Happy Halloween!!

 

Friday's Forgotten Books: REBECCA, Daphne duMaurier

I am not quite done with listening to the audiobook of REBECCA for my book group but will be in a day or so. I have read it before but not in many years. And I probably read it then with less thought than I am on this go. 

If anyone hasn't read it (or seen the excellent Hitchcock film) it is the story of a young woman who is serving as a companion to an older woman. She meets Max DeWinter at a hotel in Monte Carlo, has a whirlwind romance with him, marries, and goes off with him to live at the fabled Manderley. There she stands in the shadow of the first Mrs. DeWinter: Rebecca, who died a year earlier. Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, does much to keep her in in the shadow. 

Things I have noticed on reading this as an adult: Max and the unnamed young woman, don't really have a whirlwind romance at all. He adopts her as you would a stray puppy. The second Mrs. DeWinter is somewhat annoying in her insistence on being a passive onlooker. She seems to want to stand in the shadows. She constantly belittles herself to the reader. And why does she love Max? Is he the father figure she craves? 

And why doesn't she find something to do with herself? People constantly suggest various past- times like bridge, golf, riding and she tells them she doesn't do these activities. Well, can't she learn? She is only about 20, not too old to learn any of these things. Why doesn't she do something beside sketch, which she claims to be not very good at it. Her main occupation is patting the dog and drinking tea. 

This is not to say I'm not enjoying REBECCA. It is beautifully written and boasts four enigmatic characters. And I don't mind reading about a passive character really. Life is full of passive people.

It is just that I have always thought of this unnamed character as victimized. And she is, but she does little to avoid it. Which makes her interesting, I suppose. Do most victims have a hand in their plight?

I also remembered Mrs. Danvers as hovering over every scene and actually she is around very little. Same with Max. Mostly we have our unnamed young woman trying to make sense of it all.  And the reader trying to make sense of her.

I will let you know how it all turns out.

Short Story Wednesday

 

 "Out There in the Darkness" Ed Gorman from 1999's  THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES" also published in Robert Bloch's PSYCHOS. 

Although, to my embarrassment, I am choosing my third story by a male writer, I am disappointed that in this collection , Ed McBain, the editor that year, chose only one story by a woman and that was the ubiquitous Joyce Carol Oates. Twenty years later, women seem to dominate the crime fiction field. I am glad times have changed at least somewhat. 

This story by Ed succeeds as both a crime story and a character study. Four men get together weekly to play poker. Of course, they enjoy the conversation, snacks and ribaldry as much as the game. Their small town has been experiencing a series of robberies, some of them quite violent. They have begun a neighborhood watch to keep an eye on things. When the poker players hear noises, they investigate. Somehow they manage to capture one of the burglars. And then begins the debate on what to do with him. The host wants to call the police; others suggest they try to get information from him first. Things get out of hand as they do with men who have been drinking and men who have differing ideas about the right behavior. 

The story goes on to have lots of twists and turns. Ed used this title on one of his story collections and it seems to have appeared in several places. So because you might want to read it, I am going to end this review here. You don't hear much about neighborhood watches anymore. I am sure they often turned out to be more trouble than help to the police. This story captures just what that trouble might be very nicely. 

I miss Ed so much. And Bill Crider, Randy Johnson, Ron Scheer, Sandra Seamans, and probably others I am forgetting. Certainly Richard Wheeler. Although I have spent time with Bill, the others I knew only online. Yet, they mean as much to me as people I see quite regularly. Many people in my real life are quite amazed and mystified by how this can be. But you guys get it.

 Jerry House

 James Reasoner

George Kelley

TracyK

Matt Paust   

 Steve Lewis

Cullen Gallagher 

Todd Mason

Wish Steve a Speedy Recovery

 I emailed Steve today since he has been absent and this was his response.

Just got home from a week in hospital. Had surgery on my foot and am stuck in a boot for 3 or 4 weeks. But at least I am home.

