Oil and Honey by Bill McKibben

Posted on September 30, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Highly literate and expert musings on climate change, from home to the global theatre.

oil
Oil and Honey centers partly on climate change, a subject on which Bill McKibben (The End of Nature; Eaarth; founder of 350.org) is expert; but it is also personal in nature, a dualism reflected by the title. McKibben is concerned simultaneously with oil–representing fossil fuel industry practices and climate change–and honey. Having entered into a land-share agreement with his friend, beekeeper Kirk Webster, McKibben finds his home and Webster’s apiaries exerting a gravitational pull just as his political activism draws him far and wide. These two sides of his life–personal and political, local and global, analog and digital–are the focus of this combination memoir and call to action.

The subtitle refers to his journey from writer to activist, by way of 350.org and the Keystone Pipeline–a trip he did not intend but found obligatory. Activist though he may be, McKibben remains a fine writer, evocative, articulate, clever and humble in examining his mistakes. In piercing prose, McKibben unites his longstanding authority on climate change with his novice stature in the world of beekeeping. He muses on the small-scale and private implications of our changing world, which incline him to work with his family and Kirk’s bees in his beloved local community in Vermont; and likewise on the necessity for global action to combat the continuing quest for fossil fuels. Oil and Honey travels the world but always cycles back, like the seasons, to McKibben’s Vermont home, likening global systems to beehives in a manner both profound and lyrical–and important.

This review originally ran in the – 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 degrees.

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book beginnings on Friday: Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin

Posted on September 27, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Rose City Reader for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

go tell it

I had a heck of a time getting this electronic audiobook from my local public library onto my iPod, but I have succeeded and thus well earned this listen. I started off with James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son, which I enjoyed; but it made me want to go back to the beginning of his work, and Go Tell It On the Mountain is his most famous novel, so here we are. It begins:

Everyone had always said that John would be a preacher when he grew up, just like his father. It had been said so often that John, without ever thinking about it, had come to believe it himself.

I think these are strong starting lines. They tell us who our protagonist is; they tell us his family background, and they both name an expected fate for John, and imply that this expectation will not be fulfilled. It also bears noting that on the first page, there is also reference to John’s father fondling one of his daughters, implying that this preacher is not as virtuous as we’d expect. It’s a very casual mention, downplaying the import of this fact. To me, this says that the family doesn’t think much about it; or maybe they don’t know yet. At any rate, it’s disconcerting to have molestation treated so lightly, and I think Baldwin makes a real impact by introducing such disturbing information so off-handedly.

Please note that I have only just begun this book, so I don’t know yet if my interpretations here are correct! Stay tuned…

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Weeds: A Farm Daughter’s Lament by Evelyn Funda

Posted on September 26, 2013 by pagesofjulia

A memoir about the loss of the family farm, and everything it means to the child of immigrant farmers–and to us all.
weeds
Evelyn Funda’s mother escaped Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia in a wine barrel, eventually landing in the United States. Her father was the son of Czech immigrants, early homesteaders who sought to make farmland of the Idaho desert. The family farm never felt like it would be Evelyn’s: this “farm daughter,” unwelcome among the tractors and irrigation pipes, would leave to become a college professor. Her musing memoir opens in the fall of 2001 with a triple tragedy: the sale of the family farm; her father’s cancer diagnosis; and her mother’s death, closely followed by her father’s.

Weeds is an elegy, an academic’s personal tale of research and disillusionment, and Evelyn’s own story–with hints of a botanist’s or social historian’s study. (The chapters are named for weeds, beginning with dodder, which she long misheard as “daughter,” when her father cursed the unwelcome growth.) The pursuit of her mother’s joyful youth in a series of cities and countries, of the truth of her grandfather’s apocryphal tales, of her parents’ romance and of the history of her own hometown takes Evelyn to dusty library stacks and to small Czech villages, where she meets dozens of cousins and examines old bones.

Meditative and lyrical, Weeds smoothly braids weeds with family. Funda is sometimes frustrated along the way, but finally satisfied with the personal history she builds for herself–and the conclusion that, even in exile, one can find a sense of place and of belonging.

This review originally ran in the September 6, 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 kolaches.

