Category: Books

Booknote: WWII Berlin in fiction and diary

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Although I left Berlin sometime ago, I can’t seem to leave it behind.  While in London, I bought a first novel about a German couple in Berlin during the Second World War.  This soldier and his “mail order” wife are on the German side ; the novel portrays the brutal conditions of the fighting on the Russian front and the grim state of affairs for those trying to cope at home.  And the effort these two young people undertake to stay connected to each other.  I recommend The Undertaking by Audrey Magee.

Now, thanks to a recommendation from my friend Patricia, I’ve been immersing myself in Berlin Diaries, 1940-1945, an unusual first person account of life in Berlin by a transplanted Russian princess.  The author is  Maria Vassiltchikov.  My reading of this is enlightened by having been in that city and having walked some of the streets she references.  She recounts parties socializing with ambassadors and diplomats and other royals, but as the war deepens, her concerns become more mundane and basic—where to safely stay and live, what will be available to eat, and what will be the fate of her friends, colleagues, and scattered family members.   Her brother edited the diaries, sent for publication just before her death in 1976, and his clarifications of people and places and his interjections about the events of the war are most helpful to the modern reader.  Even if you haven’t experienced Berlin, this is a worthwhile and fascinating account of this time period.

Booknote: Robert Peace

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One of Jeff Hobbs’ roommates at Yale was a young black man from outside Newark, NJ.  He was smart and personable, but kept to himself.  He also dealt drugs the entire time he was a science major.  Robert Peace lived a bifurcated life; he grew up on poor and mean streets without a live-in father and learned how to survive there and not call undue attention to himself.  But he was also smart and talented so his stalwart mother worked several jobs and stinted for herself to make it possible for him to get a good education at St. Benedict’s.  Later, he caught the attention of a wealthy donor who funded his 4 years at Yale.

Rob Peace’s life ended too soon and Hobbs takes it upon himself to dig deep into Peace’s childhood, his family, his friendships, his relationships with women and all the people who comprised his world from his youth through college and beyond.  The book is The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace.  It is a heartrending account of wasted talent and it lays bare how extremely difficult it is to overcome being poor, being black, and having no stable role models—and how one can physically leave one’s home neighborhood, but remain emotionally and mentally tied to it.  I think Hobbs’ book is overly long and sometimes too detailed, but I don’t regret investing the time to read it.

Memoirs & Biography: Jesmyn Ward, Michael Morton and Margaret Fuller

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My reading lately has tended toward nonfiction.  I especially enjoy personal memoirs and biographies of intriguing and somewhat lesser known individuals.  My husband recommended Michael Morton’s memoir and I found it riveting. Morton Called Getting Life: An Innocent Man’s 25-Year Journey from Prison to Peace, it is his account of his conviction for his wife’s murder and his long years in a Texas prison.  He is a white man who finds himself surrounded by blacks in a tough and bleak environment; he had naively assumed (numbed by her sudden and horrific death) that he would never be a suspect.  Due to politics, sloppy  handling of his case and some illegal case work, he found himself imprisoned.  How he deals with the endless tedium, loneliness, and inhumanity of the prison system speaks mightlily to his strong character.

Young black men in many parts of the U.S. face challenges and temptations that are beyond the ken of most of us.  Somehow, I missed Jesmyn Ward’s memoir when it came out last year and only just discovered it in paperback.  Men We Reaped is a haunting, painful and incisive portrait of five young men—poor and black with no real role models and few opportunities or support— all of whom died too young in the space of a few years.  They were cousins, friends, and a brother of Ward’s. The combination of grinding poverty, no full-time parents, the easy availability of drugs, and little sense of self-worth made for hard

JWardlives and early death.  In chapters alternating with accounts of each man, Ward chronicles the turmoil of her childhood, how her perspective on her parents, particularly her mother is revised over time, and her own struggle to value herself as a worthwhile person.  It’s amazing to me that Ward went on to success as a novelist (Salvage the Bones) and also returned to DeLisle to live.  She is now a professor of creative writing.