Still Here

Enjoying QUEEN'S GAMBIT. Although with streaming, a show like this comes and goes so quickly that it becomes a distant memory fairly quickly. Scott Frank, who is directing this, directed GODLESS, which I quite enjoyed last year but now has little resonance for me. I guess this has always been true of books and movies, but tv used to give one a longer experience. Mary Richards from Mary Tyler Moore was with us for years for 25 episodes a year. You can binge Queen's Gambit (6 episodes) in a day. Not that I like to watch that quickly.  I am glad HBO still shows one episode a week. What's the hurry. If this goes on for a long time, won't the content be used up. 

I am trying the ONE-DAY UNIVERSITY idea but it isn't really working for me. Either I know more about the subject than the audience they are lecturing to (Alfred Hitchcock) or far less and I need more of an introduction. Well, it is only $8.00 a month so if I cancel it before the month is out, I didn't lose much.

My book club (Z00M) met to discuss LAB GIRL.  We all loved it and I highly recommend it.

Nearing the end of BORGEN, which was so good. I hope the fourth season comes soon. 

Listening to REBECCA, reading a great Cary Grant bio, and DEEP WATER by Patricia Highsmith. 

Watched THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO SEVEN. Frank Langella stole the show. What a horrible judge Julius Hoffman was. The last hour was quite riveting as the defense tried to outflank him.

By next Monday, we will all be nervous wrecks. Has any election ever been more important? Truly the survival of our democracy hangs in the balance. I wonder what Phil would have said. If you believe 538, it's a wrap but they said that in 2016 too.

So what about you?

FFB: THE END OF EVERYTHING, Megan Abbott

THE END OF EVERYTHING, Megan Abbott

Thirteen-year old Lizzie Hood and her next door neighbor, Evie Verver, are inseparable. They're best friends who swap bathing suits and field-hockey sticks, and share everything that's happened to them. Together they live in the shadow of Evie's glamorous older sister, Dusty, who provides a window on the exotic, intoxicating possibilities of their own teenage horizons. To Lizzie, the Verver household, presided over by Evie's big-hearted father, is the world's most perfect place.

And then, one afternoon, Evie disappears. The only clue: a maroon sedan Lizzie spotted driving past the two girls earlier in the day. As a rabid, giddy panic spreads through the Midwestern suburban community, everyone looks to Lizzie for answers. Was Evie unhappy, troubled, upset? Had she mentioned being followed? Would she have gotten into the car of a stranger?

Lizzie takes up her own furtive pursuit of the truth, prowling nights through backyards, peering through windows, pushing herself to the dark center of Evie's world. Haunted by dreams of her lost friend and titillated by her own new power at the center of the disappearance, Lizzie uncovers secrets and lies that make her wonder if she knew her best friend at all. 

*I am not sure I wrote this back in 2010. It may have been Megan or perhaps someone from Little Brown. But here it is, one of my very favorite of Megan's books. 

 

Mr. Verver is one of my favorite characters from Megan's books. 

 

Short Story Wednesday, Doctor Jack O' Lantern, from Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates

https://www.pifmagazine.com/2000/10/doctor-jack-o-lantern/ 

 "Doctor Jack O'Lantern" is the first story in Richard Yates' ELEVEN KINDS OF LONELINESS, which is one of my favorite story collections by one of my favorite authors. Yates also wrote REVOLUTIONARY ROAD and EASTER PARADE. All three are excellent.

This is a poignant story about a young teacher trying very hard to be a good one and a student who fails both to please her and to fit into his new school. Vinny has come from the City and Yates captures Vinny's part of the city so well by describing how it is the part of NYC that you whizz by on your way to Grand Central and the real New York. 

Vinny is a foster child and his new town is not a good fit for him. The teacher has her students tell about their weekend activities and his account is cobbled from the other children's stories. (Actually he shows more talent as a writer than the rest of them). Scorned by his classmates and sad to have disappointed his teacher, he scribbles four-letter words on a wall. There is a point in this story when he almost bridges the gap between the other boys and himself, but his well-meaning teacher derails that moment and his rage will be his downfall. 

