Speaking from among the bones

Speaking from among the bones / Alan Bradley
Toronto: Random House, c2013.
362 p.

This is the latest in the Flavia de Luce series, and it was such a satisfying read! I have enjoyed all the books in this series, but this one was extra special. There is so much character development, a clever mystery, some détente between sisters -- and one heck of a cliffhanger ending as well.

In this volume, Flavia is instrumental in discovering the whereabouts of the missing church organist, Mr. Collicutt. Unfortunately, he is already dead. And occupying the long-closed tomb of the church's patron saint, St Tancred.

This sets off a whirlwind search for clues and patterns, with Flavia encountering two other amateur sleuths on the case (both adults), finding people who mistake her for her long-lost mother Harriet, deliberating on the history and existence of holy relics, ruminating about her place in her family and the wider world, crawling through the muck of mysterious graveyard tunnels, falling into mortal danger, and creating new chemical tests to prove her theories... just to name a few of her activities.

There was a great deal of action in this book, with many characters to follow. Yet Flavia is still the heart of the story, and in this one seems to have more heart, somehow. She is becoming ever so slightly more self-aware as her world is changing around her. The family is on the verge of losing Buckshaw, and eldest sister Feely is shortly to be married and leave the family circle altogether. These things give Flavia an edge of anxiety that she doesn't necessarily recognize in herself, but which add depth to her character.

Flavia de Luce was a delight to read about right from the beginning, and book five has topped its predecessors, in my opinion. It is finely written, amusingly acerbic, full of personality and pathos, and leaves us wanting book six rather desperately! An excellent entry in this series.

Revivals #1: High Bright Buggy Wheels

As I said in my previous post about Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries program, I find the idea of personal recommendations as to the value of out-of-print books very compelling. I love the idea that one enthusiastic person is able to revitalize older titles that she loves and bring them back into common circulation.

So, to leap on to the bandwagon, so to speak, I am launching a series of blog posts influenced by this idea. I'm calling it "Revivals" -- the primary difference being, of course, that I am not bringing books back into print, simply back into awareness! I find that many book bloggers do read and discuss out of print books, not limiting ourselves to only what is current...with these particular titles I'm going to take a page out of Nancy Pearl's book and also write a mini essay about WHY I think these out-of-print books might merit a re-examination. So I think it's fitting that the book that starts off my Revivals series also begins with a revival.

High Bright Buggy Wheels / Luella Creighton
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, c1951.
352 p.

Small town Ontario, 1908 -- a summer camp-meeting revival is going on amidst the local Mennonite population. Tillie Shantz watches the preacher, Simon Goudie, call people to true faith, reflecting that such a godly man may be one she is interested in marrying. Yet after the crest of the religious fervour, she exits the tent into the night to find a young man from the nearby town of Kinsail (there for the entertainment) asking for directions back to where he left his buggy, having been turned around in the dark. He then offers her a ride and she hops into the light buggy and skims down to the end of the road and back. This is very much Not Done, and we are given a hint as to just how much Tillie differs from her peers, the theme that this story then elaborates on.

I first read this quite a few years ago now, and have just picked it up to reread before deciding to recommend it. It has some problems, of course: written in 1951, set in 1908, there are judgments and assumptions made that don't sit too well with modern sensibilities... but there is also drama and intrigue and friendship and love. Tillie and George, the young druggist who provides the joy ride at the beginning of the book, are very different kinds of people. But their youthful attraction changes the trajectory of both their lives.

Author Luella Creighton was a Scottish Canadian, married to a well-known historian. This book is a look at rural Ontario, specifically at a Mennonite settlement and how this group of people are and are not fitting in to Canadian society. This was an unusual book of its time, focusing on a story based in an ethnic minority (here German Mennonites) -- and there have been papers written about the elements of ethnic self-hatred propagated by both this book and another 50's novel that I've read and reviewed previously, Vera Lysenko's Yellow Boots (set within the Ukrainian community). The issue seems to be that the ethnic group is seen as backward, limiting, something to be transcended by becoming part of regular society. It's true that both of the young female characters in these two books have to leave their roots to find personal fulfillment. However, rather than seeing ethnic self-hatred, I identified with the struggle that these girls faced within a patriarchal setting to determine their own desires, and to find the strength to make a change. Nevertheless, they are delivered from their original difficulties by another man's intervention, so perhaps there is still room to grow in both of these stories.

However, I find this a fascinating read for its inclusion of the small details of Canadian life of that era, both Anglo-Canadian and Mennonite. It has its charms, with Tillie discovering a passion for horse racing, dancing, music and nature. She promises to marry Simon Goudie but then requests some time before the wedding to follow through on her desire to go to town and learn dressmaking, which her indulgent father permits. The joy she feels in learning this skill, which draws on her creative powers and allows an emerging independence, is the highlight of the book. Her pleasure in designing, in the tactile experience of fabrics, in the friendship she develops with her spinster employer and instructor, is bright and delightful. She discovers the fascination of the public library, reading a common penny novel with absolute absorption, allowing herself to forget chores, meals and expectations -- so much so that she is caught unawares by her strict aunt who, in horror for her soul, throws the book into the fire.

In reading this, I saw shades of L.M. Montgomery -- in Tillie's life with two strict aunts, with the focus on the bountiful domesticity of the Mennonite households, in Tillie's eventual delight in pretty clothes, the beauty of nature, and a cozy home. Tillie also shares Anne Shirley Blythe's sorrow as a young mother, and reacts in much the same fashion. I also sensed shades of Jane Eyre (and St. John Rivers), with Tillie giving up Simon when he announces to one and all that he has been called to be a missionary to Africa, expecting her to follow unquestioningly. She leaves her faith for "the world" after much internal struggle, and builds a life as part of mainstream Anglo-Canadian society.

