I’ve always been fascinated by disasters. Be they sinking ships, fires or floods, I study the components of first class tragedies, fascinated by the chance occurrences and snap decisions that turn potential trouble into inevitable disaster. Most of the books are about events that happened before I was born and although I find the accounts moving, they rarely infuriate me. I marvel over the human acts of bravery or foolhardiness or the intervention of sheer dumb luck but I see those events from the distance of historic perspective and I know the survivors went on. I didn’t watch those disasters unfold. Perhaps that’s why it took me so many years to pick up Randy Shilts’s And the Band Played On, the history of HIV/AIDS in the USA during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Instead of reading about this disaster years after it happened, I watched this disease emerge into the collective consciousness. The prognosis at that time was awful and I purposely avoided the book until advanced treatment gave AIDS sufferers some hope for a decent life. So much has changed in the last 30 years that I thought I could read this at last with detachment. I…
Today’s column is by Barb Goydas. Whether she’s willing to admit it or not, Barb is a constant reader and one of those people who generates literary “buzz” by telling everyone when she finds a great new book. I introduced her to “Maus”. She returned the favor with “Persepolis” I love how one thing leads to another, although, I don’t like the sense of “no control”. I like to have a map and predict which road I will take. To travel without direction can lead to someplace risky. Still, I often have to remind myself, “with risk comes reward”. Three summers ago, my sister sent the book “Maus” when my son was exploring his interest in World War II. She thought it would be perfect, knowing his affinity for comic books. It arrived at the house, while he was off visiting his grandparents in Florida, I had the house to myself and was looking for something to read. Thinking it would only take me an hour or two, I decided to try it out. I didn’t have high expectations, since it was a “comic book” for goodness sake. Not only did the book move me emotionally, but it made…
Vacation Season is coming to an end again, leaving us poorer, happier and (hopefully) a bit less stressed. It’s amazing how much of the rest of our lives are spent preparing for or dwelling on those limited interludes of time. And during each holiday, whether it’s in the mountains, at an amusement park or on the beach, someone always muses, “I wonder what it’s like living here.” Of course, the speaker is shouted down by a chorus of “If you lived here, it wouldn’t be special” and “money flows through this place, it doesn’t stay here” (both of which are true) but what the speaker means is, “What would life be like if you were permanently on vacation?” That is something we all wonder about. What would it be like to live in a beautiful place with enough money to pay for your needs? According to Anne Rivers Siddons (one of my favorite novelists) a vacation lifestyle will still cost too much in the end. In Low Country, Caro Venable seems to have hit vacation life nirvana. As the heiress of Peacock island ( a sunchaser’s paradise with an army of flora and fauna) off the Carolina coast and the wife…
Revisionist tales can be slippery. We love them because they tell the tale we already know from a perspective that gives the story new meaning. Sometimes a revisionist history promotes a fairer review of the past, like The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty. Wide Sargasso Sea, is revisionist version of Jane Eyre but the new story is brilliant enough to stand on its own. Most of these tales aren’t that good. However, Gregory Maguire’s Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister brings something new to the table. It isn’t just a send-up of Cinderella – it’s a meditation on the difference between perception and the truth. Cinderella is one of the stories that teams beauty with goodness. The poor, pretty orphan is mistreated by those who should love her, which makes her royal rescue all the more grand. But Maguire’s Clara is a hostage to her own good looks who chooses kitchen life from spite and agoraphobia. Her mother preached that a lovely face was in danger if exposed to the outdoor world. Her father attracted customers with her seldom seen beauty, associating her face with his wares in a painting. The combination has turned this Clara (this book’s Cinderella)…
Not every great writer is a great human being. We expect the people who touch our souls with their prose to be as wonderful as their words but sadly, that isn’t always the case. There are some writers whose work I admire, that I wouldn’t want within a mile of me, alive or dead. On the other hand, I wish I could have met the Oscar Wilde in Richard Ellmann’s biography of that name. Seldom has literary genius been paired with such a decent, gentle spirit. It’s hard these days to think of Wilde’s life as anything other than tragedy. There he is in his early years, telling the customs agent he “has nothing to declare but his genius.” That was an example of Oscar’s hyperbole and humor but it was also a statement of fact for this Oxford educated son of Ireland. His moral code was based on aesthetics, not just because he believed in in the innate goodness of beauty but because his own instincts usually directed him to be kind. His observations and plays outraged Victorian society but they were outrageously funny and stylish. No one before had let the air out of English sails with such…