For those who don't get a chance to read it, Doctor Jack O'Lantern is his misunderstanding of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 

Todd Mason

Richard Robinson

 Jerry House

TracyK 

Cullen Gallagher 

James Reasoner 

George Kelley

 

Still Here

 Not since second grade have I heard a voice calling out "Patricia, please be still." But that is what I heard when I attempted to do an MRI this week. I got through that one but bailed on the additional two. I have to find an wide open MRI before I can do it. Too claustrophobic for me and it seems like you are gliding into a crematorium. And having to wear a mask makes it that much worse. All of this because my brain is wired a bit differently and they are not sure if this is a problem or not. Enough about that.

Enjoying hearing REBECCA read on audio. Also reading LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND, a very good book but the title is too hard to remember. It could be MAKE THE WORLD GO AWAY, WHEN THE WORLD GOES AWAY, a million other choices. Book titles are hard. I think the best ones are very short. It is one very scary book.

Still enjoying BORGEN, CRIMINAL-GERMANY,  not a lot else though. The BLY MANOR show is too dense in characters and too short on scares. I think the offerings are beginning to be lesser works although I am looking forward to QUEEN'S GAMBIT beginning Friday.

Signed up for ONE- DAY UNIVERSITY. You get a lecture on a different topic every day for $7.95 a month. Looking forward to learning something that is not political.

So what's up with you.

On what would have been Phil's 76th...

It doesn't get much easier but I am grateful Phil wasn't sick during this period. So there is that. To the man who never gave me a bad moment much less a bad day. Love, Patti

THE EXPENDABLE MAN, Dorothy B. Hughes

A resident at UCLA hospital reluctantly gives a teenager a ride on a deserted road near Phoenix. Right from the beginning, he seems guilty, worried, and we wonder if he perhaps is an unreliable narrator. His actions seems blameless so why the fretting. The girl comes to his hotel room later that night, demanding an abortion, which he refuses to do.

But after 50 or so pages of his fretting and pacing, we find out why he is overly concerned and it changes everything we have thought about him until that point. Irritatingly, many reviews will give this away so if you plan on reading the novel, stay away from other reviews. I think this moment in the novel is far too important to be divulged. Written in 1963, THE EXPENDABLE MAN was one of Hughes' last works and it reflects much of what is coming in the later sixties. Although she didn't die for another thirty years, her only other writing seems to be a biography of Erle Stanley Gardner.

I found this to be a moderately exciting read although I must confess that Hughes' progressive thinking in some areas is undercut by her judgmental attitude in others. Perhaps this reflects the time, but she comes down very hard on doctors who provide abortions and girls who need them. It is well-written and the characters are deftly drawn. We get a good sense of Phoenix at the time. All in all, a good if not perfect read.

 

Short Story Wednesday" Lauren Groff "The Midnight Zone" from FLORIDA

You can hear the Lauren Grof read "The Midnight Zone" here. https://www.wnyc.org/story/lauren-groff-reads-midnight-zone/ although I read it in her collection of stories called FLORIDA. It is also available to read in a May 2016 issue of the New Yorker.

 One of Groff's greatest strengths (for me) is her ability to make a landscape come alive. And in this story, it's a woodsy, primitive area of Florida filled with sink holes, wild animals, dangerous men, snakes, etc.

A panther has been spotted just before the father of a young family is called away. Immediately, we are on the edge of our seats as readers. He will be gone two days, leaving his wife with two small boys, no Internet, and even getting the cell phone to work is iffy. The mother has already admitted to not being the most engaged mother in the world. And it seems like she may now be ill with an unnamed malady.

Very quickly things spin out of control, and in trying to change the sole light bulb, with her son holding the stool, she falls and suffers a nasty head injury. She wakes to find her two boys looking down at her and they try as best they can to care for their injured mother. She comes in and out of consciousness and fantasizes roaming the woods around them, seeing the dangers awaiting them. The boys tend her and when their father returns, she can see from his face just how dire her situation was. 