While Creighton's depiction of Mennonite life has been questioned, as coming from the outside and without a deep understanding of the primacy of faith, I found her characterization of Tillie's struggle for understanding and self-actualization fascinating, and still relevant today, when considering the difficulties that many young adults have in moving away from their upbringing, whether religious or cultural, and finding a way of life that they have determined on for themselves.

George is also an interesting character; he is an up-and-coming businessman with lots of ideas for improving his store and making it more profitable, including adding an ice-cream parlour and a lakeside dance pavilion. He sees himself as one of the dashing class, with a horse and buggy and a prediliction for racing. He seems to be a disciple of Samuel Smiles, stating at one point:

The thing was to know what you wanted, and get after it. People didn't get what they thought they wanted, in this world, because they did not want it hard enough to believe they could. 

His focus on expansion and success doesn't include a wife at this point -- but Tillie's various charms overcome him and he decides it is worth it. After seeing the strength of Tillie's character and family ties, and the force of her internal struggle, George seems very much of a lightweight. I question whether he really deserves someone like Tillie... and whether her absolute change of life circumstances has been worth it if he is the reward. I dream of a life of independence and creativity for a fine woman of Tillie's qualities... but those books were yet to be written.

This is still a valuable look at an era in Canada's past, at the expectations and assumptions of a society bound in male and Anglo-Canadian norms. Even within this structure, I believe that Luella Creighton was able to present a variety of women all trying to find their place in the world. Sadly, the bubble of possibility that Tillie was floating in could only stay together so long, before she landed in the "happy ending" of the time, gaining a husband and a house to care for.

A Gay & Melancholy Sound

A Gay & Melancholy Sound / Merle Miller; intro by Nancy Pearl.
AmazonEncore, 2011, c1961.
583 p.

This is the first book in the Book Lust Rediscoveries series, selected and introduced by celebrity librarian Nancy Pearl. I bought myself a copy because I am very interested in the whole idea of a series of "Rediscovered" novels that one (admittedly influential) librarian can bring from out-of-print to accessible again.

With this series, she is reanimating some of her favourite novels which were published "between 1960-2000". I'm not sure why the limitation, but there doesn't seem to be a problem finding titles so far! Each one starts with an introductory essay about the book, and about why she selected it for the series. This first book of the project, described as her favourite book, is a huge one... a lengthy tale of one man's life. About this title, she says:


Miller’s novel never feels dated or awkward: there’s no strong whiff of the long-dead past emanating from its pages. Indeed, there’s enough snark, emotional pain, and irony to satisfy even the most demanding twenty-first-century reader.
(read the entire introduction here)

This is the life story of Joshua Bland, a precocious child who now feels, as an adult, that he lives up to his name. His early promise has led to nothing but self-loathing and alienation from his life experience. He has had exciting, dangerous, entertaining, intriguing experiences -- but has not been able to feel any connection or  emotional satisfaction from them. He is a character who is hard to love; in fact, he can't even love himself. But notwithstanding his behaviour, I was caught up in his story very quickly, wanting to learn all the details of who he was and why he'd turned out this way.

Being a novel from mid-century, of course the mother comes in for a lot of blame. Joshua's mother drives his quiet, kind father away with her pretensions and demands, and his stepfather is a flashy, demanding man who   rests all his hope of fame and fortune on the young Joshua's head. He forces Joshua to take part in a nationwide trivia competition, in which Joshua's nerves overtake him and he fails miserably. This failure shapes him. His mother and stepfather are ashamed and embarrassed, and seem to care more about their status than his feelings about it. The whole small town he lives in had prepared a celebration which of course now fizzles out, and Joshua's abject failure to bring any notice to them turns him from a favoured child to a pariah of sorts.

This key event is referred to by the adult Bland a few different times, and clearly sets the stage for his self-loathing. But as he grows up and continues to stumble through life, we see that his inability to accept himself is causing him great difficulty. His marriages are rocky despite his initial belief in the relationship; he can't behave kindly or normally, and in one case behaves so reprehensibly that I was disgusted and infuriated.

The book's conceit is that Joshua is recording his story, trying not to make excuses for himself, in the hours before he makes a final decision about the value of his life. At some points he is very much justifying himself, but even then he undercuts our pity by presenting himself in the worst possible light. He judges himself harshly and is snarky and cruel both as a defense and in the belief that he is ultimately unlovable anyhow.

I don't want to write a review as long as the book, so I'll simply say that this very miserable character is somehow written with sympathy -- in one way reading this feels like watching a train wreck, but one in which you feel sorry for the inevitable crash you see coming. He is a nasty man, but not really, not underneath; there is that kernel of good, of hope and optimism, that he refuses to accept, or to reveal only to be crushed again. It's said that cynicism is disappointed idealism, and perhaps that's one  part of Bland's character. His cynicism is overwhelming, washing him out to sea without any kind of life preserver to hold to. He's driven away anyone who might have helped him, and feels a perverse satisfaction in 'proving' his anticipated isolation. He's a sad man, brilliantly written. Although this a long tale, I felt that the energy of the story carried a reader quickly through all 584 pages, all the way to the sad, disintegrating conclusion. I found it a powerful read, a moving story of emotional damage and self-sabotage, interspersed with wit, cleverness and longing.

National Handwriting Day

Happy National Handwriting Day! 

I love to celebrate this holiday, as I love everything about handwriting -- letters, journal writing, calligraphy and more. I've written about celebrating handwriting before, and reviewed a wonderful book on the subject quite a long time ago, called Script & Scribble. Now I really want to read Philip Hensher's The Missing Ink: the Lost Art of Handwriting as well.

To celebrate my love of handwriting, I've started a Postal Reading Challenge (button in the sidebar) that runs all year long and you can sign up to read along any time during the year. It is intended to celebrate the postal system and all the joys of correspondence, and can include writing some of your own letters!

