The Handoff: A Memoir of Two Guys, Sports, and Friendship by John “JT the Brick” Tournour

Posted on September 9, 2013 by pagesofjulia

An earnest remembrance of a friend and the wisdom he passed on to a sports talk radio anchor.

handoff2

After a fun-filled, full-speed youth as president of his fraternity and, later, working as a professional cold-calling stockbroker, John Tournour finds his true calling: sports talk radio. He starts out as a listener calling in, then gets his own show but has to pay for airtime, gradually working his way up until one day he gets a fateful call. Andrew Ashwood mentors John, now known on the air as “JT the Brick,” through an ascending career, and they become the closest of friends. When Andrew is diagnosed with cancer, JT naturally gets the call to be his chemo buddy and “main go-to guy.”

Though The Handoff begins with JT’s childhood, we know from the beginning that Andrew will be its focal point. JT failed to take notes on Andrew’s every word in those final months, realizing only in hindsight that he was not only modeling how to live–and how to die–but also sharing all his life lessons, on and off the air.

JT may be macho and manly–this is smack-talk sports radio, after all–but he is heartfelt and emotional in relating his love for Andrew and his appreciation of everything his friend had to offer. Although sports radio is JT’s passion and the background for his friendship with Andrew, his readers need not know or even much care about sports (or radio) to empathize. The Handoff is a memoir of life and loss, but foremost of friendship.

This review originally ran as a *starred review* in the August 23, 2013 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 6 callers.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

The Happy Atheist by PZ Myers

Posted on September 6, 2013 by pagesofjulia

The creator of the popular Pharyngula blog makes a funny, impertinent and highly intelligent argument for atheism and happiness.

happyatheist

PZ Myers is serious and unapologetically funny at the same time–and, despite 15 churches in his immediate neighborhood and their fellows worldwide, he is indeed a happy atheist.

The Happy Atheist is irreverent in every sense of the word, experimentally seeking creative acts of sacrilege and poking fun at religion from diverse angles. Short chapters make for quick, easy reading: “The Great Desecration” relates Myers’s project of desecrating communion wafers, which inflamed the public to a degree that flabbergasted him.

He offers other reasons for the religious to be offended as he describes “the proper fate for a holy book” and instructs us to “take pride in the example of Eve–she is the author of a real promise of a great humanity.” But even in making fun–and he assures us that laughter is the greatest weapon we can wield against religion–Myers is loving and compassionate, and it is clear that he aims to increase everyone’s happiness by converting the wayward to atheism. Trusting in his expertise as a biology professor, he moves from more lighthearted larks toward a more serious scientific examination of the shortcomings of religion, especially by comparison. “Science,” he quotes Richard Feynman, “is what we do to keep from lying to ourselves.”

The Happy Atheist finishes with a heartfelt discussion of The Epic of Gilgamesh on a hopeful and inclusive note. Far from being out simply to insult, Myers genuinely wishes to improve humankind and our lot here on earth. But some hilarity along the way can’t hurt.

This review originally ran in the August 20, 2013 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 6 plain old crackers.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (audio)

Posted on September 5, 2013 by pagesofjulia

wrinkleWhat fun to dig back into this children’s classic. I only vaguely remembered enjoying this as a kid, and I got to rediscover it via this audiobook, read by the author. My memory didn’t provide much: I think I was most familiar with the opening scene, in which Meg Murry is awake and frightened in her attic room alone by a storm outside. She is grumpy, frustrated with her family: her father for being away for so long; her baby brother Charles Wallace for not feeling her pain and coming to her as he usually does.

Next, of course, Meg and Charles Wallace meet the not-quite-mortal Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which, and an unusual boy from Meg’s school named Calvin. This unlikely team will adventure together via the “tesseract” – a wrinkle in time and space as well, if you will – to try and find Mr. Murry, and save him, and save the world (and all the worlds) from the Black Thing.

