I felt that Father’s altogether human blindness could not be held against him. The dangerous ramifications that existed for his wife and children when he undertook to extricate himself from his embarrassing and humiliating situation in Nashville he could not have been expected to foresee.
A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor won the Pulitzer Prize in 1987.
I’m not sure how I feel about this book. On the one hand it has a real ’sense of place’ for the South; on the other hand, it can leave you wondering what all the fuss is about. Set in Tennessee, it is basically a story about how a domineering father and a move from Nashville to Memphis affected a family.
But again, I ask — why all the fuss? Why would a move leave everyone in the family so altered? What if they had moved to California instead of another southern city in the same state? What if they had had to move every year as some families do? What if they had had to endure much more painful occurrences such as divorce, death, sickness, or violence? So what if the father thwarted some of their plans? Move away. Act like a grown up and make your own decisions instead of acting like a child for the rest of your life.
Or perhaps that was Peter Taylor’s point. After living in the South for over 15 years, I’ve seen some maneuvering behind the pleasantries, some manipulation behind the politeness. No one saying what they really mean or feel. The exaggeration of small problems into a lifelong battle. Not being able to get away from family, on both the parents’ and the adult children’s side. This novel has all of the above. In that sense and in the descriptions of both cities, I do feel the book conveys a strong sense of the South, but some readers may be bored by the relatively small problems faced by the family in this book. In addition, there were quite a few instances in the story where Taylor seems to repeat himself and I found myself asking, ‘Didn’t he just say that?’ Very strange.
Recommended for those interested in Southern literature or Pulitzer winners.
I must confess that I read this book to kill three birds with one stone. I needed a ‘Y’ title, a Canadian book, and a fantasy book so I could fit it into three challenges. I had always wanted to read de Lint anyway, so it seemed like a good fit. But, it really wasn’t. This was my first foray into urban fantasy and while I’m not giving up on it yet, I don’t know if I really like the genre.
Cat Midhir is an isolated Canadian fantasy writer who finds inspiration through her dreams. Suddenly, though, she has a severe writer’s block and cannot find the reason for it. She confides in Peter, a bookshop owner, and the two become friends. Peter helps her to open up and even thinks he can fix her up with his friend Ben. Meanwhile, Cat soon realizes she is being stalked and is afraid to go to her own home at night. Afraid of being alone, she begins spending more and more time with Peter.
This story actually reminded me a bit of Lisey’s Story by Stephen King. I was uncomfortable with aspects of that story, and was even more so with this one. Yarrow was much too gritty for my taste, but I’m usually in the minority on that score. On the positive side, de Lint knows how to build characters. I really, really liked the ‘good guys’ in this and really hated the bad ones. I probably will try at least one more of de Lint’s books before I make a final judgment. Any suggestions?
Dear Mr. Henshaw is definitely one of my favorite Newbery titles. I really, really enjoyed it. I listened to it on audio with my 15 year old son, and though he is much older than the target audience, he very much enjoyed it as well.
Leigh is a boy whose teacher gives him the assignment of writing to a favorite author. Leigh does and asks Mr. Henshaw some questions required of the assignment. When he gets a letter in response, Mr. Henshaw asks him a set of questions as well. Leigh continues to write Mr. Henshaw and they develop a correspondence over the years. Leigh wants to become a writer, and he asks Mr. Henshaw for writing advice but also tells him of some deeply personal events occurring at home, such as his parents’ divorce.
This is an excellent book that can definitely be appreciated by both children and adults, especially if they are struggling with a major life event.
“The place I like best in this world is the kitchen.”
I didn’t quite get to Kitchen for the Japanese Challenge, but I’m still glad I read it shortly afterwards. I liked the book, but I didn’t love it.
Food and kitchens play a central role int he book, but it’s essentially about two people finding their way through the grief process. Mikage has recently lost her grandmother, whom she lived with, and her friend Yoichi and his mother Eriko take her in. Yoichi ends up losing someone close to him as well, and the bond between the two of them becomes even closer.
Note: This book has been added as one of the new titles in the latest edition of the 1001 list.
1988, 1993 for the English translation;105 pp. 4/5
I read this book because I needed an ‘I’ author and another book that fit the Canadian Challenge. This short novel is essentially about two sisters’ obsession with Yoshi Takahshi, their Japanese concert pianist neighbor. I love classical music so I was hoping music would play a big part in the story. Although music obviously plays a role, the bulk of the plot centers around the girls’ adoration of Yoshi.
