Devon Trevarrow Flaherty's Blog, page 59

Woah, this list took me a long time to scrape together. Please don’t make too much of it (as I have not read the vast majority of the books), but I wanted a place to start with titles that didn’t appear in my largely American- and Western European-heavy best books lists. This list is not perfect for many reasons, and here are a few:

Many great books around the world have not been translated into English or are not currently available in English. I tried to stick to those that have been translated, since I plan to read them and my French is quite rusty.
I meant to make a list of novels, but at times nonfiction, travel fiction, or whatever made it on without me noticing. Or maybe sometimes I did notice.
The writing of a region is sometimes hard to define. These lists include authors who were from the region, wrote about the region, or lived(s) in the region. It depends on how the lists that I pulled for defined their “local” authors and books.
It was much more difficult to find lists of classics from around the world, than contemporary literature. And some regions, it was just super difficult to find lists of any sort.
Some regions have more censorship and oppression than others. I hope I found my way around some if this. Minorities are likely underrepresented, and some countries are liable to be grossly misrepresented.
And most of all, regions are not completely distinct. I tried to come up with some sort of geographical and cultural way to lump huge sections of the world, but I was only mildly successful. Also, some books overlapped and some are probably completely on the wrong list. I did try.

Lastly, I began each regional section with an anthology or two, hoping for some sort of introduction to the literature of that region. The whole list is kicked off with a list of world anthologies. It’s a boring list, but it’s great to keep in mind before tackling a certain region.

The categories and titles below are in absolutely no particular order (except for how they popped in my head or appeared in my research.) (Also note that I did not italicize titles. I had spent way too much time on this list, as it was.)

WORLD

The Norton Anthology of World Literature (collection)
Animal Tales, Sanderson (collection)
An Anthology of World Poetry (collection)
The Art of the Tale (collection)
The Enlightened Heart (collection)
Expanding Horizons (collection)
Fragment from a Lost Diary, and Other Stories (collection)
Gems from the World’s Best Classics (collection)
Giant Talk (collection)
Global Cultures (collection)
Global Voices (collection)
Great Short Stories of the World (collection)
The HarperCollins World Reader (collection)
Kavyavishwa (collection)


Literature Across Cultures (collection)
Literatures of Asia, Africa, and Latin American (collection)
Longman Anthology of World Literature (collection)
Magical Realist Fiction (collection)
Modern Literature of the Non-Western World (collection)
One World of Literature (collection)
The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories (collection)
The Oxford Book of World Stories (collection)
Poems for the Millennium (collection)
The Poetry of Our World (collection)
Technicians of the Sacred (collection)
Twenty-Five Short Plans (collection)
The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry (collection)
Voices International (collection)
Voyages (collection)
World Literature, Rosenberg (collection)
World Poetry (collection)
World Writers Today (collection)
Worlds of Fiction (collection)
The Norton Anthology of World Religions (collections)
The Norton Anthology of African-American Literature (collection)
The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Fiction (collection)
The Norton Anthology of Children’s Literature (collection)
The Norton Anthology of Drama (collection)
The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature (collection)
The Norton Anthology of Literature By Women (collection)
The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry (collection)
The Norton Anthology of Poetry (collection)
The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction (collection)
The Norton Book of Science Fiction (collection)

NORTH AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST

Tablet and Pen, Reza Aslan (anthology)
The Ancient Near East (anthology)
Beer in the Snooker Club, Waguih Gali
Stealth, Sonallah Ibrahim
Brooklyn Heights, Miral al-Tahawy
The Heron, Ibrahim Aslan
Bleeding of the Stone, Ibrahim al-Koni
The Polymath, Bensalem Himmich
For Bread Alone, Mohamed Choukri
Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, Assia Sjebar
The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris, Leila Marouane
Nedjma, Kateb Yacine
The Palm House, Tarek al-Tayeb
Scent of Marie-Claire, Habib Selmi
“The Way to Poppy Street,” Rachida al-Charni
The Gorilla, Kamel Riahi
Children of Gebelawi, Naguib Mahfouz
In the Country of Men, Hisham Matar
The American Granddaughter, Inaam Kachachi
The Arch and the Butterfly, Mohammed Achari
Azazeel, Youssef Ziedan
The Dove’s Necklace, Raja Alem
Frankenstein in Baghdad, Ahmed Saadawi
Girls of Riyadh, Rajaa al-Sanea
The Hashish Waiter, Khairy Shaladi
The Lady from Tel Aviv, Rabai al-Mahdoun
A Land Without Jasmine, Wajdi Al-Ahdal
The Loved Ones, Alia Mamdouh
The Magic of Turquiose, Mai Khaled
Maryam’s Maze, Mansoura Ez-Eldin
Only in London, Hanan al-Shaykh
Spectres, Radwa Ashour
The Tiller of Waters, Hoda Barakat
Under the Persimmon Tree, Suzanne Fisher Staples
The Day the Leader Was Killed, Naguib Mahfouz
A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Housseni
The Kite Runner, Khlaed Housseni
Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
Dreams of Trespass, Fatima Mernissi
The White Castle, Orhan Panuk
Women at Point Zero, Nawal El Saadawi
Zaat, Son’allah Ibrahim
An Apartment Called Freedom, Ghazi Algo
Autumn Equinox, Jabbur Duwayhi
The Bleeding of the Stone, Yusuf Al-Quaid
Daughter of Damascus, Siham Tergeman
Fate of a Cockroach and Other Plays, Al-Ha-kim Tawfiq
Dreams of Trespass, Fatima Mernissi
The White Castle, Orhan Pamuk
Last Chapter, Leila Abouzeid
Memed My Hawk, Yasar Kemal
Memory in the Flesh, Ahlan Mosteghanemi
Only in London, Hanan Al-Shaykh
The Other Place, Ibrahim Abdel Mequid
The Square Moon, Ghada Samman
War in the Land of Egypt, Yusuf Al-Qaid
West of the Joran, Laila Halaby
Zayni Barakat, Gamal Al-Ghitani
Sitt Marie Rose, Etel Adnan
A Map of Home, Randa Jarrar
Cinnamon, Samar Yazbek
Under the Copenhagen Sky, Hawra al-Nadawi
The Girl Who Fell to Earth, Sophia al-Maria
Loves Stories on al-Asha Street, Badria al-Bishir
Memory in the Flesh, Ahlam Mosteghanemi
Black Suits You, Ahlam Mosteghanemi
The Tent, Miral al-Tahawy
The Blue Aubergine, Miral al-Tahawy
The Forty Rules of Love, Elif Shafak
Nidaa Khoury’s poetry
Season of Migration to the North, Tayeb Salih
Miramar, Naguib Mahfouz
I Saw Ramallah, Mourid Barghouti
Distant View of a Minaret, Alifa Rifat
Palace Walk, Naguib Mahfouz

AFRICA

African Literature, Tejumola Olaniyan (anthology)
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
A Bend in the River, V. S. Naipaul
My Traitor’s Heart, Rian Malan
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
The No. Ladies Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith
Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Cry, The Beloved Country, Alan Paton
The Grass is Singing, Doris Lessing
The Bride Price, Buchi Emecheta
A Dry White Season, Andre P. Brink
July’s People, Nadine Gordimer
Sosu’s Call, Meshack Asare
Une si longe lettre, Mariama Ba
Terra Sonambula, Mia Couto
Nervous Conditions, Tsitsi Dangarembga
The African Origins of Civilization, Cheikh Anta Diop
L’Amour, La Fantasia, Assia Djebar
The Cairo Trilogy, Naguib Mahfouz
Chaka, Thomas Mafolo
Oeuvre Poetique, Leopold Sedar Senghor
Ake: The Years of Childhood, Wole Soyinka
A Grain of Wheat, Ngugi wa Thiongo
Don’t Let’s Go To the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller
What Is the What, Valentino Achek Deng
Life and Times of Michael K, J.M. Coetzee
The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist, Breyten Breytenbach
Dark Safari, John Bierman
The Fear, Peter Godwin
Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela
Country of My Skull, Antjie Krog
Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
Favorite African Folktales, Nelson Mandela
Gods and Soldiers, Anthology by Penguin
Petal of Blood, Ngugi wa Thiong’o
The Gunny Sack, M.G. Vassanji
The Book of Bones, Boubacar Boris Diop
Minaret, Leila Aboulela

SOUTH ASIA (INCLUDING INDIA)

