Teaser Tuesdays: Dirt Work by Christine Byl

Posted on August 13, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

dirt work

I am very much excited about this relatively new memoir by a female trailbuilder with experience working for the Parks and Forest Services in Montana and Alaska. It looks to have a good combination of nature writing, memoir, and women’s issues. I have already found several noteworthy passages; but I had to choose…

[If you want a clue about a person’s work]… look at her hands. I trust dirty fingernails. I am drawn to people with that half moon, the sliver of filth that indicates kinetic expertise. Perhaps they do fieldwork – ratty truck, weathered tools. Are they teachers, the ones who kneel next to kids examining earthworms in mud? Potters, naturalists, firefighters, farmers: dirt is a secret code, dusty knuckles the special knock of a fraternal order. I trust this small sign because it implies a tangible relationship. To get dirt under your fingernails, you have to touch the world.

So, yes, lovely writing to boot. Stay tuned for my glowing review.

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two striking paragraphs from Young Men and Fire

Posted on August 8, 2013 by pagesofjulia

A cloudburst was already waiting to challenge us at the top of the ridge. From the bottom of Meriwether Canyon we could both see and hear it making preparations for a joust with us. As we tried not to fall backwards to where we started in the canyon, we could hear the storm rumble and paw the ground. When we neared the top, it tried to beat us back by splintering shafts of lightning on gigantic rocks. There was a lone tree near the top, only one, and in case we had any foolish ideas of taking refuge under it a bolt of lightning took aim and split it apart; it went down as if it had been hit by a battle-ax. Trying to reach the rocks, we were held motionless and vertical in our tracks by the wind. Only when the wind lessened for a moment could we move – then we fell forward. With the lessening of the wind the rain became cold and even heavier and forced us to retreat from the battlefield on top. The rain fell on us like a fortified wall falling. By the time we reached the bottom of Meriwether, we were shivering and demoralized and my brother-in-law probably already had pneumonia.

All this was like a demonstration arranged to let us know that Mann Gulch had power over earth, air, and water, as well as fire. As the wind continued to lessen, the rain increased and fell straight down. It was solid now everywhere. It knocked out the motor in our borrowed boat, and we couldn’t get it started again; after a while we didn’t try anymore, and it took several hours to pole and paddle our way back to Hilger Landing. My brother-in-law was seriously sick before we got there; he would never go back to Mann Gulch. So for some time Mann Gulch was mine alone, if I wanted it, and for some time I left it to the elements. I turned to the archives because I knew they would be dry and no wind would be there and the air would be the same air the stacks had been built around and nothing but a book or two had been moved since. The signs would demand “Silence” and even the silence would be musty, and for a time anything musty had an appeal.

I am seriously tempted to leave this passage to stand alone. Below I will make a few notes toward a closer reading of it; but feel free to skip my little words and reread Maclean and go on with your day.

Or, if you want my thoughts:

Here Maclean relates his first attempt to visit Mann Gulch, scene of the decades-old tragedy he wants to write a book about. It is a geographically remote and wild area, not easily reached. He refers several times in Young Men and Fire and in his related notes and letters (in The Norman Maclean Reader) to the “truculent universe,” reluctant to give up its secrets regarding these events. This first visit to the spot itself clearly informs his feeling of the universe’s truculence. Perhaps, he thinks, the archives will be more revealing. (As it turns out, they weren’t, especially.)

These paragraphs are both easy to read, and dense with description. You can feel the weather beating through your computer screen, can’t you? Look at the action verbs, the militarism, the agency attributed to the inanimate storm. It is waiting to challenge; preparing to joust; it rumbles and paws the ground. It tries to beat us back; it takes aim and disabuses us of foolish ideas. The top of the gulch is a battlefield; rain was like a fortified wall falling.

There is comedy: when the wind stopped we were able to move again – we fell forward. (Can you see the slapstick even in this dramatic moment? Does it make you smile?)

All of this was a demonstration – and note Maclean’s reference to the concept behind the title of this book, the elemental forces of earth, air, water, fire (and young men).

In this round of battle, Maclean concedes that the Gulch has won; he retreats to the archives, where the librarians among us are amused and charmed by the air the stacks had been built around, and the appeal of mustiness after such a run-in with the wild outdoors.

I again encourage you to read this amazing book.

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Teaser Tuesdays: Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

Posted on August 6, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

bones

I am enjoying this small, impactful writing guide, recommended to me (indirectly) from within the pages of… one of Haven Kimmel’s books, I’m not sure at this point which one. I keep making false starts or having intentions of Writing; one of the gems I’m getting from Writing Down the Bones is to just start. Also –

First, consider the pen you write with. It should be a fast-writing pen because your thoughts are always much faster than your hand. You don’t want to slow up your hand even more with a slow pen.

