“ There can hardly be a stranger commodity in the world than books. Printed by people who don't understand them; sold by people who don't understand them; bound, criticized and read by people who don't understand them; and now even written by people who don't understand them. " George Lichtenberg, 1742
I hope that my first selections for 2007 seduces more members of the Clan to join me between the pages. The People's Act of Love should keep you up at nights, though the 'act' it references may suprise you, and reading the very adult fairy tale, Perfume, will only add to your insomnia. A gentler recording of the human condition is found in My Antonia, a book selection suitable for most ages. The Laird and I recently visited Amsterdam, therefore the weans' selection is Anne Frank's Diary; if you haven't read it since school, revisit it, and be surprised all over again at its moving maturity. Our non-fiction offering, God’s Secretaries, follows the story of the making of the King James Bible, and a Baltimore brain surgeon becomes our new voice in poetry with The Clock made of Confetti. Is Nora Ephron really that funny? Decide whether I Feel Bad About my Neck is gallus or mince. Still, her screenplay for Sleepless in Seattle is a guilty pleasure for Valentine’s Day, and makes a great double-bill with Volver,where Penelope Cruz channels Sophia Loren. Meet you between the pages.
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:: NEW :: BOOKCLAN CHOICE!! :: |
The People's Act of Love by James Meek (2006) |
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“You use your imagination too much. When a thief meets a civilian, the thief always wins, because the civilian can only imagine what his throat’ll be like after it’s been cut, and while he is busy doing that, the thief is cutting his throat. Think less, intellectual, breath more. Breathe. Your heart has to beat faster. The blood has to circulate. Winter. Frost. That’s what wants to eat you this minute.”” |
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| Comments: Critics on both sides of the Atlantic went googly-eyed agog over Meek’s modern spin on the Russian epic. The Guardian termed it “spellbinding,” and The Spectator called it a "humdinger.” Revolution, famine, cannibalism, religious fundamentalism, and love affairs – Meek’s cinematic novel has it all. In 1919, a small Siberian village led by a religious sect awaits the arrival of the Bolshevik Red Army, which is scouring the country for remnants of the Royalist Whites. A stranger appears, a convict fleeing an Arctic prison, who claims he is being chased by a cannibal. The convict catches the eye of a beautiful widow, but she is already loved by another man. Events turn very Russian. | |
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:: MODERN |
| Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind (1986) | |
“In eighteenth century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages. His story will be told here. His name was Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, and if his name – in contrast to the names of the other gifted abominations, de Sade’s, for instance …has been forgotten today, it is certainly not because Grenouille fell short of those more famous blackguards when it came to arrogance, misanthropy, immorality, or, more succinctly, to wickedness…” |
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| Comments: Well, the movie had mixed reviews, but the book is diverting. Our dastardly hero Grenouille is born with an exceptional sense of smell, but absolutely no detectable body odor, nor conscience. Rather than contenting himself by using the usual ingredients of flowers and spices to become the best perfumier in 18th Century France, Grenouille catches the unique and promising whiff of a passing virgin. He becomes determined to bottle it, to the detriment, as you may expect, of the virgin. Süskind is an author for whom the adjective holds no fears, and it is doubtful any other writer has matched his powers of conveying the olfactory sense. Here is descriptive writing at its baroque and macabre best! | |
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:: CLASSIC |
| My Ántonia by Willa Cather (1910) | |
“She still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one’s breath for a moment by a look or a gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things. She only had to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last. All the strong things of her heart came out in her body, that had been so tireless in serving generous emotions… she was a rich mine of life, like the founders of early races.” |
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Willa Cather’s extraordinary heroine stands in my imagination as the embodiment of the American west. Ántonia, the daughter of Bohemian immigrants, struggles to build a life on the harsh Nebraskan plain during the turn of the twentieth century. Her wild nature, her abundant humanity, her sensual physicality, her loves, her hardships and regrets, are all recorded through the eyes of her one-time tutor, and disappointed admirer, Jim Burden. A note perfect novel by a sometimes underrated American novelist.
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