Bliss - Katherine Mansfield

When we meet Bertha Young, she is a happy woman. She loves Harry, her husband, and Little B, her baby girl. She loves her home, her thrilling friends, her flowering pear tree, the beautiful fruit she has purchased for the night's dinner party. She is so happy as she approaches her home that she wishes she could run or dance, but she knows better than be so unseemly. "How idiotic civilization is," she thinks. "Why be given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?" But no, she thinks. "... that about the fiddle is not quite what I mean."

The exuberance, the love of place, the pleasure in the preparations for a party predate the appearance of Mrs. Dalloway , but Bertha could be her younger, less-introspective sister. She also could be the younger, less-callous sister of Isobel in "Marriage a la Mode," eager to know interesting people and to enjoy the moment. In fact, she shares one circumstance with them both: her enthusiasms do not lead to true intimacy in marriage. All three women who love life and color and friends have marriages that are companionable, but passionless.

After she arranges the smooth pears and ripe grapes, Bertha visits the nursery, where Nanny is feeding Little B. Nanny does not want to allow Bertha to feed the baby, but Bertha insists, thinking "why have a baby if it has to be kept - not in a case like a rare, rare fiddle- but in another woman's arms!" Bertha feeds Little B and admires the child, saying "I'm fond of you, I like you," as she admires the child's doll-like toes, and the sweetness of her lips and hands. Her blissful, ecstatic afternoon continues as she thinks of her books, her artistic friends, the scent of jonquils, and the lovely white dress she will wear to dinner.

Amongst the guests at her dinner party are characters who could have been lounging in the heat along with Isobel. Bertha loves them all: Eddie, the writer in the blazing white socks, the monocled Norman Knight, and his wife, who tucks things into the front of her dress "as if she kept a tiny, secret hoard of nuts there." She loves them, and wishes she could tell them "what a decorative group they made, how they seemed to set one another off and how they reminded her of a play by Chekhov!"

But the most beloved guest is the mysteriously cool, blonde, silvery Pearl Fulton. "They had met at the club and Bertha had fallen in love with her, as she always did fall in love with beautiful women who had something strange about them." Bertha feels a deep connection with Pearl, although her husband has been most uncomplimentary about her ("cold like all blond women") and Pearl has been indirect, quiet, observant, inexact. Like a schoolgirl with a crush, Bertha wants a sign, proof that Pearl shares that mystical connection, although "what would happen after that she could not imagine."

As the guests mingle and talk after dinner, she and Pearl look at the pear tree, its white flowers gleaming in the moonlight, illuminating and encircling them both (she feels) in a silvery, unearthly, intimate light. The moment passes, the party goes on, and Bertha thinks of how she will praise and champion her silvery friend later, in bed with Harry.

With that thought, Bertha is caught in a wash of a feeling - terrifying, new - one she never has before known: sexual desire. Desire for her husband. Desire that makes her ache."Was that what this feeling of bliss had been leading up to?" As her guests are leaving, bustling about with their coats and their taxis, she is as detached as if it were she who is departing, leaving an old world behind.

Mansfield has prepared the reader for the story's end, but gently, quietly. A body should not be hidden like a fiddle, she has said, twice. Look at the grapes, the pears, the flowering fruit tree in Bertha's Eden; look for the silence behind the chattering guests and the thoughts that skip through Bertha's mind as she would skip through her blissful, ecstatic, childlike life. But look also to the violin's sensual curves, the fecundity of the fruit and the flowers. Be prepared to participate in the world as it is.

Bertha is prepared for her old life to recede, and, perhaps, the reader is prepared for what Bertha sees when she looks to the hallway as her guests leave. She sees her husband and Pearl, "with her moonbeam fingers on his cheeks...and her sleepy smile" as Richard turns her violently toward himself for an embrace and a promise. Pearl touches Bertha's hand and says good-bye, leaving Bertha to gaze at the pear tree in her garden, still blooming, still lovely, and still. With that touch, Bertha loses her virginity.

Although Mansfield's observations are sharp, and although she is relentless in her parodies of the modern, artistic people who populate the world of the Youngs, she seems to have more compassion for Bertha than for many of her women characters. Bertha has served a purpose in the lives of her husband and her friends. She has been decorative, cheerful, and pliable. She simply never has grown up. Her only flaw has been innocence that has never been tested. Perhaps her daughter will be better prepared to be a woman in the real world. Perhaps her daughter will truly understand Chekhov.

melanie

Decades Reading Challenge

Another challenge! It's called By the decade. You select consecutive decades and read a book for each.

I've decided to read from 12 decades.

1890s Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde)
1900s Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)
1910s Song of the Lark (Willa Cather)
1920s The Beautiful and Damned (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
1930s Murder on the Orient Express (Agatha Christie)
1940s Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh)
1950s Wise Blood (Flannery O'Connor)
1960s Speak, Memory (Vladimir Nabokov)
1970s Play It As It Lays (Joan Didion)
1980s Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan)
1990s The Biographer's Tale (A.S. Byatt)
2000s The Seven Sisters (Margaret Drabble)

Since we're allowed to cross-challenge (use books that we have read/will read for other challenges in 2007), I've already read two.

Thanks, 3M, for hosting this challenge.

melanie

Booking through Thursday

Booking Through Thursday

1. Speaking of writing in books, what about writing the entire thing? Do you write? Aspire to write? Dream about writing? I do, indeed, write - but I don't finish. Like millions of people, I have several (ahem) unfinished novels lying about, plus their notes, plus their research. (I do a lot of research...it's easier than actually using it, yes?) The most recent seedling is up to about 10,000 words and doesn't seem to be gnarling into a nightmare Bonsai tree. The writing has been more of a flow and less like being hauled by a tugboat. I have some hope for that one. (You, however, may have serious doubts about whether my license to create coherent metaphors should be burned.)
   I also write letters, [bad] poetry, and a journal. Letters, especially, are a joy to write (and receive, of course). No matter how blocked I am in my *serious* writing, letters and journals allow my writing self (hopes, dreams) to manifest every day.
   
2. If you do write, do you do it for yourself, or because you hope to be published? (Or because you ARE published?) For myself.

melanie

Booking through Thursday

Booking Through Thursday

1. Do you lend your books to other people? If so, any restrictions? Not often. Everyone I know has so many books that they don't need mine! It's a good thing, because I'm almost as neurotic about my books as I am about my fountain pens. I once lent a copy of The Bhagavad Gita to my cousin. When she gave it back, I saw that she'd inked a large OM symbol on the fanned-out pages. This happened at least 35 years ago, and I still remember the punch of dismay I felt.
   


2. Do you borrow books from other people? (Friends or family—I'm not talking about the public library) Not often. See above. However, that does not stop me from BUYING books from other people. Heaven help me, I've discovered BookMooch.
   


3. And, most importantly—do the books you lend/borrow get returned to their rightful owners?? Yes. Absolutely. melanie
   

TBR Challenge: Leave me alone, I'm reading

Leave me alone, I'm reading -- Maureen Corrigan

I love this book.
I love this book even though it has complicated my life by adding dozens and dozens of books to the list of books I will never have time to read, dammit.

** Maureen Corrigan is related to Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan.
** She once lived a part-time approximation of Harriet Vane in Gaudy Night.
** Her literary loves include mysteries with hard-boiled detectives ("the ultimate independent contractors").
** As a child, she read many Catholic "martyr stories" that taught a "pedagogical tough-love message. "
** She once told a student that Gertrude Stein's Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas is "an elegant goof."
** She once taught a course called "Sleuthing spinsters and dangerous dames."
** She regrets that tomboy characters in children's books have been "gussied up and diminished into girly girls by Disney."
** (My favorite) As a critic, she has been forced to misspend reading time on mysteries narrated by cats.

I love this woman.

Corrigan's narrative is not jumpy, and is not list-like. My notes are, both. When I started reading, my notes focused on her thoughts about reading as a search for personal authenticity, to deepen one's own life. By the end, I was compiling a bibliography.