This gives me pause. Goldberg clearly recommends writing by hand, and that is hard for me. I have been using computers from such a young age, and exclusively for my writing-heavy academic career (high school, college, grad school), that my handwriting is slow, painful, and not great; this is a generational problem, obviously, and this book was originally published in 1986, almost before my time. She has some hesitations about typing rather than handwriting, though, and that’s something to consider.

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The Norman Maclean Reader

Posted on August 5, 2013 by pagesofjulia

macleanAh, Norman Maclean. This is the last of his published work that I’ve found, following A River Runs Through It, and other stories and Young Men and Fire. I am very sorry to have reached this end. Maybe I’ll still find more. Also, I’m seeking a decent and well-regarded biography of him and have found none, so if you have it, speak up.

This is a collection of Maclean’s work, including excerpts from the longer books I’ve read already, a few previously published articles, and several previously unpublished pieces, including chapters from his book on Custer that Maclean worked on for years and finally gave up (prior to beginning either of his published works). Also included are letters he sent to a few friends and mentees; these might be my favorite part, although that’s a tough competition. The introduction, by editor O. Alan Weltzien, is a little on the academic side, referencing Maclean’s teaching career and his work with Aristotle, Shakespeare, Shelley and Wordsworth, and the concept of tragedy and its place in life and art; but if it required me to slow down and pay special attention, it was worth it.

Maclean too can be quite cerebral and academic – he was an academic by profession, after all – as in his discussion of Freudian philosophy (which “will not run with sex alone”) in the last chapter of the Custer book, called “Shrine to Defeat.” I enjoyed the Custer chapters very much, which are like Young Men and Fire in being contemplative, personal, philosophic studies of historical events. But I think my favorite sections are the more autobiographical, memoir-ish stories: if you can find a copy of the story called Retrievers Good and Bad (originally published in Esquire 88 in October 1977), you’re in for a treat. This is an early attempt to communicate some of Maclean’s feelings about his brother Paul’s death, and the abruptness of it – through dogs. What else could we ask for?

Following the Custer chapters and a selection of shorter works (and excerpts from his published books) come letters from Maclean to:

  • Robert Utley, much younger Custer scholar, to whom Maclean offers advice and mentorship while asking for tidbits on Custer; their relationship evolves until Maclean (still never having published a book), the teacher, poignantly requests help from the student who has now published several. a charming friendship.
  • Marie Borroff, former student of Maclean’s (formally, that is; Utley was correspondent and friend and only informally a “student”) who becomes a highly regarded scholar, poet, teacher herself. this relationship in letters is even more affectionate.
  • Nick Lyons, younger teacher, writer, fisherman, publisher whom Maclean befriends after Lyons wrote a favorable review of A River Runs Through It.
  • Lois Jansson, widow of Bob Jansson, USFS ranger whose work on and after the Mann Gulch fire Maclean highly regarded and treated with respect in Young Men and Fire.

As I said earlier, these letters might have been my favorite part of this book. Of course they reveal, far more than his published writings, an unedited, raw, personal Maclean. I enjoyed that man, who shares the humor, cleverness, playfulness, and philosophies of the edited and published one, but with the added charm of vulnerability, fears, and requests for help from his loved ones. He also shares his personal losses – chiefly that of his beloved wife – in these letters more than anywhere else. I deeply appreciated having access to this new side of an author I’ve come to love recently.

A few more thoughts – on Hemingway – you know I had to go there:

A blurb by Alfred Kazin on the back of this book calls A River Runs Through It “as beautiful as anything in Thoreau or Hemingway.” Now, I confess I am in danger of seeing Hemingway everywhere. I love him; I’ve read a lot of him, repeatedly, as well as several biographies. Maybe it’s a flaw of mine. But I saw Hemingway in these writings, too.

The joke has many variants, some of them dirty and all of them grim, but essentially it is one joke and underneath the many variants is a kindly undertone, as if some joke had been played upon the bluffs of the Little Bighorn for which there should be universal forbearance, on the chance that the joke played there is played some time on all of us. Clearly, our dead are delivered from oblivion when they become a joke on us.

Bear with me; I know that first one is a longish sentence and Hemingway is known for short ones, but you’d be surprised. He knew how to carry on, and in just this fashion: the repetition of that short, simple, but aurally striking word “joke”; the subject matter of death and war handled with a wry, cynical lightness. Likewise the cadence of this section-ending line:

They thought it over and after some of the weariness was gone, Little Wolf and all the young men enlisted and went back to their old job of fighting in the country that had been their home.

More great stuff from Maclean. Recommended, as usual.

Rating: 10 selected letters.

