Category: Favorite Books

Tidy Tidbits: Tides & Titles

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WORDS ON WEATHER

Hunkering Down

Last weekend our friends and family cocooned in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and New York during winter storm Jonas.  We watched from afar, thanks to the Weather Channel and the Web, almost gleeful that we were here in Florida.  But, like men’s sympathetic pregnancies, we hunkered down too—staying indoors, feasting on forbidden foods (a luscious strip steak!), and savoring hot soup.  After all, outside was only 50 degrees with a cold stiff wind and white caps on the bay!

Minus Tides

Living on the edge of said bay, we get to observe the daily and seasonal variation of the tides.  The changes over the course of a typical day are not usually extreme, but the other morning I noticed that it was low tide and we were getting a “mud flats” effect.  This is unusual for us and it got me to wondering about the tide levels.  I checked the newspaper and the low tide that morning for just before 8:00 am was a negative .6 feet.  Getting even more curious, I did a bit of research (thank you, Google!) and learned that there is a mean low tide number for each area that is considered zero; high and low tides are measured up or down against this.   So my minus six meant that this tide was half a foot lower than the mean low tide!  Hence the mud, hence more birds at the water’s edge.

And since the tides are governed partly by the moon, this week’s very low tide was associated with a gorgeous buttery-colored full moon.  My citizen science colleagues in California were always keen to be observing life in the tidal areas during minus low tides and scheduled outings with our volunteers for those dates, even if it meant being on the water at 5:00 or 6:00 am.

TITLES STACKED UP

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As usual, I have too many books waiting to be read, but that only means that I’ll never lack for reading material!  Here is a small selection of those waiting in the wings.

Expatriate Lives by Janice Y.K.  Lee.  (A much touted new novel by the author of The Piano Teacher.)

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff.  (I’ve put off long enough reading this highly praised novel from the author of The Monsters of Templeton.)

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout.  (The latest novel from the author of Olive Kittredge, one of my favorite books.)

West with the Night by Beryl Markham.  (A memoir by an early aviator, this will be a re-read for me for the local book group.  I first read it many years ago with the Penn book group.)

The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr.  (From the author of several raw, lay-it-bare memoirs, this book supposedly informs the reader how to create a memoir.)

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.  (A pass along from my sister and an important contribution to the national discussion about race in America.)

POSTSCRIPT

I also want to report that I finished A Master Plan for Rescue and it was wonderful!  There’s a parallel story about a passenger on the ill-fated and unwelcome ship, St. Louis, and this man intersects with the boy Jack in ways that are initially amusing and touching and ultimately, life-changing.

Booknote: Voyages

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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.

 

Photo credit:  www.classic-sailing.co/uk/destinations/fiji-sailing

Maine Musings: Light and Color

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We have moved to another house in Maine and are now enjoying views of the Sheepscot River. It’s a saltwater river and so we have some gentle tidal action exposing mud and rocks and seaweed, then covering them over again. A large family of ducks swam by yesterday and occasionally the thrum of a power boat punctuates the peaceful quiet. The neighbor’s dock is long and its struts are an appealing cross hatch of x’s and diamonds. At dusk they rise above the water and, as one person put it, look like bent knees. The other night’s sunset sky, pictured above, began as somewhat red and then intensified into slashes of mauve and magenta, like thick paint. In the early morning light, yellow predominates and all is calm.

 

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What I’m Reading: Family Portrait

I just finished Trompe L’Oeil by Nancy Reisman, a very satisfying novel on several levels. The characters are revealed as if painted on a canvas; painting; their responses to events and their feelings shift and are shaped and shaded and re-visited over time.

A tragic event in Rome opens the novel and changes life forever for the Murphy family. As readers we then follow the parents, Nora and James, and their children, Theo, Kate, Sarah and Delia, for several decades until the children become adults. Place matters enormously for each of them, be it the Rome of that family vacation or the Massachusetts shore, site of their beloved beach house.  Scattered throughout are chapters devoted to their homes interspersed with ones from the perspective of each family member individually.