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The Last Winter of Dani Lancing by P.D. Viner

Posted on September 25, 2013 by pagesofjulia

lancingThe Last Winter of Dani Lancing involves three individuals dealing with loss: Jim and Patty are the parents, now separated, of the titular Dani, who disappeared during her first year of college and later turned up dead; Tom was her high school sweetheart. Each has dealt differently with Dani’s death: Jim withdraws into himself, immersed in memory, and lives with her ghost for a full time companion. Patty, formerly an investigative journalist, is obsessed with the case in all its gruesome details, and still seeks revenge on the unknown killer(s). Tom became a police detective hoping to solve crimes like the one that took Dani. When the book opens, over 20 years have passed, and events have broken open the coping mechanisms of all three living characters. They are brought back into contact, and the case comes back to life.

As a thriller, Dani Lancing hums and thrums for a good 70% of the book, with questions buzzing about who really felt and did what while Dani was alive. Told in flashbacks, memories, and jumps in time, the reader learns about her life and final months in bits and pieces and out of chronological order. Dani’s relationships with Jim, Patty, and Tom are likewise doled out in false starts, and ambiguities abound. This is a strong structure.

And then at about page 270, things fall apart. There arises a strong resemblance to Go Ask Alice. Unlikely coincidences and uncharacteristic corruptions appear; repeated confessions to the same crime shift blame so many times and so quickly that the reader’s head spins. Little old ladies overpower strong young men, and criminal kingpins do cops favors out of the goodness of their hearts. The implausible is paramount, and this in a world I had bought into. Before that point, I believed in Jim, Patty, and Tom; I believed in Dani; they felt real. But the absurd and the far-fetched abruptly become the standard, and I reeled in disgust.

I’m assuming Viner wanted to give us a *big reveal* there at the end, a big surprise; but I felt that he upended the world he’d built and drawn me into. I think he confused surprise with disjointedness. You can disturb and terrify your reader, and demolish everything she thought she knew, without resetting the rules of the world of your own creation; just look at Koren Zailckas. In other words, Viner had already established this as a world of realism, with fully developed characters, and to then reestablish it as fantasy did not work for me

This was a terribly disappointing experience for me, and I’m sorry I wasted my reading time on it. Such a promising beginning and middle, too; such a building of suspense, that I had to finish it out. Turns out that the finish wasn’t worthy of the first 250+ pages, though. On to the next one.

Rating: 3 fixed stares.

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movie: The Great Gatsby (2013)

Posted on September 24, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Well, we finally got around to it! Sadly, my friend Justin and I missed this one in theaters; I think it would have been oustanding on the big screen, but Justin has a large-ish screen at home too, so we did okay.

My first comment on this movie is that it is wildly visually pleasing, and impressive, and extravagant – much like the Roaring 20’s.

photo credit (click to enlarge)

photo credit
(click to enlarge)


The spirit of Gatsby’s parties, the lavish lifestyle, is well evoked. Actually, I am impressed with the faithfulness to the book in story, too; it’s been years since I’ve read it, so I may be missing the minor details, but the feel was right. Perfectly rendered are the beautiful women in outrageous costumes, with a tendency to turn their heads just so to catch their lovely profiles; Gatsby’s larger-than-life personality and biography, and his arresting discomfort in the shadow of Daisy’s presence; and Nick’s own retiring persona. There is a framing element added to the movie that was not present in the book; it’s a little unsettling for us book-purists, but minimally so, and I think I can understand how it felt necessary, to explain Nick’s narration.

And oh, did I mention the visual appeal? The women, the clothing, and the outrageous parties – not to mention Leonardo DiCaprio himself as Gatsby – are positively eye candy. Leo is at his best, exhibiting the boyish, almost childlike charm we knew him for in earlier years (singularly in the scene involving the shirts – “they’re such beautiful shirts”), an older man’s brooding, and all the rest of his handsome faces. It was easy to get lost in some of the scenes and scenery. The film is clearly color-enhanced; I’m no expert and can’t explain this, but the color is clearly doctored. This adds to a fairy-tale-like feeling throughout, which is not faithful to the book, but somehow works. In this different medium, the larger-than-life effect feels like the proper analogy to Fitzgerald’s book. Towards the sad ending, the movie transitions to the disaffected tone of the book with perhaps some abruptness. But really, it’s a damn fine job – and gorgeous.

Rating: 8 beads.

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remarkable bits from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Posted on September 23, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Correct: we are still not done with Annie Dillard. I may have to make her a tag as I have done for Abbey and Hemingway. (…Haven Kimmel, Norman Maclean…)

EDIT: here we are.