I have also just signed up for a wonderful project run by author Mary Robinette Kowal, called A Month of Letters. It runs for the month of February, and the parameters are to write a letter every day that the post runs (24) and reply to the letters that are written to you. It has beautiful badges (shown in this post) and has a community forum to participate in if you register. Check it out -- you can write letters, send newspaper clippings or even fabric swatches through the mail (love that touch). She has done a great job of organizing this in its second year and I am really looking forward to it. If you want to get in on the fun and become one of my correspondents in February, send me your mailing address securely, via Postable.

Whatever way you choose, I hope you will celebrate National Handwriting Day and have fun with your penmanship :)

Crampton Hodnet

Crampton Hodnet / Barbara Pym
New York: Plume, 1986, c1985.
216 p.

As it is the Barbara Pym centenary this year, I'd like to share some thoughts on some of her books, over the course of this year -- especially during the June Barbara Pym readalong that I discovered via Thomas at My Porch.

But I'm starting now with Crampton Hodnet.

I discovered Barbara Pym a while back (mostly due to Kerry Clare's blog Pickle Me This) and have really been enjoying exploring her titles. This book was the funniest one I've read so far -- it's not as leavened with melancholy or bittersweet encounters as her later books seem to be.

Taking place in the 30's, this is set in North Oxford, a community replete with professors, vicars, single women at loose ends, church functions, tea rooms and gossip. This seems to be Pym territory, and in this book it is handled lightly and with a great deal of humour. There is a varied cast of characters -- Miss Dogget and her companion Miss Morrow, who are boarding the new curate Mr Latimer; the Cleveland family, Professor (Francis), Mrs.  (Margaret) and daughter Anthea; numerous Oxford students; senior library assistant Edward Killigrew and his aged mother, and many more. The drama involves primarily minor aspects of life, for as Miss Morrow notes, "Clever people were inclined to be fond of spiteful gossip and intrigue."

There is much made of  the love lives of all of the interacting characters, married or not. One element has to do with the sudden infatuation that Francis Cleveland has for his student, Barbara Bird. After he has confessed his love to Barbara in the library (with Killigrew lurking in the background ready to pass on the gossip) he returns home:

"Francis, you're looking so odd," said Margaret, glancing up from her novel. "Have you got indigestion?"

"I don't think so," he answered shortly.

"Then it must be the effect of the British Musuem," she said.

That was exactly it, thought Francis, suddenly blaming it all on the British Museum. Everyone knew that libraries had an unnatural atmosphere which made people behave oddly.

There are numerous tempests in teapots here, and yet more serious things, like Francis attempting to run off to France with his student, are met with light reproof and the proverbial stiff upper lip by his family. The year has its dramas but as it nears its end, Miss Morrow (whose viewpoint carries much of the book) notes that nothing really changes, that the players who are leaving their circle will be replaced by others much the same, and life will continue along the same path for everyone. Perhaps this isn't such a comforting idea to Miss Morrow herself, but she has made her peace with her position.

The story is full of pretensions and expectations being deflated, comical misunderstandings, disappointed love, and lots and lots of tea and academia. It is charming and entertaining even while skewering its own self-satisfaction with Pym's particular wit. With many amusing and quotable lines, this is one of her novels that I know will be an enjoyable reread in future.

The Postmistress

The Postmistress / Sarah Blake
New York: Putnam/Penguin, c2010.
326 p.

This is one that's been on my shelf for a couple of years now -- it looked very good but you know how these things go...one book and then another gets added to the pile and lo and behold, years pass before you get to the book you intended to read immediately after acquiring it!

Nevertheless, this was restored to the top of the pile thanks to my Postal Reading project. And I'm glad I finally did read it. I liked parts of it immensely, but found other parts not so great. Overall though, it was an absorbing read and one that I'd recommend as a great spur for discussion.

Set in the 40's, immediately before the US is convinced to join in with WWII, it tells the story of three women, whose narratives start out separately and slowly intertwine. First of course, is our Postmistress, Iris James (though she makes a point halfway through the novel that there are no "postmistresses" in the US, unlike England -- stateside they are all called Postmasters.) Iris is a red-head, a single woman who attracts a bit of attention when she arrives in the tiny town of Franklin, Massassachusetts to take over the post office. She takes her postal responsibilities very seriously, and still marvels at the process. Here is one of her musings:

All these letters, all these words scratched out one to the other, spinning their way toward someone. Someone waiting. Someone writing. That was the point of it all, keeping the pure chutes clear, so that anybody's letter  -- finding its way to the post office, into the canvas sacks, the many hued envelopes jostling and nestling, shuffling with all the others -- could journey forward, joining all the other paper thoughts sent out minute by minute to vanquish --
Time.

Next we have Emma Trask, young bride of local doctor Will Fitch. She is an orphan, totally alone in the world, when she meets Will and makes him the centre of her life. She is certain that she will be a wonderful small-town doctor's wife -- but she doesn't get much time to try as he volunteers to go to England to serve as a doctor there during the Blitz. Emma and Iris develop a relationship as Emma goes to the post office every day hoping for mail.

Then there is Frankie Bard, a radio reporter working in London, drawing pictures of the mayhem in Europe for listeners at home. Her voice is heard in the doctor's kitchen, in Iris' office, and serves as a reminder and a spur to American consciences. Frankie ends up travelling to Franklin when she is sent home from England on what would today be called a stress leave. All three have their problems and all three feel essentially alone. Frankie is modern and laissez-faire, smoking, drinking, and having quick anonymous encounters with men while in England (a scene that came a little as a surprise to me given the tone of the book until then). Emma is almost too fragile, her personality a bit one-note. Iris was the most complex to me, with her committment to her job, and yet her concomitant longing for love and the kind of sexual relationship that she had had no chance to experience.

Reading this, I enjoyed it, and found myself thinking about the characters until I could get back to the book. On some reflection, though, I find quite a few elements that make this not entirely successful for me. First of all is the last chapter. As I was reading I was already annoyed and frustrated that the book hadn't ended after the previous chapter. The main emotional thread of the book had been resolved nicely, and to me the final chapter just felt like excessive melodrama, an authorial overstep that wasn't necessary to the story. But then I hate sentimentality, and I felt as if I was being manipulated toward an emotional reaction that wasn't organic to the plot. If you've read this please do tell me what you thought of the ending!