I very much admired that Groff never allows the reader to be off the hook in terms of awaiting a panther's arrival or some similar dire fate. She creates a threatening environment although the boys seem unaffected by it. It is the mother who is terrorized. A great story for me. 

Jeff Meyerson

Edward D. Hoch, Challenge the Impossible: The Final Problems of Dr. Sam Hawthorne (Crippen & Landru 2018).

When I thought of which book to choose for the first of these short story collections to review, the choice was fairly easy.  Why not go with possibly the most prolific short story writer ever, a man who published over 950 stories, including one or more in every issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine for 35 years?  Ed Hoch created a dozen or more series characters of varying types, but my favorite remains the impossible crime specialist, small town Connecticut doctor Sam Hawthorne, who had some 72 recorded cases, published between 1974 and 2008, of a remarkably high quality.  Hoch did something interesting here, besides the ingenuity of the stories themselves, by setting them in a specific time and place, a smallish town in Connecticut between the doctor's arrival in 1922 and his final story, in 1944.  You always get a feel for what was going on in the world then, from the Depression to the Second World War.  Crippen & Landru has done fans a favor by publishing all 72 stories in five volumes (of which this is, clearly, the last), all with "Impossible" in the title.  From the first story, "The Problem of the Covered Bridge," in which a man drives into a covered bridge and seems to vanish off the face of the Earth, Hoch was a master at coming up with truly impossible-seeming crimes and then providing mostly brilliant solutions.  I'd recommend starting at the beginning and reading all five volumes, but you can't go wrong with any of them.

 

Jeff Meyerson

 

Other reviews of stories can be found here. 

 

Steve Lewis

James Reasoner 

Jerry House 

Richard Robinson

Todd Mason 

TracyK 

George Kelley 

Cullen Gallagher 

 

Still Here

 Don't forget Wednesday is short story day if you can participate. Send your story to me at aa2579@wayne.edu if you don't blog.

Still watching BORGEN, but also CRIMINAL UK, which is quite good and THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR, which is scary but not too. Reading the books mentioned above, which are also good reads. 

Had a lot of porch visits this week, which will soon wind down I fear. Had an emergency visit to the dentist-my history with teeth is a sad one. Went to Josh's for dinner and a bonfire in their yard. Don't know when this bonfire thing started, but it is nice on a slightly cool night. 

The Michigan Terrorists are very frightening. Don't call them a militia because that implies they are around to aid good causes and they are not. 

Kevin goes back to in-class school tomorrow. Very worried about that. It is going to be hard indeed to avoid Covid over the next six months.

How about you?

FFB QUEEN'S GAMBIT, Walter Tevis

QUEEN'S GAMBIT by Walter Tevis

I am not sure what drew me to this book. I know nothing about chess and the book was chock full of chess matches. I was unable to follow the moves and,
in fact, had never heard of terms like the "middle game" before. 

 

Beth, an orphan, is taught chess by the janitor at the school/orphanage where she lives. She begs him to learn and at once excels. Once adopted, her adopted mother uses (in a benign way) her ability to support them. Both of them are in flight from any real world. 
We follow Beth from match to match across the years. She picks up some bad habits in terms of substance abuse along the way. An interesting book about a child prodigy and how she makes the jump to an adult champion. Highly recommended especially for those who play the game.
Tevis also wrote THE HUSTLER and THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH. 

And look, here's the trailer for the Netflix series. https://youtu.be/CDrieqwSdgI

First Wednesday Book Review, MEET ME AT THE MUSEUM, Anne Youngson

Anne Youngson has written her first novel at age 70. And it is a fine one, too. It is an epistolary novel, but since I listened to it rather than read it, it didn't bother me as much as it usually does. In fact, it was enjoyable with the two readers, one with a Danish accent, one British. 

The British woman and the Danish professor are brought together over their shared interest in the Tollund Man, a anthropological find that resides in a Denmark museum. Both have had disappointments in their life and their attempts to overcome them brings them closer together. The "niceness" of these people might have been too sacharine in other times, but right now it was a tonic.

