Category: reading

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Oh no–Lady Marjorie is on the Titanic!

This is a spoiler only if you, like Dr. D. and me, had never watched “Upstairs, Downstairs” and are just now seeing it as consolation for the absence of “Downton Abbey.” Strangely, although there are predictable parallels, we are finding that the earlier series, broadcast from 1971-75, is edgier and grittier, and shows downstairs life as possibly a little closer to what it might have been.

“Why couldn’t they have just killed James?” he asked. We knew the answer: James’s death wouldn’t have resulted in enough interesting plotlines.

Dr. D.’s and my shocked reaction to Lady Marjorie’s fate made me think of an old New Yorker cartoon in which parents are watching a young girl race from the room sobbing as the mother explains, “Beth just died.”

Fiction, on the page on or the screen, exists to draw us in and then play fast and loose with us, kick our feelings to the curb. And the more drawn in we are, the harder we fall.

Isn’t it wonderful?

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Other People’s Memories

Who isn’t captivated by memoirs? For years my most frequent book recommendations have included two memoirs. One was “The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: My Family’s Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World,” by Lucette Lagnado. The other, from the same general area of the world, was “My Father’s Paradise,” Ariel Sabar’s story of his father’s life that began in a 3,000-year-old Aramean-speaking Jewish community in Iraq. More recently I have been among the many readers fascinated by Edmund de Waal’s story of uncovering a remarkable family history he never knew about in “The Hare with Amber Eyes.”

Why do we want to read other people’s stories? The exotic details certainly have appeal. (How exactly did Lucette Lagnado’s grandmother cook those apricots down to a fragrant essence?) But I don’t think it’s just curiosity.

A line I think about often is this one by Willa Cather: “There are only two or three human stories and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.” Certainly I am discovering something about my own life as I read these stories. In a strange way it feels as if the memoirs lead me to discoveries not just about my life as it is, but about what might have been, trying on other circumstances for the satisfying strangeness of the fit.

Case in point, the memoir I am reading right now, “Sipping from the Nile: My Exodus from Egypt.” Yes, another exodus from Egypt. How could Jews leaving Egypt be anything else, and it IS close to Passover, after all. Jean Naggar, the author, grew up under unimaginably privileged circumstances. Her family had lived in Egypt since leaving Spain in 1492 and had, during those centuries, amassed wealth and power almost beyond belief and created a family life of enormous luxury. But here’s the strange thing. While I’m reading of her little footsteps echoing down the endless marble staircases and the kitchen used only one week a year, for Passover, and the countless comforts and pleasures of her golden childhood, I am thinking how much my childhood was like that. Yes, my relatives came to the United States from Russia in the early years of the 20th century with hardly a penny or a belonging aside from my great-grandparents’ wedding samovar that is now in my dining room. But I, like Jean, was a coddled child in a family of loving adults in very close to the same years. I remember the glow of taking my place at the family seder, of taking in the family lore and customs. Not the same customs by a long shot, but nevertheless some of this is my story, too.

As fiercely as if it had never happened before and yet, because it has, a connection exists across miles and cultures. And maybe that’s what memoir does most significantly for us, shows our deep human connections, how, aside from the astonishing details, our stories can be the same. We understand them.

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What women want

The morning news today brought its usual package of anti-woman (anti-person!) outrages. This one was the closing of women’s health clinics in Texas, but no matter. Take your pick–it could have been any one of a hundred stories of ways in which women are ground down around the world. Including here in the United States quite noticeably where it’s open (election) season on women’s rights.

And just in time, my friend Susan Donnelly has sent me this wonderful poem by Ellen Bryant Voigt. Voigt is among the poets I admire greatly when I come across her work and then somehow I forget to seek out more. Not this time though, thanks to Susan’s reminder. What this woman wants right now is more of Voigt’s wise and finely-crafted poetry.


The Wide and Varied World

Women, women, what do they want?

The first ones in the door of the plant-filled office

were the twins, fresh from the upper grades,

their matched coats dangling open.

and then their more compliant brother, leading

the dear stuffed tottering creature — amazing

that she could lift her leg high enough

to cross the threshold to the waiting room.

Then the woman, the patient, carrying the baby

in an infant seat, his every inch of flesh

swaddled against the vicious weather.

Once inside, how skillfully the mother

unwound the many layers —

and now so quickly

must restore them: news from the lab

has passed through the nurse’s sliding window.