I am fascinated by her analysis of men's vs. women's literature. Both, she says, can be extreme adventure stories. Men's adventures usually are visible, external struggles with extreme topography or evildoers. Women's, however, may not be as obvious if they are internal struggles with issues as strong as the most fearsome dictator or hurricane: abortion, widowhood, childbirth, psychological or physical abuse, repression. A woman's extreme adventure, she says, is "less Herculean and more Sisyphean in nature."

I am also fascinated by the memoir that is woven through her literary adventures. She left the Catholic childhood behind and pursued a career in writing that included non-tenured professorships and writing for the "Village Voice." Her job at NPR as book critic is her dream job (which anyone reading this blog knows to be true). This trajectory was, at least, logical.

Not so logical or linear was her struggle to have a child. She and her husband endured the extreme adventure, all-too-common, of treatment for infertility. Finally, they decided to adopt a Chinese baby. That trajectory, through Byzantine paperwork and terrifying Chinese roads, careened from despair to optimism to bewilderment - and ended with their daughter, Molly, asleep in their arms.

I came away from this book wishing that I had Maureen in my life as a friend - or, barring that, wishing I had unlimited access to her library.

I don't just recommend this book. I relish it.

(In no particular order, some of the books that I now want to read or reread : Gaudy Night, News from Nowhere, The Girl Sleuth, The Unicorn's Secret, The Godwulf Manuscript, Etchings in an Hourglass, Quartet in Autumn, Villette, Lost Lady, Lucky Jim, Murder in the English Department, stories by Chekhov including "Lady with a Lapdog," Madwoman in the Attic, The Lecturer's Tale, Straight Man, and Charming Billy.)

Sheesh!
melanie

Wordless Wednesday (with words)

February Twilight - Sara Teasdale

I stood beside a hill
Smooth with new-laid snow,
A single star looked out
From the cold evening glow.

There was no other creature
That saw what I could see
I stood and watched the evening star
As long as it watched me.

Your work space

Teabird provided a treat when she posted a photo and description of A.S. Byatt's workshop. So let me ask you, gentle reader: what is (or would be) your ideal workspace?

Moon Rani's turn at a meme

Below are my answers to the meme that Teabird answered earlier.

What kind of care do you take of your books? Let's review, shall we?
Are you careful with the spines? Or do you crack your books open to make them lay flat?
Do you use bookmarks? Or do you dog-ear the corners? If you do use bookmarks, do you use those fashionable metal ones? Or paper?
I am very careful with books. I don't crack spines - - "Cracking spines" upsets me, even in inanimate objects. I use plastic bookmarks, though sometimes I use the envelope from a friend's letter. I dislike bulky bookmarks that bulge the pages.
Do you write in your books? Ever? If you do, do you make small marks, or write in as much blank space as you can find? Pen or pencil? Highlighter? Your name on the front page?
I never write in books, although I highlight Bible passages with colored pencils.
Do you toss your books on the floor? Into bookbags? Or do you treat them tenderly, with respect? I care for my books as if they were actual friends.
Do you ever lay your book face-down, to save your place? Oh, no.
Um--water? Do you bathe with your books? Hold them with wet hands? Read out in the rain? Anything of that sort? Never. I once lent a book to a man I had just begun to date. He returned it to me in a wretched state; it seems he read it while in the bathtub, and dropped it in the water. He never apologized, and never offered to replace it. My intuition told me to drop him immediately, based on his treatment of my book. I didn't. I rued that decision mightily.
Are your books lined up on a bookshelf? Or crammed in any which way? Stacked on the floor? Current circumstances leave me without a bookcase. My books are in little stacks here and there until I can secure a bookcase. Then I'll line them in tidy rows.
Do you make a distinction--as regards book care--between hardcovers and paperbacks? No.
And, to recap? Naturally, you love all of your books, but how, exactly? Are your books loved in the battered way of a well-loved teddy bear, or like a cherished photo album or item of clothing that's used, appreciated, but carefully cared for? I love my books in the latter way, like a cherished friend who deserves the best of care. That's how I think of books and always have done.
Any additional comments? I attribute much of my book habits to early childhood training. I was raised by a mother who came from a hardscrabble home, and who emphasized the values of things. I was taught to take care of my belongings, and to make them last as long as possible.

One out of every twenty-five

My interest in true-crime books piqued an interest in knowing what makes murderers tick. How can someone take another's life? How can someone take more than one life? Truly, I think I would lose my mind if I committed a murder for personal gain. Even killing someone in self-defense would shatter me. Being able to commit the heinous act of killing is what I call an unknowable because there is just no way I can know how a person thinks before, during and after murder. Some of my earliest childhood teachings were to put myself in someone else's place. Over time, I began to try to think like someone else in a particular circumstance in order to figure out what makes him the way he is. It isn't quite the same as the novel, The Other, but I understood trying on someone else's mind for size. But I've never been able to try on the mind of a murderer - - I am exceedingly grateful for that.
Some years ago, FBI profilers interviewed hundreds of incarcerated killers, the infamous as well as the obscure. They took notes on simple facts such as birth-order, environment, height, weight, parental involvement and dozens of other things. Then they sorted the facts, looking for commonalities, and began the method of criminal profiling. Sociopathy (or psychopathy, as I prefer, also known as the antisocial personality) was a common disorder among those interviewed, especially among the serial killers and mass murderers. In other words, people who killed others were frequently found to be devoid of conscience.
Martha Stout, PhD., submits the figure of population distribution of sociopathy at four percent, or, one person out of twenty-five. Dr. Stout is the author of my most recent read, The Sociopath Next Door. Lest you think, dear reader, that this means that one out of every twenty-five people may just snap and kill you, please know that sociopathy takes a variety of manifestations (personality theorist Theodore Millon divides sociopathy into ten subtypes). Some sociopaths are content to commit petty unkindnesses while others prefer to sack and loot corporations, and still others kill people or rob banks. Perhaps you had a cruel schoolteacher or coach. You might just have known one of the sociopaths next door.
In The Sociopath Next Door, Dr. Stout describes, through composite examples, several sociopathic personalities in action, none of whom is the serial killer type. She situates the sociopath in our neighborhoods, and tells us what kind of behavior he exhibits in day to day living. As chilling as that sounds, it also serves to inform, to put us on our guard.
Dr. Stout states that she wrote this book as her answer to the question, Why have a conscience? She wrote that she also wanted "to warn good people about 'the sociopath next door,' and to help them cope." As I read, I became more and more sure that I know two sociopaths; I am very grateful that there is much distance between them and me! Far from advising the other ninety-six percent of us to avoid judgment and labels with sociopaths, Dr. Stout tells us how to protect ourselves from them. What a relief that position is from the trend to look for "root causes" of harmful behavior, and to keep trying to reach the good that is presumed to be in the hearts of those who would hurt us. Sometimes, there is no such good. Sometimes the best thing we can do is to keep up our defenses.
In fact, the latter part of the books lists "Thirteen Rules for Dealing With Sociopaths in Everyday Life." Some of those rules simply waste paper and print (such as the last rule, "Living well is the best revenge"), but others are useful in identifying sociopaths and dealing with them when we must.
Dr. Stout muses at length about what constitutes conscience, what causes it to develop and what prevents it from developing. She weaves her enthusiasm for Buddhist views into this book as well, though I would prefer less philosophising and more hard fact.
Although I still can't put myself into the mind of a sociopath, this book provided an enlightening view of what makes such people the way they are.

Booking through Thursday

This week's question:

A couple weeks ago, we asked about how you take care of your books, with one of the questions asking whether you write in your books. Well, what about books that are meant to be written in? Like, say, a journal or diary? Do you keep one? Obviously, if you're answering this, you have a blog--do you just let your blog be your journal? Or do you also keep one for private stuff also?

Yes, yes, yes. I keep one for myself. I've kept a journal for 37 years, give or take a few periods of silence. (As always, silence roars.) The notebooks are in my closet, in two large pieces of luggage. Although I've never reread them, there are some entries I can see as clearly as if they were in front of me. I know where I wrote, what I wrote, which pen and which ink I used. Taken together, they probably would be a Cubist sort of memoir - some overlap, some clashes of color, some movement (but very little organization, alas).