On top of my reviews, I felt the need to share some of my favorite lines and passages with just a few notes. Enjoy.

There are seven or eight categories of phenomena in the world that are worth talking about, and one of them is the weather.

One wonders very much what else would make her list!!

I want to think about trees. Trees have a curious relationship to the subject of the present moment. There are many created things in the universe that outlive us, that outlive the sun, even, but I can’t think about them. I live with trees. There are creatures under our feet, creatures that live over our heads, but trees live quite convincingly in the same filament of air we inhabit, and in addition, they extend impressively in both directions, up and down, shearing rock and fanning air, doing their real business just out of reach. A blind man’s idea of hugeness is a tree. They have their sturdy bodies and special skills; they garner fresh water; they abide. This sycamore above me, below me, by Tinker Creek, is a case in point; the sight of it crowds my brain with an assortment of diverting thoughts, all as present to me as these slivers of pressure from grass on my elbow’s skin.

I loved this because I, too, love trees; and this is a well-articulated (but still rather charmingly airy, too) explanation why. Also, I enjoy Dillard’s use of the semi-colon, my personal favorite punctuation mark. (Yes. I’m a librarian and a reader and writer. I have a favorite punctuation mark.)

My God, I look at the creek. It is the answer to Merton’s prayer, “Give us time!” It never stops. If I seek the senses and skill of children, the information of a thousand books, the innocence of puppies, even the insights of my own city past, I do so only, solely, and entirely that I might look well at the creek.

“It never stops.” Golly, I hope she’s right. Climate change has us receiving too much rain here and not enough rain there; the forests are burning; the glaciers are melting; I fear the creeks are stopping (and starting up elsewhere). But in 1974, I can understand this thinking.

I suspect that the real moral thinkers end up, wherever they may start, in botany.

This, too, is charming: a nerdy confirmation of the power of trees and other green things (and non-green things as well).

John Cowper Powys said, “We have no reason for denying to the world of plants a certain slow, dim, vague, large, leisurely semi-consciousness.” He may not be right, but I like his adjectives. The patch of bluets in the grass may not be long on brains, but they might be, at least in a very small way, awake.

Who is Dillard to say that he may not be right? Goodness, with all the time travel and metaphoric “patting the puppy” she gushes and coos, why not let trees have a certain semi-consciousness? And those complaints aside, does anyone else hear the Ents walking through those lines? Lovely.

All the green in the planted world consists of these whole, rounded chloroplasts wending their ways in water. If you analyze a molecule of chlorophyll itself, what you get is one hundred thirty-six atoms of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen arranged in an exact and complex relationship around a central ring. At the ring’s center is a single atom of magnesium. Now: If you remove the atom of magnesium and in its exact place put an atom of iron, you get a molecule of hemoglobin. The iron atom combines with all the other atoms to make red blood, the streaming red dots in the goldfish’s tail.

And that blows my mind: a scientific, tiny-scale, real-life confirmation, like a metaphor but grounded in reality on the molecular level, of our intricate connection as living, breathing, animal things to living, breathing green things. I love that.

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book beginnings on Friday: Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler

Posted on September 20, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Rose City Reader for hosting. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

I have been on quite a kick lately! Between the Hemingway-Fitzgerald-and-Faulkner class (final wrap-up here); The Other Typist; and The Great Gatsby movie (review to come), I am all wrapped up in the 1920’s these days.
z

Therefore, in the spirit of The Paris Wife and Loving Frank, and because I am a Fitzgerald fan as well as a fan (who isn’t?) of the flamboyant flappers’ era, of course I had to get my hands on this new “novel of Zelda Fitzgerald.” I had a tip that I should do it on audio, since Zelda’s South twang is so charmingly performed. So here we are. The book begins with a short letter from Zelda to Scott, which I would like to think is real but a few sources say isn’t. Ah well.

December 20, 1940

Dear Scott,

The Love of the Last Tycoon is a great title for your novel. What does Max say?

I’ve been thinking that maybe I’ll brave an airplane ride and come to see you for New Year’s. Wire me the money, if you can. Won’t we be quite the pair?– you with your bad heart, me with my bad head. Together, though, we might have something worthwhile. I’ll bring you some of those cheese biscuits you always loved, and you can read me what you’ve written so far. I know it’s going to be a wonderful novel, Scott, your best one yet.

This is short so I can send it before the post office closes today. Write me soon.

