Kids take a lot of things for granted. It’s part of being a kid, to accept the world and its people as part of how life should be. That’s a terrible thing for kids who live with pain or deprivation but for a lot of us that meant a childhood where we took bicycles, birthday parties, vacations and our family’s love and devotion as part of our just due. We rarely said thank you. For example, I never thanked my folks for showing me why some stories are classics. Still, I haven’t forgotten our time with Treasure Island. I don’t know if Treasure Island is still one of the required books of childhood. There are so many other stories now and Disney has such an imprimatur on the pirate world these days that Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic may get lost in the shuffle. My folks had both grown up with the tale and I suspect they were a bit excited about sharing “their” story with me when I turned ten. Perhaps I was a bit young, but I already had my nose in a book all the time so why not give me one they loved? None of us expected…
“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.” So says John Steinbeck, the twentieth century novelist teachers forced you to read high school and professors mocked in college. Steinbeck who preaches in The Grapes of Wrath and makes you weep in Of Mice and Men, did you know he could be funny? That man, so serious and biblical in East of Eden (except for the scenes with the car), also knew how to relax. You wouldn’t guess it but Steinbeck was a versatile writer who loved life. Of all things, Steinbeck cared about people and that shows up in Cannery Row. Cannery Row was and is a waterfront street in the town of Monterey and for a while was the hangout of Steinbeck. Then, it was a rundown place full of abandoned buildings and homeless people who sheltered there. Other impoverished people such as artists, prostitutes and rejects from society lived on the row but, most remarkably, Steinbeck’s best friend, a self-taught naturalist named Ed Ricketts lived and worked there finding sea animals for university labs and zoos. All…
Every kid who is lucky gets one or two teachers in their childhood who seem to understand them, teachers they respond to. All of my grade-school teachers were nice people and a few actually seems to care about me but my sixth grade teacher gave me the extra guidance I needed at that uncertain age. She had an intuitive understanding of all the “outsider” kids in her room and found activities that made us valued members of the class. During discussions, she treated us like we were reasonable adults and we responded in kind. And she brought a great book into our lives, reading it aloud after lunch. I will always be grateful for her introduction to Johnny Tremain. Johnny is the story of a developing nation but more than that, it’s the story of a developing man, Jonathan Lyte Tremain. In the beginning, Johnny is an apprentice in pre-revolutionary Boston, Massachusetts, a silversmith in training and one of those talented people you want to slap. Yes, he is gifted and smart, probably the mainstay of his employer’s business but he’s also sarcastic, arrogant and an intellectual bully. Some of this behavior comes from an over-inflated ego but part…
I love the crime thrillers of the last century and one of my favorite authors in the genre was Dick Francis. The man lived an incredible life (RAF pilot, champion jockey, best-selling writer, just look at his Wikipedia bio!) and if his novels run to a formula, each mixed a new field of information into an abiding love for horses and a solid block of principles. I’ve read all of them at least once, I give most of them house room and I can’t pick a favorite. So, I’ll give the first shot to one of his later books, Decider In Decider, Lee Morris salvages ruins. In today’s vernacular, he’s a flipper, one of those guys who buys distressed or damaged buildings and turns it into a marketable property. Lee’s an architect and he specializes in reclaiming “listed buildings,” those structures the British government protects from bulldozing and developers because they have historic or architectural interest. Lee’s business is to turn these often dilapidated buildings into marketable residences without destroying the characteristics that make the structure “listed”. Lee’s learned how to work with a variety of people in order to do his job and right now he needs these…
My English teacher said some writers often go in and out of fashion. A few, like some clothes, hardly ever go out of style. You can like them forever and know they’ll always be available for discussion and the worst opinion you’ll hear is, “Well, of course, you like___, who doesn’t?” For example, if Shakespeare was fashion, he’d be a great pair of leather loafers or a white, short-sleeved shirt. Good for practically everything. Oscar Wilde might be a burgundy velvet vest: (waistcoat for citizens of the U. K.) dramatic, a bit sensual, fairly versatile but not the go-to choice in every situation. Shame, because I really like burgundy velvet vests. But the writer who seems a bit neglected these days is Henry James. Except for Halloween revivals of The Turn of the Screw and the occasional big-budget costume picture, his work is largely ignored and that’s a shame. He appreciated the complexity of human character and culture and he used it to create wonderful, memorable stories. My favourite is The Spoils of Poynton. Poynton is the story of four individuals who keep pairing off into irreconcilable teams. Team One might be the Gareth, widowed mother and grown son, in…