Will I ever reread them? Probably. Will I ever share them? That's a hard one. I'd like to say yes, sure, but I'm not sure.

I have purposely avoided using fancy notebooks as journals, although I'll use them for story ideas, commonplace-type books, repositories for haikus, even lists. For journal writing (does anyone really like the verb form, journaling??), I want to be comfortable, even sloppy, without the psychological impediment of a formal environment. The same does not hold true with my pens, however - if the paper is fountain-pen friendly, I'll use one from my collection (especially if it was a gift).

melanie

TBR bonus post - A.S. Byatt's Workspace

I love to see how/where writers write, don't you?

Here's a link to A.S. Byatt's writing room -- a Victorian attic, glass paperweights, room to write by hand -

and magpies outside her window...

TBR Challenge - The Biographer's Tale

The Biographer's Tale - A.S. Byatt

Welcome to the Bizarro World edition of Possession. Where once the literary sleuths sought the mystery of a Victorian poet, now the sleuth seeks to escape the Laputa-like world of modern literary criticism. He wants things - facts - tangibles.

Steered by his orotund advisor (who doodles random, obscene runes during lectures) and stirred by a three-volume biography of Elmer Bowles (a Victorian polymath whose own writings may or may not have been, shall we say, reliable), Phineas Nanson decides to write a biography of the biographer, Scholes Destry-Scholes. Destry-Scholes becomes Phineas's guru, inspiring him to write as he wrote by retracing his subject as Destry-Scholes had followed his multifaceted and peripatetic subject all over the world, learning the same languages, and, possibly, dying in the pursuit of Biography.

Byatt is devilish. In Posession, literary factions flung themselves into the chase for Cristabel's secrets. In this book, nobody flings himself at anything - except, perhaps, a zealous Swedish bee taxonomist, whose assistance in translating some of Destry-Scholes's notes on Linneus prefigure her zest for - well, for Phineas.

Notes rescued from the bottom of a file drawer seem to show that Destry-Scholes was in the process of a work - or works - on three men who seem to have little in common: Linnaeus, the taxonomist whose travel-writings betrayed a singular desire to catalog the sexual organs of everything he sees, whether human or plant; Galton, the inventor of fingerprinting and a zealot for eugenics; and the great playwright.

As Phineas tries to follow the biographer's notes, his confusion begins to resemble one of Galton's passions: creating composite portraits of people by selecting features of each and blending them, creating, in Phineas's eyes, "something that had been taken away by being added." The same process begins to afflict Phineas, who loses focus as accumulated facts begin to blend into an unsatisfactory whole.

Vera, a niece of Destry-Scholes, allows him access to shoe-boxes filled with note cards and a collection of her uncle's marbles, which she tries to match up to lists of unrelated words in one of her uncle's notebooks: maidenhair, bum, lamplight, tendril, gloop, gentian, spitfire, goosefeather... His employment at Puck's Girdle, a fey, blue-green travel agency, introduces him to a sinister gentleman who offers snuff Phileas as a sly requestfor a rather perverse tour -- but is this desire any less perverse than the celebrated taxonomists's prurient focus?

Phineas describes himself as "a very small man.. but perfectly formed." This book is a perfectly delightful stew of things, facts, and intangibles that might not satisfy the cravings of the would-be biographer, but satisfied me completely.

melanie

I don't drink.... wine...

I've been reading Brideshead Revisited for Knit the Classics. How I love Anthony Blanche. ..

Ah, Anthony. Anthony is my favorite character (outside of Aloysius, but let's no go there) in the book, and in the mini-series. Maybe I just have a Thing for flamboyant magi, but one must find truth where it is. Is anyone else as fascinated by this character's perfect observations as I am?

I just reread the section where Anthony and Charles are having dinner, and Anthony is telling Charles about Sebastian's "gruesome" family. In retrospect, wasn't he perfectly correct? Did he not have (especially) Lady Marchmain down in every respect? Were not (are not) the aristocracy far more decadent than the most florid commoner?

I'm also a sucker for anything that mentions the Bloomsbury crowd, and even their tangents, so I love the comment he throws off about having to read Antic Hay before he goes to Garsington. He would have fit in perfectly at Garsington! Lady Ottoline would have loved him, and how he would have loved her home, the colors, the Orientalism, the pugs -

... and gracious - can you imagine a conversation between Anthony Blanche and Lytton Strachey? It would have been so d-d-delicious.

melanie

Booking Through Thursday

Via Book-a-Rama :

Booking Through Thursday

What kind of care do you take of your books? Let's review, shall we?

1. Are you careful with the spines? Or do you crack your books open to make them lay flat? I'm both careful AND I crack the books - depends on the book (and, needless to say, whether it's mine!)


2. Do you use bookmarks? Or do you dog-ear the corners? If you do use bookmarks, do you use those fashionable metal ones? Or paper? I use bookmarks. Many of them were gifts, and some are hand-made (embroidered, knitted). The only metal one I use is William, the hippo from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on a blue ribbon.


3. Do you write in your books? Ever? If you do, do you make small marks, or write in as much blank space as you can find? Pen or pencil? Highlighter? Your name on the front page? Sometimes I use an address label on the inside front cover, and sometimes I write in the book. If the paper is fountain-pen friendly, I use a fine-nibbed pen. Otherwise, a ball point. If I write, it's usually on one of the blank pages at the end - I take notes, and indicate the page number.


4. Do you toss your books on the floor? Into book bags? Or do you treat them tenderly, with respect? On the floor!?!?!?!? I carry books with me in my knitting bag, or in a tote with my notebooks and journal. My books, c'est moi. If anything, I treat them more tenderly, and with more respect, than I treat myself!
   


5. Um--water? Do you bathe with your books? Hold them with wet hands? Read out in the rain? Anything of that sort? No. No. No.


6. Are your books lined up on a bookshelf? Or crammed in any which way? Stacked on the floor? On bookshelves or piled on furniture. Never ever ever on the floor (see #5).


7. Do you make a distinction--as regards book care--between hardcovers and paperbacks? Not really.


8. And, to recap? Naturally, you love all of your books, but how, exactly? Are your books loved in the battered way of a well-loved teddy bear, or like a cherished photo album or item of clothing that's used, appreciated, but carefully cared for? Both. Some are well-loved stuffed rabbits, and some are cherished like a pair of velvet gloves. (Wine-colored velvet, or forest green. I know this is more information than you want. I have a thing for gloves.


9. Any additional comments? Not now - I'm reading.

melanie

2nd annual St. Brigid Bloggers (Silent Poetry)

(From Carrie's post)

What: A blogger's silent poetry reading
When: anytime February 2
Where: your blog
Why: to celebrate the Feast of Saint Brigid, a/k/a Groundhog Day.
How: select a poem you like- by a favorite poet or one of your own - to post February 2.

If you plan to publish, feel free to leave a comment and link on this post. Last year, Reya put out the call and there was more poetry in cyberspace than she could keep track of. So, link to whomever you hear about this from and a mighty web of poetry will be spun.


My contribution:

To Japanese Incense - Sara Teasdale

The wind that rings the temple bell
Is far away,
And far the brazen incense urns
Of ashes grey.
And far the carven temple gates
Of red and gold --
The dreamy temples where the gods
Have long been old.
The dragonflies and irises
Beside the stream,
Are far away in lands of dawn
And lands of dream.

melanie

TBR Challenge - The Nazi Officer's Wife

The Nazi Officer's Wife - Edith Hahn Beer, with Susan Dworkin.

I read this book because a good friend said she'd been inspired by it. People will do anything to survive. Yes, and it often is astonishing to know about them. Astonishing, inspiring - and terrifying.

This book terrified me. Anything about the Holocaust terrifies me. The very word, Kristallnacht, terrifies me. I am a Jewish woman; I would be foolish if it didn't terrify me, or if I were complacent enough to think it never could happen again.

Kristallnacht, Night of Broken Glass. When I read about the Holocaust (which I rarely do), my brain experiences Kristallnacht. Thoughts break away and shatter. I lose my ability to speak coherently. To think coherently.

