Unclaimed Treasures

The first one I read was "A Long, Long Way." I loved it. It was a sad story, but the writing was amazing. When anyone asks me to recommend a good read I tell them

"Anything by Sebastian Barry."

He writes about a time in Ireland that was already gone, or slipping fast away, when I was born. I caught the last wisps of it and it left a lasting impression. I often think I would have been more at home in that time, that I should have been born fifty years earlier; when people got around in a horse and trap; when there was no TV and no need of it as people talked to each other, played cards and visited their neighbours. Of course, I'd be a hundred now, or gone myself.

Rise gave me "The Sacred Scripture" for my birthday. And once again I was off, preaching the gospel according to Sebastian B. She laughed when I told her the ending took me completely by surprise. She's a canny one that; had it all figured out before she got there.

Then a friend, to whom I had lent "The Sacred Scripture," lent me "The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty." And after I had devoured that I got "Annie Dunne" from the library.





From the first page, it swept me away to the hills of Wicklow, to the small farm where Annie Dunne and her cousin, Sarah, were living out their old maid lives in quiet desperation. It made me think of Auntie Bid, my very sensible mother's free spirited sister. Who was daft about a man who ditched her for another, broke her heart, and made her crazy.




[She's on the right in the picture and that's Dee on the left]

When I was born, Auntie Bid came to stay, and minded me while my mother went back to work as a nurse. Years later, when my uncle's wife started having babies out on the farm, and another one came every year, like clockwork, Auntie Bid had herself a full time job.

But we saw her regularly. Once a month she'd come in from the country, armed with her infamous List. She'd sit and have a cup of tea with my mother, then whisk me off to town to search out all the items on The List. She was exhilarating company. She was cheery and happy, always ready with a smile or a joke. Half way through the list we'd give up, and hie us to the Dainty Dairy for coffee and marzipan cakes. This, I thought, is living!

She was known like a bad ha'penny at the drivers' testing office in town. She took the test at least once a year, scared the daylights out of the examiner, failed miserably, but, nothing daunted, went home determined to practice and do better next time. She never did pass the test.

After I got married and moved so far away, she wrote to me regularly, and loved to be sent photos of her grandnieces and nephews.

Turns out the happy smiles and cheeriness were not enough to get her through. She fell into depression, and while living on the farm would refuse to take the medicine that kept her on an even keel. So now she lives in a nursing home. The cousins come and bring her home to the farm on Sunday afternoons. Last time I met her she didn't recognize me. She, who used to bounce me on her knee, and change me, and push me around in a pram. Bewildered beyond belief that she's still here when all of her generation are gone.

Annie Dunne says
"We will survive in the creak of a broken gate, the whistle of a bird, the perpetual folding and unfolding of the blossom of my crab apple tree, a thousand little scraps of crinoline fiercely crushed and fiercely released. Like the spider, although we will decay, something of us ever after will remain."

Auntie Bid may be fading away, but I have her smile and her carefree spirit locked up in my memory just as surely as Sebastian Barry has Annie captured between the pages of his book. Unclaimed treasures both, with so much love to give.

Want something good to read? Go read Annie Dunne. Or anything at all by Sebastian Barry.

To Read or to LIsten.....That is The Question.

I can’t seem to get immersed in any one book lately. Too restless --- mind drifting hither and yon, searching, for what? Purpose? The meaning of life? New and exotic spiders? Chocolate?? Rather than really reading one book, I’ve been dipping and browsing.

One I’ve been carting around is “Under My Skin,” Volume One of Doris Lessing’s autobiography. Why Doris Lessing? I am not a fan, or even an un-fan, of her books. I haven’t read any of them, even though I have seen her referred to as “one of the great writers of the twentieth century.” Reviews of her latest book, “The Cleft” leave me uninterested.

But she has an arresting face. A face with character. The face of a person who didn’t back down from life’s challenges.

That face captivated me, and so I carried her home in my book bag. I haven’t been sorry. “One reason for writing this autobiography” she says, “is that more and more I realize I was part of an extraordinary time, the end of the British Empire in Africa……………..People no longer know what that time was like, even those who live in Southern Africa.” She has had a fascinating life and tells the story well.

I think I like autobiographies better than those written about someone by someone else. Because your life, and the paths you take, or don’t, and the decisions you make, or won’t, are all determined by how you think. And who, but you, can really understand that?

