Posted by: Sally Ingraham | December 31, 2009

Paging Mrs. Dalloway

Woolf in Winter It begins tomorrow. The excitement has been building for several months already, and the list of interested participants is long. All around the world people are digging out their tattered copies, or smoothing the covers of brand new books with eager anticipation. Perhaps they’ve already slipped between the pages of Mrs. Dalloway, unable to resist.

The official start of Woolf in Winter is January 1st, and the conversation commences on the 15th. Meet me back here for the first round of our 4 part group read. The list that I have gathered thus far is for people who expressed an interest in reading Mrs. Dalloway specifically, or all four books. If I’ve missed anyone let me know! I believe Frances has a more complete list of participants here, and if anyone is hearing of this for the first time there are more details here.

Amanda – NYC Book Girl
Amy – The House of the Seven Tails
Amy – New Century Reading
Andi – Tripping Toward Lucidity
Anthony – Times Flow Stemmed
Bellezza – Dolce Bellezza
Care – Care’s Online Book Club
Christy – Lil Bit Brit Lit
Claire – Kiss a cloud
Ds – third-storey window
Emily – Evening All Afternoon
EL Fay – This Book and I Could Be Friends
Eva – A Striped Armchair
Frances – Nonsuch Book
Jackie – Farmlanebooks Book Blog
Jason – Moored at Sea
Jess – Upward, Onward, Ho!
JoAnn – Lakeside Musing
J. S. Payton – BiblioAddict
Julia – A Number of Things
Karen – BookBath
Kaye – Kaye’s Book Review Page
Lena – Save Ophelia
Lindsey – Sparks’ Notes
Lu – Regular Rumination
Mark David – Absorbed in Words
Melissa – Must Read Faster
Melissa – The Betty and Boo Chronicles
Mihaela – Atelier
Nadia – A Bookish Way of Life
Nicole – bibliographing
Nina – J’adorehappyendings
Percival – Percival’s Blog
Paula – Blogging Woolf
Rebecca – Rebecca Reads
Richard – Caravana de recuerdos
Sandra – Fresh Ink Books
Sandy – You’ve GOTTA read this!
Simon – Savidge Reads
Sissy – A Strange and Beautiful World
Tiina – A Book Blog of One’s Own
uncertainprinciples – another cookie crumbles
Vasilly – 1330v
Victoria – Views from the Page and the Oven
Violet – Still Life With Books

25 Comments

Posted in Authors, Book related, Books, Non-sense, Novels, Read-Along, Reading, Virginia Woolf | Tags: , ,

Posted by: Sally Ingraham | December 30, 2009

The Guermantes Way

DSC00343by Marcel Proust
Translated by Mark Treharne

I’ve been reading the third volume of In Search of Lost Time since July 11th, which incidentally is the author’s birthday. Actually, I made a point of starting The Guermantes Way on that day, and then didn’t pick it up again until September 15th…! Since then I’ve read it in fits and starts, and as the month of December ticked away I was worried that I wouldn’t finished it before the end of the year. However, this morning I woke up and to my own astonishment I thundered through the last 95 pages – more Proust than I’ve ever read in one day. I’m celebrating with a Maudite by the Canadian brewery Unibroue – as close as I could come to a French beer in a pinch, and I may as well add quite a delicious choice!

When I started this book I was initially peeved with the translator, Mark Treharne, because in his introduction he blatantly gave away huge plot points (even more upsetting than usual considering that plot points are few and far apart in Proust’s work!) However I soon forgave him since, either due to his translation or to the actual tone of this section, the pace of the book seemed to pick up and the dry humor that had surfaced infrequently in the last two volumes seemed more and more prevalent.

In this volume Marcel’s desire to infiltrate the glamorous world of the aristocracy, as embodied in particular by the Guermantes family, became more than just an out of reach dream. He was invited into the home of the Duchesse de Guermantes and was treated fairly well, although his social station as a middle class person could not be ignored. Over the course of several amazingly long and detailed passages dealing with the dinner parties of the rich and famous, Marcel was able to thoroughly observe his hosts and the guests who flocked around them, listening to their witty conversation and exploring the intricacies of their own social positions. As per usual with Marcel, he left somewhat disillusioned, for of course the magical world he imagined and the kings and queens of intellect that dwelt there could never stand up to reality. However, he finally handled a disappointment like this with better grace.