This is a children’s chapter book. Madeline L’Engle notes in an introductory section that publishers thought it would be too hard for children; but her own kids loved it, and as it turns out, so does the world. It’s won several awards including a Newberry, and remains popular today. (Originally published in 1962 and still in print.) I can see how it would be “hard” for children, particularly the physics bits; but then, we don’t have to understand it fully to enjoy it, do we? And lots of adults are puzzled by physics too! This book has appeal for adults – perhaps obviously, here I am, and I don’t read a whole lot of children’s books. It still rings like a kids’ book, but I found the characters and the plot both engaging. I have a slight criticism that Meg occasionally sounds a little adult for her age; she does whine appropriately, but sometimes her observations are startlingly astute. It’s a common complaint with young characters in books. But only slightly, here.

Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin are all likeable but human; their parents are similarly well-rounded, sympathetic characters. The Mrs’s are charming, and the world-building – in the world of Aunt Beast, for example – is well done. I like that Meg grows some in the course of the story; and L’Engle certainly leaves us open for a sequel, what with the possibility of a burgeoning romance, and the happily-ever-after-at-least-for-now ending (with the Black Thing still looming). Mostly I was just disappointed that it was over so quickly! (Another feature of children’s books.)

I was a little surprised to find religious references within; I didn’t remember those. Not many, but a few mentions of having God on one’s side, or being the chosen ones, fighting for good. It got me thinking. I’m not particularly good at spotting religious allusions, not having been raised in church or on the bible. They mostly pass me by. But spelling out G-O-D will catch my eye every time! It’s not a technique that appeals to me but it wasn’t a central enough theme here that it threw me off much, either. A theme that is central is a good-versus-evil dichotomy, which of course could be interpreted as being religious; but the book-banners have protested certain aspects of this story, too – including the grouping of Jesus with mortal fighters-for-good such as Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Pasteur, Einstein, Gandhi, Beethoven, Copernicus and a lone woman, M. Curie. So there you are: all matters of interpretation.

In a nutshell, I found this book a delightful, too-brief romp in another world. I am tempted to pursue further work by L’Engle; four books follow this in a quintet, and others of her oeuvre reference the same characters. Realistically, I don’t know if I’ll get to them. But this was an enjoyable read, and not just for children.

Rating: 7 pairs of spectacles.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , , | 4 Comments »

The Boy Who Could See Demons by Carolyn Jess-Cooke

Posted on September 4, 2013 by pagesofjulia

A haunting haze between reality and apparition with a troubled child psychiatrist at the center.

demons

The Boy Who Could See Demons is Alex, aged 10. He began seeing his own particular demon, named Ruen, when he was five, on the day his father was declared “gone.” Anya is the new child psychiatrist in town, having returned to her home in Belfast hoping to help patch up children and families damaged by Northern Ireland’s “Troubles.” Perhaps she should be more concerned about troubles of her own: the day she gets the call about Alex is the four-year anniversary of her daughter’s death. Now she sees her daughter, Poppy, in Alex, who may have the same sickness, and she is clearly in danger of getting too close to this case. Worse, the boundaries begin to blur between what is real and what is not, as Anya wonders if Ruen may have a place in the tangible world.

Carolyn-Jess Cooke (The Guardian Angel’s Journal) creates in Alex and Anya sympathetic characters, and the traumatized Belfast she evokes comes alive on the page. Child psychology plays an important role, with its questions of medication and whether and when to separate a family. With a suicidal mother, a suicidal child, delusions and possible schizophrenia all jumbled up together, it’s no wonder Anya becomes a little unglued. The reader will have as much trouble as Anya does discerning fact from mirage as the story unfolds. The Boy Who Could See Demons is riveting and increasingly fast-paced, as it forces the reader to question everything that seemed secure from page one.

