FFB: THE PERFECT NANNY, Leila Slimani

  

Leila Slimani is the first Moroccan woman to win France’s most prestigious literary prize, the Goncourt, which she won for The Perfect Nanny. A journalist and frequent commentator on women’s and human rights, she is French president Emmanuel Macron’s personal representative for the promotion of the French language and culture. Born in Rabat, Morocco, in 1981, she now lives in Paris with her French husband and their two young children.

This is not your typical crime fiction novel written today. It is like a Simenon or perhaps Ruth Rendell. Louise is hired by a Yuppie could with two small children. Her devotion soon seems pathological to the reader, but the couple sees only her outward self.  The reader is in on just how miserable a life she has. This is a slim, scary book. It almost feels hot in your hand. You don't want to pick it up and you don't want to put it down.

 

Happy Birthday, Phil (79th)

Phil's favorite short story was "The Machine Stops"

by E.M. Forster. He used in many of his classes over the years. 

Happy Birthday.!!

George Kelley 

Kevin Tipple

Jerry House 

TracyK 

Todd Mason

My Alone House

This is my alone house

Where objects placed by

Moving men a year ago

Still turn up in odd places

Where wedding china

Teeters on shelves

Too high for my reach

 I still haven't found our yearbooks

Or the tartan tea cozy, the Delft tile

But I brought the books you loved

Who could abandon Freud and Thoreau

Though the marginalia is impossible to read

There’s the Slipware pottery you collected

And that’s your favorite chair by the window

Look how it’s never faded

This is my alone house

But since you won’t go 

We’ll have to live together 

In my alone house

 

*Regard this poem as cathartic rather than depressive.

My First (Real) Library

 

I grew up in Philadelphia in a neighborhood that was mostly Jewish and Catholic. It was on the northern edge of Philadelphia and most of the homes, all row houses, had been built in the decade before my birth. We were slow to get things like department stores and we took a bus and a subway downtown for most major shopping until I was a teenager. We were also missing a real library, which was a great loss for me. 

A bookmobile was our only library until I was ten. The problem with the bookmobile was it circulated between sections of Philadelphia so access to it wasn’t a daily or even weekly thing. And you had to know what book you wanted when you stepped up to the window. Browsing was half the fun of a library, and we didn’t often get to enter the bookmobile. If you weren’t quick to come up with a title the woman in the bookmobile would hand you whatever book was at her fingertips.

My family did not buy books except for Christmas and birthdays and not even often then. My father did not read anything but newspapers, and my mother wasn’t much of a reader either. So most of the books I read before we got a real library were ones the neighbors passed on. It was mostly boys on our street, so I read a lot of books about horses, cowboys, desert islands and trains. The other type of book that came my way was books of fairy tales and I did not have much appreciation for those either. I wanted books about girls like me.

But about the time I was ten, the West Oak Lane Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia finished its construction on Washington Lane. The neighborhood was booming by the late fifties and an outdoor mall with a Gimbels Department Stores and a library suddenly turned up.  The library was a magical place for me. Every Friday after school, I walked to the library and took out the five books we were allowed. I read exactly the sort of books you would expect, stories about girls who became nurses or teachers or detectives.

Mrs. Robinson was the children’s librarian, and unusual for the day, she was Black. I had seen so few Black people in my life that I didn’t even realize she was black until my mother told me. She was a wonderful mentor for me as she tried mightily to move me away from the very pedestrian books I was drawn to and onto ones that had some literary or historical value. She was especially eager to promote biographies. To this end, she even allowed me to wander in the adult section. The adult section was physically blocked off at that time and she checked to see what I had chosen and checked it out for me. Since I was ten by the time the library was finished, it was not long before I could take out adult books without her permission (and up to 12 at a time).

I hope that I went back to see Mrs. Robinson to tell her I appreciated her interest in me, but I am not sure that I did. I have had a lifelong love affair with libraries and books and I credit much of it to that vibrant  and enthusiastic young woman I met in 1958.  