While I found a great deal of Proust’s meticulous deconstruction of French society life at this period in history tedious, I could relate to Marcel’s frustration with balancing his social life with his internal and creative life, and could definitely recognize myself in him as he circulated through a party, listening to conversations and outwardly expressing interest, while inwardly getting all mind boggled at the ridiculousness of people trying to impress other people.

I made note of lots of beautiful or interesting passages, since with Proust you can’t avoid interesting and beautiful tangents. The reason I keep on reading has more to do with the discovery of exquisite descriptions of ordinary things (‘The gray daylight, falling like fine rain, wove an endless succession of transparent webs, through which the Sunday strollers appeared in a silvery haze.‘) than with how much I care about what happens to Marcel.

I enjoyed his encounters with Robert Saint-Loup, a young and vibrant Guermantes who thinks, for whatever unknown reason, that Marcel is a particularly fabulous friend – and every scene with the bizarre M. de Charlus is laugh-out-loud funny – but even in spite of the ‘action’ that I mentioned earlier, this volume was my least favorite thus far. Still amazing, in it’s very special Proust-ly way, of course, but not as much of a delight as the first two volumes.

Leaving me hanging with the final, thoroughly ironic scene, does of course compel me to continue, so my excitement over finishing The Guermantes Way will be short lived. I might as well try to read the next three books in 2010, right?

For now I will pour myself another Maudite and raise a toast to Marcel who, after all, finds things much more ‘wondrous‘ with the help of ‘so much fine wine‘! p. 522 That I can definitely relate to. 🙂

——-
Previously: In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, and Swann’s Way.

6 Comments

Posted in Authors, Beer, Books, Brewery, Marcel Proust, Non-sense, Novels, Reading | Tags: , , , , , , ,

Posted by: Sally Ingraham | December 29, 2009

Orbis Terrarum Challenge Wrap-Up

Orbis TerrarumAs I mentioned in my last post, the Orbis Terrarum Challenge was my first reading challenge, and to my own astonishment I completed it – just in the nick of time! It was with great excitement and trepidation that I picked out books, authors, and countries. My decision to use South America as a jumping off point proved to be one of the best reading related choices of my life. I’m so excited about Latin American literature! I’ve hit most of the South American countries, and now I am eager to explore Central America and the Caribbean.

For now though, I am finished – 10 books by 10 authors from 10 countries across 10 months. My completed reading list varies slightly from my original list, due to availability mostly. I liked almost every book I read. Here’s the list, with links to my reviews:

1. March
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa – Peru

2. April
Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar – Argentina

3. May (Original choice: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Columbia)
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Columbia

4. June (Original choice: The Shipyard by Juan Carlos Onetti – Uruguay)
The Book of Embraces by Eduardo Galeano – Uruguay

5. July
Iphigenia: The Diary of a Young Lady Who Wrote Because She Was Bored by Teresa De La Parra – Venezuela

6. August
The Villagers by Jorge Icaza – Ecuador

7. September
The Palace of the Peacock by Wilson Harris – Guyana

8. October (Original choice: The Two Deaths of Quincas Wateryell by Jorge Amado – Brazil)
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands by Jorge Amado – Brazil

9. November
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano – Chile

10. December
I The Supreme by Augusto Roa Bastos – Paraguay

Hurray!! Many thanks once again to Bethany for hosting the challenge, and to everyone who commented here and gave me so much support. Hopefully there will be many more reading challenges in my future!

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Posted in Adventure, Augusto Roa Bastos, Authors, Book related, Books, Eduardo Galeano, Famous People, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jorge Amado, Jorge Icaza, Juan Carlos Onetti, Julio Cortazar, Mario Vargas Llosa, Non-sense, Novels, Orbis Terrarum Challenge 2009, Reading, Reading Challenges, Roberto Bolano, Teresa de la Parra, Wilson Harris | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by: Sally Ingraham | December 28, 2009

OT: I The Supreme – Paraguay

I The Supremeby Augusto Roa Bastos

This book was my last pick for the Orbis Terrarum Challenge, and by finishing it I also have completed my first official reading challenge!