The Vintage Book of Modern Indian Literature, Chaudhuri (collection)
A Fine Balance, Rohinto Mistry
The Thousand and One Nights, Scheherezade
Heat and Dust, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
All About H. Hatterr, G.V. Desani
Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
The Home and the World, Rabindranath Tagore
The Holder of the World, Bahrati Mukherjee
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer, Cyrus Mistry
The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga
Goat Days, Benyamin
Malgudi Days, R.K. Narayan
The Village by the Sea, Anita Desai
The Red Carpet, Lavanya Sankaran
The Death of Vishnu, Manil Suri
Family Matters, Rohinton Mistry
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, Daniyal Mueenuddin
The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Moshin Hamid
The Wandering Falcon, Jamil Ahmad
A Golden Age, Anam
Sea of Poppies, Amitav Ghosh
Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai
Moth Smoke, Mohsin Hamid
The Immortals, Amit Chaudhuri
Red Earth and Poring Rain, Vikram Chandra
A Passage to India, E.M. Forster
English, August, Upamanyu Chatterjee
A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
India, Patrick French
Sacred Games, Vikram Chandra
Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese
Twilight in Deli, Ahmed Ali
An Obedient Father, Akhil Sharma
The Hungry Tide, Amitav Ghosh
The Shadow Lines, Amitav Ghosh
Fire on the Mountain, Anita Desai
In Custody, Anita Desai
Bumgartner’s Bombay, Anita Desai
The Fig Tree, Aubrey Menen
Kadambari, Banabhatta
Anandamath, Bankim Chandra Chatterki
Trying to Grow, Firdaus Kanga
The Trotter-Nama, Irwin Allen Sealy
Em and the Big Hoom, Jerry Pinto
Nectar in a Seive, Kamal Markandaya
Train to Pakistan, Khushwant Singh
Dehli, Khushwant Singh
Cuckold, Kiran Nagatar
Ravan & Eddie, Kiran Nagatar

EAST AND SOUTHEAST ASIA

A Treasury of Asian Literature (collection)
The Dream of the Red Chamber, Cao Xueqin
Rashomon, Ryunosuke Akutagawa
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki MMurakami
Spring Snow, Yukio Mishima
Diary of a Madman, Lu Xun
An Insular Possession, Timothy Mo
Ilustrado, Miguel Syjuco
Three Sisters, Bi Feiyu
The Garden of Evening Mists, Tan Twan Eng
1Q84, Haruki Murukami
Please Look After Mother, Shin Kyung-Shook
The Boat to Redemption, Su Kong
Wolf Totem, Jiang Rong
The Water Margin, Shi Naian
Journey to the West, Wu Cheng’en
Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Guanzhong Luo
The Art of War, Sun Tzu
The Travels of Marco Polo, Marco Polo
Wild Swans, Jung Chang
To Live, Yu Hua
Red Dust, Ma Jian
Tao Te-Ching
Garlic Ballad, Mo Yan
Dream of Ding Village, Yan Lianke
A Dictionary of Maqiao, Han Shaogong
Endure, Bei Dao
The Tale of Genji, Marusaki Shikubu


Almost Transparent Blue, Ryu Marukami
Death in Midsummer and Other Stories, Yukio Mishima
The Diving Pool, Yoko Ogawa
Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakmi
Kitchen, Banana Yoshimoto
Kokoro, Soseki Natusume
Seven Japanese Tales, Junichiro Tanizaki
Snow Country, Yasunari Kawabata
The Waiting Years, Fukimo Echi
Southeast Asian History Essential Readings, D.R. Sardesai
The English Governess at the Siamese Court, Anna Hariette Leonowens
Perfume Dreams, Andrew Lam
On the Wings of a White Horse, Oni Vatandham
The Girl in the Picture, Denise Chong
Burmese Days, George Orwell
The Gate, Francois Bizot
River of Time, John Swain
A Tale from Bali, Vicki Baum
The Year of Living Dangerously, C.J. Koch
A Road with No End, Mochtar Lubis
Twilight in Djakarta, Mochtar Lubis
A House in Bali, Colin McPhee
The Earth of Mankind, Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Child of All Nations, Pramoedya Ananta Toer
The Girl from the Coast, Pramoedya Ananta Toer
No Harvest but Thorn, Shahnon Ahmad
The Malayan Trilogy, Anthony Burgess
The Soul of Malaya, Henri Fauconnier
Tropic Temper, James Kirkup
Temiar Jungle, John Slimming
The Pepper Garden, John Slimming
And the Rain My Drink, Han Suyin
Land Below the Wind, Agnes Newton Keith
Three Came Home, Agnes Newton Keith
When the Rainbow Goddess Wept, Cecelia Manguerra Brainard
Dusk, F. Sionil Jose
When the Elephants Dance, Tess Uriza Holthe
The Judgement, Chart Korpjitti
Up Country, Nelson Demille
Memoirs of a Pure Spring, Thu Huong Duong
Paradies of the Bling, Thu Huong Duong
The Quiet American, Graham Greene
First They Killed My Father, Luong Ung
The Lost Road to Innocence, Somaly Mam
Kill Anything That Moves, Nick Turse
Embers of War, Frederik Logevall
Catfish and Mandala, Andrew X. Pham
The Unwanted, Kien Nguyen
Mr. Selden’s Map of China, Timothy Brook
The Railway Man, Eric Lomax
Midnight’s Descendents, John Keay
Wallpaper Guides, Ho
The Teardrop Island, Cherry Briggs
Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden

EASTERN EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA (INCLUDING RUSSIA)

Fairy Tales of the Russians and Other Slavs (collection)
Anna Karennina, Leo Tolstoy
A Hero of Our Time, Mikhail Lermontov
Dead Souls, Nikolat Gogol
Oblomov, Ivan Goncharov
Fathers and Sons, Ivan Turgenev
What Is To Be Done?, N.G. Churnyshevsky
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
War and Peace, Lev Tolstoy
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Mother, Maxim Gorky
Eugene Onegin, Alexander Pushkin
Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
And Quiet Flows the Don, Mikhail Sholokhov
Life and Fate, Vassily Grossman
One Day in the Live of Ivan Denisovich, Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The Funeral Party, Lyudmila Ulitskaya
Lolita, Vladimir Nobokov
The Stories of Anton Chekov, Anto Chekov
Pale Fire, Vladimir Nobokov
The Complete Stories of Isaac Babel, Isaac Babel
The Master and the Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
Cyclops, Ranko Marinkovic
Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age, Bohumil Hrabal
Kornel Esti, Deszo Kosztolayni
Primeval and Other Times, Olga Tokarczuk
Wasted Morning, Gabriela Adamasteanu
Dictionary of the Khazars, Milorad Pavic
The Feline Plague, Maja Novak
FIeldwork in Ukranian Sex, Oksana Zabuzhko
Stalin’s Nose, Rory Maclean
Cafe Europa, Slavenka Drakulic
The Zookeeper’s Wife, Diane Ackerman
Geurilla Radio, Matthew Collin
Bury Me Standing, Isabel Fonseca
Eastern Approaches, Fitzroy Maclean
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Rebecca West
Another Fool in the Balkans, Tony White
Hidden Macedonia, Christopher Deliso
To the Baltic with Bob, Griff Rhys Jones
The Good Soldier Svejk, Jaroslav Hsek
Embers, Sandor Marai
The Gambler, Fyodor Dostoevsky
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Ashes and Diamonds, Jerry Andrzejewski
Omon Ra, Viktor Pelevin
The Transylvanian Trilogy, Miklos Banffy
The Joke, Milan Kundera
The General of the Dead Army, Ismail Kadare
Memoir of a Russian Punk, Eduard Limonov
Ashes and Diamonds, Jerzy Andrzejewski
The Bridge on the Drina, Ivo Andric
The Case Worker, Gyorgy Konrad
The Catherdral, Oles Honchar
The Czar’s Madman, Jaan Kross
Dictionary of the Khazars, Milorad Pavid
The Engineer of Human Souls, Josef Skvorecky
Le Grand Hiver, Ismail Kadare
Insatiability, Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz
Judge on Trial, Ivan Klima
Krabat ider Die Verwandlung der Welt, Jurij Brezan
Miracle Workers, Slavko Janevski
Natural Novel, Georgi Gospodinov
Oribitor. Kroppen, Mircea Cartarescu
Rivers of Babylon, Peter Pistanek
The Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch, Ladislov Klima
They Were Counted, Miklos Banffy
Too Loud a Solitude, Bohumil Hrabal
The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years, Chingiz Aitmatov
Cancer Ward, Solzhenitsyn
This Is Not Civilisation, Robert Rosenberg
God Lives in St. Petersburg (collection)
The Great Game, Ahmed Rashid
Jihad, Ahmed Rashid
Land Beyond the River, Monica Whitlock
The Man Who Would Be King, Ben Macintyre
Chasing the Sea, Tom Bissell
The Baburnama, Ẓahīr-ud-Dīn Muḥammad Bābur
The Railway, Hamid Ismailov
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, Eric Newby
Absurdistan, Gary Shteyngart
There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