 TELL ME ABOUT YOUR FIRST LIBRARY EXPERIENCES

Monday, Monday

 

HULU is streaming MOONLIGHTING. I have only rewatched the pilot, but Willis and Shepherd had incredible chemistry from the get-go. The case they were solving left a lot to be desired though. Maybe none of those eighties-nineties detective shows had great plots. Also watched the first episode of the first season of ANNIKA and the first two episodes of LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY (APPLE).

On Saturday my former community's library had an author's fair where about a dozen authors played to an audience of...none. It was pouring rain and it's a very small community. I felt sorry for the library, which had purchased a lot of very nice nibbles for the non-event. The woman next to me had written a memoir of the day in 1985 when her father murdered her mother and burned their house down. Or should I say, she hired a ghost writer to write the story. She brought 100 copies of the book along with all sorts of handouts and electronic paraphernalia.

Yesterday I went to a 'Brunch with Mozart' event with two women I didn't know at all. I had met them at the Senior Center a few days earlier and it seemed like a good idea. And you know what, it was. The musicians were all members of the DSO and the brunch was incredible. Both women were interesting and we plan to go to the next event in November.

I purchased tickets to see the Taylor Swift film on Thursday because my friend (89 yo) has been anxious to see it since in went up on the marquis months ago.  I could not name one Taylor Swift song, but it's an event and on a TH it should not be too crowded.

Reading. In a reading funk right now. I have been wishing for a good ghost story but not the bloody kind. 

And we won't go near the political news. 

What about you? What are you up to?

FFB: THE SEARCHERS, Glen Frankel

 

Most western-lovers would rank this film among the top five westerns of all time. And THE SEARCHERS: THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN LEGEND by Glenn Frankel does much to help you understand why.

Frankel begins his story with the real life story of Cynthia Ann Parker. In 1836 Cynthia Ann Parker was kidnapped by Comanches in East Texas. Other family members were killed but Cynthia was taken and spent years among the Comanches, never really adjusting to the life of a white woman after her return.

Frankel goes on to explore Comanche culture, the fate of the Texas families who came into contact with the Comanches and the story of the particular people who took Cynthia Ann, in particular.

He then turns his focus to Alan Le May, the author of the novel that told the story, providing a nice biography of his career and how he came to write this book.

And finally we come to John Ford and the movie. He paints an interesting picture of Ford, of Hollywood at the time, and of course, of the movie's star, John Wayne. He explains to us why the film is such a great one. And how Wayne created such an indelible impression in it.

This is a terrific book. The author has a knack for telling you exactly as much as you want to know and presenting it in a interesting way. I have read books like this one before--how they made CASABLANCA for instance. This is by far the most erudite and comprehensive study of a movie I have read. Highly recommended.

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY "Silver Water" Amy Bloom

 

https://bdhs.wayne.k12.in.us/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/silver_water_by_amy_bloom.pdf

 

An essay in the Sunday NYT discussed this story and what it meant to the author of the piece in learning how to write.  Amy Bloom has always been a favorite of mine and I surely have read this one before in various collections. 

The story begins with the older of two sisters, a teenager, breaking into an aria in the parking lot of an opera house where they have just seen La Traviata. The applause at the end from others patrons returning to their cars, is about the last happy note in this story, which feels too real not to be at least somewhat based on Bloom's life. (Although she trained as a psychotherapist too)

Rosa has a psychotic breakdown soon after that incident and the rest of the story details her family's attempts (so many, so lovingly) to get her help. Her illness disrupts all of their lives (her father himself is a therapist) and her mother probably suffering from a lesser mental illness.

The ending is not unexpected but it does raise a question. What would you have done? 

I know this sort of story isn't for everyone, but I like stories that examine issues around us. Although comic or other types of stories are welcomed too. 

Jerry House

George Kelley 

TracyK 

Steve Lewis 

Still unable to comment on Jerry's post. What am I doing wrong? 

Arthur Prysock

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YpPD5tLgnw

 

Anyone remember him? The character in the novel I am reading (VELVET WAS THE NIGHT) is listening to this album. Boy, that early fifties music was mellow.