All of which makes my mind wander, in it’s aimless fashion, to a newspaper article I read recently, wherein “Book club purists look down on their brethren who---gasp---get the audio version.” [“Listen, you cheater” by Andrew Adam Newman of the NY Times]

For me the choice is easy. I prefer books. I like the weight of them, the feel of them, sometimes even the smell of them. I love the promise of another world waiting for me between the covers. Some of my favourite places are bookstores, especially musty -smelling second hand ones where each book’s physical history is shrouded in mystery. I like the situations of reading too, whether curled up inside, listening to the rain, or tucked into a corner of the porch, or hidden in the leafy middle of the tree at the bottom of our garden when I was growing up, or fitting in just a few pages more before my head flops onto my chest at night.

Sometimes I do check out audio versions, especially for trips in the car. But when I do, I often find the reader’s voice or interpretation annoying, as I did when I listened to “Rise and Shine.” I’m a big fan of Anna Quindlen’s, but she was not the reader, and the reader didn’t read it as I would have expected the author would have wanted it read. Call me persnickety.

This doesn’t happen when the author is the reader.
Two outstanding examples come to mind. Sometime after reading, and loving, Frank McCourt’s book “Angela’s Ashes,” I found the audio version, read by McCourt himself. And loved it, all over again. It was like sitting by the fire, listening to him tell his story. He got the accent just right. Imagine that! Much better than some poor amadawn of an American trying to fake it with a stage-Irish brogue! Each inflection was perfect, and his pronunciation of the frequent Irish words flawless. As Homer would say---“Doh!” He wrote the bloody thing. It came from inside his head and his memory and out through his vocal chords. Of course no one else could have done it justice.

Likewise with lives. Only the person who has lived a life can write about it convincingly. At least about the parts that most interest me---what they were thinking and feeling.


Then recently I happened upon an audio version of “The Not So Big Life” by Sarah Susanka. She is an architect whose book “The Not So Big House” I had really enjoyed. When we lived in Minnesota, we went on a tour of an award-winning house designed by her. Her ideas about our living spaces make so much sense to me. And here she was, unexpectedly applying her architectural principles to the way people conduct their lives. I was intrigued. I listened to the entire thing and became as much a fan of her ideas about our lives as I already was of her ideas about the houses we live them in. She herself was the reader. Only she could have read it with such passion and conviction. I will probably check out the book version soon, which will have the advantage of letting me reread parts I find particularly interesting, and gaze off into space while contemplating others. Yes, I know. I could rewind the tape or CD, but I’d rather reread, given the choice, than mess with buttons and risk blowing something up. Which has been known to happen.

But, back to Doris. She says “….scientists…….say something like, `If the story of the earth is twenty four hours long, then humanity’s part in it occupies the last minute of that day.` Similarly, in the story of a life, if it is being told true to time as actually experienced, then I’d say seventy percent of the book would take you to age ten. At eighty percent you would have reached fifteen. At ninety-five percent, you get to about thirty. The rest is a rush - towards eternity.”

Will you excuse me now? I have to go immerse myself in my book, which has finally got me hooked.

Book and Movie--A Perfect Marriage

I rented a movie recently and scored. My track record is spotty, at best. I often wonder why I bother. But this time I was enthralled. And watched it again the next night. And hared off to the library the next day for the book.

Turns out I had this book on my TBR list all the time. My list is a messy affair, scribbled in a notebook haphazardly. After reading a review, I had scratched in there "Notes From A Scandal" by Zoe Heller. [It was short listed for the Booker Prize in 2003]. And promptly forgot all about it.

Until Cate Blanchett's face turned up on a movie with a vaguely familiar name. Cate B and Judi Dench were inspired choices for the leading roles. And Bill Nighey is hysterical as the cuckolded husband. Usually I like to read a book first. Then, when I get around to seeing the movie, I'm a bit let down. Because I have formed my own picture and the movie doesn't measure up.

Except for this one. I don't think I could have imagined the characters more perfectly than Blanchett and Dame J portray them. The story is about an affair between a teacher and one of her pupils. But the real story, the underlying, unstated story, is about lonliness, and the lengths people will go to to deal with it. Sometimes its not the story that lures you in so much as how it's told. Zoe Heller is masterful.
Which came across in the movie.
Which lured me to the book.
Which did not dissapoint.
She is sly, tart and wickedly funny. I highly recommend both book and movie. But which to tackle first? I'm afraid you're on your own there. I'd almost say I enjoyed the book more, having Cate Blanchett's and Judi Dench's portrayals in mind. But a movie can only portray so much. At the end of the day the written word rules. Here is a case where movie and book compliment each other perfectly.