The youngest, strapped again into his shell,

fusses for the breast, the twins tease their sister,

the eight-year-old looks almost wise as his mother

struggles into her coat with one hand and with the other

pinches his sweaty neck, her hissed threats

swarming his face like flies.

Now she’s gone.

The women who remain don’t need to speak.

Outside, snow falls in the streets

and quiet hills, and seems, in the window,

framed by the room’s continuous greenery,

to obliterate the wide and varied world.

We half-smile, half-nod to one another.

One returns to her magazine.

One shifts gently to the right arm

her sleeping newborn, unfurls the bud of its hand.

One of us takes her turn in the inner office

where she submits to the steel table

and removes from her body its stubborn wish.

We want what you want, only

we have to want it more.

— Ellen Bryant Voigt

in The Lotus Flowers

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/ellen-bryant-voigt

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Words of advice

When I was a child I became intrigued by a book on the family bookshelf, a big thick one, dark blue, by Emily Post. Its words of advice have never failed to steer me in the right direction on the critical everyday questions of leaving a calling card or addressing an ambassador. They have also, gentle reader, given me insight into the later novels of Henry James.

I found–and continue to find–the book a wonderful glimpse into another age. And what I took in, too, was the underlying message, not of snobbishness, which it often stands accused of, but of consideration for one’s fellow human beings and of a democratic idea that establishing rules everyone can know can allow anyone to feel at ease no matter the social situation

Of course fast forward to the 21st century and the rules have become a little muddled. It’s still easy to know which fork to use, but other issues are less clear. Which is exactly why we’re drawn–and by we I mean me–to advice columns. How to navigate the intricacies of ex and step and blended familial ties, the appropriate reaction to the cell phone on the dinner table, the friending and unfriending of friends and unfriends. We need advice.

Some of my favorite comes every Sunday in Philip Galanes’ Social Q’s column in the New York Times Styles section. His answers feel like the perfect mix of snark and compassion. He seems to recognize that since we’re all in this together why make anyone’s life harder than it needs to be.

Galanes has a new book coming out soon, a compilation of the columns. It’s called ” Social Q’s: How to Survive the Quirks, Quagmires, and Quandaries of Today.” Ah, quite. I’m looking forward to reading it. Maybe you’d like it, too.

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Punctuation rules!

The news was shocking. To me, at least. Well, apparently to quite a few other people, too. A snarky piece in the HuffPo said that, ho hum, the serial comma is out and who cares.

The news was that Oxford University had updated its style guide and was discontinuing use of the serial comma, also known as the Oxford comma. This is the comma that comes–or not–before a conjunction in a series of three or more: e.g. red, white, and blue instead of red, white and blue. Or eats, shoots, and leaves.

News of the demise comes just as I am hearing the term Oxford comma for the first time. It’s a very good upgrade, I think, since serial has those unfortunate connections with words like “killer.” Though there’s always “serial drama,” which I like.

Whatever it’s called I think it’s a good idea. It just makes grammatical sense. There’s a symmetry in the way it looks on the page. And there’s a nice sense of pacing. It sounds, in your head, the way you’d say it. It doesn’t rush you to the final element. Will we need to say it faster without the comma?

The article is followed by a string of comments, some of them irate and one of them mine (“it’s a good day when people care so much about punctuation”). And many people were all a-Twitter about it.

You can also see a video of a song called “Oxford Comma” by the rock group Vampire Weekend. I’m learning a lot. And I also see that the Oxford comma is sometimes called the Harvard comma. How could I not have known that, right here in 02138 in the shadow of the Great University itself?

Anyhow, I have to apologize for upsetting you. Turns out to be a cruel hoax. Relax. Stand down. Oxford University issued a statement that, contrary to reports, no change in its policy on use of the serial comma is planned. Except maybe to start calling it the Harvard comma?

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Small Connections

One of my little favorite New York Times features is Metropolitan Diary, a column of little stories of the city that appears on Monday. Over the years I’ve been in it a couple of times and am even in the book of collected columns.

In today’s Metropolitan Diary a contributor named Mimi Alperin, wrote that, in the ’70s, her son would travel to and from school on the Fifth Avenue bus. During his daily trips he made friends with two of the route’s bus drivers. Alperin related how her son insisted on inviting one of the drivers to his bar mitzvah. And she told how, just recently, the other driver saw her husband and asked about the son, who is now an adult with his own children.