There were various other little things that bothered me, but in the end, the book did hang together and was of sufficient interest and thoughtfulness that I enjoyed my reading experience. It was a collage of some of the experiences of women during war, from new angles that we don't often consider. With one of the main characters a radio announcer and another the Postmistress, it also gives us a glimpse at the world of communication in the 40's, and how much has changed.

A Little Love, A Little Learning

A Little Love, A Little Learning / Nina Bawden
London: Virago, 1990, c1965.
233 p.

Another book off my shelf, this is Virago Modern Classic #333. I find that Viragos are nearly always a good bet, and this one lived up to its Virago-ness.

I've never read Bawden before, and after this I will be actively looking for more. This novel follows the story of Joanna (18), Kate (12) and Poll (6), who live with their mother Ellen and stepfather Boyd (the local doctor) outside London. Set in the 50's, it deals with many contemporary elements of women's lives, things that we wouldn't necessarily consider now -- the fact that Ellen has left her first husband and is trying to stay out of sight so he doesn't take the girls away because of course he has legal custody as their father, for example, an idea that I found repellent. Or the arrival of their Aunt Hat (not actually an aunt, but an old friend of Ellen's who is unlike her in nearly every way). Aunt Hat arrives to stay while her husband is being tried for beating her and attacking her stepson by another marriage when he was visiting. She is continually making excuses for him, rationalizing his abuse with apparently common statements like, he was overworked, he was tired, etc.

But those elements make up the background of the story, which really centres on the sisters, especially narrator Kate. I found Kate a fascinating storyteller; for one thing, she readily admits that she lies constantly, making up stories to make herself more interesting, to gain some attention. Her lies are continually blowing up  into problems for her and for her family, but she can't seem to stop herself. In the end though, it is something Joanna does that precipitates a crisis in the family. I've never read a narrator quite like Kate -- unabashedly lying throughout, she is still very understandable, and even endearing in her adolescent awkwardness. She is aware of her own tendencies but can't yet see a way past this habit. Bawden was able to hold this tension successfully over the whole novel.

I was intrigued by the relationship between the girls and their stepfather -- he took on all three of them along with Ellen, and he is a good man, a reliable and loving man with character. He respects all three girls and loves them deeply, often giving advice, comfort and understanding as they go about their youthful dramas. At one point, Kate is arguing with him about a situation in which her lies have nearly caused a very problematic situation, thankfully averted.

"But it can't be both," I said, suddenly feeling stiffly hostile. "A thing's got to be either right or wrong."

"Only in arithmetic," said Boyd, and went on to say that this was the trouble with most people, that they wanted a straight, comfortable answer to all their questions, yes or no, and this was the reason why they thought as little as possible and took the first answer that came, because thinking made them uncomfortable: the more you thought, the more you realized there was no right, true answer to anything. All you could ever do was to think round each individual question and through it, and try to get an answer as near right as you could get it.

"Truth often sits on the fence," he said, "The trouble is that we have to get down on one side or the other."

Another element I found interesting was their relationship with their mother. Ellen is not a warm and fuzzy person. She dislikes sentimentality and expects intelligence and decent behaviour from her children. They have Aunt Hat to provide all the sentimentality, and she does that in spades. There is no romanticizing of 'motherhood' here, just a very real woman who happens to be a mother, and despite the lack of overt displays of affection, we know she loves the girls fiercely and will defend them to the end. I thought that the relationships between all the women, Aunt Hat included, were wonderfully drawn. There is such a variety in the personalities and behaviours of all these characters, and there is an spinster neighbour as well as an older lady in the 'big house' nearby who both add yet another element to the feminine characterizations Bawden is presenting. It is all quite fascinating.

Kate's development from beginning to end as she tells us this story is the point of the title, I think. She goes through a lot of upheaval trying to figure out relationships, and what people who love each other owe each other as well.  Her experiences over this rocky year culminate in her confronting a rather unwelcome visitor and defusing a lot of tension, without intending to or even quite understanding that she'd done so. Love and learning are themes in her life from the opening sentence to the final page, and I am glad I was able to follow along.

Sir Charles Grandison: first thoughts

I've started reading Sir Charles Grandison as part of my Postal Reading Challenge this year. I've had it on my shelf for many years and needed some incentive to finally pick it up...as it is over 1500 pages long! Because of this, I don't want to wait until I've finished it (some months hence) to share my thoughts on it. Instead, I thought I'd share some of the gems I've found so far. 

It's written in epistolary format and has a fabulous heroine, Harriet Byron. She is funny and clever, and apparently all that is beautiful and good as well, with men proposing to her left and right. She's headed off to London with her cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Reeves, and will be experiencing the whirl of a season, with lots to write home about.

Thus far (about 30 letters in) she has written nearly all the letters, and nearly all addressed to her cousin Lucy. Something I was surprised by was the nonchalant statement by Harriet that the Reeves' would be reading all her letters, essentially vetting them, before she sent them. And that Lucy would, of course, be reading them aloud to her family -- Harriet is always throwing in asides to "my Uncle" to be kind to her female judgments. Letters were indeed a kind of public discourse at this time.

So far Harriet has met a handful of new people, and has already been proposed to twice, upon the strength of one or two meetings. She has refused, even in the face of £8000 a year and two estates. I'm finding her quite modern in her insistence that she will not wed where she can't love and respect a spouse's character and intelligence.

She is forced to reveal her wit at one small house party when one of the men in attendance is rather pompously showing off his scholarly bent, and they get into a discussion about whether or not Latin and Greek are absolutely necessary to be a true scholar. Harriet argues that surely the pagans in pre-Greek and Roman times were able to communicate and live and create and learn without the wisdom of the ancients. Mr. Walden gets so infuriated that Harriet relates:

I could almost wish, said he (and but almost, as you are a lady) that you knew the work of the great antients in their original languages.