***********************

Edith Hahn's memoir is coherent and focused. I read it in one sitting because it was impossible to look away. Her story has been dramatized, and it is remarkable.

The world for Viennese Jews came apart very quickly. One day, she was finishing law school, and the next, she was enslaved and forced to work on a farm and in a carton factory. Rather than submit to being taken to Poland, she went underground in Vienna, where kind Viennese women helped her to get false identification papers and saved her life. She moved to a town outside of Dresden, met a Nazi officer, lived with him, married him, had his child, a daughter. He spent time in Siberia, captured in battle, and returned. They divorced. She and her daughter went to England. Both survived. We know this story because her Pepi, the beloved who could not escape his grotesque and hysterical mother, saved all of her letters and papers, and because her daughter read them.

What a person will do to survive -

I can not put my thoughts together for this. Instead, I offer some of my reading notes, in no particular order. Please read the book.

the Nazi officer who demanded a dust-free home
millions turned to dust. millions.
to be able to hold two beliefs
to be considered subhuman and powerful enough to threaten civilization
those who would scapegoat
1984 - do it to her
to know the lie - the citizens knew full well - THEY MAY NOT ESCAPE INTO DENIAL BECAUSE THEY KNEW-
she refused anesthesia - she endured the pain of childbirth to protect her Jewish child- to protect the daughter of a Nazi
Thomas Mann on the radio - the first time she heard the full truth, piles of children's shoes
"I had often heard Werner's views about the power of Jewish blood"
"She turned her back on me. I could feel her sense of triumph, her genuine satisfaction in destroying my life. It had a smell, I tell you - like sweat, like lust."


melanie

To be read challenge, 2007

I must be crazy. Why do I join all of these challenges? Well, because. Because they force me to focus on things I've meant to read.
This one is the "To Be Read Challenge" - 12 books that you have been meaning to read, in 12 months.



(drumroll, please......)

Jan Marsh - Pre-Raphaelite sisterhood
Lucinda Hawksley - Lizzie Siddal, face of the Pre-Raphaelites
Ann Beattie - Follies
Claire Tomalin - Katherine Mansfield: a secret life
Kara Dalkey - The nightingale
Kazuo Ishiguro - Never let me go
A.S. Byatt - Biographer's tale
Margaret Drabble - Seven Sisters
Francine Prose - Changed man
Virginia Woolf - On being ill
Maureen Corrigan - Leave me alone, I'm reading
Edith Hahn Beer - The Nazi officer's wife

melanie

From the Stacks Winter Challenge: "Marriage à la mode" by Katherine Mansfield

Technically, this is not a "rereading." It's an offshoot of the last book I read for Rereading. That's what I do, as a voracious reader: I follow pathways from one book to something else.


"Marriage à la mode" -- Katherine Mansfield

Imagine Isabel, if you will: a young, married woman who once lived in a pretty London house with her loving husband William and two little children. Picture the house, with lush petunias in a window box: a harmonic convergence of peace and bliss after the First World War.

Now think of the changes perfuming the ancient English air: women's suffrage, feminism, artistic and literary modernism. Each change drew advocates and acolytes, many of them famous (the Bloomsbury group) and colorful (Lady Ottoline's many-hued estate, harboring artists, pacifists, and pugs). These were the glitterati of the new London.

Pretty Isabel goes to Paris with her friend Moira, and returns discontented, a new Isabel who laughs "in the new way." William, baffled by her desire for a new house, new music, and new friends, nonetheless buys her a house in the country. He stays in London and visits on weekends while Isabel lives her new life with new friends. Bohemians and artists surround her, sharing a sunlit idyll with their pretty muse. She thrives, the children thrive, and William continues to work and support the merry band of early flower children that has replaced the traditional family.

Satisfactory, no? It's feminist fairy tale, if the prince and the princess don't mind a long-distance happily-ever-after.

Not so fast.

We meet William as he prepares for a weekend visit. His children expect presents, as children do. Toys, perhaps? No: Isabel has thrown out their old toys because they were "appallingly bad for the babies' sense of form." What else would please the children? William buys a pineapple and a melon, boards the train, and thinks of his lovely, "petal-soft" Isabel and the featherbed they one shared. Worries surface. Will the merry ones be there this weekend? Will they try to steal the fruits (of his labors?) from the children?

They are, and they do.

Mansfield's pen loathes artifice, and it wastes no time peeling each acolyte. (This, one senses, is personal.) Dennis, the wannabe ironist, frames every scene into a precious verbal tableau ("A lady in love with a pineapple"). Bobby, the fey freeloader, wants to don a Nijinsky dress and dance. Moira, Isabel's friend, discovers that "sleep is so wonderful. One simply shuts one's eyes, that's all. It's so delicious." (This, one senses, is very personal.)

They tolerate William because Isabel chides them (and William overhears): "Be nice to him, my children! He's only staying until tomorrow evening." Left alone, he wanders into a sitting room that is littered with the leavings of Isabel's new children -- piles of cigarette ashes, a grotesque mural on a yellow wall, strips of paint-daubed cloth strewn over the furniture ...

What makes a house a home? Mansfield offers a gesture. William, sitting in an armchair, feels the space next to the cushion. In London, in the old house, he would have retrieved his children's toys: a three-legged toy sheep, perhaps, or a little horn. Here, he finds "yet another little paper-covered book of smudged-looking poems." Not even the detritus of Isabel's new life belongs to him. Isabel's new life has both alienated and trivialized him. The reader hears a window slam shut before a clearly-relieved Isabel shoves him into a taxi.

Mansfield's pen loathes artifice. It also loathes sentimentality. Another writer may have pounced on William and reveled in the long love-letter he begins to compose on the train. William's lachrymose letter might have been lampooned with as much savagery as Dennnis' faux irony. But it isn't; she doesn't.

Instead, she follows the letter as it is delivered to Isabel the next day, a sultry Monday that finds the sulky group moping. Only Isabel receives a letter that day, "and mine's only from William." The envelope is thick, and the letter is long. It begins: "My darling, precious Isabel," and it continues, page after heartfelt page.

Isabel, astonished, feels an unexpected, unwanted emotion. A sentimentalist may have led Isabel up to the cool privacy of her bedroom, there to have an epiphany, and to resolve to reunite with her loving husband.

Instead, Mansfield leads Isabel to her bedroom, but not before she shares the letter with her new, feral children. They whoop and jeer when they read the clumsy prose. "God forbid, my darling, that I should be a drag on your happiness." They roll on the ground, weak with hilarity.

Something about the raucous scene catches Isabel's attention. Perhaps, Mansfield seems to suggest, the letter has touched Isabel's disregarded heart. Perhaps the letter shifts Isabel's attention. Indeed, Isabel begins to berate herself, calling herself "shallow, tinkling, vain..."

Is this a liminal moment? Mansfield certainly has given Isabel a chance, but she chooses, with minimal consciousness of error, to rejoin her friends, "laughing in the new way."

Virginia Woolf once characterized Katherine Mansfield as "hard and cheap" (although she recognized Mansfield's potential to equal her own art). Hard and cheap. How else to tell this story? Isabel squanders the opportunities of liberation, congress with serious artists, and a loving husband. She chooses cheap thrills.

This fairytale does not end with Cinderella and her prince, beautiful to the end. Sleeping Beauty does not awaken to the true value of true love. The story holds up a mirror to every frivolous, self-reverential society that is so enthralled with itself that it stagnates. As it was, Mansfield implies, so shall it be.

- - - - -
- - - - -

Mansfield died of tuberculosis, at the estate of a charismatic, esoteric teacher, Gurdjieff. The wizard could not heal her - another fairy tale gone awry. Perhaps Katherine Mansfield knew that the mage would fail, but she chose to reach for the fantasy after hard reality had failed her.


----
posted by melanie

Rereadings - "From the Stacks Winter Challenge"

Rereadings, edited by Anne Fadiman.