SCANDINAVIA

Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (collection)
The Norse Myths (collection)
The Prose Edda (collection)
Pan, Knut Hamsun
Requiem, Peer Hultberg
Marie Grubbe, Jens Peter Jacobsen
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Steig Larrson
Growth of the Soil, Knut Hamsun
Doctor Glas, Hjalmar Sodergerg
Byen og verden, Peer Hultbery
Kristin Lavransdatter, Sigrid Undset
The Royal Physician’s Visit, Per Olov Enquist
Regnspiran, Sara Lidman
The Red Room, August Strindberg
The Angelic Avengers, Isak Dinesen
The Family at Gilje, Jonas Lie
The People of Hellemyren, Amalie Skram
Hunger, Knut Hamsun
Witches’ Rings, Kerstin Ekman
Melancholy, Jon Fosse
Naive, Super, Erlend Low
Barabbas, Par Lagerkvist
The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, Selma Lagerlof
Juvikfolke, Olav Duun
De dodes rige, Henrik Pontoppidan
Fimbul: roman, Kjartan Flogstad
Hemsoborna, August Strindberg
The Dwarf, Par Lagerkvist
Independant People, Halldo Laxness
The Half Brother, Lars Saabye Christensen
Homo Falsus, Jan Kjaerstad
Guide to the Underworld, Gunnar Ekelog
Njal’s Saga, Anonymous
My Struggle, Book One: A Death in the Family, Karl Ove Knausgard
The Fall of the King, Johannes V. Jensen
The Story of Olaf, Eyvind Johnson
World Light, Halldor Laxness
Tjardalen, Sara Lidman
Faustus, Paavo Rintala
Papin rouva, Juhani Aho
Nourena nukkunut, F.E. Sillanpaa
Egil’s Saga, Anonymous

LATIN AMERICAN AND THE CARIBBEAN

The Oxford Book of Latin American Short Stories (collection)
The Borzoi Anthology of Latin American Literature (collection)
Genesis, Eduardo Galeano
Popol Vuh
Time Among the Maya, Ronald Wright
The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende
Es Cuba, Lea Aschkenas
Our Man in Havana, Graham Greene
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez
On Mexican Time, Tony Cohan
True Tales from Another Mexico, Sam Quinones
Yo Basta! (collection)
The Time of the Hero, Mario Vargas Llosa
The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene
The Labyrinth of Solitude, Octavio Paz
Twenty Loves Poems and a Song of Despair, Pable Neruda
The Aleph and Other Stories, Jorge Luis Borges
The Burning Plain and Other Stories, Juan Rulfo
Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon, Jorge Amado
Hopscotch, Juli Cortazar
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Conversations in the Cathedral, Mario Vargas Llosa
The Obscene Bird of Night, Jose Donoso
I, the Supreme, Augusto Roa Bastros
Kiss of the Spider Woman, Mauel Puig
The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende
The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros
The Old Gringo, Carlos Fuentes
Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel
The Line of the Sun, Judith Ortz Cofer
The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, Oscar Hijuelos
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Julia Alvarez
Dreaming in Cuban, Cristina Garcia
Yo-yo Boing!, Gianinna Braschi
Angel, Merle Collins
A Causal Brutality, Neil Bossoondath
Crossing the River, Caryl Phillips
Dubbelspel, Frank Martinus Arion
The Festival of San Joaquin, Zee Edgell
Fireflies, Shiva Naipaul
Graveyard of the Angels, Reinaldo Arenas
A House for Mr. Biswas, V.S. Naipaul
In the Castle of My Skin, George Lamming
Mr. Potter, Jamaica Kincaid
Paradiso, Jose Lesama Lima
Voices Under the Window, John Hearne
Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
In the Castle of My Skin, George Lamming
The Dragon Can’t Dance, Earl Lovelace
Brother Man, Roger Mais
The Duppy, Anthony C. Winkler
The Dew Breaker, Edwidge Danticat
Children of Sisyphus, Orlando Patterson
Divina Trace, Robert Antoni
The Palace of the Peacock, Wilson Harris
A House for Mr. Biswas, V.S. Naipaul
Love In the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
News of a Kidnapping, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Motorcycle Diaries, Ernesto Che Guevara


The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende
The Alchemist, Paolo Coelho
The Savage Detectives, Roberto Bolano
Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, Jorge Amado
The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende
Death in the Andes, Mario Vargas Llosa
Santa Evita, Thomas Eloy Martinez
The Dark Bride, Laura Restrapo
Marching Powder, Rusty Young
A Widow in Copacabana, Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza
Sings Preceding the End of the World, Yuri Herrera
My Father’s Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain, Patricio Pron
Lost City Radio, Daniel Alarcon
At Night We Walk in Circles, Daniel Alarcon
Natural Histories, Guadalupe Nettel
The Body Where I Was Born, Guadalupe Nettel
The Traveler of the Century, Andres Neuman
The Private Lives of Trees, Alejandro Zambra
Ways of Going Home, Alejandro Zambra
Faces in the Crowd, Valeria Luiselli
The Happiest Days -or- The Affections, Rodrigo Hasbun
Birds in the Mouth, Samantha Schweblin

CANADA

Native Poetry in Canada (collection)
The Stone Carvers, Jane Urquhart
Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
Dance Me Outside, W.P. Kinsella
A Jest of God, Margaret Laurence
Such Is My Beloved, Morley Callaghan
Who Has Seen the Wind, W.O. Mitchell
Beautiful Losers, Leonard Cohen
The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
Barney’s Version, Mordecai Richler
Generation X, Douglas Coupland
A Complicated Kindness, Miriam Toews
A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
Kamouraska, Anne Hebert
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, Stephen Leacock
The Stone Angel, Margaret Laurence
Neuromancer, William Gibson
The Wars, Timothy Findley
The Tin Flute, Gabrielle Roy
Never Cry Wolf, Farley Mowat
Life of Pi, Yann Martel
The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery
Fifth Business, Robertson Davies
Lives of Girls and Women, Alice Munro
The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
Roughing It in the Bush, Susanna Moodie
The Golden Dog, William Kirby
Sunshine Sketche of a Little Town, Stephen Leacock
Two Solitudes, Hugh MacLennan
The Outlander, Germaine Guevremont
Who Has Seen the Wind?, W.O. Mitchell
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Mordecai Richler
The Double Hook, Shelia Watson
Beautiful Losers, Leonard Cohen
Fifth Business, Robertson Davies
The Diviners, Margaret Laurence
Volkswagen Blues, Jacques Poulin
In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondaatje
Green Grass, Running Water, Thomas King
Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, Wayne Johnston
No Great Mischief, Alistair McLeod
Mercy Among the Children, David Adams Richard
A Complicated Kindness, Miria Toewes
Lullabies for Little Criminals, Heather O’Neill
Three Day Road, Joseph Boyden
Half-Blood Blues, Esi Edugyan
Anabell, Kathleen Winters
Holding Still for as Long as Possible, Zoe Whittall
The Bishop’s Man, Linda MacIntyre
What the Body Remembers, Shauna Singh Baldwin
Whale Music, Paul Quarrington