This review originally ran in the August 20, 2013 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 7 onions.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard, part the first

Posted on September 2, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Clearly I will need to publish this review in two parts, for the sake of your patience with my long-windedness. Actually I fear three posts. This is a fascinating book about which I have mixed feelings and many tangential thoughts; also at about halfway through, I’ve filled three bookmark slips of paper with notes rather than the average one-or-less-per-book, so there you are. This is my review of roughly half the book.

pilgrimattinkercreekDespite a promising beginning, I am not sure that I love Annie Dillard as much as do many of my favorite authors. Odd, that. In fact, I enjoyed Christine Byl’s Dirt Work far more. And she hasn’t won any Pulitzers (yet).

For one thing, there is too much theology for my taste, and too much metaphysical rambling metaphor: seeing visions, entering the past and seeing the future. Too much philosophy, man’s (“man”! too much “man”! 1974 this was published, by a woman, and still the universal creature is “man” rather than person or even woman for goodness’ sake) …man’s self-consciousness, relativism… and not enough just being. I’d rather spend more time in the picture and less time examining the frame and the picture-maker, if the picture is our world.

Wikipedia brought some interesting thoughts to mind. [I take Wikipedia with salt; but I still find it a useful starting point for general knowledge.] For example: “The author has described [Pilgrim at Tinker Creek] as a ‘book of theology’, and she rejects the label of nature writer.” What is up with people “rejecting the label of nature writer”? Edward Abbey did, too, which rejection I think in turn his readers reject. Of course, Dillard’s point – that this is more theology than nature writing – helps explain part of my problem with it. But then, there is excellent nature writing within it: I love the finely detailed discussion of insect habits. Oh, and while we’re mentioning him: “Edward Abbey in particular deemed [Dillard] Thoreau’s ‘true heir’.” Both these quotations from Wikipedia come sans specific reference, although there’s a solid-looking reference list at the end of the article. So, take that with salt, as I said.

Dillard did remind me of Thoreau, which is both a compliment (obviously) and a qualification, for me personally, as I struggled a little with Walden, too. Walden was apparently the subject of Dillard’s master’s thesis, so we can expect some parallels there. I would call these two books a readalike pair, and recommend the one if you liked the other.

Now, on the Annie Dillard Wikipedia page, I found more useful phrases: “one critic… call[ed] her ‘one of the foremost horror writers of the 20th Century'” for her apt descriptions of the natural world (I imagine that critic had the mating practices of the praying mantis in mind!), which I find delightful, and true in a most positive sense. And “In The New York Times, Eudora Welty said the work was ‘admirable writing’ that reveals ‘a sense of wonder so fearless and unbridled… [an] intensity of experience that she seems to live in order to declare,’ but ‘I honestly don’t know what [Dillard] is talking about at… times,'” which is, again, a great way to put it, and I couldn’t agree with you more on all counts, Ms. Welty. Both these quotations are attributed, by the way: the first, to Dillard’s website, and the second, to the NYT review in question. Not attributed, however, is the assertion that “In 1971 she read an old writer’s nature book and thought, ‘I can do better than this.'” This would seem to belie the phrasing of the Wikipedia Pilgrim article that she “rejected the label of nature writer.”

But oh, then I got to chapter 7, “Spring.” I am entranced! She writes about learning languages and yearning to decode birdsong, about the mockingbird that sings from 2am til 11pm in her chimney in springtime; about newts, to whom “no one pays the least attention… except children”; more about trees (I love it); and then the part about the duck pond, which is hilarious, wise, and again hilarious. This is where we meet the plankton about whom she is rather passionate, and she studies them under the microscope.

I don’t really look forward to these microscopic forays: I have been almost knocked off my kitchen chair on several occasions when, as I was following with strained eyes the tiny career of a monostyla rotifer, an enormous red roundworm whipped into the scene, blocking everything, and writhing in huge, flapping convulsions that seemed to sweep my face and fill the kitchen.

Rather, she does it as a “moral exercise”, because “if I have life, sense, energy, will, so does a rotifer.” In chapter 7, I love this woman and this book. It was in chapter 7 that I got up from my lunch – during my lunch break, I walked away from lunch – to find Liz, who was on duty at the reference desk, to read her a page aloud. (That was the page about the duck pond and the frogs.) So along with my complaints, there is much to love in this book. Take for example the section on the mating habits of the praying mantis: Dillard portrays these practices as horrifying, hilarious, and disturbingly like our own; it is a feat. I think I like her best when she digs into the science and minutia of the natural world, and exclaims in joy, fear, disturbance, or wonder at it. In other words, when she is a nature writer (wink).