Monday, Monday

Saw A HAUNTING IN VENICE, which was about par for the Branaugh series. Not great but tolerable.  I am still reading VELVET IS THE NIGHT at a snail's pace, I went to chair yoga and limber up. I had my physical (everything okay). I went to my writing group where I read four poems that mightily depressed them. I listened to the senior center jazz group practice. Josh and Julie came for lunch. Julie has a new job as the pro-bono coordinator for the law firm whose main office is in Ford Field, where the Detroit Lions play. Can she get us tkts was my question? 

I am still enjoying BEAUTY QUEEN OF JERUSALEM although it's getting too close to what's going on in the world right now. (So too BAND OF BROTHERS) Finished up SEX EDUCATION, which should have ended last year. Watching GOLD on Paramount. Pretty exciting.

On TV, I watched DENIAL Tom  Wilkinson really stole the show.(It's about a Holocaust denier)

That's about it here. What about you? 

Do kids join Scouts anymore? (Circa 1958) We look pretty glum. I don't think this activity suited either of us.

FFB: TURN OF THE MIND, Alice LaPlante

Turn of Mind is the story of a sixty-four year old female hand surgeon accused of a crime she can't remember committing.

This is because she has Alzheimer's, and day by day her insight into her predicament and her life becomes more and more fragile. On good days, she recognizes her children and has memories of her past. But on many days, they are no more familiar to her than her caretaker or a stranger walking down the street.

Dr. Jennifer White is an enigma to the reader too. She seems to have been a rather remote mother, wife and friend. Or is this the disease? Has it taken away the qualities that would make us like her more.

The writing in this novel is highly original as LaPlante captures the elusive quality of Dr. White's life through her cryptic writing. The pages turn quickly and yet, at the end, I felt a bit disappointed. Perhaps it began too late in her disease to have a real feel for who she was.

Likewise the supporting characters seem remote and mysterious. But this is what Alzheimers does to its victims, so how can I fault it? It was certainly a very fine book, but perhaps not as good as I expected. And the mystery of the crime is solved in a rather desultory way.

 

Short Story Wednesday" IN THE GARDEN OF NORTH AMERICAN MARTYRS, Tobias Wolff

 Mary is a college professor who learned early on to be careful of what she said in the classroom and at departmental meetings. She led a bland, circumspect life for which she was unrewarded. Her college closed, her health grew worse. But suddenly a colleague, now at another school, offered her an interview for a good position. She travels there and learns that she is the minority candidate that will never get the job. So she uses her time at a lecture, to say all the things she held back for many years. 

"Next Door" is about a couple enduring the fights next door interwoven with the movie El Dorado.

This is Tobias Wolff's first collection of stories. My favorite piece of writing from him was THIS BOY'S LIFE, a companion piece to THE DUKE OF DECEPTION, by his brother, Geoffrey. I was fortunate to hear both of them speak once in the town where I now live. 

The stories in this collection seem a bit old-fashioned now in how straight forward they are told. I like them like that. 

George Kelley

Jerry House   *Jerry, I could not comment on your blog.

TIME'S One Hundred Best Mysteries and Thrillers

https://time.com/collection/best-mystery-thriller-books/?utm_source=roundup&utm_campaign=20230202&itm_source=taboola.&itm_version:control

Monday, Monday

 

In for a warm spell here and then much colder temps. Watched the movie (Turkish and Croatian) FARAWAY on Netflix, a nice romance. Also THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF JERUSALEM (Netflix), BAND OF BROTHERS (Netflix), UNFORGOTTEN (PBS) and SEX EDUCATION (NETFLIX). Sorry to see the end of RESERVATION DOGS. 

I watch a lot of interviews with filmmakers on Kanopy and You Tube. 

Started DARK RIDE by Lou Berney, listening to Donald Hall's (poet) essays on Hoopla, and the audible version of Megan's BEWARE THE WOMAN. Also about to begin VELVET WAS THE NIGHT Silvia Morena-Garcia for my book group.

What about you?