NATIVE AMERICA

American Indian Myths and Legends (collection)
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie
Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko
The Jailing of Cecelia Capture, Janet Campbell Hale
Bloodlines, Janet Campbell Hale
The Woman Who Owned the Shadows, Paula Gunn Allen
Life Is a Fatal Disease, Paula Gunn Allen
Custer Died for Your Sins, Vine Deloria Jr.
House Made of Dawn, N. Scott Momaday
The Crooked Beak of Love and Song for the Harvester of Dreams, Duanne Niatum
An American Monkey King in China, Gerald Vizenor
Shrouds of White Earth, Gerald Vizenor
Love Medicine, Louise Erdrich
The Plague of Doves, Louise Erdrich
Fools Crow, James Welch
Winter in the Blood, James Welch
The poetry of Barney Bush
In Mad Love and War, Joy Harjo
From Sand Creek, Simon J. Ortiz
Poetry of Nila NorthSun
Deep Woods to Civilisation, Charles Eastman
The Indian Today, Charles Eastman
Wa’kon-tah: The Osage and The White Man’s Road, John Joseph Mathews
Claiming Breath, Diane Glancy
Iron Woman, Diane Glancy
Last Standing Woman, Winona laDuke
Lost Copper, Wendy Rose
The Translation of Dr. Appelles, David Treuer
1491, Charles C. Mann
1493, Charles C. Mann
Rez Life, David Treuer
Night Flying Woman, Ignatia Broker
Mocassin Thunder, Lori Marie Carlson
Waterlilly, Ella C. Deloria
Stories for a Winter’s Night, Maurice Kenny
One Good Story, That One, Thomas King
Men on the Moon, Simon J. Ortiz
Blue Horses Run In, Luci Tapahonso
The Night Wanderer, Drew Hayden Taylor
The Lesser Blessed, Richard Van Camp
Hidden Roots, Joseph Bruchac
Who Will Tell My Brother?, Marlene Carvell
Sees Behind Trees, Michael Dorris
The Birchbark House, Luise Erdrich
As Long as the Rivers Flow, Larry Loyle
The People Shall Continue, Luis Ortiz
Indian Shores, Cynthia Lyteich Smith
Rain is Not My Indian Name, Cynthia Lyteich Smith
High Elk’s Treasure, Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve
My Name is Seepeetza, Shirley Sterling

AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, ETC.

Australian Literature, Edelson (collection)
The Bone People, Kerri Hulme
Whale Rider, Witi Ihamaera
Erewhon, Samuel Butler
True History of the Kelly Gang, Peter Carey
Oscar and Lucinda, Peter Carey
Remembering Babylon, David Malouf
Fly Away Peter, David Malouf
The Transit of Venus, Shirley Hazzard
Schindler’s Ark, Thomas Keneally
March, Geraldine Brooks
People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks
Breath, Tim Winton
Monkey Grip, Helen Garner
The Lost Dog, Michelle De Kretser
Death of a River Guide, Richard Flanagan
Bearded Ladies, Kate Grenville
The Idea of Perfection, Kate Grenville
Praise, Andrew Mcgahan
Carpentaria, Alexis White
Vernon God Little, D.B.C. Pierre
Stories of Frank Moorhouse
Cloudstreet, Tim Winton
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
A Fortunate Life, A.B. Facey
The Harp in the South, Ruth Park
The Power of One, Bryce Courtenay
Jasper Jones, Craig Silvey
The Magic Pudding, Norman Lindsay
The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas
The Secret River, Kate Grenville
Picnic at Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay

The Once and Future King and The Book of Merlyn, by T.H. White. This five-part series (four of which are included in The Once and Future King) was published as a complete novel, in 1958, and The Book of Merlyn posthumously and largely unedited, in 1977. The Book of Merlyn was always meant to be the fifth part of the series, but White’s publisher thought otherwise.

T. H. White was born Terence Hanbury White to English parents in India in 1906, and was educated in England. “Tim”‘s interests included Malory’s La Morte de Arthur, falconry, natural history, and psychology, which are all obvious in his writing. He has been influential in the development of fantasy writing, from Harry Potter to Neil Gaiman. The Once and Future King remains his most enduring work. He died in the 60s from a heart attack.

I had read The Once and Future King Before. I was given a dog-eared copy by my aunt, who discovered that I was interested in Arthurian legend a number of years ago and cleared out her 1970s yellowed copies and gifted them to me. I have many times since then listed The Once and Future King as one of my favorite books.

I might have been mistaken. Granted, I was reading a number of similar books at the same time–a time during which I was not recording my reading adventures. I assume that I somehow confused aspects of this novel with some of a few others (possibly Stewart’s Merlin Trilogy). Somewhere in the mash, I remembered the quirky writing style of White with occasionally soaring passages (which, I suppose you could claim for White) and a much more compelling plotline. Because yes, while this series shines for its unique narrative style, it also wanders around.

Some of this could be blamed on the way it was written: as stories collected in White’s files over a few years and left to age. When finally accepted for publication as a complete work, the publisher cut the fifth section, so that White had to sneak some of the better, later bits and pieces into the first four. So it is sort of like a Frankenstein, and doesn’t feel quite like a novel or an epic.

First piece of Frankenstein: The Sword in the Stone. Here, I probably diverge from some of the Future King‘s most enthusiastic followers (of which there are many). I don’t love it. There is entirely too much animal in it. I am not an animal person. I don’t want to read 100 pages about a little boy turning into various animals and making observations about them, as an education in kingship or otherwise. But I could see how others would really like this, and I wonder if it wasn’t the inspiration for Disney’s The Sword in the Stone.

The Queen of Air and Darkness was my least favorite of all the sections. It was Pellinore and company: they drove me crazy. I was distracted from the main story and wanted so badly to return. And I’m not at all sure what White would say if I were to ask him, “Why did you let Arthur age while we watched the antics of Pellinore and The Questing Beast?” Blah.

Then comes the The Ill-Made Knight and The Candle In the Wind. The first follows closely the adventures and turmoil of Sir Lancelot, and the fourth ties together the fates of the main characters, finally returning to Arthur and sort of setting up the next generation. Then, if you are lucky enough to get a copy, The Book of Merlyn, which is disappointing because it was printed largely unedited, and the chunks which were pulled for the novel were left in tact, creating repeated sections and disjointed motives.

About as disjointed as this review.

So what do I have to say? Can I justify my proclaimed love of this novel? Many have, to be sure. It is considered by some a “classic,” and as I mentioned, I really enjoy the uniqueness of the narration, including its classicly-1960s self-awareness. You feel like White is right there with you, just telling you some stories, and when the voice in the back of your head interrupts to tell him to stick to a POV or not to be so anachronistic (which is cleverly explained by the backward-aging of Merlin), he smiles and gestures it aside… and then keeps chatting. There were times when I felt that the story was sacrificed on the altars of philosophy and politics. But there were also moments where I bought into that as much as the shiny, lyrical language.

I would like to complain about the characters, which I felt were explained far more than experienced, which creates a lack of depth even as White is telling you all about their great complexity. I also am not a big fan of infidelity plot lines, although this one could have been relatable, if only we had had more empirically complex characters. On the other hand, I think this type of distanced story-telling is a hearkening back to an older and more classic form of story-telling, which does make it appropriate to the legends themselves.

There is another way in which this book is totally worth the read: history. As the back cover credits to David Garnett, “The child who reads [White] will learn far more than all the historians and archaeologists could tell of what England was like in the Middle Ages.” Through the lens of the modern mind (which is what creates his clever anachronistic style of writing), White really places us in the time period and–I would say–is accurate as far as any one else has ever been. It is like receiving an education in Medieval History through osmosis.

I would recommend this book. I just don’t know if I’ll keep calling it my “favorite.”

I could also use a fresh copy, as mine is literally falling apart.

__________

Upon further research, it appears that, yes, The Sword in the Stone (1963) was based on The Once and Future King, as was the musical, Camelot. I would also like to read England Have My Bones and–because I have it on my shelves–Mistress Masham’s Repose. I will be reviewing The Sword in the Stone and Camelot, shortly.

_________

QUOTES:

(The following pagination is based on my 1958 Berkley Medallion copy of The Once and Future King, and the 1977 (also) Berkeley Medallion of The Book of Merlyn.)

“…the unicorns in the wintry moonlight stamped with their silver feet and snorted their noble breaths of blue upon the frozen air” (p137).

“…and the breath of life steamed away on the north wind sweetly, as each realized how beautiful life was, which a reeking tusk might, in a few seconds, rape away from one or another of them if things went wrong” (p147).

“The moment he had left the earth, the wind had vanished. Its restlessness and brutality had dropped away as if cut off by a knife. He was in it, and at peace” (p166).

“And the Wart looked round the busy kitchen, which was colored by the flames till it looked like hell, with sorrowful affection” (p179).

“You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six” (p183).

“I always say that stupidity is the Sin against the Holy Spirit” (p222).

“So far as he was concerned, as yet, there might never have been such a things as a single particle of sorrow in the gay, sweet surface of the dew-glittering world” (p226).