Stay tuned for my review, part the second, and we will all find out together what my final feelings for Dillard will be.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Just One Evil Act by Elizabeth George

Posted on August 26, 2013 by pagesofjulia

evilElizabeth George’s 18th novel starring Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers of Scotland Yard will be published in mid-October of this year. This series dates back to 1988, and I was introduced to it by my mother; we have both been great fans.

Series readers will of course recognize the two familiar main characters, joined by the likeable Detective Constable Winston Nkata, sundry less sympathetic Scotland Yard superiors, and Barbara’s neighbors, Taymullah Azhar and his daughter Haddiyah. Simon St. James and his wife Deborah, sadly, barely cross the stage in this novel; and of course those readers who have been keeping up with the last 3-4 books in the series will know about the death of Lynley’s wife Helen, whom he is still grieving. As with most series, I think, an integral part of the reader’s enjoyment is in recognizing characters as old friends, and in that sense, it felt good to be back in the company of Lynley – upper class but down-to-earth, flawed and suffering, but trying to make a go of it with a new woman; and Havers – lower class and struggling all around, socially awkward, but devoted to Azhar and Haddiyah.

A brief plot introduction, and then I’ll avoid spoilers as this book is not yet published. Haddiyah’s mother Angelina is back on the scene just long enough to lull Azhar into complacency, and then she takes Haddiyah and runs. Azhar and Barbara together hire a private investigator to try to track the missing daughter, but his rights are limited: he was never listed on her birth certificate, never married her mother, and his paternity is unproven. Then Angelina turns up in Italy with a new beau, distraught that Haddiyah has been kidnapped from her. Naturally, Azhar is a subject; just as naturally, Barbara is committed to proving his innocence and bringing Haddiyah home.

From a thoroughly charming opening scene in which Lynley tries to charm his new girl by showing up at her roller derby match (!), we mostly stick with Barbara, who is at the zenith of her anti-authoritarianism. Consistently poorly-dressed and disrespectful, and usually described by her superiors as unprofessional, she outdoes herself here. While these are central tenets of Barbara’s character, her total flouting of law and order and disregard for keeping her own job in pursuit of Azhar and Haddiyah’s best interests gets a little outrageous. In prior books I felt that her devotion to the job was also an important part of her character; here, not so much. Her single-minded and, yes, stupid behaviors are at best an abrupt turn in her character’s development, and at worst, inconsistent with the Barbara we’ve come to love.

My criticisms continue. There is an utterly unbelievable beating; an unlikely mix-up of victims; and an indictment of prejudice which is nevertheless upheld, thus seeming to discredit the indictment in the first place. What had been a promising long-term relationship between well-loved characters, building in this series through many books, is thrown out the window in a flash – much like the sudden murder of Helen Lynley a few books ago, leading me to suspect that Elizabeth George enjoys wrenching some of her readers’ favorite characters away from them. Perhaps most infuriatingly, a promising beginning to a romance is left unresolved. This may be intended to keep us hanging on edge for the next book. However, all it did was make me mad. I actually, literally threw this book upon finishing it. (You can ask Husband.) I don’t think I’ve done that before. I’m no reader of romance novels, but I do enjoy a good, realistic, even sappy romantic thread in my thrillers or what have you. I have been teased and disappointed here, and I resent it. I had been doubting and hoping against doubt that George would pull this one through when she dropped the budding love affair, and I am now done with her.

Furthermore, I am not the only one to note that George’s books have been getting longer, and this, I believe, is her longest yet. That’s my awesome editor at the above link, noting that Just One Evil Act weighs in a good bit over 2 pounds. Now, page count is not always a problem – I would like to point to Stephen King’s outstanding 11/22/63 at 850 – but here, George could have written this plot up in 400 pages rather than more than 700, and I think it would have been better done. Her sentences, too, are overlong. Again, you know I have no inherent problem with long sentences. Take my word then when I say that George lost track of her editor in this work.