The girls use every excuse they can to visit him and even start to decorate their rooms in a spartan, Japanese style. Yoshi encourages the girls and even invites them to accompany him on an overnight trip to one of his concerts. As you can probably guess, a s*xual situation develops. The book flashes back and forth from when Jean and Collette were young teenagers and both had crushes on Yoshi to the present in which they are now grown. Even as adult women, their obsession continues.
I most enjoyed the parts of the book where it concentrated on Jean’s struggle to continue on with her own music — especially the conversation she has with her father, also a musician. This book was the basis for a Canadian film called The Pianist (different than the film with the same name starring Adrien Brody).
“I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.”
Very uncomfortable reading for me. Disturbing and (literally) haunting. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and written by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, Beloved tells the story of a family’s life before and after their escape from slavery. Sethe and her daughter Denver live in isolation at 124 in the countryside near Cincinnati. Also ‘present’ in the house is the ghost of Sethe’s other daughter, nicknamed Beloved, who died when she was two. Sethe fled to Ohio from Kentucky many years before after escaping from her owners at ‘Sweet Home.’ Also at Sweet Home was Paul D., who has now come to Ohio to look for Sethe. Soon after Paul D.’s arrival at 124, he drives the baby ghost out; however it’s not long before a strange young woman is found near the house and who calls herself Beloved.
I had a very difficult time following the story at first, and I’d probably understand it much better if I re-read it at some point. The storyline unravels as it goes along, and we see bit by bit the horrors that Sethe escaped from. Her actions are also called into question. Her mental state is dubious. But whose wouldn’t be after undergoing the ordeals she has gone through?
“Other people went crazy, why couldn’t she?”
I didn’t enjoy this book, but I don’t think readers are supposed to. The subject matter is difficult, and I don’t like hearing the horror stories of Beloved or Maus. At the same time, I realize they are necessary and I’ll continue to force myself to read them.
Brilliant. Powerful. Poignant. Intensely personal. In graphic novel format and the winner of a Pulitzer Prize Special Award in 1992, Maus is Vladek Spiegelman’s story of his survival of Auschwitz during World War II. It is also a story of the father-son relationship between Vladek and Art. In this first book, Art interviews his father about his intense past. Each nationality is represented as a different animal. The Jews are mice, the Germans are cats, and the Poles are pigs. We not only see the absolute horrors of Auschwitz from a survivor’s viewpoint, we also see one survivor’s son deal with the guilt of just being the son of a survivor.
I first heard about this book through Dewey for the graphic novel challenge. Thanks so much, Dewey, for introducing me to this astounding work.
I loved this book, perhaps even more than The Handmaid’s Tale, which I also rated 4.5. Whereas The Handmaid’s Tale was mostly a cautionary tale about men’s subjugation of women, Cat’s Eye is about girls subjugating and intimidating other girls. Elaine Risley as an adult is a successful artist, but as a little girl she was bullied by her friends and their ringleader, Cordelia. What makes little girls (and big ones!) do this, and why do the ones being tormented let them do it?
In an interview in the back of the book, Atwood states this is her most autobiographical novel, and she states the theme of the book as follows:
Cat’s Eye is about how girlhood traumas continue into adult life. Girls have a culture marked by secrets and shifting alliances, and these can cause a lot of distress. The girl who was your friend yesterday is not your friend today, but you don’t know why. These childhood power struggles color friendships between women. I’ve asked women if they fear criticism more from men or from other women. The overwhelming answer was: “From women.”
In typical Atwood fashion, there were also themes concerning male-female relationships. In one painting of Elaine’s, called Falling Women, she describes what was meant in the artwork:
There were no men in this painting, but it was about men, the kind who caused women to fall. I did not ascribe any intentions to these men. They were like the weather, they didn’t have a mind. They merely drenched you or struck you like lightning and moved on, mindless as blizzards. Or they were like rocks, a line of sharp slippery rocks with jagged edges. You could walk with care along between the rocks, picking your steps and if you slipped you’d fall and cut yourself, but it was no use blaming the rocks.