Youngson does a very good job of slowly opening each of them up, not rushing things but also not belaboring them. You can probably guess the ending but would the reader want it any other way. 

You can find more reviews on Barrie Summy's blog.

 

 

Short Story Wednesdays?

We seem to be facing another long winter and I couldn't help but notice how many of you were reading short stories and I thought why not share them. Just a very short review or anything you want to say about the collection, the author, your history with it. Maybe we'll do it every Wednesday. No one should feel obliged to do one each week, but if we alternate we'll always have to figure out if this is the week. 

Anyone that doesn't have a blog (Jeff, Steve, Gerard, etc) can send me their review and I will post it. Also if you know of anyone else that doesn't frequent this blog, please invite them. I will look for your links and post them. What do you think? If it's good, let's start next week, October 14th.

Still Here

The HBO series WE ARE WHO WE ARE is not for everyone. If you are put off by kids seeming pretentious or out of control, it is not for you. But on the whole, I find it interesting, different, original. Everyone is entitled to being obnoxious at 15 when they are trying to figure out who they are.

I hadn't seen CLOSE ENCOUNTERS in many years. I was in my late twenties when it came out.  I had two school-age kids so I felt older than my years, but looking back I am amazed at how it blew me away. And, guess what, it still does, even on a TV and even at my advanced age. I love how Spielberg managed to combine (for the first half at least) a family story with science fiction. And do it so naturally. He really has a talent for working with kids. I think he doesn't get enough credit for how diverse his output is.

 

KIM'S is the sort of light-hearted show about nice people I like to watch before going to bed. (Netflix) Very diverse cast which makes it nice. And Toronto seems so civilized compared to here.

Still enjoying MORSE. (Britbox) I see now more acutely that a major element was a character study of a sad, lonely man. Perhaps the Colin Dexter -written ones emphasize that less or more than the episodes written by other writers.  In the episode I watched last night, Lewis sees what really happened in a murder case, but can't bring himself to tell Morse the truth because Morse is so besotted with the female protagonist. Very sad. John Thaw plays it so beautifully.

THE SCARRED WOMAN is perhaps the fourth Adler-Olsen book I've read and the one least concerned with Department Q so far. If you haven't read them, Dept Q is a police department for dead case files. An unusual plot here but good. 

 

LAB GIRL Hope Jahrens,
skillfully combines the "making of a female scientist" with the science she studies. Dirt seems her major interest, but leaves and trees come after. I chose this book for my book group because we had never really read science before but not sure it was a good choice. 

Anyway, what is new with you?

 

FFB, Dead Anyway, Chris Knopf

 

 

Chris Knopf, Dead Anyway (2012), reviewed by Jeff Meyerson (from the archives)

People always ask (I know, I ask too) how you decide what to read next. Might as well ask, how do you decide what to read, period? I have a list of favorite authors whose books I read when they come out but for newer writers or ones I don't know I tend to lean on recommendations from friends, reviews here or on other blogs, plus newspaper and magazine reviews. If they sound interesting to me, I'll check them out.

 

Chris Knopf had two earlier series set in the Hamptons, but this is the first in a new series.
Apparently Bill Crider reviewed it when it came out last year but somehow his review did not make enough of an impression on my brain until I read his review of the sequel a few weeks ago, linking back to his Dead Anyway review. Then I thought, this sounds good. And it is.

How's this for starting with a bang?  Arthur Cathcart, an overweight 40ish guy working at home doing market research and other high end computer research, married to a gorgeous woman who owns a real estate firm near their home in Connecticut, comes home from a walk to find his wife sitting on the couch and a man holding a gun on her. The man insists she answers five questions written on a paper, and to emphasize his seriousness, he shoots her husband in the thigh. She answers the questions only to have the man, clearly a hired killer, shoot her in the head and kill her. Then he shoots Cathcart, who somehow doesn't die.