 

 

 

Retreating to an earlier time, I’m finishing up Megan Marshall’s evocative biography of Margaret Fuller.  Marshall previously wrote a biography of the Peabody sisters (19th century New England education reformers) which I read and enjoyed about 10 years ago.  Getting deep into Fuller’s life, I am re-appreciating what she was able to accomplish as a woman in a very male world.  She had been tutored and schooled  by her father, a harsh taskmaster. So it is not surprising that her primary  intellectual friends included the noted men of the day from Waldo Emerson to Nathaniel Hawthorne and Thoreau, as well as others whose names are less know to us today.  She did have friendships with other women and she offered a series of Conversations in which they could enroll.  These get-togethers seem to be the precursors of the women’s clubs–with names like Fortnightly, Roundabout, Current Events–that flourished late in the 19th and early 20th century and provided stimulation and brain food, as it were, for smart women who weren’t allowed professional jobs.  Margaret with her coterie debated philosophy and other topics and she encouraged them to speak out and share their thoughts with one another.

MFullerWhat is also fascinating is how Fuller’s view of the plight of women (property of their husbands) and their potential for a greater place in society and a more equal role in marriage went so far beyond what any other American was proposing. The Dial and later the Herald Tribune, gave her platforms from which to expound; later the publication of Woman in the Nineteenth Century, an expansion of an earlier essay, increased her standing and brought her invitations to speak.  She was a woman of big ideas and both voluble and forceful in conversation and in advocating her views.  I imagine some of her female friends found her a bit too much “in your face.”  Tragically, she died in a shipwreck at the age of only 40.

A Room of One’s Own

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It is now 2 weeks and a day since the movers and we arrived at our Florida place!  And what a whirlwind! We unpacked and sorted, made 2 trips to Ikea, and delivered ten loads of kitchenware, linens, and books, etc.  to Goodwill continuing our downsizing from a 4-story home to a spacious 2-level townhouse.  And we thought we’d given a lot of books away on the west coast—and we had, hundreds of them.

Now I’ve had the pleasure of arranging our remaining books, quite a few, on the shelves.  Deciding which books should be downstairs on the den shelves, which on the common shelves in the 2nd floor loft area and which ones in my, note that, my, study. I found old favorites like Cold Sassy Tree,  thought-provoking and insightful books like Mary Catherine Bateson’s Composing a Life, and the perturbing but elegant memoir, An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison.  As well as many books I have not yet read.  Some of these get prime, front and center space on the shelves, to remind me of their presence and to nudge me to make the time to read them.

Almost as long as I can remember, I’ve had a desk of my own, from the time I was about seven or so, with drawers in which to secret away pens and papers and stuff.  In our various houses, I’ve generally had some sort of space for my desk and a few shelves for favored books.  On Thayer Road, that desk was in a room my spouse and I shared and each of us had a desk facing the window separated by a file cabinet.  In the Bethlehem house, he had a generously-sized study and I had the servant’s cubbyhole. It was connected to a bedroom, but had room enough for a desk, file cabinet and chair, with some lovely old-fashioned built-in cabinets and blessedly, a door.  Cozy, but functional.  In San Francisco, the top floor was wide open space and I claimed the smaller end of this room for its windows and its peephole view of the bay.  My spouse had more space (he has more things), but less of a view.  I think I won out on this one!

Here in Florida, I have a room that was a bedroom, now my study, all to myself.  I have my working desk and computer, a desk chair, a tripartite bookcase seven shelves high on one wall, two file cabinets, and a very simple table-like desk with just a center drawer.  This simple desk is where I write personal notes or work on my laptop.  There is a window and a door and the whole thing is just heavenly!  I truly have “a room of my own.”  My husband says I can close the door and write a novel.  I probably won’t do exactly that, but I will revel in the space, the quiet, and possibly be inspired to do more than just write this blog!