I regret this loss of a long-term love, but I don’t think I’ll be able to follow Havers and Lynley where they next tread.

Rating: 3 rambling plot threads.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

Dirt Work: An Education in the Woods by Christine Byl

Posted on August 22, 2013 by pagesofjulia

dirt workChristine Byl opens her memoir with the pleasant scene of herself and three fellow crew members, crusty and dirty, having a post-hitch beer at a small-town Montana bar. A young woman approaches and asks how she keeps up with the boys, one of whom volunteers that it’s all they can do to keep up with her.

She then backs up and tells the story of how she got there. Like many young women in our culture, Christine was expected and expecting to go to college, to do cerebral work and keep her hands (literally) clean; but a summer gig held her, and she reveled in physical challenges, in learning new things, in the mechanical world. Eventually she reveled in her hardening muscles and her expertise, in surprising men with her ax-work and in mentoring other young women coming up in the “matriarchy” of trail work (still predominately male) within Glacier National Park.

After six seasons in Glacier, alongside boyfriend and eventual husband Gabe (a delightful character: mostly off screen, but clearly a capable young man in his own right, and clearly happy to stay lovingly out of Christine’s way), she does return to graduate school, in Alaska. But during the summers she still works on building and maintaining trails, this time in Denali. Christine and Gabe come to love Alaska – yes, even the winters: there is a delightful passage arguing that the light summers are in some ways harder than the dark winters, and I made both my parents (recently moved from the Mexican to the Canadian border) read it. They settle a few miles outside the borders of Denali National Park, and Christine finds a balance between the cerebral – she gets an MFA in fiction, and writes this beautiful book; and the physical – she and Gabe now run their own independent trail-building company.

So many things to love in this book; where to begin? As a sometimes volunteer trailworker myself, I don’t pretend to know 2% of what Christine does; but I might know just enough to appreciate what she loves about it, and what a challenge it can be. I still haven’t mastered the efficient, all-day ax swing myself, but I’d like to. Also, I have a friend named Susan who I’ve written about before, who has a great deal in common with this author. (I briefly wondered if “Christine Byl” was a pseudonym.) Susan, like Christine and apparently like many trail workers, has an advanced degree but chooses to labor for a living; she’s a woman in what is clearly a man’s world, and is half of an independent trailbuilding company. I get the impression that while it’s hard work, Susan and her husband Ryan wouldn’t do anything different.

Christine writes beautifully about the phenomenon of choosing to do physical work when she could be keeping her hands soft. She writes about the well-intentioned questions her family asked, about when she was going to get a “real job”: she says that they have confused happiness with orthodoxy. (I can only imagine how many of us can sympathize with that concept!) She writes about the “sorority” of men in trailwork, and the way that pulls women together; she writes about the pride she feels when upending male expectations of her blonde head and small frame. As a writer, and clearly a gifted one, she structures this book as solidly as she would a bridge or retaining wall. Each of 6 chapters is represented by a tool (axe, rock bar, chainsaw, boat, skid steer, shovel), a location (North Fork, Sperry, Middle Fork, Cordova, Denali twice) and a locale (river, alpine, forest, coast, park, home). Within those chapters she roves and rambles, musing on natural phenomena, social relations, her own body and personality, strengths and shortcomings, and then returns to tool and place to ground herself. The structure of this book, then, is both well-anchored and floating, and I found that it worked very well.

I was charmed by Christine Byl’s honesty; her love of place; her range of experiences and understanding of two worlds, that of universities and that of woods; and of course her lovely writing. She’s hard as nails, with two hernia surgeries and a preference for outhouse over indoor plumbing. She’s brash and can tend towards a loud and dirty mouth (that makes two of us), but she’s got a soft core. I like her; I’d like to be her friend, and of course I’d really love to learn from her.