“‘Wars are never fought for one reason,’ he said. ‘They are fought for dozens of reasons, in a muddle'” (p228).

“‘Racial history is beyond me,’ said Kay. ‘Nobody knows which race is which'” (p228).

“‘It is only a personal reason. Personal reasons are no excuse for war'” (p231).

“There is one fairly good reason for fighting–and that is, if the other man starts it” (p233).

“A murderer, for instance, is not allowed to plead that his victim was rich and oppressing him–so why should a nation be allowed to? Wrongs have to be redressed by reason, not by force” (p233).

“You can always spot a villain, if you keep a fair mind” (p233).

“Unless you can make the world wag better than it does at present, King, your reign will be an endless series of petty battles, in which the aggressions will either be from spiteful reasons or from sporting ones, and in which the poor man will be the only one who dies. That is why I have been asking you to think” (p236).

“…her bare feet twinkling behind her” (p260).

“…they became responsible for spoiling its beauty, so they began to hate it for their guilt” (p261).

“In these circumstances, the only thing to do was to abandon the place in which he was feeling uncomfortable, in the hope of leaving his discomfort behind him” (p262).

“On the contrary, he made it clear that the business of the philosopher was to make ideas available, and not to impose them on people” (p267).

“It is the tragedy …. of sin coming home to roost… He did not know he was doing so, and perhaps it may have been due to her, but it seems, in tragedy, that innocence is not enough” (p312).

“But you have to remember that people can’t be good at cricket unless they teach themselves to be so” (p318).

“It is good to put your life in other people’s hands” (p322).

“The first time you do a thing, it is often exciting. To go alone in an airplane for the first time used to be so exciting that it nearly choked you” (p329).

“In the first moment of the charge, he felt to himself: ‘Well, now I am off. Nothing can help me now'” (p329).

“An ordinary fellow, who did not spend half his life torturing himself by trying to discover what was right so as to conquer his inclination towards what was wrong, might have cut the knot which brought their ruin” (p339).

“They were his struggles to save his honour, not to establish it” (p340).

“The situation became divorced from common sense” (355).

“…and the battle against chaos sometimes did not seem to be worth fighting” (p364).

“At least it would be impossible nowadays, when everybody is so free from superstitions and prejudice that it is only necessary for all of us to do as we please” (p367).

“The four seasons were coloured like the edge of a rose petal…” (p381).

“For her, however, as for all women, the dreads were in advance of the male horizon” (p388).

“…wrecking the present because the future was bound to be a wreck” (p388).

“Women know, far better than men, that God’s laws are not mocked. They have more cause to know it” (p388).

“He did not understand our civilization, and knew no better than to try to be too decent for the degradation of jealousy” (p390).

“Everywhere it had been blood on steel, and smoke on sky, and power unbridled…” (p423).

“In the abbeys all the monks were illuminating the initial letters of their manuscripts with such a riot of invention that it was impossible to read the first page at all” (p424).

“‘Morals,’ said Lionel, ‘are a form of insanity. Give me a moral man who insists on doing the right thing all the time, and I will show you a tangle which an angel couldn’t get out of'” (p443).

“It’s all very well to take up with morals and dogmas, so long as there is only yourself in it: but what are you to do when other people join in the muddle?” (p447).

“They were baffling me with a sort of moral weapon, and I used my own weapon against it” (p447).

“The killing didn’t do any harm to their soul. Perhaps it even helped their souls, to die like that. Perhaps God gave them this good death…” (p449).

“‘If God is supposed to be merciful,’ he retorted, ‘I don’t see why He shouldn’t allow people to stumble into heaven, just as well as climb there'” (p454).

“He saw her as the passionate spirit of innocent youth, now beleaguered by the trick which is played on youth–the trick of treachery in the body, which turns flesh into green bones” 9p458).

“I will defy the enormous army of age” (p459).

“Do you know, since I have been back with people, I have felt I was going mad? Not from the sea, but from people” (p460).

“…it is a waste of time to have ‘manners'” (p461)

“Do you know, I shall be talking about God a great deal, and this is a word which offends holy people just as badly as words like ‘damn’ and so on offend the holy ones, What shall we have to do about it?” (p461).

“Just assume that we are the holy ones,’ said the King, ‘and go on'” (p462).

“Bors always had instructive scenes with women. He said what he thought, and they said what they thought, and neither of them understood the other a bit” (p492).

“Nobody could have called it a specially happy kind–but people are tenacious of life, and will go on living” (495).

“The miracle was that he had been allowed to do a miracle, ‘And ever,’ says Malory, ‘Sir Lancelot wept, as he had been a child that had been beaten'” (p514).

“Lovers were not recruited then among the juveniles and adolescents: they were seasoned people, who knew what they were about. In those days people loved each other for their lives, without the conveniences of the divorce court and the psychiatrist” (p529).

“‘Every letter written,’ said a medieval abbot, ‘is a wound inflicted on the devil'” (p533).

“The scientists, although they happened to call them magicians at the time, invented almost as terrible things as we have invented–except that we have become accustomed to them by use” (p534).

“One of them who was called Baptista Porta seems to have invented the cinema–though he sensible decided not to develop it” (p534).

“You have yet to learn that nearly all the ways of giving justice are unfair” (p556).

“So far as I can see, it is a matter of riches: of riches and pure luck, and, of course, there is the will of God” (p557).

“…you are determined to have the law. I suppose it is no good reminding you that there is such a thing as mercy?” (p559).

“Nobody succeeds in thwarting justice, Agravaine” (p559).

“She looked singularly lovely, not like a film star, but like a woman who had grown a soul” (p564).

“War is like a fire, Agnes. One man might start it, but it will spread all over. It is not about any one thing in particular” (p606).

“You keep your pity for yourself, my lady, for you will get none for yourself” (p609).

“‘Mordred has never broken the laws.’ / ‘That is because he is too cunning'” (p609).

“That fairness, madam, it will never come to no good” (p609).

“He had conquered murder, to be faced with war. There were no Laws for that” (p629).

“…and humanity only a mechanical donkey led on by the iron carrot of love, through the pointless treadmill of reproduction” (p630).

“Man had gone on, through age after age, avenging wrong with wrong, slaughter with slaughter. Nobody was the better for it, since both sides always suffered, yet everybody was inextricable” (p631).

“Actions of any sort in one generation might have incalculable consequences in another” (p631).

“If everything one did, or which one’s fathers had done, was an endless series of Doings doomed to break forth bloodily…” (p631).

“Ideal advice, which nobody was meant to follow, is no advice at all” (p633).

“The fantastic thing about war was that it was fought about nothing–literally nothing. Frontiers were imaginary lines” (p638).

“For, argal, you can dream of pinches” (p12).

“Everybody knows that children are more intelligent than their parents” (p16).

“But life is not invented for happiness, I do believe. It was meant for something else” (p18).

“For happiness is only a bye-product of function” (p21).

“‘We are looking at it the wrong way round.’ / ‘We generally are'” (p36).

“When will they learn that it takes a million years for a bird to modify a single one of its primary feathers?” (p39).

“Quite regardless of the fact that evolution happens in million-year-cycles, he thinks he has evolved since the Middle Ages” (p39).

“Look at him sniggering at his own progenitors” (p39).

“The sheer, shattering sauce of it! And making God in his own image!” (p39).

“Where is this marvelous superiority which makes the twentieth century superior to the Middle Ages, and the Middle Ages superior to primitive races and to the beasts of the field?” (p40).

“Human beings are no more equal in their merits and abilities, than they are equal in face and stature. You might just as well insist that all the people in the world should wear the same size boot” (p90).

“Slaughter anybody who is better than you are, and then we shall all be equal soon enough. Equally dead” (p90).

“Fortunately there is no such thing in nature as equality of ability, merit, opportunity, or reward” (p93).

He knew suddenly that nobody, living upon the remotest, most barren crag in the ocean, could complain of a dull landscape as long as he would lift his eyes” (p98).

“But they woke him with words, their cruel, bright weapons” (p99).

“It is nationalism, the claims of small communities to parts of the indifferent earth as communal property, that is the scourge of man” (p138).

“He caught a glimpse of that extraordinary faculty in man, that strange, altruistic, rare and obstinate decency which will make writers or scientists maintain their truths at the risk of death” (p155).

“Perhaps the root of war is removable, like an appendix” (p167).