Devotedly,

Z~

I find the beginning enjoyable, although I already have a few concerns. For one thing, I note a suspiciously strong feeling of deja vu: is this Scarlett O’Hara I see here, only having won her Ashley Wilkes this time around? She even puts on a green dress for the purposes of charming her beaux, although it’s possible this is a confirmed historical fact. (Not worth my research at this point in time.) And while there are some charming turns of phrase, there is also the reference to “eyes as green and expressive as the Irish Sea” – which, ostensibly coming from a 17-year-old lifetime resident of Montgomery, Alabama, doesn’t feel like quite the right choice of words. For now, though, I will suspend these quibbles and lose myself in Zelda’s gushings.

And what are you reading this week?

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vocabulary lessons: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Posted on September 19, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Annie Dillard had me quite active with my note-taking for later looking up. I have included only the highlights here for you.

anchorite: “An anchorite’s hermitage is called an anchor-hold; some anchor-holds were simple sheds clamped to the side of a church like a barnacle to a rock. I think of this house clamped to the side of Tinker Creek as an anchor-hold.”

discalced: “[The effort to] gag the commentator, to hush the voice of useless interior babble that keeps me from seeing… marks the literature of saints and monks of every order East and West, under every rule and no rule, discalced and shod.”

spate: “I live for… the moment when the mountains open and a new light roars in spate through the crack, and the mountains slam.”

oriflamme: “The flight [of a flock of starlings] extended like a fluttering banner, an unfurled oriflamme…”

sonant and surd: “The wind shrieks and hisses down the valley, sonant and surd…”

scry: “…I had better be scrying the signs.”

eidetic: “…we have feelings, a memory for information and an eidetic memory for the imagery of our own pasts.”

obelisk: “We run around under these obelisk-creatures, teetering on our soft, small feet.” (She’s referring to trees.) and, 20 pages later: “A tree stands… mute and rigid as an obelisk.”

pavane: “An even frailer, dimmer movement, a pavane, is being performed deep under me now.”

neutrinos: “I imagine neutrinos passing through [a bird’s] feathers and into its heart and lungs…”

racemes: “Long racemes of white flowers hung from the locust trees.”

a two-for-one, etiolated and lambent: “The leaf was so thin and etiolated it was translucent, but at the same time it was lambent, minutely, with a kind of pale and sufficient light.”

eutrophic: “The duck pond is a small eutrophic pond on cleared land…”

phylactery: “…the microscope at my forehead is a kind of phylactery, a constant reminder of the facts of creation that I would just as soon forget.”

cofferdam: “…pouring wet plaster into the cofferdam…”

stet: “If the creature makes it, it gets a ‘stet’.”

shmoo: “Generally, whenever he was out of water he assumed the shape of a shmoo…” (referring to a muskrat).

enow: “The Lucas place is paradise enow.”

lorn: “A bobwhite who is still calling in summer is lorn…”

See other “vocabulary lessons” posts here.

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Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard, part the second

Posted on September 18, 2013 by pagesofjulia

pilgrimattinkercreekI’m afraid I am continuing with my mixed feelings here, as in my first review. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, for me, comes in sections, or in three parts. As I wrote, the early bits were difficult for me, a little too metaphysical and spiritual. And then, remember how I said that chapter 7 blew me away? Well, chapter 8 is even better.

Chapter 8 is entitled “Intricacy,” and addresses the amazing, extraordinary intricacy, complexity, tiny detail and huge scale and huge scale of tininess in the natural world. Dillard relates statistics that are mind-boggling: “the average size of all living animals, including man, is almost that of a housefly.” “There are… two hundred twenty-eight separate and distinct muscles in the head of an ordinary caterpillar.” “Six million leaves on a big elm.” She writes about the Henle’s loop in the human kidney, the lower lip of the dragonfly nymph. Tiny, infinitely complex things that make our world so strange. She uses this phenomenon to explore the idea of a creator – and here Dillard and I will disagree a little, but that’s okay. “Look… at practically anything… and see that not only did the creator create everything, but that he is apt to create anything. He’ll stop at nothing.” She takes the strange and prolific nature of our world to be proof of a creator – “no claims of any and all revelations could be so far-fetched as a single giraffe” – and I don’t. It’s all right, though; this book is plenty safe for atheists; she’s not preaching. She’s just exploring. And I love the science, all that tiny tiny trivia, the explanations of the human kidney and the aquatic horsehair worm.