Of the books on my list I The Supreme was the one I was least interested in reading, and while I usually like to get the tough stuff over with first and save the best for last, I obviously didn’t manage to pull that trick on myself this time! To my dismay I reached the final month of what had already been an intense and difficult challenge, and found Dr. Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia staring at me from slitted, suspicious eyes…

Easily one of the densest books I read this year, I The Supreme was by turns incomprehensible and fascinating. It is based on the life of Paraguay’s nineteenth century dictator, who’s immense name I’ve already spelled out. It can’t be called either documentary or historical though, since Roa approached it through what can only be an imagined first-person narrative. The bulk of the book is the written or dictated words of Francia himself, although a sort of historical sense is provided by a “compiler” who frequently references other works, etc.

The book has very little plot, and the familiar trajectory of the novel form is entirely lacking – it would be hard to map out a beginning, middle, and end. Why the events unfold as they do is completely unrelated to anything that might provide a point of reference. This is all because the book is the mad ramblings of the dying (or sometimes already seemingly dead?) Francia. What becomes apparent the farther you are swept into his dizzying mind, is that the book is an exploration of and argument for his own severely edited self-image.

This re-imagining of the career of a man who was “elected” Supreme Dictator for Life in 1814 is fascinating in this sense. Here is a man who succeeded in imposing his mad dreams for perfect order on an entire country, and to hear him tell it, he’s brought nothing but peace and security, and Paraguay is at least aimed for prosperity. He certainly doesn’t mince words about the horrifying prisons and tortures that await those who oppose him, or the firing squad that meets beneath the orange trees, or the foreign diplomats or merchants that he detained for years, or his own friends whom at some point he felt the need to send into exile or have executed…! He’s unapologetic because he believes utterly in his own will.

This book is more than just an examination of power. It is also about the nature of language. Francia was a great reader, and loved the written word. He also has some interesting things to say about the spoken word, and how fallible the combination of memory and scribbles on a page can be. You get the sense that whatever it is he really wants to say, to leave behind as a testament when he dies, can’t be captured in words, or at least he can’t find the right ones.

I enjoyed parts of this book quite a lot – the bits of folklore that got tumbled in somehow, or the crazy stories that his secretary felt compelled to share with the Supreme were intriguing. It was astonishingly wordy – my vocabulary has to have expanded by 15% from this book alone!

Overall it was very difficult, but having finished it I find that I am blown over by a feeling of amazement. I The Supreme is a bizarrely great piece of writing, and I’m not sorry in the end that I saved it for last! 🙂

6 Comments

Posted in Augusto Roa Bastos, Authors, Books, Famous People, History, Non-sense, Novels, Orbis Terrarum Challenge 2009, Reading, Reading Challenges, State of the World | Tags: , , , , , ,

Posted by: Sally Ingraham | December 27, 2009

Kristin Lavransdatter: The Cross

Kristin Lavransdatterby Sigrid Undset
Translated by Tiina Nunnally

I got sick on Christmas Day, which was a bummer since I was at my parent’s house for a rare and brief visit. Instead of going for numerous beach walks and drinking copious amounts of coffee at the cafe that two of my sisters work at, I was forced to stay in bed. The upside of this is obvious – I got some reading done. In an ill haze I blundered through the last 224 pages of Kristin Lavransdatter, and after tossing the tome aside I mysteriously felt significantly better!