“‘The suggestion,’ he said humbly, ‘was more to provide thought, than to be thought of'” (p168).

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library, by Chris Grabenstein. This New York Times bestseller was published by Yearling in 2013.

Both my daughter and I were attracted to this book on the shelves at bookstores and book sales. It wasn’t so much the look of the cover as its prominent placement coupled with the title: Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library, after which I had visions of Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, a movie that I really appreciate, all mixed up with books.

Plus, reading this makes perfect sense sandwiched between From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and The Lemonade Wars (yes, by title alone).

What I have to say about the book is this: It is completely on par with the most popular recent books in the middle grades category (and I am thinking here of books like Dr. Proctor’s Fart Powder and The Secret Series). More specifically, the writing is acceptable, the gimmick is mildly interesting (in this case, the picture/word puzzles), the story is okay but lacks adrenaline, the characters leave you wanting more depth (and are, at times, appallingly cliche which even my daughter commented about), and the cover is horrifying. (Perhaps horrifying is a strong word, but I am so over these shoddily-drawn-silhouettes everywhere in MG and YA.) The most positive thing about this book is that it just might get your kids (or you) interested in rebuses or libraries, which would be pretty cool.

I can’t think of anything else to say.

Shortest review ever.

There is another book now available (as in it came out three days ago), Mr. Lemocello’s Library Olympics. I would expect the series to continue further, as well. And Chris Grabenstein has other similar books available, like The Island of Dr. Libris and the Haunted Mystery series.

__________

Nikolodeon has optioned the book and has considered it for a TV movie, but so far nothing has progressed.

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by E.L. Konigsburg. I read the copy pictured here, a paperback from Atheneum Books. From the Mixed-Up Files won the Newbery Medal in 1967.

This childhood classic had flown completely below my radar for my whole life until my daughter read it for school. Then it just sounded so fun. My then-fourth-grade daughter sang its praises and commended her teacher for always choosing “good literature.”

The whole thing–from title to final chapter–makes me wonder about our expectations of great literature. Children’s literature, in the scheme of things, is a relatively new thing, at least as a serious art form. In 1967, I am guessing that it was just a little easier to win a Newbery Medal. Not that this book is bad, it’s just not as wonderful as I had expected.

The writing is great enough that it is never distracting and is even occasionally quotable. So there’s that. But the story?

It’s obviously unrealistic when two kids (12 and 8) run away from home and attempt to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But instead of making this a more magical sort of novel, Konigsburg goes to great lengths to convince us that it is possible and also fails to deal with the family involved and/or the repercussions of a stunt like that. I never bought it. And what’s more, I found the main character to be not only obnoxious, but completely unbelievable. Some kids might be super-intelligent or even old souls, but they don’t think and act like adults. Everything about Claudia, including her main motivation, was too old for her.

And yet this book remains at the top of lists for best children’s literature of all time.

So what are the positives, then? It’s kind of fun the way this is presented as a case from the files of a woman who has studied the story (although it doesn’t completely play out, since many interactions were totally beyond the ability of someone to have studied). The characters have great potential, and the details are interesting, especially to kids. In other words, this book definitely works as imagination fodder. How would I run away? Where would I run? How would I survive?

But–I am back at it–I didn’t like the characters. And let’s face it: this story is driven by characters because it is lacking in the plot department. Sure, it’s a super idea, but not much happens in the story. The tension arises from their attempts at not getting caught and Claudia’ sort of bizarre internal struggle and how that arbitrarily involves a new statue. There are no, say, guard chases or near-starvation. Just a slow-moving pretend-report of two kids kicking around the museum without much of a thought for their perfectly normal home life.

Sorry, back to the character issues again. Like I said before, I found Claudia obnoxious and unrealistic. But it’s more than that. Not only did I not like a single (of the very few) characters in this book, but I found myself so hungry for more authentic windows into their personality. And it never happened. They were like boring aliens. Boring aliens that I distrusted.

And I’m sincerely sorry if this is one of your favorite books. It is a classic, and it is loved and honored. In fact, it’s a staple of school reading. If I were a teacher, it would not be one I would want to re-read, but I can see where teaching it–getting into the minds of real students–would be fulfilling.

It makes me want to try some other of Konigsburg’s lauded books, but unfortunately I am already in the middle of two reading lists, one of which is Bronte and the other of which is Arthurian. I may or may not return, since this is the only title that has made it on to the Best Books list.

So, for the sake of respect, let’s do a little history lesson. Elaine Lobl Kongsburg was born in 1930 and passed away just a few years ago, in 2013. She had been born to Jewish immigrants in New York City, but grew up in Pennyslvania, where she excelled academically and met and married Mr. Konigsburg. She studied chemistry in college and became a science teacher at a girl’s school in Florida. She had kids, she took up painting, and only started to write when her last child started kindergarten. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler was one of her first two books (the other being Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth), both of which were nominated for the Newbery that year. She was to go on to write many more children’s books, again winning the Newbery in 1997 for The View from Saturday.

Konigsburg was known for her writing about taboo subjects in children’s literature (including loss, sexuality, even interracial tension). She also treated her children characters as mentally autonomous and capable, and wrote about what happens to adults should they chose to ignore this. Konigsburg always wrote from her experiences and very careful observation of her own children and the world in which they lived. Which I guess explains why Claudia and Jamie are so adult-like. (It still doesn’t make me feel like they are any more realistic. I’m sure Konigsburg would disagree.)

So, in conclusion, I hope readers continue to read and enjoy this book and some of Konigsburg’s others. But they are not my cup of tea. Even though I can recognize the simple elegance of the writing and the fascination of the ideas, I did not enjoy the plot or the characters of this particular book.

__________

There are a few movie adaptations, but none that I could seem to get my hands on.

__________

“Manhattan called for the courage of at least two Kincaids” (p27).

“‘Claudia,’ Jamie said, ‘you are quietly out of your mind'” (p28).

“…high heeled shoes. (I always say that those you wear ’em deserve ’em)” (p32).

“Each felt that peculiar chill that comes from getting up in the early morning. The chill that must come from one’s own blood-stream, for it comes in summer as well as winter, from some inside part of your that knows it’s early morning” (p43).

“If you think of doing something in New York City, you can be sure that at least two thousand other people have had the same thought. And of the two thousand who do, about one thousand will be in line waiting to do it” (p50).

“‘Someone very poor,’ Claudia corrected. ‘Rich people have only penny wishes'” (p84).

“When you hug someone, you learn something else about them” (p84).

“But lying in bed just before going to sleep is the worst time for organized thinking” (p85).

“…I guess homesickness is like sucking your thumb. It’s what happened when you’re not very sure of yourself” (p86).

“You’re never satisfied, Claude. If you get all A’s, you wonder where are the pluses. You start out just running away, and you end up wanting to know everything” (p120).

“You must admit, Saxonberg, that when the need arises, I have a finely developed sense of theatrics” (p127).

“The adventure is over. Everything get over, and nothing is ever enough. Except the part you carry with you” (p140).

“Happiness is excitement that has found a settling-down place, but there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around” (p151).

“But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything” (p153).

“When one is eighty-two years old, one doesn’t have to learn one new thing every day, and one knows that some things are impossible” (p153).

It’s time for another other-media review. As long as it’s related to literature. This time, I watched a movie based on a famous literary character.

Mr. Holmes, the 2015 movie based on the Arthur Conan Doyle character, Sherlock Holmes. The action of the movie takes place years after the books/stories end, although the literature does say that Holmes retired to the countryside and became a beekeeper. This movie then picks up in his old age and runs with what little info we have of it. Holmes’ mind is beginning to fail and he has a newer housekeeper with a young son. We know that the man was always a crotchety, perhaps even autistic or idiot savant, and this movie continues to deal with that aspect of his personality and perhaps seeks to reconcile it to the introspection of old age/end of life.

It is a little slow. You are distracted from the scenery, story, and acting by the snail’s pace. Speeding it up would have really changed the movie, but it is what it is.

It is beautiful and idyllic, but also melancholic and gray. Perhaps we’re contrasting the bleak mess that is Holmes’s aging mind with the beauty of a world full of life and relationship? The cinematography is definitely nice.

Everyone does a nice job with acting. With all three of the main characters, you feel a great deal of subtlty and character complexity, which is definitely something I am always on the lookout for. And this is thanks in part to great writing. Besides that pacing issues that I mentioned (which also could be blamed on editing), the writing it top notch. I only wish that there had been more Sherlock in Mr. Holmes, by which I mean there were only teasers of a former life or of the gritty, heart-stopping, playful detective that Holmes is, at heart.