That must be what was meant by fallen women. Fallen women were women who had fallen onto men and hurt themselves. There was some suggestion of downward motion, against one’s will and not with the will of anyone else. Fallen women were not pulled-down women or pushed women, merely fallen.
Definitely one to read if you’ve enjoyed other Atwood novels.
The Life & Times of Michael K won the Booker Prize in 1983. Written by Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee, it is set in South Africa during a civil war. Michael is a gardener in his earlier thirties who has a harelip. He was institutionalized by his mother when he was a child, but at the beginning of the book when she is old and very ill, she calls for him. She would like him to take her to the village where she grew up. Getting the proper paperwork for the train is practically impossible because of the war, so finally they give up on it and try to go there on their own.
Many things happen to Michael on the trip. He is captured and made to work for awhile, and then released. He finds what he thinks is the farm where his mother was raised and makes himself a home (if you can call it that) there. Struggling to survive and evade the government, in the midst of it all he still wants to be a gardener and plants a small pumpkin patch, which he guards and tends with fervor.
The book is told in three parts. Parts I and III describe the storyline from Michael’s perspective. Part II is told in first person by a doctor who tries to understand Michael when he is brought under his care. This was a thought-provoking book and I enjoyed it, though I could have done without some scenes at the end. I’ll definitely read more by Coetzee.
A quote:
I could live here forever, he thought, or till I die. Nothing would happen, every day would be the same as the day before, there would be nothing to say.
I read Strangers by Taichi Yamada for the Japanese literature challenge. This was my first book for the challenge, and I don’t recollect ever having read a book translated from the Japanese before. I first heard about it from kimbofo at Reading Matters, who gave it a perfect 5 star rating.
It’s very atmospheric. I found myself thinking about it long after reading the novel, and the story somewhat reminded me of an M. Night Shyamalan movie. Harada lives in a building on a very busy street in Tokyo. However, most of the units in the building have been converted to office space and, consequently, there are only two tenants there after hours. He’s a little spooked by the quietness in the building at night but chalks it up to being recently divorced and unused to being alone.
One night he decides to go to his hometown where he meets a couple who are the spitting image of his long-dead parents. He keeps going back to see them to try to determine who they really are. There are other strange happenings in his life that I won’t spoil for you here.
It’s a short book that can be read in a few hours, and I encourage anyone interested in world literature to read it. The ‘quiet suspense’ of the novel impressed me and made me want to read more by this author.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
I felt that Father’s altogether human blindness could not be held against him. The dangerous ramifications that existed for his wife and children when he undertook to extricate himself from his embarrassing and humiliating situation in Nashville he could not have been expected to foresee.
Dear Mr. Henshaw is definitely one of my favorite Newbery titles. I really, really enjoyed it. I listened to it on audio with my 15 year old son, and though he is much older than the target audience, he very much enjoyed it as well.
I read this book because I needed an ‘I’ author and another book that fit the Canadian Challenge. This short novel is essentially about two sisters’ obsession with Yoshi Takahshi, their Japanese concert pianist neighbor. I love classical music so I was hoping music would play a big part in the story. Although music obviously plays a role, the bulk of the plot centers around the girls’ adoration of Yoshi.
“I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.”
Brilliant. Powerful. Poignant. Intensely personal. In graphic novel format and the winner of a Pulitzer Prize Special Award in 1992, Maus is Vladek Spiegelman’s story of his survival of Auschwitz during World War II. It is also a story of the father-son relationship between Vladek and Art. In this first book, Art interviews his father about his intense past. Each nationality is represented as a different animal. The Jews are mice, the Germans are cats, and the Poles are pigs. We not only see the absolute horrors of Auschwitz from a survivor’s viewpoint, we also see one survivor’s son deal with the guilt of just being the son of a survivor.
I loved this book, perhaps even more than 
The Life & Times of Michael K won the Booker Prize in 1983. Written by Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee, it is set in South Africa during a civil war. Michael is a gardener in his earlier thirties who has a harelip. He was institutionalized by his mother when he was a child, but at the beginning of the book when she is old and very ill, she calls for him. She would like him to take her to the village where she grew up. Getting the proper paperwork for the train is practically impossible because of the war, so finally they give up on it and try to go there on their own.
I read Strangers by Taichi Yamada for the Japanese literature challenge. This was my first book for the challenge, and I don’t recollect ever having read a book translated from the Japanese before. I first heard about it from 