Upon which Harriet's friend replies:

Something, said Miss Clements, should be left for men to excel in.



Another thing that has struck me is that this book was published 260 years ago -- and yet there is so much that is still current in human nature, good and bad. Sir Hargrave Pollexfen, upon being rejected by Harriet, demands to know who she has given her affections to. She states "to no-one". He can not understand how, not already being the property of another man, she can possibly not become his. He angrily concludes:

For I will not cease pursuing you till you are mine, or till you are the wife of some other man.

It reminds me of those awful men who hit on you and won't leave you alone until you bring the existence of a boyfriend or husband (imaginary or not) into the mix. As if anyone who isn't already claimed as male property is fair game no matter what opinion they may be expressing! This infuriates me, and this scene was so evocative of modern life that I was rather discouraged by this idea's persistence.

Anyhow, I am finding this a ripping good read and can't wait to find out what Harriet is going to do now that she's found out that her two (unwelcome) country swains are coming up to London to see what is happening... and I still have 1400 pages to go ;)

Meatless on a Monday

Meatless: more than 200 of the very best vegetarian recipes / from the kitchens of Martha Stewart Living
New York: Clarkson Potter, c2013.
384 p.

This is a great compilation of recipes for anyone considering the idea of going vegetarian, even if just for Meatless Mondays! It is from Martha Stewart Living, so it is big and colourful, with many gorgeous pictures to get your taste buds excited. And while I think "very best" in the title may be a bit of hyperbole, it is still a good resource.

It's broken up into eight sections, like salads, pasta, side dishes, casseroles etc. and also includes a guide to the basics of a vegetarian pantry, and some suggested menus. It also has quite a good index with symbols to indicate recipes that are vegan, gluten-free, or "special diet". Most of the recipes that I've looked at so far include dairy or eggs, so it certainly isn't wholly vegan. However, I think its strength is that the recipes are not too far-fetched for people who are just beginning to incorporate vegetarian meals into their eating habits -- the concepts are familiar, ie: salads or pastas or burgers, while the actual execution (being Martha Stewart) can get quite fancy with extra ingredients or techniques.

I actually really liked the side dishes sections, with some new ideas on how to prepare vegetables like kohlrabi or broccolini that I don't think of eating, generally. Also, roasting common vegetables like cabbage or cauliflower makes them look very tasty, I must say. There are a few recipes that stood out for me, ones that I'd like to try shortly. The sautéed kohlrabi is one, roasted pumpkin with pasta another, avocado-chipotle sandwiches yet another. It'll be fun to go through and try things that are new to me, whether in ingredients or techniques, even though I've been vegetarian for 21 years.

Something I found interesting with this book is the introduction of a basic recipe like pesto, which is then followed up with six variations using different ingredients -- like arugula, or spinach, or walnut-sage. There are also similar suggestions for alternatives to the basic grain salad, or other staples. It shows how recipes can be tweaked and altered, and opens up possibilities for any cook.

I would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes to cook and wants to branch out a bit. A brand-new vegetarian could probably find better books aimed at being wholly vegetarian, but this will be a nice addition to my already stuffed shelf of veg cookbooks!

Get some free recipes and images from the book at Martha Stewart's website (it includes the recipe for portobello-zucchini tacos which look so good!)

Check out Meatless Monday!

Embers

Embers / Sandor Marai; translated from German by Carol Brown Janeway (written originally in Hungarian)
New York : Knopf, c2001.
213 p.

This is a book I've meant to read for years: it's a classic Hungarian novel from 1942, in a quite beautiful English edition. The tale is all about the meeting after many, many years of two men in their seventies who were best friends as children and young men, until one shattering event broke their friendship and resulted in one of them fleeing the country.

It begins from the perspective of Henrik ("The General"), a Hungarian aristocrat holed up in his countryside manor. He hasn't left the small area around his home for many years, while his former friend Konrad has been living in England and the tropics since leaving the area forty years previously.

Henrik has spent forty-one years obsessively mulling over the facts of that long ago day that changed both their lives, and wants to hold his visitor to account. When Konrad arrives, they have dinner in the room they last ate in together, with everything from chairs to decoration to table settings to menu exactly the same. I think that this is a fine way to illustrate the General's absolute 'stuckness' in a past moment. Over the course of the evening he lays out the facts of that long ago day, and about their shared past, to try to determine the truth of what happened.

It's a fencing match in words between two men who as young soldiers learned the art of fencing very well. And, unfortunately for me, I began to find it as dull as watching a real fencing match. Who is scoring? Who knows. The General went on and on, parsing every second of the event, in order to understand it. I saw him as a symbol of the old order, a pompous man who was stuck in the past in every way, and desired to make the world answer to him for it.

The writing itself was masterful, the description of the political environment and all of its minute effects on daily life was strong. There were very quotable bits, and some lovely phrasings. I loved the fact that Konrad was the poorer friend, that he was Galician, that his parents lived a frugal life in Galicia in order to educate him at the centre of the empire. And I felt much more sympathy and interest for this more complex character. The evocation of a pre-war Europe, especially an area that I haven't read much about, was rather fascinating and beautifully drawn. Every carpet and portrait and piece of furniture in the General's manor house becomes present in the imagination. Most intriguingly, in the General's pocket is a little yellow velvet diary tied with a ribbon, formerly belonging to his long-deceased wife, awaiting its turn in the story.

But the actual story was too annoying for me to love it. Tales of jealous husbands tire me, and bore me. And this turned into a type of story like that, with two men wrestling over the possession of a woman's affections. When I read stories like this I begin to feel impatient rather than sympathetic. Also, there were a couple of sentences in the book that caught my attention in a particularly irritating way, though I know perfectly well that they illustrate the thoughts and mores of the time that the book is set (and was written). The first, talking about the relationship between the two men, states that:

And yet, beyond their roles and lives in society, beyond the women, something else, something more powerful made itself felt. A feeling known only to men. A feeling called friendship. 