Reisman also introduces real art, as in descriptions of paintings of Mary Magadelene by various artists, in separate chapters.  The description of who else is in the work, the colors used and the mood of the painting are used, I think, to reflect the feelings and emotions of particular characters. I found this an intriguing literary device and, overall, quite successful.

Like great art, this novel takes time, time to read and time to contemplate, as Reisman slowly builds up layers of life events and their impact on each member of the family.  She cares about these people and explores how they respond to the tragedies and vicissitudes life throws at them.  It is a beautifully crafted piece of work.

For an illuminating interview with the author about the creation of this novel, check out this link: http://fictionwritersreview.com/interview/solitude-and-possibility-an-interview-with-nancy-reisman/

 

[Photos copyright JWFarrington]

Maine Musings: Books & Binges

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Recent Reading

I just finished reading The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power by Kim Ghattas.  It is a fascinating and nuanced account of American diplomacy as seen through the lens of a BBC correspondent. Ghattas, a native of Lebanon, was part of the press corps traveling the world with Clinton.  With her other-than-American perspective, she provides a rich and detailed discussion of the subtleties of U.S. relations with various countries and, what one might call a primer, on the context and rules of engagement as put forth and practiced by the Clinton/Obama team.

Ghattas by Dina Debbas
Ghattas by Dina Debbas

Ghattas also shares the more mundane but, to a reader, intriguing details about the briefing books and the meticulous planning that goes into every international trip, what it’s like to travel on Hillary’s plane, and how Clinton interacts with the press corps. You see glimpses of Clinton that the general public doesn’t.  I came away with a renewed appreciation for Clinton’s intellect and savvy and her belief in striving for personal engagement with the leaders of every country and with their citizenry.  What she called “smart power.”

 

 

I wanted and expected to like Michelle Huneven’s newest novel, Off Course, but was somewhat disappointed. I thought Blame, an earlier work, was powerful, startling, and very well written. Off Course is the story of a young woman who goes to her parents’ cabin in the Sierra Nevadas ostensibly to write her economics dissertation.  Instead Cress spends most of her time and her mental energy on sexual affairs, the first one something of a toss-off with a much older man, the second one an affair that grows in intensity and takes over her life.

Huneven from www.kcrw.com
Huneven from www.kcrw.com

 

Huneven’s writing is both sharp and picturesque delineating the changes of the seasons as time passes and the affair limps along.  At about one-third of the way in (more than a hundred pages), I found myself more engaged with Cress and her friends in the community and my reading pace picked up.  Overall, I was not  enthralled unlike the reviewers in the book blurbs.

 

 

 

 

 

Binging When It Rains

We had several days of rainy weather not conducive to sitting in the yard gazing at the day lilies. Fortunately, we discovered Redbox. I’m guessing that we were among the small group of the uninformed, but thanks to Googling video rentals, we located two Redbox kiosks in our area. Quite an amazing advance. A big red metal box, like a  soda vending machine, up against the side of the Hannaford supermarket with an auxiliary skinnier red box next to it. It works like an ATM; you swipe your credit card, scroll through the screens to choose a movie, and soon a DVD pops out of a slot to your right, in a red case, of course. The rental cost—a mere $1.58 for return by 9 pm the next night!

So, what did we watch? At that price, you can be indiscriminate in your choices:

Woman in Gold. Unlike the critics, we liked this film a lot. Helen Mirren as Maria Altmann is great and, while you know or can guess the outcome, this true story of recovering art seized by the Nazis is absorbing, partly because Mrs. Altmann’s youth and marriage are depicted in flashbacks.

Still Alice. I read Lisa Genova’s novel of the same name when it came out and found it moving and painful. I resisted seeing the movie until now. Julianne Moore’s depiction of neuroscience professor Alice descending into Alzheimer’s is a marvelous feat of acting, but is still painful to watch. Not for an evening of popcorn and light entertainment.

My Old Lady. This is a somewhat strange film about an older American who has inherited his father’s apartment in Paris. Except that it is a “viager” and comes with an elderly lady who has the continued right to live there. Kevin Kline plays the hapless, aimless man and Maggie Smith is his tenant. Maggie Smith is Maggie Smith and thus, makes the film better than it might have been. I wouldn’t rush right out to rent it, but we did watch it all the way to the end.