I think that I can safely say that I liked part three – The Cross – a great deal more than part two, and perhaps even marginally more than part one. The writing didn’t improve, and Kristin didn’t become more likable with time, but I was kept very slightly more entertained. While Kristin continued to battle Erland and resent his haphazard approach to life, she at least didn’t shed as many tears. She finally finished nursing her sons and they grew up into handsome and somewhat interesting characters. Unfortunately, Undset replaced the frequent fits of crying with gratuitous descriptions of the boys physical attributes… Simon passed away sooner than I was expecting (sad…), and a great deal of episodic drama ensued. This kept the pages turning, but doesn’t say much for the quality of the writing. (After all, I had trouble putting Twilight down too, in spite of the horrendous writing…but let’s not go there!) I cried a bit when Erland died, but it doesn’t take much to get me to well up. Kristin’s reaction to her eldest son’s late arrival at the death bed dried those tears right up, however! Despicable. I thought the tale of Kristin’s son Gaute’s conquest of his bride was hilarious, and the final scenes dealing with the Black Death victims grossed me out.

This sporadic list of reactions stems from my inability to really form any concrete thoughts about the book. As a whole I generally disliked it, but I’m not sorry I read it. The more I think about it the more it amuses me – or to put it more accurately, the reading experience was amusing. Getting to know Kristin was like getting to know someone who you think of as a friend, even a fun and interesting friend at first, but one who quickly envelopes your life with their own drama, sucking you into it until you’re nearly suffocated, and certainly frustrated. The type of friend who, while you’re living in the same town you can’t seem to avoid, but who you’ll forget as soon as you are able to get away. The type of friend who will become a funny story later – Remember that girl, what was her name? Kristin? Wow. She was ca-razy! I can imagine myself discussing her over a few beers with my saner girlfriends, smiling ruefully, shaking my head.

I suppose that is what has made this read-along so much fun – we are all in a support group together, gathered in a safe place where we can discuss Kristin behind her back, form battle plans, learn how to walk away from the relationship intact! It’s been a wild ride, and I entertained feelings of nausea at some points, screamed, threw my hands in the air. Now that I’ve escaped her clutches, though, and my feet are back on the ground (and thankfully in my own century!!) I can’t help but feel that it was worth it, in an odd twisted way. I am extremely satisfied that I finished the book!

Thanks again to Emily and Richard for hosting this group read. It’s been an adventure!

———
Previously: The Wife, and The Wreath.

12 Comments

Posted in Adventure, Authors, Beer, Book related, Books, Non-sense, Novels, Read-Along, Reading, Reading Challenges, Sigrid Undset | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by: Sally Ingraham | December 26, 2009

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

DSC00342by Shirley Jackson

This book wasn’t incredibly Christmas appropriate, but when I arrived at my parent’s house and saw it in the library books box, I knew I had to read it. There has been a great deal of buzz about the book recently, and a quick search though my Google Reader brought up reviews from Eva, Lu, Simon, Steph, and Thomas!

As a piece of writing this book was mesmerizing. It was a good example of how a writer can create a believable voice, a setting that pops off the page, and manipulate an atmosphere. I definitely enjoyed it at that level.

It sure was creepy though, and it was about some seriously disturbed people. Merricat, the narrator, introduces herself like this:

‘My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.‘

Merricat proves to be an unreliable narrator, starting with that last sentence, since her Uncle Julian lives with them in the large Blackwood mansion. Constance never strays beyond the garden, and it is by following Merricat to the village for the weekly grocery run that you pick up more hints about her family, hear rumors of poison, and get a very large dose of unease.

At home, with the suspicious gossip of the villagers kept away by gates and padlocks, and the protection of Merricat’s buried talismans and magic words, life is pleasant. Constance cooks and cleans with gentle care and love. Uncle Julian rambles and muses and works on the book he is writing about the last night of the rest of the Blackwood family. Marricat plays in the woods and tells her sister stories of what their life on the moon will be like, should they ever manage to get there.

It is abundantly apparent that there is a great deal kept hidden, or at least at bay. Merricat, for all her eighteen years, is full of a brooding childishness. When the bizarre balance of her happy life is threatened by the arrival of Cousin Charles, and her choking hold on Constance’s life seems in danger of slipping, you quickly become aware of what frightening lengths she will go to in order to get what she wants.

Then there is the whole underlying question (minor spoilers ahead!) of how much of Merricat’s story can you believe? Is her entire world a fabrication? Did she actually die when she was in the orphanage and Constance was on trial for murder, as Uncle Julian hints? (Lu brought up a fascinating theory in her review that I am inclined to entertain too.)