"One of the strongest motivations for rereading is purely selfish," says Fadiman in the introduction to this collection of essays. "It helps you remember what you used to be like." This may not always be pleasant: "Rereading forces you to spend time, at claustrophobically close range, with your earnest, anxious, pretentious, embarassing former self."

Patricia Hampl, in "Relics of Saint Katherine," was introduced first to Katherine Mansfield's personal writings, the journal and letters, instead of the crisp and illuminating short stories. Hampl's guide was Doris, her boyfriend's mother, who plucked these volumes from her ceiling-high bookshelves and said, "You must have these."

Doris was as unfulfilled in the dull St. Paul neighborhood as Mansfield had been in Wellington, New Zealand. Doris was rumored to have written, and had been a teenager when Mansfield died. Since then, she had maintained a personal attachment to the life and work of the dead "tantalizing bohemian big sister," a connection she passed on to the young Patricia.

She was astonished to learn that diaries and journals could be published and admired as literature. (After all, she wrote diaries as well!) These books "opened the door to memoir and the essay, forms I came to prize and practice."

Doris loved the short stories and knew the arc of Mansfield's life, including her sexual freedom, relationships with such literati as D. H. Lawrence, and her desperate, final grab at life through the mysticism of Gurdjieff. She also believed and rejoiced in the last words of Mansfield's published journal: "All was well."

"She was so happy," said Doris. "She forgot to be careful."

"It was as if she were there," writes Hampl. But Doris died before she could reread the journal after modern scholars discovered that Mansfield's odious husband had edited it to blunt the agony, loneliness, and despair with a triumphant narrative arc. (Says one of Hampl's friends: he was "boiling Katherine's bones to make soup.")

(One is grateful that Doris was able to enjoy and cherish her Katherine to the end of her life.)

When Hampl visits Bandol, where Mansfield wrote "Prelude" and "Bliss," she ascends to Mansfield's room in the "great peachy Belle Epoque" hotel, delapitated now, "left to pickle in its unhealthy browns and beiges, its sickets greens." (One thinks of Mansfield's lungs, disintegrating in the bacillus brine of tuberculosis.) Hampl looks out to the same brilliant, blue sea that Mansfield would see after three hours of "happiness in the writing" - the only happiness that remained to the doomed writer.

As Hampl compares Mansfield to Sylvia Plath - two talented women doomed to be more famous for their lives than for their art - one realizes that the same is true of Doris, whose life we see through Hampl's brief narrative, but whose writing we never will know.

"Relics of Saint Katherine," in Hampl's first infatuation, were "the moist devotion of a cultist, not the frank pleasure of a reader." The cultist tracked down Mansfield's favorite brand of soap (Cuticura), wore the soft, velvet clothing Mansfield loved, and pinned up pictures of Mansfield as a personal shrine.

Fadiman's warning that rereading may mean encountering an "embarrassing former self" may describe this early devotion, but we also see that a writer's growth can transform that shallow, self-oriented, early experience into a deep and compassionate understanding.

*********

Hampl's essay is but one of seventeen that examine works from Colette's fiction to the Sue Barton books. Consider yourself warned: come to these essays without pen and paper, else you will want to read almost everything that these writers - those who are read and those who have written - have ever published.

melanie

The perfect month for us!

Think you not of dull and drear days of winter. Instead, brew a cup of your favorite camellia sinensis and drink a toast to January, National Hot-Tea Month! It matters not whether you sip Lipton's, Earl Grey lavender, or a rare and precious cup of liquid gold so long as it leaves you with a catlike, satisfied smile of contentment.
Cheers!
(Moon Rani)

Spam poetry? Really?

I get a fair amount of spam, and some of the subject lines are funny. Sometimes I send them to amuse TeaBird. She had a brilliant suggestion: collect spam subject lines and arrange them into poetry! I decided to make them into spamkus, that is, spam haikus. Here, Dear Reader, is my first effort, a poem which is fitting for New Year's Day.

"Look at this. Throw down

your doubts and fast join us. Pray

thee, scale greater heights."

Watch this space for more spamkus.

May you be blessed with all you need and lots of what you want this New Year.

(Moon Rani)

teacuppa

Thanks to blog reader, Jenny, who told me about www.teacuppa.com. It looks like another good site for us tea-lovers. I haven't ordered anything from there, but I recommend you visit the site now while its snowflakes still flutter and while a darling gift set is still featured.

(Moon Rani)

The gifts the "Gift-Tea" gi'e us!

A friend of a friend enjoys tea. Last year my friend gave his friend a box of English Breakfast tea, brand unknown. His friend was delighted enough to hint about this year's Christmas gift. My friend asked my advice. Naturally I was flattered, and sought to deliver my best recommendation.
I learned that the recipient did not know much about tea. I took this as a good sign, as was his pleasure with last year's gift. I had a vague idea of his taste, and I could assume he was open to new ideas. Only see what I suggested because you, too, may have a lovely gift tea to try or to give.
Since the gift recipient liked English Breakfast tea, I suggested blends of black teas known to be sturdy standbys. The first is loved tea-dom, PG Tips. It is hearty, bold and unassuming, takes well to milk or cream should you desire, and also has enough heart to accept honey or sugar. The second tea is Yorkshire Gold, which was, several years ago, named the best-tasting tea in Great Britain. It has similar properties to PG Tips while standing on its own for taste. It has a pretty box, too. I know that last sounds silly, but I think eye-appeal is part of a gift.
I took the liberty of ordering the tea, and I used www.englishteastore.com. The ordering was easy, the shipping was a lightning-stroke of rapidity, and the prices were so reasonable that I won't go anywhere else from here on. Ah, and there was a bonus: my friend told me to pick something for myself in payment for my help!
Here is another recommendation, and this one is for a honey that is copacetic with tea. Here I am with a few work holidays, so of course I also have another nasty cold. Today I am drinking a cuppa PG Tips (my "payment" tea mentioned above) sweetened with blueberry blossom honey. This honey is produced by Laney Family Honey, Inc., and was at my grocer. I find it congenial in my comfort tea. It was absolutely perfect during one of my spasms of health-seeking, when I bought Celestial Seasonings' Blueberry Breeze green tea. In fact, it was just what was needed to give the tea a blueberry taste.
(Moon Rani)

Super-Size, please

This is not a book review. It's not a tea review. It's a recommendation for a font size. I am so pleased with an early Christmas gift that I wanted to let others know about it in case they are in need of the same thing.
A friend and I agreed to exchange one Christmas gift apiece. We kept it inexpensive, and each specified the gift desired. My request was for a giant-print Bible. Illness and presbyopia combined to make my ordinary Bible harder and harder to read. In fact, I avoided reading it at all, of late. I buy large-print Reader's Digests and devotional books, and it occurred to me that there must surely be a large-print Bible, too.
What I found was that the "large-print" Bibles could be printed in fonts as small as ten-point. That's not very large. But a "giant-print" had thirteen- or fourteen-point fonts. It makes all the difference in the world! My thoughtful friend decided to give my Christmas present early because he said that no one should have to wait to read a Bible, so I can offer you this modest review.
Perhaps you or someone you know has trouble with ordinary size fonts. Now you know to look for GIANT-PRINT wherever the option is available. If it is a Bible you want, be sure to look at it before you purchase; this is one time when an online purchase might not be the best idea. The thin pages do not bother me, but I can see where they would make reading hard for people who are bothered by the print's showing through from the pages' other sides.
I keep learning how to make reading more accessible to people. Learning to read was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I have tried, in small ways, to help others enjoy reading, too. I used to read aloud on radio stations to blind and visually-impaired and physically disabled people. I used to tutor small children in reading-readiness. Now I am learning about giant-print and thin pages. I offer this information to others in case they don't know such things exist. These innovations might allow others to continue to enjoy reading.
This is an appropriate day to publish this post, as I look at the date. It was my late mother's birthday. Illness and age affected her reading pleasure, too, and I remember how thrilled she was when she discovered large-print books at the library. It was like watching someone learn to read, just seeing her excitement and pleasure when books were, once again, accessible to her.
Remember: if reading is hard for you, make an effort to find a way to work around your difficulties. Don't quit reading. Never quit reading!
(Moon Rani)

Slammerkin - "From the Stacks Winter Challenge"

Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue

I never leave the house without a red ribbon.