And the second, revealing the way that the General in particular looks at the wider world, assumes that it exists for human delectation:

All of a sudden the objects seemed to take on meaning, as if to prove that everything in the world acquires significance only in relation to human activity and human destiny.

Both of these statements, or beliefs, were sticking points for me. Perhaps I wasn't in the right mood when I read it, as I couldn't sink far enough into the story to overlook these.

Objectively, it was interesting, and as I've mentioned it was very visual, like a miniature painting with tons of detail. I also enjoyed the reverberations of the title: the fires of jealousy, love and betrayal have been banked for many years, and when these two attempt to fan them up again, the emotion is still there but in a much lower intensity, all in embers. There is no resolution of the dilemma; they realize that there is nothing to be done now except part once again and simply go on. It's well drawn, and an unusual read, but just not one I loved.

Did you read it? What did you think about the motivations behind the "big event" that separated the friends? Was it planned or spontaneous?

Saturday Snapshot: Labyrinth Lines

Saturday Snapshot is a weekly meme hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books. The 'rules' are:

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.

 This week I am sharing a couple of pictures of the temporary labyrinth I created for a New Year's walk, in our local gallery, Gallery Stratford. New Year's is the perfect time to take some contemplative time for yourself and look at the way your life is going. Luckily for me, our local art gallery is very supportive and I was able to hold a walk in the middle of some gorgeous paintings (by Art Green) which were all about looking more deeply and seeing things you might have missed on first glance. The perfect metaphor for our walk! It was very peaceful and a lovely day.

100 Year Old Men, Windows and Disappearances

The 100 Year Old Man who Climbed out the window and disappeared / Jonas Jonasson; translated from Swedish by Rod Bradbury.
Toronto: HarperCollins, 2012, c2009.
384 p.

This is a crazy story, a worldwide bestseller that was brought to my attention by... my dad! He found it and read it before I'd even heard of it, and recommended it. So I relaxed with a copy over the holidays. It is frenetic adventure tale that reads like Forrest Gump, if Forrest had been a curmudgeonly Swedish explosives expert with the knack of falling on his feet.

It reminded me quite a lot of the Ukrainian novel The Case of the General's Thumb, in its reliance on black humour, violence and unbelievably absurd happenstance. It had the same casual criminal element as well. But this book is also quite different.

One hundred year old Allan Karlsson climbs out of the window of his nursing home on the morning of his 100th birthday party, wishing to escape the saccharine occasion. He wanders away and trusts to chance to make his way in the world. His first mistake is to steal a suitcase at the bus station, hoping it will have an extra set of clothes for him. It doesn't. What is inside leads directly to his life on the lam, escaping some petty crooks, meeting up with a few others (plus elephant) and creating a haphazard group of travellers that keeps growing, until they all escape to a tropical paradise.

That's the modern-day tale. Interspersed are memories of Allan's long past. He became a wanderer as a young man, after his explosive experiments came a little too close to a local notable. Leaving his small Swedish town he makes his way from country to country, coincidentally meeting up with world leaders wherever he goes. He encounters Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Harry Truman, Kim Jong Il, and countless other celebrities, like Einstein (Herbert, not Albert). He makes miraculous escapes from untenable situations, he maintains his sense of the ridiculous and his brazen attitude to any sense of privilege that those he encounters may hold. As he makes his way through life, he says things that change history, without his realizing it or being recognized for his input (for example, he makes a tiny suggestion when he is working as a waiter at Los Alamos...) The whole concept is ridiculous and yet amusing, though I did feel it was starting to go on a bit and was glad that the book tied everything up when it did.

If you want a light, yet absurdly dark, story, one which amuses with its historical references and the chutzpah of its main character, this is it. Full of oddball characters and a setting ranging over the entire world, it is a lively book that certainly has found a wide readership. I was entertained with Allan's shenanigans, and with his motley group of fellow outlaws. This is not your typical Scandinavian mystery. Thank goodness.

Kind Regards

Kind Regards: the Lost Art of Letter Writing / Liz Williams
London: Michael O'Mara Books, c2012
192 p.

This is quite a simple introduction to the whole world of letter writing (but isn't the cover lovely?)

Williams takes on many areas in this short book -- from the history of postal services worldwide, to a collection of letter-related quotes, to the how-to of letter writing, to love letters, last letters, and more, including a rather awkward page or two on email & netiquette, which I found slightly unnecessary.

While I enjoyed it, especially the early chapters, I felt it was too brief and had too wide a scope to really engage my interest for very long. Perhaps if I hadn't already read so many of these kinds of books it would have been more compelling, but oh well, I still enjoyed the reading. The sections are brief, the writing is straight-forward, the reader is never in doubt about what the writer is trying to say. Also there are some charming illustrative motifs throughout.

Some notable facts & quotes that I loved:

To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere without moving anything but your heart ~ Phyllis Theroux

Fact: "The Romans established the first two-tier mail system....light carriages called rhedae, pulled by fast horses, were used for the 'first-class' service while two-wheeled carts (birolae), pulled by oxen, provided a slower service."

Fact: Hammurabai was considered to have created one of the first postal-systems, based on couriers on horse-back.

This would make a great introduction to the whole world of letters for someone just beginning to indulge their interest. It's brief and just the right size to carry with you and dip into at will. It's a very pretty volume, with that delightful cover, and good design inside. As for me, though, it left me hungry to find something more in-depth on the topic. Nevertheless, it did make me more enthusiastic about sitting down and actually writing a few letters, so I suppose it did its job!

Happy Ukrainian Christmas!

Just one of the joys of being part Ukrainian is being able to extend the holiday season...

I wish you all happiness and joy on this Christmas Eve, and hope that you will be eating and enjoying yourself as much as I will be. The traditional Christmas Eve meal is a meatless one (except for fish), 

very handy for this long-time vegetarian :)

З Різдвом Христовим!