Rating: 10 pulaskis (my personal favorite trailwork tool).

I fear I’m getting out of control with the perfect-10 ratings, friends, but what can I say: it’s been a great year for reading. I will take a little of the credit, in that I think I’m getting better at picking what I’ll like, and not wasting time on what I won’t. But mostly, wow, there are some amazing books out there!

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , , | 10 Comments »

The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime by Judith Flanders

Posted on August 21, 2013 by pagesofjulia

An exhaustive, engaging examination of how murder and the murder mystery novel infiltrated our modern world by way of 19th-century Britain.

murder

Judith Flanders (A Circle of Sisters) tackles an unwieldy subject in The Invention of Murder, telling the tale admirably well, even entertainingly.

The Victorian British, Flanders tells us, were the first to identify murder as an object of fascination–inspiring in turn a passionate interest in trials, executions, motives and, eventually, the developing profession of solving crimes. The action opens in 1811 with the murdered Marr family, and quickly moves to 1820s Edinburgh, where Burke and Hare infamously killed so they could to sell the corpses to doctors as medical specimens. Flanders introduces a lengthy list of famous (and obscure) murderers and serial killers, culminating, of course, with Jack the Ripper. Alongside the killers and their victims, she presents Thomas Hardy, George Eliot and many contributions by Charles Dickens to illustrate her thesis that murder in life inspired murder in art. Fictional murderers and detectives play a role equal to their real-life counterparts, as Sweeney Todd and Sherlock Holmes take the stage.

Flanders also tracks the evolution of the police force from a force of deterrence to an investigative organization, along with the parallel development of murder and detection in literature and on the stage. The penny-blood (or penny-dreadful), a cheap booklet telling a sordid and often illustrated tale of horror, morphs into the detective novel (and play), as the public shifts its interest from bloody murder to the newly invented and increasingly sympathetic crimesolvers we know and love today.

This review originally ran in the August 2, 2013 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 6 dismembered parts.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Light of the World by James Lee Burke

Posted on August 16, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcel are joined by their daughters as they battle evil in the hills and valleys of Montana.

lightoftheworld
Light of the World, James Lee Burke’s 20th novel starring Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux, returns to the Montana hill setting of 2008’s Swan Peak. Fans will be thrilled to find Robicheaux and Clete Purcel joined by their respective adult daughters in a hard-hitting, intense battle between good and evil. Burke’s writing is poetic–reverential in praise of natural beauty, contemplative of human nature–and invokes a strong sense of place. Clete, the rough-and-ready, hard-drinking, softhearted private investigator, is lovable as ever; Robicheaux is the flawed hero who has charmed us from the first, fighting his demons and protecting his clan.

Years ago, Dave’s daughter, Alafair, visited serial killer Asa Surette in prison to interview him for a book she never wrote. Instead, she published a condemning series of articles advocating the death penalty. Later, Surette was killed in a collision with a gasoline tanker. So why is he now lurking around the cabins in Big Sky Country where Robicheaux, Clete and their families are trying to relax? The evil in this powerful story of suspense has supernatural undertones, as wolves skulk in the woods above the ranch and planes fall out of the sky. Alafair teams up with Clete’s daughter, the reforming New Orleans hitwoman Gretchen Horowitz, and they make as remarkable a pair as their fathers. As the story unfolds, a rodeo cowboy who speaks in tongues, a serial killer who should be dead, ex-cons, rapists, bear traps and evil that dwells in caves in the hills all come together in perhaps the greatest showdown of Burke’s career.

This review originally ran in the July 30, 2013 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 8 howls.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland

Posted on August 14, 2013 by pagesofjulia

forestloverWhat a lovely book. I recently read and enjoyed Scott Elliot’s Temple Grove enough that I attended to his “Note on Sources,” and requested several from my local library. This was one of those – aided by my enjoyment of Vreeland’s Girl in Hyacinth Blue and Clara and Mr. Tiffany.

