Work,” contained an array of paintings from different periods each depicting a woman doing something domestic—laundry, sweeping, etc. The artists were mostly male, but there was one painting by Mary Cassatt.
We also had fun in the large gallery hung “salon style,” a practice begun in France long ago. Here the walls were covered with paintings from down low to high up and none of them had any labels! A cheat sheet on the bench enabled us to zero in on works we particularly liked to see who was the artist. And here and there the galleries had some contemporary works, works by current or former students. Today there are about 300 fulltime students.
It was the last weekend for a large Impressionism exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and this was a must. Even with tickets purchased ahead for the first time slot in the morning, we had to wait in line about 15 minutes to get into the exhibit. This exhibit focused on works that were acquired and exhibited by Paul Durand-Ruel. He appreciated what the Impressionists were doing and was instrumental in both buying and exhibiting their work and in fostering their acceptance and later success. I found this perspective fascinating and was pleased to see a number of Impressionist paintings I had never seen before—works by Monet, Pissarro, and Sisley, among others.
That afternoon, we made a return visit to the Barnes Foundation, also on Philadelphia’s grand parkway. After seeing salon style in the Pennsylvania Academy gallery, we were re-calibrated for Barnes’ version. His combines many paintings on each wall, but graced with the addition of metal hardware such as hinges and door pulls above and furniture, small chests or tables bearing vases or candlesticks, below. Since our last visit, the Barnes now offers an audio guide which we opted to take. With its focus on one or two paintings per gallery, I felt much less overwhelmed by the sheer number of paintings on display. And I liked the fact that often the curators spoke about the paintings on either side of the featured one which gave me, the viewer, a slight peek into Barnes’ rationale for his ordering of the works.
It was also noteworthy that several works on display were ones that Durand-Ruel had either purchased or tried over many years to acquire. Lots and lots of Renoirs, some Cezannes, early Picassos, a number of Matisses, and also works by Americans such as Glackens. A very rich collection indeed and, somewhat ironically, given Mr. Barnes’ strictures which were in effect for many years, now you can buy reproductions in the form of postcards, note cards, and prints for framing!
The Philadelphia of 2015 shows off well. Center City has good signage, wonderful architecture old and new, and great restaurants.
We had tasty tapas at Tinto and a good lunch at the restrainedly beautiful Granite Hill in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
And there’s Dilworth Park. We loved this addition to the cityscape! This new plaza surrounding city hall pulses with a grid of jetting fountains, serves up a café aptly named Sips, and invites slowing down with its stripes of green lawn. The whole is punctuated by jolts of color—electric blue, hot pink, and spring green—in the form of metal café tables and elegant slatted chairs.
There was even a very friendly and helpful city greeter! Overall a vibrant urban space that invites you to stop–study the soaring skyline, people watch, or just appreciate the ornate beauty of city hall.
READING For anyone wishing to learn more about Philadelphia’s fascinating history, I have two book recommendations:
Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia by Digby Baltzell and published in 1979. Note, he coined the term WASP for White Anglo Saxon Protestant.
Philadelphia: A 300-Year History by the Barra Foundation, published in 1982.
My most recent reading was an intriguing novel about a ship voyage. This book reminded me of other titles about journeys of various sorts.
18th Century French Expedition
Landfalls, a first novel from Naomi J. Williams, is marvelous and inventive. Williams takes as her subject the doomed expedition of two French frigates, Boussole and Astrolabe, which set sail in 1785 to circle the globe and discover new lands and new species. As the title aptly suggests, the chapters are more about the places Laperouse and his crew anchor and visit than their sea voyage. Williams has done an incredible amount of research into the historical facts, but her novel is as much or more about the inner journeys of selected crew members and the ship captains, Count de Laperouse and Viscount de Langle, and their encounters with the natives in Chile, Alaska, and the South Pacific.
There is tenderness and wit mixed with loneliness and grief. The piling up of points of view of the savants (naturalists on board) and other crew members and, occasionally, of those left behind, adds texture, variety and richness to what in a lesser author might have been a more straightforward account.
Science & Nature
Sir Joseph Banks puts in an appearance in Landfalls, and there are also references to Captain Cook’s famous earlier voyage. These men brought to mind two other works I have enjoyed: Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, a nonfiction study by Richard Holmes, and Elizabeth Gilbert’s voluminous novel about an early female botanist, The Signature of All Things. Each in its way has something to say about the joy of discovery and the thrill of the quest.
Other Voyages
Voyages can be physical ones or emotional, interior ones. Two favorite books are a novel by Deborah Weisgall and a memoir by Sarah Saffian. Weisgall’s The World Before Her takes us to Venice for the story of two marriages colored by art, one that of Marian Evans (aka George Eliot) to the much younger John Cross, and the other that of contemporary sculptor Caroline Springold who is celebrating her 10th wedding anniversary. I found this a very satisfying book in the best sense–the sights and smells of this canal city played out against the shifting emotions of the two women. In contrast, Ithaka is Saffian’s account of being found by her birth mother and the emotional toll of anxiety, angst and confusion it wrought before there was acceptance. This is a heartrending internal journey.