The story involved two things I like to think about. One is what’s now called “free range children.” Back when I and my children grew up they were just called “children.” But now that the world feels dangerous to us, we are reluctant to let children do the things we took for granted, like taking a bus or walking around the neighborhood alone.

It’s astounding how we no longer notice the absence of children. Not little children who appropriately cling to a parent’s hand when they’re walking down the street. But children who are old enough to begin, one small supervised step at a time, learning how to navigate in the world on their own. There’s a street near my house where, from time to time I have glimpsed a boy, maybe about 10 or 12, walking. Just walking. By himself! A free-range child! I am always happy to see him and I applaud the courage of the parent who has gone against fears of danger and criticism to allow him this freedom.

I also live near a college attended by some of the world’s smartest kids who seem not to know how to cross a street safely. I always think they could have benefitted from a little dose of free-range activity when they were younger.

The second thing I loved about Alperin’s story was the way it acknowledged the relationships we have with all the people in our lives with whom we share an almost unseen connection. We don’t know their names and we hardly do more than nod or smile to each other. The person bringing our mail. The supermarket cashier we like to go to even if her line is a little longer. The gas station attendant who knows right away that we want regular and we’ll be paying cash. It’s these almost unseen interactions that make a neighborhood, that help make us who we are. If we move or if they retire we won’t say goodbye. We might not even notice the absence for a while. But these faces we recognize make our daily lives recognizable to ourselves.

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Our ancestors were wandering Arameans

For those of you who haven’t spent time around a Passover seder table, the reference to wandering Arameans comes from a classic line in the seder narrative. For me, Passover 2011–or, more properly 5771–carries faint echoes of a book I just finished about a father who was, at least in terms of language, a wandering Aramean.

The book is “My Father’s Paradise” by Ariel Sabar. Sabar is an American-born, California-raised journalist. His father, Yona Sabar, was born into a 2700-year-old Kurdish Jewish community in Iraq and ultimately became a world-renowned scholar of Aramaic, the nearly -extinct language he grew up speaking.

The book is a fascinating account of Yona Sabar’s journey and of Ariel Sabar’s often fraught relationship with a father different from all the other Southern California fathers. Its references to Baghdad and Mosul and other places so prominently in the news in our new century, remind us of another aspect of the area’s long history. It tells us of a time when such harmony and respect existed among Muslim, Christian, and Jew that Muslims would share the “holiday bread”–matzah, of their Jewish neighbors. And, for me, it opened a door on a community I knew nothing about.

But at this season of sitting around a table and handing down ancient tales, the book was a reminder of how much can be lost between generations and how much the transmission of our history–human, familial, cultural–relies on retelling the stories. Retelling and listening.

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Sticking it to books

Where was that book? I was sure I had it on the shelf, but now, when I want to read it again, I can’t find it. (The book was “Had Slaves,” a beautiful, powerful collection of poems by Catherine Sasanov written after her discovery that her family, three generations ago, had owned other human beings.)

Well, I’ll order up a used copy from Amazon…hmmm…”very good condition.” Ok. Click

So imagine my horror when I opened the package and found this lovely book with a sticker marring its very good condition. The sticker said, “Sell me back” and had the name of the book reseller I had bought it from. Ok, I’ll just peel the label off…but no. This was stuck on with world-class adhesive. Supersonic jumbo jets could be held together with this adhesive. When I finally managed to remove a little edge, the spot remained sticky. So just forget about putting it on the shelf, unless I wanted Sasanov to be permanently attached to Schor.

In horror I sent an e-mail to Donovan, the head of the company that sold the book and got a note back saying that most of their business was in books for college students who “typically do not have any intention of keeping a book.”

I’ll leave aside the thought that “Had Slaves” would be a book one would want to get rid of. This wasn’t “Introduction to Organic Chemistry” after all. I’m going for the bigger picture here, the total disconnect between the people who sell back their books as soon as they no longer “need” them and those of us who add and add and add books to our shelves. Since I’ve had my Kindle I’ve given more thought to this–which books do I simply want to read and which do I want to own?

Ownership of type on a screen does feel fundamentally different from ownership of a bound set of pages. And I’m guessing that the prevalence of e-books changes our relationship to the physical object called “book.”

Donovan, whose company stuck the sticker on “Had Slaves,” thanked me for my note and said they were checking to see if their supplier could find stickers that could peel off easily. That made me feel better. Until I realized that he had said stickers that “peal off.” Was that like crossing his fingers behind his back, or in this case, his screen? If so, I hope he doesn’t have any of my books.