Jackson’s skill lies in her ability to hold your attention, and weave the creepy factor of her story in so subtly that you aren’t immediately aware of the shivers running up and down your spine. While I found the book disturbing, I would say that I liked it based on the skillful handling alone. I reached the end, and had to let my breath out in a long “phewww!” of both relief (to have escaped from Merricat’s crazy world,) and amazement at what Jackson had crafted.

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Posted in Authors, Books, Holidays, Non-sense, Novels, Reading, Shirley Jackson | Tags: , , , , ,

Posted by: Sally Ingraham | December 23, 2009

Christmas Travels

Sand and Snow
On our way to deliver presents to folks in Calais, ME, on Monday, (doing our part for The Maine Sea Coast Mission‘s Christmas program!) my friend and I stopped at Roque Bluffs State Park to check out the chilly sea of Englishman Bay. It was gray and we got buffeted by a freezing wind, but I was glad to grab this interesting shot, among others, before we raced back to the car.

I’m presently in Kennebunk, ME, – home for the holidays – and now that most of my family has gone to bed or otherwise hidden themselves away, I’m going to sneak a little reading in. I still have some hefty chunks of book to finished before the end of the year, and my sisters are already tempting me with other juicy offerings that they have around the house… (I didn’t know that We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson was so SHORT! Surely I can squeeze it in?)

Happy holiday reading. 🙂

3 Comments

Posted in Adventure, Authors, Book related, Books, Hiking/Walking, Holidays, Maine, Non-sense, Novels, Reading, Traveling | Tags: , , , , , , ,

Posted by: Sally Ingraham | December 19, 2009

Shiver

DSC00312by Maggie Stiefvater

Taking a break from my hefty December reading pile, I spent all of yesterday morning tromping through the chilly world of a mysterious Minnesota wood. My little sister had recommended Shiver to me as ‘definitely the best werewolf book I’ve read’. I’ve read remarkably little YA fantasy this year (a genre that normally dominates my TBR list) so I felt it was high time to bite into something light and yummy.

Shiver is the story of Grace and Sam. For years Grace has been watching the woods behind her house for glimpses of a yellow-eyed wolf who seems somehow familiar and important. From the shadow of the trees Sam has been watching her for just as long. When a local boy is killed by wolves, the townsfolk pick up their guns and head into the forest. When Grace comes home and finds an injured, naked boy with yellow eyes on her porch, she knows that a distant, unspoken love can no longer be ignored. Together the two have to fight to keep Sam human, but the bitter cold of winter can only be kept at bay for so long.

I liked this book very much. It had a pretty love story and an interesting take on the werewolf problem. While certain aspects of the reality of werewolves in this world are left conveniently unexplained, the overall idea – a bite begins it, the cold brings out the wolf and warmth brings back the human – was simple and effective. Grace was fairly believable and Sam was even more so – it helped that he played the guitar and loved poetry. And he’s a werewolf. Mmm, delicious.

Not the most thought-provoking of books, but definitely the best werewolf story I’ve encountered yet. And there are threads, as always, to follow. The poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke makes an appearance and I’ll be tracking him down in the future. And I very likely will read more of Maggie Stiefvater when I next need to sink my teeth into something yummy. 🙂

8 Comments

Posted in Authors, Books, Maggie Stiefvater, Non-sense, Novels, Rainer Maria Rilke, Reading | Tags: , , , , ,

Posted by: Sally Ingraham | December 18, 2009

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Tree 2009
My trees seem to get smaller every year – but it still took me over 2 hours to decorate this one! Only spent about 5 minutes of that time chasing Briggs down in order to retrieve said tree… A little kitty spit didn’t hurt it! 🙂

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Posted in Holidays, My cats, Non-sense | Tags: , ,

Posted by: Sally Ingraham | December 18, 2009

Rivals

DSC00313
Briggs is fully aware that he has a little bit of competition when it comes to getting my attention!

3 Comments

Posted in Book related, Books, My cats, Non-sense | Tags: ,

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