One Lovely Book

I discovered a wonderful book this Christmas. I guess it's true, for better or worse, that we buy gifts for others that we'd love to receive ourselves, allowing for our knowledge of their tastes, of course. So, after I'd picked it off the shelf in the bookstore, and read enough to love it, I had to decide whose gift it would be. Hmmm.......several people came to mind, but I settled on S, my little four year old granddaughter. It's not the kind of book a four year old could read by herself. But I didn't buy it with that intent. I bought it so that my Oldest Son could read it to his daughter. Because he will love it too.

OS has been passionate about books all his life [30+yrs.?Aghhh!]. The depth and breadth of his interests is astounding. DIL despairs of ever getting his book collection under control.....Their daughter, S, is a bright, highly imaginative child [who me? bragging? no.o..o...o! just stating the facts...] who already shares her Daddy's addiction to books and stories.

The book in question is "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane". It was written by Kate DiCamillo, of whom I am extremely jealous.......because I would like to have written it. It's charm is enhanced by Bagram Ibatoulline's lovely, old fashioned illustrations.

And then I was shopping again. And bought another copy. For another relative. A relative who is the same age as me. Stay tuned for a report on whether or not I scored a coup.

It is an acknowledged fact in our family that the penny drops slowly with me. Turns out Kate DiCamillo is probably familiar to many eager readers. She has other books up her sleeve --- Newberry Medal and Honor books. And one of her books was a National Book Award Finalist. Now that my head has been pulled out of the sand, one of my New Year's resolutions is to read everything she has written. Because I love how she writes. This resolution should ensure that I'll be off the streets and unavailable for trouble-making of any kind....at least in January. So, tell me, what wonderful and enthralling books did you discover this Christmas?

Words can be Poison

Checking my due dates on the library web site today I clicked, while I was there, on Pulitzer prizes for fiction and discovered, to my surprise, that "Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson won last year. I was surprised because I had checked it out a few months ago. I didn't realise at the time that it was a Pulitzer prize winner. It just sounded interesting. But it didn't hold my interest. I never finished it . In fact I found it a little weird. Which probably says more about my pedestrian tastes [ the rarified air of Pulitzer prize winners being too rich for me] than anything negative about the book. One passage, actually several, did, however, make enough of an impression on me that I wrote it down in my trusty little notebook. And it was this:

"A little too much anger, too often or at the wrong time, can destroy more than you would ever imagine. Above all, mind what you say.
'Behold how much wood is kindled by how small a fire, and the tongue is the fire'---that's the truth".

Books I have Loved

The purpose of yesterday's post was to not have to think--but it got me thinking anyway---about books I have known. My earliest book-memory is of "The Ugly Duckling". Two things converged: my love of the pictures in that book and my new-found ability to use scissors. The damage was done by the time the parents figured out why I was so quiet.

My family had an elderly friend, a lady who had introduced my mother to my father. We called her Auntie Ita. She was always invited for special occasions; those special enough to warrant lighting the fire in the sitting room. And she always brought us presents. She knitted beautiful outfits for my dolls, and for my birthday one year she gave me my first "chapter" books. A set of three books: "What Katy Did", "What Katy Did Next", and "What Katy Did at School". At first I was disappointed at the scarcity of pictures. But not for long. I was dazzled by my ability to read such "grown-up"stuff. And the pictures that formed in my head more than compensated for the lack of pictures on the page. Katy was my hero. I wanted to be just like her. She paved the way for a whole slew of new friends like "Heidi" and the March sisters .

From age ten to about thirteen I was in love with the "Mallory Towers " series by Enid Blyton. There was also a periodical for girls ,"Bunty", that came out every Monday. This was a long time ago, but I can still remember racing to the shop on the way home from school every Monday to see what had happened with "The Four Marys", or "Pocahontas", or "Uncle Tom's Cabin", or "David Copperfield"..............."Girls' Crystal" and "School Friend" were some other girls' periodicals, and all of them published a big Annual at the end of the year. To find one of them under the Christmas tree was bliss indeed.

In secondary school our reading anthologies opened up new vistas. The excerpts were just enough to whet your appetite for more, so you'd hop on your bike and pedal across town to the library to check out the likes of Jane Eyre, Pride and Predjudice, Wuthering Heights, The Mill on the Floss, Pickwick Papers, and The Old Curiosity Shop.