In the end, despite the nice acting, cinematography, writing, etc., this was not my favorite movie, but it was definitely worth seeing once. It accomplishes a lot of really cool things, like contrasting Holmes and his brilliant child friend with the dimwitted-ness of their warmer counterpart, the housekeeper. Like exposing and resolving some of Holme’s imperfections; pride and coldness. And like keeping you entertained for yet another couple hours of Sherlock Holmes.

Embroideries, by Marjane Satrapi, 2005, Pantheon.

This will be a quick review for a quick read. The review is rated PG13, for some of the content discussed.

Marjane Satrapi is best known as the author of Persepolis, an autobiographical graphic novel about her life growing up in an educated, political family in Iran and her experience in a boarding school in Austria. She also co-wrote and co-directed the animated feature, Persepolis, which won critical acclaim.

I have been told I would enjoy reading Persepolis. I saw the movie long enough ago that I do not remember it, but Satrapi is on my list of books to read. I am also always on the lookout for a great graphic novel, as I have very limited exposure. a couple months ago, I found myself at the library with absolutely nothing to do–not even the novel that I always, always keep in my purse. But who wants to start a book they can’t finish? (This was a library in a different county, and I could not check the book out.) The solution? Perhaps I could get through a graphic novel in my wait time. So I wandered to the graphic novel section and grabbed a couple that interested me, including the only Satrapi on the shelf. After leafing through some longer books, I settled on Embroideries because I could indeed read it in one sitting.

I was disappointed. While I enjoy Satrapi’s art, I found this particular graphic novel to be dismal and disjointed. Perhaps you’ll argue that there’s nothing wrong with dismal writing, and I suppose you would be at least partly right. There is a time and place to expose and contemplate the darker shades of life. But I, fortunately or unfortunately, don’t have a whole lot of tolerance for grit. I need art to be redemptive in some way, and I also need the negativity to have some sort of justification. Part of why I didn’t enjoy this novel, in fact, is the events portrayed were sold (by the author, as you read) as normal and okay. But I just couldn’t read it that way.

There is also a place and time to contemplate the (active, vibrant) sex lives of women, especially those in cultures where very little is known or understood because of suppression or compartmentalization. But this book seemed to subvert the femininity instead of merely observing or even celebrating it. I didn’t find these people to be believable, at least as more than anomalies. If they are, I think Satrapi has done us a disservice here, because they don’t feel like it. Sex is what this book is all about. The title, Embroideries, refers to a medical procedure in which women are sewn up so that they bleed–like virgins–during sexual intercourse. The novel itself is structured around a single conversation, in which a dozen women, some related, some friendly, from young to old, air their sexual histories in a series of questions and anecdotal stories.

So, you know, no plot. It jumps around and has to work hard to hold your attention. It feels like a shallow treatment of a deep subject. Basically, it could have been much, much better.

I suppose one might find this super quick read interesting. And I suppose even I did. But I didn’t really enjoy it, and I doubt many will. Not Satrapi’s best.

But the illustrations are great, as usual.

The Ramona series by Beverly Cleary, which is, in order: Beezus and Romona, Ramona the Pest, Ramona the Brave, Ramona and Her Father, Ramona and Her Mother, Ramona Quimby Age 8, Ramona Forever, and Ramona’s World. They were published from 1955 to 1999 (!) and include two Newbery Honors and one National Book Award. We read the current HarperTrophy edition.

These books are American classics. They have been respected for years, as has Beverly Cleary, the librarian-turned-award-winning author. Ramona has always been her most recognizable character, and is still one of her most loved and timeless. That’s probably the reason I started with Ramona in our boxed set when reading to my kids at night. That, and her books were furthest to the left, her series most complete.

Beverly Cleary was, famously, a librarian in her home state of Oregon, when she sort of stumbled on to her new career. It was the 1950s, and a child asked Cleary where the books were about kids like him. After some contemplation (and, I think, some more questions and conversations,) Cleary decided there was indeed a hole in children’s literature. While fantasy has its place, there were very few, if any, books about “kids like us.” So the imaginary but very realistic and relevant world on Klickatat Street (in Oregon in the 1950s) was born.

I have to admit that I was shocked–pleasantly–when my seven-year-old son fell in love with this series. I imagined it would be too girly with two female main characters, but Ramona is pretty darn universal. Sure, she loves a great pair of red boots or a bridesmaid dress, but she is also on the rambunctious, wild, and trouble-making side, so she appeals to a wide range of kids. Between her, her family, and her friends and neighbors, life on Klickitat Street is full of relatable and lovable characters. I loved Ramona, but I also related to toes-on-the-line Beezus and admired calm, peaceful, level-headed Mrs. Quimby. And my kids really appreciated the completely relatable problems. They saw themselves in the situations; they even made comparisons to issues in their own lives.

Another thing I really enjoyed was the setting, especially the time period. Cleary isn’t trying to force anything, she just writes about typical suburban America in the 1950s. There is no need for expose, everyone just has pretty normal lives, with their usual challenges and usual triumphs. In her books, the 50s feel interesting and calm, almost idyllic. And yet, like I keep saying, so relatable. The only thing about reading the 1950s at this point is that some things are lost in translation. But not people. Just random things. (My son loved converting the money value of things to today’s dollar equivalent.)

Having already started with the Henry Huggins series, I think I can safely say that Cleary’s writing is at its best with Ramona. It’s straight-forward and enjoyable, her plots and characters simple and un-distracting. True, there are no frills, but it lets the kids enjoy the story and helps the characters to shine.

It’s also funny. Ramona is funny. We’ll get to it more with the first book of Henry Huggins, but what other books can make a whole family chuckle over night reading? Not too many. And it’s not just kid humor. There is a vein of grown-up humor and sympathy streaking through all Cleary’s stories, even though kids may not notice it.

My one real complaint about this series? The illustrations. They are not the original illustrations, but since the books were written over such a wide time-span, there was a move to unify the Cleary books with new illustrations. (It’s nice for the box set.) However, I hate mediocre illustrations, and that’s what we found in our boxed set (Tracy Dockray). And the paperbacks I found online looked no better. There is, I suppose, a certain charm to this particular type of old-timey illustration, and yet… My son was always asking to see the illustrations, but way more than once my kids had something to say about a wonky looking hand, a kid who didn’t look quite like Ramona, or an inconsistency between the story and illustration. I’ve read so many MG series lately with terrible illustrations that I just don’t get it. There are many, many talented artists out there. Who’s hiring these guys and signing off on their work?!?

Some books in the series are a little better than others, but overall the Ramona series appears to be Cleary’s best. I liked Ramona and Her Father the best of the series, but reading it in chronological order seemed to be the way to go.

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We own this movie: Ramona and Beezus (2010). We saw it before we read the books. I loved it from the beginning, but my daughter had to be convinced, which eventually she was.

The skinny is this: the movie is an amalgamation of things that happen across the Ramona series (even though it bears the title of one book). It is also very updated, so that the problems and tone are at home in the 21st century, as opposed to the 1950s. It also really underscores Ramona as an uber-imaginative, “artistic” type, which is fun because of the way the director deals with moments inside her head. I really enjoy almost everything about this movie, I only wish there were more imagination scenes.

Occasionally, I will do a review of a movie or a TV series if it is particularly literary. I’m pretty sure Merlin (2008-2012) counts, and I’m also pretty sure it was all an excuse to keep watching a TV series which I was almost immediately addicted to.

At any rate, I have taken this post-Merlin time to gather in the books from the Best Book list that have anything to do with Arthurian legend. I am almost done with T. H. White’s Once and Future King series (including The Book of Merlyn), and will be continuing (after a short break to catch up with my daughter’s reading) with Lawhead’s Pengradon Cycle, Stewart’s Merlin Trilogy, The Mists of Avalon, and Over Sea, Under Stone. Reviews on the way.

Now, let’s see if I can remember and synthesize all those hours spent on the BBC’s five seasons of Merlin.

Let me first say that I was cognizant from the beginning that this was not a spectacular series. There were glaring casting issues with one or two of the main characters. The special effects were laughable. And after a little while, it was clear that character and plot development would be slow and circular and at times reeeealy frustrating.