Mary Saunders, the focus of Slammerkin, is thrown out
of her house after being raped for her desire for a red ribbon.

Does the red ribbon establish a kinship between Mary and
me? Perhaps. Lacking a common desire or situation, the
reader may have difficulty opening herself to a character
– in my case, the relationship between a middle-aged
librarian and a doomed teenaged prostitute.

Slammerkin places a very young woman in a desperately
poor household, where she is neither loved nor consulted
about how her life will unfold.

All evidence points to a miserable and colorless
continuation of her mother’s life of poverty, drudgery,
and subjugation that was sealed when her father
was killed in a misguided protest by men who believed that
they were going to lose, literally lose, eleven days of their
lives when the government changed to the Gregorian
calendar in 1752 -that they would lose time.

I was fascinated by the subjective inconstancy of Mary’s
perception of time. In her mother’s house, time is nearly a
solid mass, changing only by suffering and the family’s
heartless response to Mary’s pregnancy. This response, a
product of the times, is doled out without mercy.

How could the family understand the depth of Mary’s need
to escape the faded beige of their lives, or the magical hope
symbolized by that red ribbon? And yet, how could a mother
cast out her raped, pregnant daughter?

(As I write, I realize that Mary’s mother is the only truly
unforgivable character in the book. Perhaps my modern-time
sensibility intrudes. All of the subsequent damage and
tragedy that defined Mary’s brief time, and all of the bitter
focus on the actual material that she craved in this world,
began with this primal betrayal. If she was not loved for
what was within, she could, at least, adorn herself with the transitory beauty of clothes.)

Time, and the times, were different when Mary fled
to London. London was fast-paced, and the woman who
accepted her into the sisterhood of prostitutes were fast.
Doll’s love and practical guidance showed Mary that society
can tolerate – even require – actions and beliefs far larger
than she had ever imagined. Through prostitution, Mary
acquired financial independence and freedom to see some of
thewonders of her modern world. Likethe fireworks over
London, she and her sisters of the night were brief flashes
of beauty, dressed in their colorful slammerkins (loose
dresses) and masked behind their paint.

Mary’s sudden need to escape a street thug impelled her
to Magdalene Hospital, a residence founded to purge the
evil from the street-wise women. Time was suspended there,
with silence, blandness, and time to think without fearing
starvation or death in the freezing streets. With Doll’s death,
Mary realizes that she has to leave London, and her
retreat ends in a desperate flight from the sanctuary
to the town where her mother had grown up. Glimpses
of the possibilities there almost melt her cynicism, but
her nature has been formed, and she can not escape.

This novel is based, loosely, on the actual life of a Mary
Saunders who was executed for murder in 1764. From the
beginning of the novel, when Mary is 13, to her death by
hanging at age 16, Mary passes through more lifetimes
than many experience in ten times the years.

How many such lifetimes can a child endure? For Mary is a
child, and my working-class perception of childhood
makes me ache for this young girl, whose only
transgression was the love of a piece of red ribbon.

How does the red ribbon bind me to Mary’s life? For both the
18th -century child and the 21st century woman, the red
ribbon symbolizes hope. Mary’s hope for a better life is
destroyed, but the hopes of my Eastern European Jewish
ancestors for the children who would be born in the new
world, and would escape the Evil Eye of the old. have
been realized. After reading Slammerkin, I realize anew
that I am, indeed, blessed.

melanie

Thank you, Stephanie, for giving me this book!

Reading Women

I'm so lucky. I am a cataloger in a public library, and I get to handle every book that comes in. Children's books, reference books, fiction, poetry - everything comes through my hands. This compensates for a lot of the daily angst (oh yes, there is angst in a library!).

I just cataloged a new art book, Reading Women by Stefan Bollman. Every reading woman will see herself in paintings by Vermeer, Manet, Vuillard, or Alma-Tededma, or photographs, such as "Alice Liddell" by Julia Cameron (below).


I also found a review by the Guardian Unlimited - actually, not a review in the sense of criticism. It's a collection of short essays, each by a renowned writer who has focused on one of the images.

A. S. Byatt, for example, responds to "In the Library" by Edouard Vuillard, seeing a story in the setting of two children and a distant, perhaps disapproving young woman in the doorway of an ornate library.

Jeanette Winterson writes about a photograph of Marilyn Monroe by Eve Arnold, saying "She doesn't have to pose, we don't even need to see her face, what comes off the photo is absolute concentration, and nothing is sexier than absolute concentration."

Other Guardian essayists include Alison Lurie, Hilary Mantel, and P.D. James. If I owned a copy of this book, I would keep the article folded in its pages to remind myself to distill my visual pleasure into my own medium - language.

melanie

Early reading meme

I found this at Heather's site, The Library Ladder. (It was written by Kate, of Kate's Book Blog.)

1. How old were you when you learned to read and who taught you?
Family legend has it that I read at age 3, and that no one taught me. Family legend also has it that my mother read at age 2 1/2, and she could read upside down, from a newspaper. Family dynamic has it that everyone in the family is a genius, but some have more extravagant ways of proving it.

2. Did you own any books as a child? If so, what’s the first one that you remember owning? If not, do you recall any of the first titles that you borrowed from the library?
I owned many books. The first one I remember was a Little Golden Book about ballet. All of the little girls in the book were tiny blonde goddesses. I studied ballet for years, but I never achieved goddesshood, or blondeness. Fortunately, I learned the difference between fiction and non-fiction very early. As for books I borrowed from the library, The Little Lame Prince, which I borrowed so many times from the school library that I still remember where it was shelved!

3. What’s the first book that you bought with your own money?
Jane Eyre. My parents took me to the big Barnes & Noble on 5th Avenue in New York because my mother wanted to buy art books. I wandered over to the fiction section and happened upon Jane Eyre. Reader, I bought it.
I should also mention another book I bought when I was very young: Franny and Zooey. I bought it in the local 5 & 10 cent store. The clerk was reluctant to sell it to me because she thought it was pornographic, and that I was too young to read it. I'm sure she hadn't read it. I've read it so many times since then that I can recite passages from it. I've never outgrown the notion that I am Franny's astral twin, nor the gratitude that my mother never tried to put me on a show like "It's a Wise Child." (How did she miss that one?)

4. Were you a re-reader as a child?
Yes. I still am a re-reader. As a child, I re-read Little Women (a gift from my paternal grandfather) and Jane Eyre (see above).

5. What’s the first adult book that captured your interest and how old were you when you read it?
Again, Jane Eyre. I identified with her loneliness and the way she had to repress her passions.

6. Are there children’s books that you passed by as a child that you have learned to love as an adult? Which ones?
Andersen's fairy tales, especially "The Emperor's Nightingale,""The Snow Queen" and "The Little Mermaid." I wasn't particularly interested in fairy tales when I was a child, but I became obsessed with them as I got older. Now, I see many things in everyday life as expressions of myth and tale and archetype, and I long to learn more.

Thanks, Heather, for passing on this meme - anyone may consider herself tagged. Please let me know if you do the meme so I can come over for a visit!

melanie

Travel to the Republic of Tea!