Like those two of her books, this is historical fiction dealing with a female artist. [Also think of Tracy Chevalier’s Girl With a Pearl Earring.] The three historical periods, geographic locations, and women in question are quite diverse, but there is a very clear thread connecting them all as female, artists, and historical; I appreciate that showing of diversity in her subjects and also of a singleminded interest. I am safely a Vreeland fan now. Fairly naturally, considering that they deal with female artists of earlier times, her books also address women’s struggle for independence.

Emily Carr, like the subject of Clara and Mr. Tiffany, is a real-life historical figure about whom we don’t know everything; this is a fictionalization of her life. She was born in British Columbia in 1871 to British parents. She showed an inclination for sketching and painting early on, which hobby was encouraged by her father at first, but he expected her to grow out of it in favor of more womanly pursuits (like marriage), and she didn’t. We meet Emily or “Millie” when she’s struggling to make ends meet and trying not to depend too much on the trust fund she shares with 4 sisters, teaching art for a living and befriending local Native Canadian Indians. The sisters mostly do not approve this association. Her favorite subjects are natural scenery and native people and their lifestyles; she travels to islands and outposts for these subjects; again, this is not appreciated by her family. She does enjoy some good female companionship, though: Sophie is an Indian woman and fellow artist (a basketmaker) who befriends her in broken English; Jessica is a less adept painter but rather saucy lady friend; Alice is her “good” and friendly sister; and after Emily musters the courage to travel to Paris to study the “new” art (see below), she meets fellow painter Fanny, a New Zealander and kindred soul.

To give you an idea of the Paris of Emily’s experience, as a moment in time, I share these lines.

“Van Gogh’s been in his grave for twenty years, Cezanne for four, yet art collectors still don’t buy them, and despise what’s new now.”

“What is new now?”

“Their offspring. Léger, Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Modigliani, Derain, Rouault. Many directions.”

Momentous times, then!

Back in Canada, Emily ages as we watch her struggle with art and life. She wants desperately to represent the native people’s lives and art, and the powerful forest surrounding her. Or, as she comes to learn, she wants to more than represent or copy: she wants to communicate what these things make her feel. Her study in Paris under various teachers advances her practice, but still doesn’t get her there. We follow Emily through a series of lifestyles and decisions that form a crooked path but ultimately continue to move her toward a higher form of the art and communication she desires.

There is one man who begins to be a love interest for Emily; but as the title implies, she finds herself unable (for various reasons) to participate in physical, person-to-person, romantic or sexual love with this man. She is not the forest’s lover in a carnal sense – this book is not that weird. And Emily does continue to relate to people. Jessica and her sisters, and most importantly Sophie, retain a hold on her heart; and she forms a new (platonic) relationship with a damaged white man who understands Indians better than whites. But in a very real way, her relationship with the natural world is the most magnetic in her life.

I often observe that I like an author’s earlier (or lesser known) work better than the later. (I hope this is not just me being contrary. I don’t think I do it on purpose.) In this case, though, I think my favorite of her books is still her most recent, Clara and Mr. Tiffany. The earlier two I’ve read are both wonderful; but I sometimes felt this showed its earlier origins. It is occasionally less graceful. While she is mostly “on,” there are some awkward phrases, too. Observe these two single sentences, on two facing pages. I find one smoothly appealing, and the other a bit effortful.

Emily felt as if smelly white scum had eked out her pores.

versus

A breeze shifted the ends of foliage, like the tips of fingers moving.

Do you make the same observation I do? (Which one is which?)

Criticisms aside, though, this novel is far more graceful than not; and while I could pick apart lines like the one above, the sum of its parts is glorious. Vreeland’s greatest strengths are those I recognize from her other books. She understands art, and the artist’s struggle to get it just right. She addresses women’s issues compassionately as a natural part of the story of one woman in history. And unique to this work, the natural world and its beauty, value, power, importance, and scale play a deservingly large role.

Another success for Susan Vreeland.

Rating: 8 smears of viridian.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , , , | 5 Comments »

« Previous Page — Next Page »