Saturday Snapshot: Mail Call!

Saturday Snapshot is a weekly meme hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books.

It's always fun to see what people are sharing! Thanks for hosting, Alyce.

This week I am featuring a couple of quick pics of some of my Christmas gifts and their result... I received two beautiful sets of notecards this year, one from my aunt and one from my husband. They both know that I love correspondence and all of its accompanying paraphernalia. 

And in response, of course I had to use some right away, to send thank-you notes and overdue Christmas letters! 

I had fun decorating the envelopes and getting them ready to send off. In the process I also discovered an entire cache of stamps that I'd forgotten I had! All the more writing to do...

What about you? Do you still write snail mail letters? Do you enjoy getting mail? 

If you are an enthusiast, you might also want to consider joining my Postal Reading Challenge that I've started this year. Reading about letters and writing some too, that sounds like a good year to me :)

Larry's Party

Larry's Party / Carol Shields
Toronto: Random House, c1997.
339 p.

I've owned this book for quite a while now, and finally picked it up to read. I'd heard it had some elements involving mazes and labyrinths in it, which is the main reason I was interested. But I hadn't realized until I started reading how very much the labyrinth is involved in this entire story -- everyone interested in mazes and labyrinths should really read this! Each section opens with a title page and an image of an historical maze -- I enjoyed identifying each one and noting the discussion about the names and forms of mazes and labyrinths in the text. As this is what really struck me about this book, I will review it from my perspective as a labyrinth facilitator and aficionado.

The story is this: Larry Weller, the main character, starts out as a florist in Winnipeg (and the city is given a fairly nice role too). It's the career he sort of stumbled into after high school. He gets married young, and on his honeymoon in England he encounters Hampton Court maze, and it is true love.

He builds a maze in his yard, carefully planting and pruning shrubs to form a design of his own making. His wife Dorrie, unfortunately, dislikes both the maze and Larry's devotion to it so much that she has it partially destroyed. The marriage is also destroyed in the process.

Larry moves out; he finally leaves his floral career to move to Chicago and become a professional maze builder. He meets a new, young wife: they go to England on a Guggenheim fellowship and visit many, many continental and British mazes. Then she leaves him as well.

Larry finally moves back to Canada, this time to Toronto where his sister lives. He finds a new girlfriend and they host the titular party when both of Larry's ex-wives are coincidentally in Toronto on the same weekend. As they all have dinner in a glorious confusion of voices and personalities, Larry realizes some long-hidden truths about himself and about love.

The novel finishes with an excerpt from Bradfield's 'Sentan Wells' (1854), and at this point some of the things that had been bothering me about the story made sense.

Some run the Shepherd's Race - a rut
Within a grass-plot deeply cut

And wide enough to tread - 

A maze of path, of old designed

To tire the feet, perplex the mind

Yet pleasure heart and head;

'Tis not unlike this life we spend,

And where you start from, there you end.

If you think of the entire book as a labyrinth, the progression of the story and the manner of telling it are perfectly balanced. The book is made up of various sections, each named "Larry's *whatever*" and this gave me the impression of a set of linked short stories. This impression was made stronger by the constant repetition of certain elements, such as Dorrie's dislike of his maze, or Larry's experience with his father, within many sections. It happened too frequently to be an editing slip-up so I pondered the significance of this initially irritating habit -- and decided that it was representative of the way we think about our lives. Certain stories keep being retold, either to others or in our own minds. We dwell on certain facts and not others.

Then again, looking at the story as a labyrinth, it makes sense that things repeat. As you walk a labyrinth, you circle around and come back to nearly the same spot you were before, just one path over. The perspective changes depending on where you are on the path, and where you are in relation to others who may also be walking the same path. You circle around the central question both coming and going. And as T.S. Eliot said so pithily, "And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time."

I'd held off on reading this because (gasp) I am not really a big fan of Carol Shields' style. And here too, I found her style a bit tedious at certain points. The time frame of the book kept me puzzling over where and how the action happened as well. But, Larry's life was full enough that it worked beyond the details. Of course, his fascination with mazes parallels mine so that was enough for me. However, Shields does give us a fairly complicated cast of characters who were interesting on their own, enough that I would like to see this story told from the women's point of view! Using this metaphor, however, shaped the story a little bit artificially, fitting it into the frame neatly. The ending, happy as it might be considered, and concluding with a verse, recalled some of Shakespeare's romances -- all is apparently well and both true love and the power of words have triumphed in the end.

In any case, this book explains Shields' connection with the labyrinth, and is a clear reason for the Carol Shields Memorial Labyrinth that is found in Winnipeg. A fitting tribute.

Carol Shields Memorial Labyrinth Design

(there is an interesting discussion of Shields' use of this symbol and its metaphorical resonance in the book "Garden Plots", some of which can be read online via Google Books if you are interested)

Unusual Uses for Olive Oil

Unusual Uses for Olive Oil / Alexander McCall Smith
Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2013, c2011.
203 p.

This is the fourth book featuring the hapless Professor Dr Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld. (the first three, from some years ago, can now be found in omnibus format as The 2 1/2 Pillars of Wisdom)

Not much has changed for poor von Igelfeld -- he still has monstrous bad luck and always does the wrong thing. Yet he always comes out of his disasters unscathed. Perhaps that's because he doesn't seem to have the self-awareness to be crushed by the huge gaffes he makes, rather, he is focused on maintaining his touchy position in regards to his co-professor and rival, Professor Unterholzer. He is very sensitive about his level of scholarship as opposed to Unterholzer, and that sometimes leads him to overreact. But, as stated early on in this book, after his suspicions of Unterholzer have been proven false:

There was no doubt that Unterholzer was telling the truth, decided von Igelfeld, as he looked down into his cup of coffee. How complex this world is, he thought; how easily may things appear to be one thing and then prove to be another. And how easy it was to see the worst in humanity when what we should really be looking for is the best.

