You’re not supposed to re-read classics for pleasure, but I do. To me, that’s the real definition of classic: when something’s so good it transcends the first or second wave of popularity so people return to it year after year, seeing new ties and ideas with each re-reading. so their depth of appreciation grows with age. Anyone can read a book once and pronounce a judgment, good or bad. On the other hand, it takes an age to appreciate the depth in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. At least it requires an understanding of the Power of Two. In many ways, East of Eden is the story of two families, the Hamilton and the Trasks. The Hamiltons are the author’s own family, the maternal relatives he knew and heard about in family gatherings. The accounts of his grandfather’s gentleness, his grandmother’s fortitude and the bravery and sadness of their children were the first tales that stirred Steinbeck’s imagination and he wanted these stories immortalized. The Hamilton family tales are mixed in an earlier family saga, already known to most of the world. The Trasks are the first first family of all, and two sets of Trask brothers follow the biblical…
We move through life so quickly. Children cram play-dates and lessons between study for entrance exams. Letters gave way to phone calls, then email and disappeared with video-chats and tweets. We create five-year, ten-year and twenty-year goals, power-walking our way through life and all we see is what’s before us. But is that all there is? Aislinn Hunter suggests in The World Before Us that what we sense in this accelerated life is the narrowest universe of all. Jane Standen is the fulcrum of this story, a quiet woman with a disquieting past. Years ago, she took a little girl into the forest and the child disappeared in the woods. Nothing has brought Jane to terms with this loss and now she’s in a career that uncovers lost detail. As an archivist, Jane works in a Victorian museum, cataloging the data and detail of an earlier age. The museum’s closure and an encounter with the child’s father occupy her conscious mind. It does not fill the conscious of the spirits that follow Jane, ghosts vitalized by her search of the past. These spirits narrate The World Before Us as they watch the present and Jane. Disembodied but kind, they study…
The flowering dogwood is blooming. Spring is taking time showing the rest of her sweet face but the dogwood branches are in blossom and their branches look like suspended wedding lace at twilight. This condition will last about a week until the apple-green leaves take their place and the petals will drift to the gutters. The temp is still nowhere near 80 but it’s warm enough in the sun. It’s time to read Fitzgerald again. If a writer can be tied to the weather, F. Scott Fitzgerald is Summer and Spring. There’s an exuberance and energy in his early stories match the hope and joy of Spring and the redolence of summer is the setting for Gatsby. Clothes are loose in Fitzgerald stories, smiles are warmer and many characters are on holiday. Even sad stories, like Babylon Revisited contain memories of warm weather but since we’re talking about a Southern Spring, the the Fitzgerald du jour is “The Ice-Palace.” Fitzgerald first saw the South in 1918, while he was serving in the Army. First Kentucky, then Georgia and finally Alabama in summer where he met his wife, Zelda Sayre. By the time Ice Palace is published, Scott Fitzgerald has noted…
When I hear someone say, “I Love the sound of an Irish Band” I make a few assumptions. If the person is significantly older than me and/or playing an acoustic instrument I figure they mean one of the Irish Folk groups like The Chieftains, the Clancy Brothers or the Irish Rovers. If the person is around my age and/or playing an electric guitar, I guess they’re probably talking about U2 and Thin Lizzy. If the person talking shows no sense of humor, they’re probably talking about Sinead O’Connor. Me, I’ve got an ear for it all (almost all!) but my favorite Irish Band today exists only in fiction. If you want a fast read that keeps you grinning for days (or a film with a killer sound), let me introduce you to The Commitments. The time is the late 1980’s and Jimmy Rabbitte has a reputation around Dublin as a man who knows his music. He buys every record that comes out, reads every trade paper and never misses a pop music show, even the ones he despises. So when his buddies, Outspan Foster and Derek Scully think their three day old band needs a new direction, it’s Jimmy’s advice…
I visited Monroeville, once. In the summer of 1990, I, my husband and a friend were driving home from the beach when one of us spied the interstate exit that leads to the home of Harper Lee. My friend had (finally) read To Kill a Mockingbird, she was still overwhelmed by the power of the story and she wanted to see Miss Lee’s home town. My husband knows how much I care about the book and he thought it would be a treat, so he steered us onto the highway. Once we hit the center of town, the two of them started plying me with questions so they could pick out landmarks from the novel. How far was the Finch house from the school? Was the Radley house on the same or opposite side of the street? My husband suggested (I think he was joking) that, with a bit of research, we’d be able to locate Miss Lee’s new address and he would take us to her door. I began to feel very uncomfortable. Not only do I get tongue tied around famous authors, (I displayed something like Tourette’s syndrome in front of Dr. Seuss) I couldn’t get past the…