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book beginnings on Friday: Weeds: A Farm Daughter’s Lament by Evelyn Funda

Posted on August 2, 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.

weeds

I’m taking the liberty of sharing two beginnings with you today. Preface:

In late 2001 my small family suffered what I think of as a triple tragedy. On October 1, 2001, my father, Lumir Funda, age seventy-nine, was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer that, by the time of the diagnosis, had metastasized to his brain, liver, spleen, spine, and bones.

(I’ll leave the other two tragedies for your own reading.)

And chapter 1:

Highway 16, the main route into my rural hometown of Emmett, Idaho, winds through a high desert country of sand and sagebrush before the road narrows and suddenly descends into the valley through a steep grade known as Freezeout Hill. Gouging straight through the terrain, the road drops more than five hundred feet in elevation within the span of a mile.

I think these set Funda’s tone, which is contemplative, quiet, and often melancholy; this seems to be in many ways a memoir of loss, so that’s not inappropriate. It’s early yet, but I’m enjoying it.

These quotation comes from an uncorrected advance proof and is subject to change.

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From Alaska to Tierra del Fuego: Across the Americas in Two Years by Michael Boyny

Posted on July 24, 2013 by pagesofjulia

fromalaskaAnother gift from Fil, and another winner!

This is a coffee table book that is part travel narrative and part photography or art book. Author Michael Boyny tells us that he and his partner, Sabine, are travel junkies. They conceived of this road trip from tip to tip of the Americas and planned it well in advance, buying a 1985 Ford F250 with motorhome cab in their native Germany, fitting it out and test-running it on a trip through Scandinavia before shipping it to New York and setting off across Canada. Chapters each detail a segment of the trip and run, oh, 4-8 pages each: quick descriptions of places that struck them in terms of natural beauty, culture, physical activity, or other item of interest (good and bad). Whole states may be covered quickly or require more time, depending on how they struck Boyny. Two years of travel are covered in under 200 pages, and a number of those pages are devoted to photographs (on which more in a minute), so the text is necessarily a little cursory here and there; but no matter. It is less an in-depth study of anyplace in particular and more a travel journal: just the highlights. I took my time reading this book in bursts of just a few pages or chapters at a sitting – at my coffee table, in fact. And it was very enjoyable.

Boyny’s English is perfectly fine, but sometimes a little odd; he is very fond of adjectives. Perhaps someone told him that an adjective for every noun was a good method of descriptive writing? At least that was my impression in the opening pages; either he settled down or I stopped noticing. Call it a nuance that I noted, but didn’t get in the way too much. Another funny item I noticed was the exhaustive translation of kilometers to miles (centimeters to inches, etc.), which I appreciate very much in theory but which sometimes turned downright amusing in practice:

240 becomes 230, like magic!

240 becomes 230, like magic!

Michael and Sabine see Alaska; Canada; the Western United States; Mexico; Central and western South America. They are outdoorsy types (perhaps this goes without saying: they’re living in a truck for two years!) and often camp outside, sometimes rent rooms or hotel rooms, even occasionally a more permanent dwelling (seven weeks in a rented house in San Miguel de Allende taking Spanish lessons). They also do quite a bit of hiking (overnight backpacking included), and outings (again sometimes overnight) in the canoe they carry on top of the truck; a scooter racked behind allows for easy short trips as well. The physical activities they undertake set them well apart from your average (American) RV dweller. They compile a fine list of places they could live, across both continents, and are kind in their sparse criticisms; the coast of Peru gets a poor rating but the highlands of that same country become a highlight just pages later.

But oh, the photographs. Don’t get me wrong: Boyny’s narrative of two years spent traversing 15 countries was well worth reading, an interesting education in snippets, even within my own country or places I’ve visited, because he enjoys his own unique perspective. But the photographs alone make this book a special find. Boyny is a passionate amateur photographer (maybe I shouldn’t say amateur; it’s how he makes his living when he stays in one place) and his photos share roughly equal space with text, including a good number of amazing two-page spreads. These photographs include portraits of the inhabitants of various places, wildlife (toucan! quetzal!) and scenes of commerce and lifestyles; but the strongest, unsurprisingly, are landscapes. The largest spreads include views of the Yukon; Monument Valley; the Grand Canyon (naturally); Bryce Canyon; the Mayan ruins at Tulum (Husband and I have been there!); the Galapagos; Machu Picchu; and Patagonian lakes. I can’t say enough about his captures of some of the most extraordinary views on the planet – they alone make this trip worth it, both for Michael and Sabine, and for his readers.

A major hit for photos alone; an an interesting travel story to boot. Thanks, Fil!

Rating: 8 muddy tracks.

