Category: Books

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: Winding Down of Summer

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We just ended a week of house guests as we wind down our Maine time. My sister and her husband were easy to have and together we visited the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, ate lobster as often as possible, and enjoyed another excursion to Pemaquid Point.

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We then welcomed our 3 year old granddaughter (and her wonderful parents) who provided nonstop commentary on what she and everyone around her was doing. That was when she wasn’t making up family stories about sticks, stones, and her dolls or involving her grandmother as playmate in various scenarios: going to the dentist, lying on the beach, being sick and requiring a trip to the hospital in an ambulance, making pancakes (clementines stood in for the pancake batter), and arranging a tea party. She and I did all of these things and we even read a few books together; for the one she especially liked, it was, “again, Grandma, again.”

We also made blueberry pancakes for breakfast (for real) and spent many hours in the children’s garden at the aforementioned botanic garden. A lively visit and a real gift of their precious time.

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What I’m Not Reading

Despite a recent article in the Wall St. Journal about the demise of the summer reading list, I still try to read tomes on vacation that I don’t attempt the rest of the year. This summer I have one of Trollope’s novels on my stack which I will start soon.

I also subscribe to a first editions book club and receive an autographed novel in the mail each month. I seldom read these books as soon as they arrive and over time I accumulate a small stack of them. I brought two with me to Maine. I have started both of them and abandoned both of them, probably for good. I anticipated being absorbed and even engrossed in them, but not so.

The first one is about a young woman who masquerades as a man and goes off to fight in the Civil War. She leaves her husband and their farm behind. The writing is spare and the images of war are graphic and bloody. The author keeps the reader at a distance and I didn’t stay engaged. Maybe not just the right time or mood for me, so perhaps I’ll return to it. It is Neverhome by Laird Hunt.

The second novel, Flying Shoes, by Lisa Howorth, is a first novel built around the re-opening of a murder case in the 1980’s that was the actual murder of the author’s brother. It’s set in Mississippi and has a sassy, what I would characterize as southern, tone. I found the narrator’s voice too flippant and saucy; hence it’s on my discard pile.

One of the liberating aspects of this stage of life is that I don’t need to finish every book I start. I sample fifty to a hundred pages and if I don’t like what I’ve read, I give myself permission to set it aside without guilt. Life is short and there are too many books I want to read to get bogged down in one that is not compelling or enjoyable in some way!

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.