When we visited my grandmother out the country, I'd sometimes curl up on the window seat, hidden behind the heavy drapes, with a pile of my aunt's ladies' magazines, which always had romantic stories that I just lapped up, unknown to the grownups , who would have disapproved of me "filling my head with all that nonsense", and chased me outside to play.

One summer I "roosted " in the tree at the bottom of our garden reading "Gone with the Wind". Our neighbour, Mrs. W, would shout at me from her kitchen window "You be careful, Mollybawn! You're going to fall out of that tree one day and break your backside!" I never did though.

I was shocked, one winter afternoon, rummaging through the bookshelf by the fireside in the dining room, to find "Peyton Place". Dipping in and out, my cheeks blazed. Oh my gosh! I couldn't believe my staid parents were reading such racy stuff.

And then my mother gave me Daphne DuMaurier's "Rebecca" to read........and then........and then........and then........Books........I love 'em.

Five Books Meme

Take five books off your bookshelf. I'm at DD's house. Took four from her bookshelf, close enough. And one I borrowed from the library here.

First book---first sentence.
Second book---last sentence on page fifty.
Third book---second sentence on page one hundred.
Fourth book---next to last sentence on page one hundred fifty.
Fifth book---final sentence of the book

#1. "A tall, slim girl,"half-past sixteen," with serious gray eyes and hair which her friends called auburn, had sat down on the broad red sandstone doorstep of a Prince Edward Island farmhouse one ripe afternoon in August, firmly resolved to construe so many lines of Virgil."
My daughter devoured the "Anne" books by Lucy Maud Montgomery when she was younger and is very miffed at me that I have yet to read them....one of these days.

#2. "Take it from someone who has left the backpack full of bricks far behind, and every day feels light as a feather." From "Being Perfect" by Anna Quindlen.

#3. "As they walk on, Nigel makes a limp-wristed dismissive gesture." From "Saturday" by Ian McEwan.

#4. "But this seems like a poor trade-off for the unhappiness we continue to endure." From "The Art of Happiness" by the Dalai Lama.

#5. "May your soul smile in the embrace of your anam cara." From "Anam Cara--a book of Celtic Wisdom" by John O'Donohue.

With thanks to Jess at Daysgoby who saved me from having to think today.......and it was fun.

Hangin' Out in Heaven

One thing that would make me very happy after I die would be to discover that heaven was a library. Note to God: if You like this idea, you can get some pointers for the design by checking out the downtown library in Columbus, where we went this morning. Not only was it heavenly, it was warm. Which, outside, it was not. Florida turns people into weather wimps. If it drops to sixty, we think it's cold. But, back to the warm, heavenly library.

We were on a hunt for a sweater pattern for DD to knit. She wants "simple", I'm trying to encourage " adventurous". Which harks back to her childhood --- "no mommy, please let's NOT turn up this interesting looking side road, and get lost and run out of gas and have to push the car home, again..." She has a talent for exaggeration.....My eyes watered at the number of books available for us to browse through. We selected a "few" and staggered to the childrens' section to peruse them while T, 3 1/2 and B, 2 1/2 played in a childrens' play area that was about the size of our entire library at home. We had to beg and cajole when it was time to leave, they were so absorbed........DD checked out several knitting books, the boys some picture books, and I "Saturday" by Ian Mc Ewan, and "Dancing with Cats", which a good friend raved to me about a few months ago. A cursory glance through it makes me think it was written for crazy people, by crazy people, about crazy people and their crazy cats.............But a library is proof that there is room on earth, and in heaven, for all of us.

Peter Pouncey Stole My Heart

Is it possible to be happily married and love your husband and still fall in love with another man? One whom you have never met, no less? One who writes prose like a poet; who, with a few spare, well chosen words can conjure a world of feeling? If so, then I am officially in love with Peter Pouncey.

I do not have a favorite genre or a favorite author. I don't care much for science fiction. Spy novels and mysteries leave me cold, and I hurry past the romance shelves at the bookstore with a shudder. My taste in books, if you want to call it something, is eclectic. My favorite book at any time is the one I'm reading now.

This summer, by accident more than design, I seem to have read more books by male authors than usual. I loved The Kite Runner, and The Piano Tuner held me in thrall. Then, at the library recently, I picked up Rules for Old Men Waiting. The author's picture showed a serious, white-haired, older gentleman looking out quizzically at the camera. Intrigued, I brought him home. War and marriage and loss and love. I laughed, I wept, I was mesmerised, and jealous of his use of language. And now, too soon, it's over and I'm bereft. I love you Mr. Pouncey. Write another.