The United States of America is my favorite republic, and the republic of India is a close second, but there's a third republic that is dear to my heart, albeit in a different way: The Republic of Tea. The Republic of Tea is a Novato, California-based company that produces consistently tasty, quality tea. Many flavored varieties are available. They also turn out a cracking good plain British Breakfast tea - - and that's quite an endorsement from this Irish Breakfast tea lover.
A great deal of thought (and market research) went into producing these teas, from their pretty canisters to the teas to the little, round teabags that contain of the some varieties. Many of the flavors have little slogans under their tea names. For example, the British Breakfast tea has the slogan, "the perfect cuppa." It is a very good plain tea, and I recommend it for those times when you are looking for a good, heart- and body-warming cuppa. It is wonderful for making tea toddies, and it stands up nicely to cream or sugar, but it won't tax you with exotic tastes. It just takes care of you, the tea lover who needs and wants a dependable cuppa, an arm around the shoulder, a pick-me-up.
I am wild for the Wild Blueberry tea (fair trade certified). The label itself is pretty, as, indeed, are all the labels from this company. The tea is delightful! I love blueberries, and I love this marriage of fine black tea with natural blueberry flavors and blueberries. It was (till I ran out - - oops!) my preferred cuppa, my "go-to" tea. Not only did it comfort my frequent stomach distresses, but it just plain tastes delicious. All tea acts as a restorative for me, but this one does that even more so. It stands alone or with sweetening. It is my current favorite.
Another tea worth the time to brew is Blackberry Sage, the "tea for wisdom." I tried drinking it by the gallon, but I'll be darned if I feel any wiser! This is a fine black tea blended with natural blackberry flavor and sage. I like sipping this tea while I write or read. It's a rich blend of bold black tea, a little fruitiness and a touch of the Middle East with its sage notes.
The Vanilla Almond, "sweeten the mind tea," would make a wonderful after-dinner tea or dessert tea. It goes very well with plain, lightly-sweet cookies for afternoon tea. It can sweeten a dismal morning, too, such as one of those mornings when you simply must go to work to keep body and soul together even though you would far rather stay home and curl up to read one of the books you found here on TeaReads.
"Tea for the Queen of Hearts" is the last of my Republic of Tea favorites. It is Rose Petal Tea, sold only for about a month, annually, to coincide with Valentine's Day. If ever I give a Valentine tea, I will certainly serve Rose Petal Tea in a red pot. I simply love the taste of flowers, so was drawn to sample this tea like a bee is drawn to, well, flowers. It is a very pretty loose tea, with visible rose buds and petals among the fine black tea leaves. If you make it, I suggest using a large mug instead of a teacup so you can watch "the agony of the leaves" and roses as it steeps. The first time I tried this tea I was overcome with romantic warmth - - little hearts fairly danced circles round my head. It is perfect for a romantic afternoon or evening in, and it tastes just as good when you have tea solo.
To arrange your own trip to The Republic of Tea, phone 1-800-298-4TEA, or visit www.REPUBLICofTEA.com.
Bon voyage!
(Moon Rani)

Unnatural Death

Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner is my latest indulgence in true-crime reading. I picked up this book so quickly that I failed to notice its copyright is 1989. Although there is a 2005 foreword that updates some of the information in the book, the book itself is unchanged. Thus, some of the information presented herein is either outdated or now known to be in error.
The book is a compilation of case histories from Medical Examiner Michael M. Baden, M.D., with co-author, Judith Adler Hennessee. Some of the autopsies Dr. Baden conducted, consulted on or reviewed were of famous people, people as disparate as President Kennedy and John Belushi. He offers information gained through his work, then shows how it proves - - or disproves - - popular beliefs of celebrity deaths. He also writes of other deaths, those of people who were unknown beyond their immediate circles of friends and relations. Included in this book are tales of how Dr. Baden's refusal to play politics affected his career. Until I read this book, it never occurred to me that politics played any role at all in the world of medical examination.
I wish there were another edition of this book, an updated one. That's a drawback in my recommendation. However, I commend both authors for using plain and clear language that conveys information in a way that is easily understood by those of us who have no knowledge of autopsies and medical examining.
Instant gratification may be one reason I enjoyed reading this book. The deceased's physical state was described, and I paused to think about what would cause this or that condition, if it pointed to a certain type of death, what other explanations might be correct, and so on. Then - - presto! - - I had the answers right in my hand, waiting to be read. Another benefit is that the book provides the opportunity to learn and to become a little more informed. I love that.
Written by Moon Rani

Sara Teasdale

Something about the Plath poem makes me think of this, by Sara Teasdale:

There will come soft rains

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire.

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly.

And Spring herself when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

A newly-discovered poem by Sylvia Plath !

What riches!

A newly-discovered poem by Sylvia Plath has been published by Blackbird, an online journal of literature and the arts. Written when she was an undergraduate at Smith College, it "germinated from Plath's creative response to The Great Gatsby..." -

(And yes, of course, this is Daisy:"blase princesses indict/tilts at terror as downright absurd.")

Blackbird has decided to publish it "to recognize and celebrate the disciplined hard work she put into her early writing." Click to read the whole poem, and to see two early typescripts.

Ennui -

Tea leaves thwart those who court catastrophe,
designing futures where nothing will occur...

I am so delighted that I don't even want to think yet! I just want to bask for awhile and reread "The Beast in the Jungle," which informs yet another allusive line ("The beast in Jamesian grove will never jump..."). Who can read that story and not shudder?

melanie

Arianna Huffington, On Becoming Fearless

I'm reading this book because I want to be Arianna when I grow up, and because I can not believe that she ever was fearful.

Right now, I'm reading the chapter about the body.
How many times do we read that the key to taking control over parts of our lives is to change the negative self-talk to positive? And yet, affirmations have never worked for me, so I loved reading Arianna's take. "It was only when I began observing the critical voices inside me rather than giving in to them that I could start to take control over them. Instead of being drained by the negative self-talk, I found myself amused by it the way you are by a naughty child... We may not be able to tune them out entirely, but we don't have to let them run the show."

It never occurred to me to be amused by these voices - what a concept!

Arianna intersperses her text with excellent quotes, and by short essays by other strong women, including Nora Ephron, Sherry Lansing, and Diane Keaton. My favorite quote so far is by Maureen Dowd, whom I also want to be when I grow up: "It took only a few decades to create a brazen new world where the highest ideal is to acknowledge your inner slut."

To be continued...

melanie

An old love affair renewed

My recent cold and subsequent upswing in tea consumption depleted my honey supply (see "Comfort Tea"). I stocked up on a reasonably-priced, Floridian honey available at grocery stores. I looked, without success, for Tupelo honey, my favorite Then an old love caught my eye - - orange blossom honey. What a treat it has been to stir this lovely, flavorful honey into my cuppas this week! I forgot just how tasty it is. Now I would have to say that Tupelo has a challenger for first place on my list. Next time I go honey-shopping, I'll try a new one: blueberry blossom honey. It sounds so good that it just might provoke a three-way tie.
(written by Moon Rani)

Winter Reading Challenge

Have you seen this? I've joined. My books will be:

Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue
Short History of Myth - Karen Armstrong
Rereadings - Anne Fadiman
Life Studies - Susan Vreeland
On Becoming Fearless - Arianna Huffington

Check out The Incredible Growing List for inspiration -

Comfort tea

I've been down with a filthy cold for a week, now. I'll spare you the unpleasant details, but I will tell you how I find comfort when cold viruses lay me low. During the day, whether at work or home, I make piping cups of Sweet Ginger Peach tea, laced with honey [http://revolutiontea.com].
At night, I make tea toddies. Once I'm sure I'm home for the night, I boil a cup of water. While the kettle's on, I scald my mug, then add a teabag. In a pinch, I once used Lipton decaffeinated. I plunk a cinnamon stick into the mug, and, perhaps, a small grating of nutmeg or a tiny hint of clove (one whole clove or a whisper of ground). After I splash in a couple of tablespoons of rum (or whisky or whiskey) and a generous squeezing of fresh lemon juice (or lime juice, if that's all I have), the water has come to a boil, and I pour it in, too. A drizzle of honey, mixed in well, goes in last. Then I get into a comfortable chair or a warm bed, and wait four or five minutes for the toddy to blend before I drink. Although the boiling water takes the mule-kick out of the alcohol, it can still be potent, and I can be sensitive, so I make sure I'm safe before imbibing. I don't want to get lightheaded and risk falling, you see.
Tea toddies don't rid me of my cold, but they provide warm soothing comfort. When I'm sick in bed, I'll take soothing comfort in a cup any day.
(written by Moon Rani)

thankful

Today I am thankful for peppermint tea and those few clocks that we own that set themselves. Hope everyone enjoyed their extra hour of sleep last night. I know I did.

What goes perfectly with poetry?