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Snow day

We’re snowed in, we lucky ones. The unlucky ones are out bravely slogging their way through it to get to someplace they need to be. The mail delivery got here, though it made me feel guilty–he trudged here just to bring a couple of catalogs and a magazine I don’t care about.

On Facebook it looks as if people are home everywhere–everybody changing their profile photos, adding 8, 10, 26 new friends. A sure sign everyone’s snowed in. Also, a sign that our concept of “friend” has been co-opted, but that’s another story or at least another blog post. I was recently at a party where one of my favorite people–yes, a friend!–noted that he had more friends in the room than he had on Facebook.

The snow is piling up outside and I’m reading and writing and making two kinds of soup, though I have doubts about one of them. We’ll see. Another friend sent me his annual list of the books he read this past year. I am awed. Haven’t even finished reading the list yet.

Last night I finished Pat Barker’s “Ghost Road,” the final book in her trilogy about World War I. Beautifully written and fascinating, just as many of you said. I continue to read “The Known World” by Edward P Jones, but find I need to take it in just a little at a time–it’s harsh.

Meanwhile, time to poke a little at the fire and feel grateful for warmth and firewood and for many other things, including friends on the phone and online.

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What I read on my vacation: a bunch more and two really special ones

My vacation this year was very book-intensive, especially since I was trying out my new Kindle on some, still reading the old-fashioned way on others. Here’s a run-down, quick and less so, along with a two very enthusiastic recommendations:

“God on the Rocks,” by Jane Gardam: Gardam is the author of many novels published in England, but only a few, most notably the wonderful “Old Filth” and its companion, “The Man in the Wooden Hat,” have been released in the U.S. So when I saw this one, written in 1978 but available here only in 2010, I grabbed it. In hard copy–an addition to my actual bookshelf. It’s the story of a child, 8-year-old Margaret, observing the people around her, including her overwhelmed mother, Ellie; her religious fanatic of a father; the maid who takes Margaret for outings and has a little recreation herself; and several people from Ellie’s past. It was very good. Gardam’s books ARE very good. But I have to say I wasn’t as wild about it as I was about the first two of hers I read. Still, any Jane Gardam is better than no Jane Gardam. She’s going to be reading at Brookline Booksmith on Feb. 16. I’m definitely planning to be there.

“Mary Ann in August,” by Armistead Maupin: Some people read mysteries; some read sci-fi; my go-to fun books are Maupin’s “Tales of the City” series. I was delighted to read this latest addition, though I’m not sure it would enchant the uninitiated. But for me, another of its pleasures was realizing that there was one in the series that I had missed, “Michael Tolliver Lives.” So–here’s where the Kindle is especially fun–I downloaded it and in just a few seconds I was ready to fill in the gaps in my knowledge of my old friends from Barbary Lane.

“All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost” by Lan Samantha Chang: This is a novel about poets and writing poetry, written by the director of the legendary University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. The book is set in a similarly rarified and competitive nest of writing students, disciples of an influential and charismatic teacher, Miranda Sturgis, whose professional stature and long shimmering hair are evocative of a closer to home poetry goddess. This novel brought up the classic questions of whether or not writing can be taught, what a poet’s goals should be, and where creative satisfaction can come from. There are seekers here–of fame and fortune, of pure and non-careerist art, of the roots of creativity, of roots. Nothing comes easily, even when it seems to, no one is immune to doubt, and sometimes life interferes with creation. Just like real life.

“Rescue” by Anita Shreve: I was at the beach and I often find Shreve’s books fun to read. This one, not so much.

Now, two gems, “Great House” by Nicole Krauss and “Russian Winter” by Daphne Kalotay. I loved these books, and probably for similar reasons–complexity and nuance of character and plot and ambition of scope. Each book bounces through time and place. Each is an engaging read. And at the center of each are flawed human beings with secrets, half-buried memories, and histories of loss.

“Great House” could almost have been called “great desk” for much of the story, since, at its core, is a hulking desk that moves from person to person. But toward the end, the enlarging and facinating meaning of the term “great house” becomes clear. “Russian Winter” weaves together the worlds of ballet, Soviet Russia, estate jewelry, auction houses, poetry, and the translation from one culture to another of both literature and lives. And there’s also romance. A lovely book. Well, both of them. And good meaty tales for winter. Read both!