Now you may be able to resist seeing what happens next, but I sure couldn't.  Cathcart is gravely injured and decides (with the help of his physician sister) to stay dead and use his computer skills to discover who killed his wife and why, not easy in the post-9/11 world.  But first he has to recover enough physically and mentally to be able to act.  Along the way he gets some help from a woman named Natsumi Fitzgerald, who throws her lot in with his.

I really enjoyed this one and will be reading the sequel as soon as it comes in to the library. Definitely recommend

September 2020 Reads

Sept

The Memory Police, Yoko Ogawa-*

The Teagirl of Hummingbird Lane, Lisa See

The Oral History of the Office, Andrew Greene

The Redhead by the Side of the Road, Anne Tyler

Seinfeldia,  Jennifer Armstrong

The Housekeeper and the Professor, Yoko Ogawa

This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, Ann Patchett

Meet Me at the Museum, Ann Youngson

This is the longest list of books I have read in a while. No crime books unless you count THE MEMORY POLICE. More than half of these were audiobooks, which I borrowed from the library.  Walking, cooking and cleaning allows me to get through them quickly. A certain kind of book works best on audio for me-one with a very clear plot and not too many characters. If the writing is very descriptive, it's not a good fit for me because I will miss too much. Two of these books, I read while eating--you do that when you are alone. (the office book and the Seinfeld book). I probably wouldn't have finished TEAGIRL but it was for my book group. My favorite was Ann Patchett's essays although I liked most of them quite a bit. 

How was your September reading?

 

Hey, Big Spender

https://youtu.be/iG3VfKlfDEk 

 

Or  https://youtu.be/BQlZbwz6ii8

Still Here

Still trying to solve my vertigo problems. The ENT doctor scheduled me for a ENG, which flashes lights and other stuff to see how the eyes and ears react. Also checked my hearing which is okay except for high pitched sounds. I guess that is pretty usual at my age. But I still have three MRI/MRAs to do also to find out whether an anomaly in my brain needs correcting. An interventional radiologist will look at them. Never heard of this specialty before. They fix things using minimally invasive techniques. 

Truly horrible week with Trump proposing the most right-wing person yet for SCOTUS.The Republicans seem to have no sense that court packing is not a good idea. Or fair. This woman seems to be close to a cultist.

Enjoyed ENOLA HOLMES on Netflix. It may not please Holmes purists but it was a lot of fun. Still enjoying BORGEN. Dismayed to find, after enjoying the first season of THE SPLIT, that the second is only available on PRIME as a rental. 

Book-wise reading LAB GIRL and MEET ME AT THE MUSEUM, a debut novel by a 70 year old author, Anne Youngson. Josh and family took me out to dinner (outside) last night and friends had me over to dinner (outside) on Friday. As I say repeatedly, although the last few years have been crushingly hard, I am so lucky in my friends and family. 

Remember when we all traveled....This was Sienna, Italy and my friends, the Wolmans about eight years ago. Still hard not to type "our"

What about you?

FFB-THE HOUSEKEEPER AND THE PROFESSOR: Yoko Ogawa

 

 

SPOILERS AHEAD

A Japanese housekeeper with a ten-year old boy takes a job cleaning and cooking for a mathematician whose memory is only good for 80 minutes. This is a dear book. It reminded me a lot of The Elegance of the Hedgehog. The story concerns how she circumnavigates this dilemma, the relationship between the housekeeper's son and the professor, the beauty of math, and Japanese baseball. There were a few surprises and some failures for me although I liked the book very much. The housekeeper becomes fairly skilled in math over the course of the book and yet at its end she is still keeping house. The book suggests there might have been some sort of relationship between the professor and his sister-in-law yet never really pursues it. And thirdly, the professor seems to  have little interest in the housekeeper, only her son, which seems strange. Perhaps some of this was lost in translation. Her more recent book The Memory Police was definitely a big leap forward both in concept and in writing. But this was very enjoyable in its own way. There is a film version of this but I can't find out where to stream it so I guess it is lost to us in that format.