Why, tea, of course! And here is a site you might find fun to window-shop. www.englishteastore.com
There is a large variety of all things tea-related. There is even an eponymous tea offered (haven't tried it, though). My favorite item? It might just be the bee-skep honey pot.
(writen by Moon Rani)

Wallace Stevens: Sea surface full of clouds

I came across this poem this morning, here, while I wandered around some writing and reading blogs. Maybe it snagged me because my husband and I have been watching "Brideshead Revisited." The last two episodes we watched took place on the ship, and the sea was a powerful influence on the development and dissolution of relationships.
Thank you, Bloglily, for sharing this poem.



Sea Surface Full Of Clouds
Wallace Stevens

I

In that November off Tehuantepec,
The slopping of the sea grew still one night
And in the morning summer hued the deck

And made one think of rosy chocolate
And gilt umbrellas. Paradisal green
Gave suavity to the perplexed machine

Of ocean, which like limpid water lay.
Who, then, in that ambrosial latitude
Out of the light evolved the morning blooms,

Who, then, evolved the sea-blooms from the clouds
Diffusing balm in that Pacific calm?
C’était mon enfant, mon bijou, mon âme.

The sea-clouds whitened far below the calm
And moved, as blooms move, in the swimming green
And in its watery radiance, while the hue

Of heaven in an antique reflection rolled
Round those flotillas. And sometimes the sea
Poured brilliant iris on the glistening blue.

II

In that November off Tehuantepec
The slopping of the sea grew still one night.
At breakfast jelly yellow streaked the deck

And made one think of chop-house chocolate
And sham umbrellas. And a sham-like green
Capped summer-seeming on the tense machine

Of ocean, which in sinister flatness lay.
Who, then, beheld the rising of the clouds
That strode submerged in that malevolent sheen,

Who saw the mortal massives of the blooms
Of water moving on the water-floor?
C’était mon frère du ciel, ma vie, mon or.

The gongs rang loudly as the windy booms
Hoo-hooed it in the darkened ocean-blooms.
The gongs grew still. And then blue heaven spread

Its crystalline pendentives on the sea
And the macabre of the water-glooms
In an enormous undulation fled.

III

In that November off Tehuantepec,
The slopping of the sea grew still one night
And a pale silver patterned on the deck

And made one think of porcelain chocolate
And pied umbrellas. An uncertain green,
Piano-polished, held the tranced machine

Of ocean, as a prelude holds and holds,
Who, seeing silver petals of white blooms
Unfolding in the water, feeling sure

Of the milk within the saltiest spurge, heard, then,
The sea unfolding in the sunken clouds?
Oh! C’était mon extase et mon amour.

So deeply sunken were they that the shrouds,
The shrouding shadows, made the petals black
Until the rolling heaven made them blue,

A blue beyond the rainy hyacinth,
And smiting the crevasses of the leaves
Deluged the ocean with a sapphire blue.

IV

In that November off Tehuantepec
The night-long slopping of the sea grew still.
A mallow morning dozed upon the deck

And made one think of musky chocolate
And frail umbrellas. A too-fluent green
Suggested malice in the dry machine

Of ocean, pondering dank stratagem.
Who then beheld the figures of the clouds
Like blooms secluded in the thick marine?

Like blooms? Like damasks that were shaken off
From the loosed girdles in the spangling must.
C’était ma foi, la nonchalance divine.

The nakedness would rise and suddenly turn
Salt masks of beard and mouths of bellowing,
Would—But more suddenly the heaven rolled

Its bluest sea-clouds in the thinking green,
And the nakedness became the broadest blooms,
Mile-mallows that a mallow sun cajoled.

V

In that November off Tehuantepec
Night stilled the slopping of the sea.
The day came, bowing and voluble, upon the deck,

Good clown… One thought of Chinese chocolate
And large umbrellas. And a motley green
Followed the drift of the obese machine

Of ocean, perfected in indolence.
What pistache one, ingenious and droll,
Beheld the sovereign clouds as jugglery

And the sea as turquoise-turbaned Sambo, neat
At tossing saucers—cloudy-conjuring sea?
C’était mon esprit bâtard, l’ignominie.

The sovereign clouds came clustering. The conch
Of loyal conjuration trumped. The wind
Of green blooms turning crisped the motley hue

To clearing opalescence. Then the sea
And heaven rolled as one and from the two
Came fresh transfigurings of freshest blue.

Practical reading

Although I have not dived into any pleasure-reading since my last experience (see previous post), I am reading two books in a series which I wish to recommend. I work as a nanny. I returned to work last year after having been away from childcare for a number of years. Infants and toddlers have made up the bulk of my young charges, and my current job gives me fulltime care of a boy who is just over one year old. However, he also has two schoolage siblings, and I shall care for them on occasion, as well. Realizing my skills needed sharpening, I turned to some tried-and-true sources.
The Gesell Institute of Human Development has a book series from the late 1970s-mid1980s that draws portraits of children one year at a time. They are written by Louise Bates Ames, Ph.D. assisted by one of several coauthors such as Frances L. Ilg, M.D. and Carol Chase Haber, M.A. The titles go according to year, so there is Your Three-Year-Old, Your Six-Year-Old and so on. Each book gives excellent sketches of children covering their physical, mental and emotional characteristics. It gives practical hints according to age, too. Arming myself with such information helps me to, say, brush off the comment of one of my charges in a recent episode. She learned that my car was being repaired, and asked, "Oh, did your car break down?" I knew I was being setup by a creature who fancies herself crafty but who is both transparent and obvious, and who is in an age when she delights in saying things that are inappropriate.
"Yes, it did," I said.
"Oh, good!"she crowed, "I'm so glad!"
As her nanny, I could ignore her and deprive her of the attention she hoped her rudeness would garner.
[But if I'd been her mother, I would have taken her aside for a quick and firm reminder that we don't celebrate other people's misfortunes.]
Arming myself with information from these books allows me to detach from situations better, to take things less personally, understanding that so much of behavior reflects development. It also allows me to handle things in ways that actually work. Lots of power struggles can be avoided this way, as can some of the daily melodrama of childrearing. I like knowing which events and behaviors are important and which just ways to get reactions from adults, attempts at manipulation, testing of boundaries and so on.
I have read complaints on amazon.com that this series is dated. It is true that some of the information is out of date; do not believe the statistics cited, for example, because they are old. Some of the examples used are no longer as common as they were at the time. But the basic information about how a child functions is solid, useful and trustworthy.
Another book I like is How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids will Talk, by Adele Faber and Elaine Marsh. It's full of practical ideas for doing just what it says. Then I can avoid falling into traps such as asking a child, "Is it okay if Nanny changes your diaper? Please, Sweetie, please?" It is much more effective, for another example, to say firmly to a two-year old, "No hit," and not (as one mother I knew did), "Please don't hit Mommy, okay, Honey, because it hurts Mommy's feelings a lot and then she gets very sad." Age-appropriate boundaries are useful; so is knowing what appeals to a child at which age.

Animal talk

An animal-lover since I was a tot who doted on a Chihuahua named Bambi, I thought If Only They Could Talk, The Mircles of Spring Farm, by Bonnie Jones Reynolds and Dawn E. Hayman was perfect for a late summer reading choice. It was among the bargain books I purchased from Edward R. Hamilton, Bookseller. Owing to one pitfall of mail-ordering books, my choice did not suit at all. So many titles in the catalogue are unfamiliar that one must rely on the thumbnail sketches given. Sometimes one finds little treasures this way. Sometimes the books prove disappointing because the synopses were too short to give full and clear descriptions.
Thus it was with If Only... The book cover says it is "An inspiring true story about listening to the animals we love." I took that to mean discerning their behavior and sounds. Somehow I imagined it might tell stories about sick, disabled, unwanted and/or deformed animals that were taken in and which went on to live happy lives with the authors.
However, I was wrong. The authors believe they can communicate with animals telepathically; one says she receives messages from animals that died recently. If that concept appeals to you, I recommend this book. If you are skeptical, as I am, then you'll want to keep looking for another animal book. As for my copy, it is headed - - mostly unread - - for the next charity booksale.