However, I found myself–along with many Brits–simply addicted to this show. Why? I can’t exactly say, but I think it had something to do with the excellent casting of Merlin and Arthur and just how lovable both of the character were. Also, there is something addictive about the Arthurian legends. I suppose it might also have to do with my love of British shows which includes a deep appreciation for ending a series, on purpose, before the things dies. I had faith that there was an end game for this series, and that it was going to wrap up whatever was happening from the very first episode. You just don’t get that with American shows.

Also note that the series is purposely family friendly, so they never quite go there with sex or bloody violence. If you could convince your kids to watch with you, it might make the whole thing better.

Also note that the Arthurian legends are, by nature, variant. The story-telling in this series takes some liberties, but I enjoyed many of the changes that were made. The premise is a teenage Merlin who comes to a Camelot where Arthur was growing up the handsome, privileged son of the somewhat tyrannous Uther Pendragon. Morgana lives as a ward of the king, and Guinevere is her servant. The bumbling yet lovable Merlin enters a world of illegal magic where his powers must be kept hidden in the most dangerous of places, as he is very quickly appointed as Arthur’s servant and comes to understand his secret destiny as protector of the king-to-be. Lancelot, Tristam, Nimue, Morgause, Mordred, and others make an appearance, although sometimes completely re-imagined.

So, would I recommend Merlin? Not surprisingly, yes and no. If you should choose to watch, you may become addicted yourself and you’ll have to endure an unbelievable Guinevere who you desperately want to see as Guinevere but just can’t, episodes which are occasionally a carbon copy of a previous episode, relationships which stagnate for literally the whole series, a major character transformation which is terribly bumpy and sad and unbelievable (I was going to throw the remote across the room if I had to endure one more evil smirk from Morgana), those laughable special effects, and a lack of accomplishment before the denouement. If none of this is going to bother you, check it out.

Or just check it out and keep it your own little secret.

I am headed into hibernation.

Let me first apologize for the lack of posts on this blog. For a time, I have been too busy to post and, honestly, I haven’t known what to say. I haven’t known what to say for two reasons, and the most important is that I didn’t know what the schedule of my new life was going to look like. I was just waiting, week after week, to witness my new normal so I could make an educated guess as to what this season of my writing career would look like.

Turns out it’s less “seize it and hold on” and more hibernation.

I have made the very important decision to move my young son to an online charter school. Public school was defeating him and if you are a parent (or even if you are not a parent and have a good imagination), you can understand that I wasn’t about to let my second grader live his childhood defeated. Not if there was another option. And last year–just like PODs popped onto the radar a few years ago and changed my life–online charter schools became legal in North Carolina and opened their virtual doors this fall. After what seemed like a whirlwind of conversations and consideration (which actually stemmed from a couple years of deliberation), I reached a point which I really enjoy in life: when the next step becomes as clear to me as glass. So, with butterflies in my stomach, I removed my son from his pretty impressive public charter school and ordered the box of course texts and updated our laptop and…

It has been over a month, and it has taken some time to shake out the initial wrinkles, especially since there were vacations and events already on our schedule which did not jive with our new reality. This week is almost normal, and the overall adjustment continues. It’s exactly like having a new job. And as someone with a new job, I have to find space in my life to accomplish it and give it priority. In most situations, this means quitting your old job.

Which leads me to you. And hibernation.

I was faced with two distinct options when it came to what to do with my writing career while I am essentially a home-school mom. The first, which appealed to me on a very deep level, was to channel Stephen King and Benjamin Franklin–to refuse to let the dream die even for a second–and to embrace a life of late nights, passionate moments, and extensive compromise. This would still mean a slower production rate, but it would also mean still being a writer. The other option was to push a giant pause button somewhere in the career area of my life, to freeze everything where it stood: the three projects on the table, the half-done manuscripts, Owl and Zebra Press, The Starving Artist… but to do it in anticipation of returning some day, and to do it with the comfort that I am giving my whole effort to the task at hand (which, by the way, is no small feat with home-schooling, mothering, and house-keeping). Perhaps none of us know just what it means to become a parent, especially logistically, but I do believe in service and in sacrifice and in the dividends it returns.

I am still torn, people. But I have had almost six weeks to kind of witness what has happened in the aftermath of this tremendous decision, and I’m not sure I have much of a choice about my career. Those Stephen King late hours in the closet? So far, I have spent them sewing on Girl Scout patches, be-glittering birthday invitations, folding ten loads of laundry in one night, and… Well, you get the point. And still, the Halloween decorations are lingering on the walls and three boxes sit unpacked by the front door while my son and I come up with examples of singular and plural nouns (which includes “pooper” and “puffer fish” which, yes, falls into both categories and begins yet another conversation about the pitfalls of the English language).

I have much to figure out–to determine–about this season of my life. First, I have to find a social community for my son. That’s priority one. Second, I have to catch up with myself and then even off into a workable week. Third, I will do just a little bit of random writing and editing and illustrating and jotting notes and remember the writing world with a longing that causes an actual physical ache-like-a-moan in a part of my chest I wasn’t aware was there. Perhaps I will be able to slice away Facebook or something and get all Franklin up in my spare minutes of time in order to finish at least one project before the school year ends. But I’m not expecting too much. For now, I’m watching and waiting.

What is definitely in hibernation is any publicity, promotion, sales, marketing, etc. These days, that means the PODs are just sitting there, still available as I finish each project, and waiting for me to return (like in two or ten years) and hit it hard. It also means I get to step back from the part of my job I don’t love. It also means business is very much expected to be stagnant.

What I can promise you is to keep reading, and therefore grace you with my book review blog entries. So far, even my reading life has become sort of grinding and meandering, but I never don’t read. My current book stays with me at all times and here and there I read of Lancelot’s banishment to France while waiting on a doctor’s appointment. So in a way, I am still writing. For me, reading has always been part enjoyment and part education. And I promise to keep dreaming and scheming and jotting notes in my little red Moleskin.

I also promise that I will fight for what small moments present themselves, like this one, and like the ones that were previously surrendered to episodes of Ugly Betty. I will greet those moments standing up, alert, and ready. Which is not hibernation at all, is it? Perhaps I’m not headed into the winter, after all. Perhaps the spring is dawning. A long, wakeful, exciting spring, where images cloud my brain and hit against the inside of my skull for release and where I patiently walk one foot in front of the other until right there, it’s the rose I’m meant to stop and smell.

The Bronte Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, by junior biographer Catherine Reef, and published fairly recently by Clarion Books in 2012.

When I ordered this book with pretty good reviews and a charming cover, I had no real idea what it was. I mean, I guess I knew it was a biography and I knew that it was somewhat new. What I didn’t know was who the author was. If I did, I might have figured out that this is a junior biography. Meant for young people. Like to provide them historical information for a book report or some such.

So here are the major issues:

The font is too big and the spacing is too airy. Also, the pages are glossy. All of this–for me–points to low quality and a charade to disguise the true length and quality of a writing. While the book did look charming to me online, it did not feel charming once I had my hands on it and was flipping through. Actually, sans the dust jacket, it’s cutest in its purpley, closed form.

About half of what I read about this book indicates that it is a serious biography for any lover of the Brontes. It’s not! I can’t tell you in how many ways this book will fall flat compared to other Bronte biographies, like The Life of Charlotte Bronte or Wild Genius on the Moors. I can only imagine this will hit home with middle-schoolers who have no previous exposure to the lives of the Brontes.

I also–contrary to the claims of the many high-falutin’ reviews–do not perceive it as novelistic, riveting, well-researched, or insightful. It stuck me as a re-hash of all the most widely available tidbits of Bronte lore. It was written chronologically and had only brief moments of interesting writing. Otherwise, it was quite dry.

I also found, which is sad considering her impressionable audience, that Reef was not at all sympathetic to her subjects. (This is especially glaring since the Bronte’s most famous biographer is known most famously for her sympathy–perhaps even too much–toward Charlotte Bronte.) At times, Reef’s tone clearly holds itself above the out-dated, quaint ways of the Brontes, having no intuitive understanding or universal feeling toward the place, time, or religion of the Brontes.

But despite all this, I could see recommending it to a child for a book or history report. After all, the lives of the Brontes is fascinating, and putting a child on the road to a more adult text and later inquisitiveness would be a rewarding one. The facts seem to be largely in line: the bullet points are there. So the book is okay, at least for what it is intended for. If you are all grown up, please stick to the titles I listed above: The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell or The Brontes: Wild Genius on the Moors by Juliette Barker.