Just Watch

 is a very useful app for telling you where a movie or show is playing, both for streaming or for pay. 

https://www.justwatch.com/us/apps

Still Here

Really like The Housekeeper and the Professor. It's the same author who wrote The Memory Police. Borgen is very good but I am using the dubbed version. It is just easier for me not to have to read subtitles right now and the dubbing is excellent. Also enjoying The Split on Hulu.

VanDerValk was good but not at all like I remember Love in Amsterdam. It's a lot edgier than the typical fare on Masterpiece. Always enjoyed Nicholas Freeling.

Watched MISMATCHED on You Tube last Sunday Night. I don't get as much out of it as I should because I don't get to see that many Broadway shows. It was fun though seeing some live performances. The idea is the performers sing songs they wouldn't normally sing in a musical. Mostly men sing songs women sang and vice-versa. 

I Know Where I Am Going,  is such an unusual film I won't bother describing it but it's on Criterion if you want to dabble with true originality. 

Boy, Schitts's Creek really cleaned up on the Emmy's.  Such a contrast between Succession about a family that is all bad and Schitts Creek about a family who learned to be good.

What about you, guys?

FFB: THIS IS THE STORY OF A HAPPY MARRIAGE, Ann Patchett

 

This 2013 collection of around 20 essays written over many years for many different publications is a pleasure to read. Patchett writes of her childhood, her sad first marriage, her much better second one, her father, a cop, who helps her train for entrance into the LA police (for the purposes of a story), her love for a dog, learning opera for BEL CANTO, her relationship with the cancer-disfigured friend written about in TRUTH AND BEAUTY, Clemson University's reaction to that book when she came for a reading, an RV road trip with her second husband, and most of all her development as a writer. I listened to Ann Patchett read her book and that probably enhanced my enjoyment. I think Patchett could make any subject interesting. What a gift.

Still Here

Lots of reading this week. So many friends complain they have lost their focus for reading, but for me, it's the opposite. I find a serenity while reading that few other things afford me. Anne Tyler (The Redhead) writes books where the stakes are not too high and thus her characters' issues are tolerable. In this one, Micah just doesn't know how to get himself a girlfriend. I can handle that. She is very good at setting out an ordinary man's life. Perhaps a bit too good because her characters from book to book are much alike. 

Finished The Teagirl of Hummingbird Lane and was seduced enough by the tea she grew to order some. Hugely expensive for a few ounces of tea and it will probably taste like dirt but seduction is a strange thing. 

Also listening to Ann Patchett read her essays. This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. She is a terrific essayist. Even when her subject is prosaic, her thought never are.

The book about The Office  was huge fun for me. I do think it was the best comedy of the 2000s. Especially once they figured out what to do with Michael Scott.

Watching the Morses. I am skipping the ones listed as "the worst" on a list I found. I find them very strong in atmosphere and character compared to a lot of the current crop. 

 Borgen, however, gives it a run for the money. Very smart. Luckily I can watched it dubbed, and very well dubbed, or I would have trouble following Danish politics.

Watching the Albert Brooks movies on Criterion, which don't hold up as well as I expected although they are good enough to kill 95 minutes. Defending Your Life was better than I remembered and Lost in America, not as good.

The strange but fun Charlie Kaufman movie, I Am Thinking of Ending Things, really occupied online chatter this week. Luckily Slate, among other, explained it to me. 

I have lost my cleaner/driver/gardener for a while. Her daughter went into cardiac failure having a baby. This apparently can happen. What a shock it must be. So my help is in Canada till things resolve.

Am I safe taking Uber or Lyft? Not sure. More worried about them not showing up than anything.

FFB The Memory Police, Yoko Ogawa

 The location is not identified, nor is the year but on an island somewhere things are disappearing. No one knows why and no one really tries to find out. It is already underway when the novel begins. First it is little things like hats, ribbons, and eventually it is birds and flowers. When the object disappears, so does the memory of it. Except for a small group of people who do remember and it is that group that the memory police are hunting down. 