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The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel

Posted on July 18, 2013 by pagesofjulia

astronautThe US space program began in 1958, with an original group of seven astronauts. Their seven wives were expected to be the classic 1950’s perfect housewives; and that blissful domestic harmony was considered as important a job qualification for the men as was their athleticism and stamina. (Later rounds of astronauts would be highly educated engineers and technologists; the early ones emphasized physical attributes a little more.) The Astronaut Wives Club studies those original seven wives, and later additions which swelled the group toward 50. Lily Koppel examines the lives of these women and their husbands: marital dramas, difficulties with the press, lifestyles, tragedies, and lives after NASA was done with them. She interviewed the available surviving women. It comes across as a truthful depiction of them: women whom, unlike their husbands, we have surprisingly never thought to study until now.

The first space program was based out of Cape Canaveral in Florida, moving to Houston (my hometown and current place of residence) in 1962. It was fun to read about the early suburbs of Clear Lake and Friendswood, which I’m familiar with in slightly different forms today. A guide at the front of the book to “the astronaut wives” groups them by wave: the original seven (Mercury), the new nine (Gemini), the fourteen (more Gemini and Apollo), and the nineteen that came in 1966. The original seven are those we get to know the best, and their influence would remain on those that followed, but even the later waves of wives receive good personal treatment. From 1950’s stereotyped domesticity to the hesitant beginnings of women’s lib (which, unsurprisingly, came later to Space City wives than to certain segments of the population), these women tended to stick together, presenting a united front against the intrusive media and comforting each other in times of tragedy. But there was also competition: just as their husbands competed for the honors of “firsts” (outer space, moon orbit, moon walk), their wives had to compete to present the proper image on husband’s behalf. And as later waves of wives rolled in, the earlier ones were, perhaps predictably, a little distrustful of newcomers; they had worked hard to establish a tight-knit, protective club that still had its own internal issues to boot.

Koppel treats these women with sensitivity and respect. Their stories, and their collective story, is moving, poignant, and brought to life. On the night I finished this book, I dreamed about the astronaut wives. I can’t tell you much about my dream, because it faded so quickly, but I had been planning a trip, and I think I was consulting with the wives about some of my plans. I don’t dream about many books I read (at least not that I can recall), so this should be taken, probably, as a vote of confidence in the reality and staying power of what I’d read.

The Astronaut Wives Club is a well-deserved first look at a particular and unique group of women in history. As a bonus, it’s a fun glimpse into Americana of the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s. There is almost no science involved, so if you’re looking for the specifics of space technologies, look away; this is the homebound perspective on the man on the moon. While they suffered widowhood, divorce, and even suicide, this group of women is charming, funny, likeable, and amusing. I found it fascinating to consider this period through its unsung background heroes.

Rating: 7 Valium.

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Teaser Tuesdays: From Alaska to Tierra del Fuego: Across the Americas in Two Years by Michael Boyny

Posted on July 16, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

fromalaska

Randomly chosen from this beautiful coffee table book:

In the days of our stay, we experience a city as fragmented as its history is fascinating: repulsive and charming, poverty-stricken and glamorous, terrifying and endearing – probably as full of contradictions as the Mexican soul itself.

The city in question is Mexico City, and I imagine that this list of contradictions is an accurate start, at least.

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book beginnings on Friday: The Norman Maclean Reader

Posted on July 12, 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.

maclean

For this book beginning, we are treated to a previously unpublished chapter from Maclean’s abandoned book about George Armstrong Custer and the Battle of Little Bighorn.

It was in the year – even in the season of year – marking the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Big Horn that Major Edward S. Luce retired as Superintendent of the Custer Battlefield National Monument. He and the Hill have long been closely connected.

Even in those few words, I recognize Maclean and his attention to detail and his interest. As I’ve just read in the introduction, Maclean’s obsession with the Mann Gulch Fire (see Young Men and Fire) is at least matched by his obsession with Custer; but his high standards and (argues the editor who wrote the introduction) his proximity to the subject caused him to leave this book behind.

I am super-extra-excited to have more Maclean to dig into. Let’s have it.

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Teaser Tuesdays: The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel

Posted on July 9, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

astronaut

I am pleased with this newly-released work of nonfiction focusing on the wives of the first astronauts (and their immediate successors). A developing reading niche of mine is what I am calling “biographies of little-known women in history,” and this qualifies. To set the tone:

The wives pored over their fifteen-page “Seven Brave Women Behind the Astronauts” spread. Through touching up and editorial tinkering, Life had transformed seven very different, complicated women into perfect cookie-cutter American housewives. There was not a whiff of domestic turbulence.

What is written boldly between these lines is that there was domestic turbulence, right? Nothing horrendous (that I’ve encountered so far, at least), but the point is that the program that employed the astronauts in question began in 1959, and thus the all-American, 1950’s, dimples-and-apple-pie version of family life was paramount. These women were expected to exemplify that image, for the sake of their husbands and their country. And that’s really something: a daunting challenge, I think.

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