This book is made up of five chapters, each a tale of von Igelfeld's adventures. From a nascent romance, to a marvellously risqué reading party at a mountain villa, to an awkward dinner with his coworkers Prinzel, Unterholzer and wives (in which poor Walter the dachshund reappears), to a brief moment in the spotlight as an 'inspirational speaker', von Igelfeld reigns as the awkward, unfortunate man he doesn't even realize he is.

McCall Smith terms these books "entertainments", and they are awfully funny, even while they are much sharper and less gentle in tone than his other series. These characters are skewered and I begin to feel sorry for the constant bad luck and disharmony in poor von Igelfeld's life. (that, and the Institute librarian, Herr Huber, does come in for some rather ignominious portraiture as well... which, as a librarian reader, can be a bit much!) I do find these lighter in the sense that there is not much internal deliberation in these characters, as found in his other books. Also, these stories are much more comedic in their reliance on appearances and misunderstandings. Character flaws lead to truly ridiculous situations, which are all too easy to laugh at, under the auspices of the expression "better to laugh than cry".

I do enjoy the shenanigans of these professors, and the idiocy of the infighting is tempered somewhat by the presence of the relatively normal Prinzel, head of the Institute, and his charming wife Ophelia who is very hopeful and sees the best in everyone, even von Igelfeld. If only poor Walter hadn't suffered from von Igelfeld's pride, I'd be more likely to forgive him his flaws... but otherwise, this book is another entertaining foray into the particular German scholarly world that these odd professors inhabit. A fun, light, amusing read with which to start off my reading year!

Postal Reading Challenge October - December Link Up

This page will serve as the linkup from October - December, at which point the results will be shared and the "winners" at each level will be selected. When you finish your challenge please do remember to add a link to your final challenge round-up post, or leave a comment stating that you've finished & number of books you've read, on the Postal Challenge Wrap Up Post!

Postal Challenge July-September Link Up

Postal Reading Challenge April-June Link Up

This is the place to link-up any reviews and/or images of your mail art that you've been creating, depending on your level of participation in the Postal Reading Challenge. Please link up whenever you have any posts to share.

This page will serve as the linkup from April to June, at which point the next quarter's linkup page will be posted.

Postal Reading Challenge: Sign Up Post

It's a New Year! And I couldn't resist creating a new challenge of my own, which came to me as I was making my resolutions. I am trying to get back into the habit of sending regular snail mail letters -- which reminded me of how much I love reading about letter writing and enjoying epistolary fiction.

So, I created the

Postal Reading Challenge

image via the amazing Cathe at Just Something I Made

What is the Challenge?

The key is to read and review books with a postal theme. These can be non-fiction on the subject of letter writing, collections of real letters, or epistolary fiction of any era. Be creative! Review each one and link back to the challenge -- there will be quarterly roundup posts for you to link reviews and posts to as you create them.

The challenge runs from January 1st, 2013 to December 31st, 2013.  You can sign up ANY TIME throughout the year.

Any books chosen can overlap with any other challenge, and rereads are allowed. Just remember to review them somewhere online in order for them to count toward the challenge. Lists don't have to be made in advance, though feel free to share your choices and inspire other readers if you wish! 


How do I join in?

There are a few ways to participate in this challenge. 

Postcard Level:   Read and review 4 books with a postal theme.

Snail Mail Level:   Read and review 8 books with a postal theme.

Parcel Post Level: Read and review 12 books with a postal theme.

Air Mail Express Level:   Read and review 12 books with a postal theme AND commit to sending more old fashioned letters this year. At least 12 pieces of mail (or more!), and you can share numbers or even images of your mail art in the quarterly roundups.


Anyone who completes the challenge at any level will have their names thrown into a draw to win some letter-related goodies at the end of the year. In addition, if you complete the Air Mail Express Level, you'll get a chance to win a lifetime membership to (and some goodies from) the Letter Writers Alliance!

Wondering what you might read? Find some inspiration --

• Some of the epistolary choices I've read over the years
• Danielle at A Work in Progress has made a couple of lists, A Thursday Thirteen and a follow-up Part 2! And now, Part 3!
• Wikipedia has, of course, listed some epistolary suggestions
• Goodreads has 26 pages of readers' favourite epistolary reads
• Some ideas for non-fiction reads as well as novels, from the Letter Exchange

To join in, sign up below. If you aren't a blogger, just add a comment. How to add your link: 
1. Click on the icon below
2. Add a link to your sign up post or your overall blog/tumblr etc if you are just joining generally for now

Postal Reading Challenge: Gateway to Links

This post is your gateway to the Postal Reading Challenge links.

Click on the links to find more information, to see what everyone is reading, to add your own reviews, and to track your progress.

Remember, it's never too late to join and you do not need to have a blog to participate. The idea is to have fun!



Postal Reading Challenge SIGN UP POST including rules and information

Postal Reading Challenge Quarterly Link-Ups, January-March

Postal Reading Challenge Quarterly Link-Ups, April-June

Postal Reading Challenge Quarterly Link-Ups, July-September

Postal Reading Challenge Quarterly Link-Ups, October-December

Postal Reading Challenge WRAP UP POST

Postal Reading Challenge January-March Link Up

This is the place to link-up any reviews and/or images of your mail art that you've been creating, depending on your level of participation in the Postal Reading Challenge.

Please link up whenever you have any posts to share. This page will serve as the linkup from January to March, at which point the next quarter's linkup page will be posted.

Postal Reading Challenge: Wrap Up Post

Congratulations on finishing the Postal Reading Challenge! I hope you had fun finding titles and exploring the epistolary world. Hopefully you also reconnected via snail mail to friends out in the world as well!

Thanks so much for joining the challenge, and I hope you consider joining in 2014.

Here's the place to link up your wrap-up post. If you don't have a blog, please leave a comment saying you finished.