Our heroine, who is a writer, tries to save a friend who remembers (her editor) with the help of an older man and a dog.  He lives under her floorboards for we don't know how long. As a reader you will have to accept there are many unexplained things and if that upsets you, you may not want to read this book. But both the idea and the execution is so skillful you will be missing a book much like ones by Atwood, Huxley, Orwell but with its own sensibility and lovely writing.  I admired all of the things she didn't explain. And truly you didn't need them explained.

The Memory Police was originally published in 1994 but finally translated last year.

Still Here

The Memory Police was outstanding but I will say more about it on Friday. Hugely depressing but worth it for the originality of the concept and the amazing follow through. Also enjoying the oral history of The Office, which to my mind is the best 30 minute series of the 2000s. Reading about how they worked out what Michael Scott should be like, how Jim and Pam's romance would work, what Dwight Shrute was actually about is a lot of fun. The Office, like most workplace comedies, turns out to be about family. Wasn't the gang on Taxi really a family even though it took place in a taxi garage? Same with all of the better ones, I think. Still reading The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane for my book group. Pretty Ambivalent about it. Is is basically a romance and why does it trouble me if it is? Have I ever read an out and out romance. Maybe Forever Amber as a ten.

Watched Modern Romance with Albert Brooks this week. Lots of laughs. Also watched the ESPN two-parter on Lance Armstrong. What a jerk. Nice that he has done much to help raise money for cancer but other than that....

Started Borgen and am rewatching Life on Mars. 

Lots of dental stuff. Ugh. As long as I remember I have had dental issues. Scots-Irish teeth, I think. I should have gotten dentures and saved myself a fortune. Also still trying to solve the problem of my dizziness. I have it most autumn but this one is worse than most. Maybe stress is adding to it.

A quiet week here.  What about you?
 

FFB-NOVEMBER, Georges Simenon

This is one of Simenon’s standalones, which I generally prefer to the more formulaic, of still wonderful, Maigrets. A French family lives comfortably, if claustrophobically, outside of town. The first person narrator is twenty-one and works at the local hospital as a research assistant. She’s having a rather prosaic affair with her employer, an older scientist. Her younger brother is taking classes at the local college, majoring in chemistry. 

The two siblings live with their parents in a state of constant tension. The mother is an alcoholic, and goes on binges that the rest of the family calls ‘novenas’. Her behavior seems to date from the beginning of her marriage and has almost a formal structure to it. The tension of her behavior is palpable throughout the story.

A newly hired maid, a sexually obliging sort of girl, Manuela, from Spain, brings some needed air into this hothouse. Both father and son begin sleeping with her. Neither is satisfied with this arrangement.

When Manuela disappears. it is unclear what has happened and the ambiguity will either intrigue or annoy you. The ending is surprising, yet fitting. This was not my favorite Simenon and yet it succeeded in keeping my interest. Short novels stand a better chance of doing that.

 

First Wednesday Book Review: THE DUTCH HOUSE, Ann Patchett

I listened to Tom Hanks read this book and perhaps that was part of the reason it worked so well for me. Because as I read some Amazon reviews, a lot of readers found this book lacking in a compelling story And I will admit that there was not a lot of plot. You had to be satisfied with an evocation of a family and place to enjoy it. The Dutch House is the story of a family that purchases a large, striking house in Elkins Park, PA. The story is filtered through the son, Danny, and there is initially just a sister (Maeve) and some (beloved) household staff. 

The father is absent a lot and the mother has completely disappeared. The book does not explain what caused this schism until nearly the end. A sad little household evolves into an even sadder household when the father suddenly marries a woman with two little girls. Danny and Maeve are very close and the book dwells a lot on their relationship. Since there is not a lot of plot, I will leave it here but say I found it a very satisfying read, especially through the voice of Tom Hanks. I grew up and went to school in the area that the book takes place in but I don't think that mattered too much. I have liked all of Patchett's work. And all of Tom Hanks' movies. If they ever make A Wonderful Life over again, Hanks should play George. And Ivanka comparing her father to him is the greatest misunderstanding of character I ever remember. 

Find more First Wednesday Reviews at Barrie Summy's blog.