Next is chapter 9, “Flood,” and here I am going chapter by chapter – that’s how good this book is. “Flood” addresses Hurricane Agnes, and hurricanes are something we’re increasingly familiar with, not only in Houston but in New York City these days as well. (Which leads me to point out that Dillard is blissfully unaware of climate change and ecological collapse; happy her in 1974.) There is more of what I love in Dillard: detail, observation, science, and a glorious, joyful celebration of the world.

And then it falls off again, descending (or ascending, depending on your feelings) into the spiritual once again. My level of detail falls off here, too, because what can I say? I paid less attention when she zoomed back out into the mistiness. The last few pages of this book were an effort, and I didn’t retain anything I can tell you about now.

Verdict? Rather a difficult one. Liz said, great, I’ll just read those middle chapters! But of course that’s no way to go unless you know your tastes are mine.

I am glad I read this book; it yielded some inspirational moments and great quotations (as you will see). But those came overwhelmingly from the middle portion of the book. Others, I have no doubt, will swoon over the “patting the puppy” and the tree with the lights in it. Discover for yourself; but I do think it’s worth the effort, in the end. If I were to do it again, I would just read the middle parts. Rather like Walden, then, in my final conclusions – just as I thought at the beginning.

Rating: in an attempt to be fair, 6 mushrooms.

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The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell (audio)

Posted on September 17, 2013 by pagesofjulia

typistThis book reminds me very much of Rules of Civility by Amor Towles, with similarities extending to the audio narration, as well. And considering how much I loved that book, and narration, this is a high compliment. They share a setting in New York City early in the 20th century (in this case, Prohibition era), a concentration on class differences, a slinky sensual tone, and an appreciation for the finer things in life. The final shared characteristic is a major plot twist late in the book, here subtly foreshadowed from early on. And that is where I struggle a little with this review: I don’t want to spoil the surprise for you, because it makes the book. Read on safely; I’ll be careful.

Meet Rose Baker, our narrator. She was raised in a Catholic orphanage and now works as a typist in a precinct office of the New York Police Department. The book opens with a discussion of the controversy surrounding young women working as typists at all, let alone in the “rough” environs Rose inhabits: she frequently witnesses and transcribes the confessions of murderers and rapists (gasp). That opening passage helps establish the setting, along with a following reference to the Volstead Act (which prohibited alcohol in the United States).

And now, meet Odalie Lazare, the “other typist.” There were already two typists besides Rose at the precinct, but Odalie is a different sort. Glamorous, seductive, and strangely well-off for someone who would work as a police department typist, Rose is bewitched from the first. The two become “bosom friends,” and Rose becomes… devoted? obsessed? It all depends upon your definitions, of course.

Suzanne Rindell’s construction and development of Rose Baker as an unreliable narrator is delicious. We know Rose for a great many pages as a sober, morally upright young lady and professional; she describes Odalie’s entrance into her life with a sense of foreboding, but with no clue as to what has happened between them. And then there is the first, very brief, reference to Rose’s doctor. Later, there is another flashing reference to the “incident.” Thus, our sober and reliable narrator is undermined, but just so swiftly and for just a moment – did we even see it at all? And I’m left, as the reader, wondering about this incident and why Rose needs a doctor; and then I’m back in Rose’s story, seeing her as the responsible character again. It is a masterful building of tension and questions; I ate it up.

One of the many strengths of this story is in its strong sense of time and place. Prohibition New York is colorful; one can hear and smell and taste its flavors. I will have to leave it to another, older reader to speak to its authenticity, but I am certainly convinced. The writing style, and Gretchen Mol’s reading style, contribute to the feel of an earlier time; sentences are a little long and formal, in a way that just creates more atmosphere.

Rindell’s fine sense of pacing, the doling out of detail and prolepsis, is adept. It is not everyday that I am this drawn in and enchanted by a story; I couldn’t wait to hear what would happen next; I was guessing and second-guessing. As a thriller, The Other Typist evoked some of Tana French’s best work (as here).

Although I was captivated by the swirling mists of speakeasies and Odalie’s wily ways as the femme fatale, I think my favorite part of this experience was the buildup to the big reveal, and the mystery left therein. The Other Typist was a pleasurable rush and romp, and has left me wanting more of Suzanne Rindell’s magic. Reader Gretchen Mol was perfect and not to be missed: do find this one on audio if you can.

Rating: 8 champagne cocktails.

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