Another Month in the Can

Thanks for hanging out with us! Above are the authors we mentioned this past month, and here are the most popular posts from the same period:

• Hemingway and Gellhorn
• The Tour de France
• Review: Silas Marner, by George Eliot
• First Line Friday: Cry, the Beloved Country
• Bookish Nerd Bait Vol. 1

And of course, the wacky search terms that led some of you here:

• “On the Road mental illness”  >>>>  Diagnosing Dean Moriarty
• “Pronouns with no antecedent Faulkner”  >>>>  Faulkner & Pronoun Ambiguity
• “Egan system tension grip”  >>>>  takes you to Jennifer Egan
• “Barcelona gracia neighborhood”  >>>>  Tucker’s birth as a reader
• “Moby Dick seventh grade essay”  >>>> MacEvoy’s birth as a reader
• “Trivium down from the sky  >>>>  the only place we’ve used ‘trivium’
• “No pants required”  >>>>  Takes you to this post of the same title
• “lanza en astillero English translation”  >>>>  takes you here
• “Hate on the road Kerouac”  >>>>  shows you whyyou shouldn’t
• “two figures in a greek frieze”  >>>>  takes you to Mr.Faulkner

Review: A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini

Good and evil. Love and war. Politics, family, culture- you get all of the above and more in Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns.  He’s an author we’ve mentioned exactly once on this site, and that was to wonder if he didn’t owe a great deal to George Bush and Osama bin Laden for the success of his books. Now having actually read one of them, I can say that Hosseini is much more than an author who stumbled into the perfect moment for a man of his background.

A Thousand Splendid Suns  is a skillfully crafted book that is beautiful to read, and one that transforms the western view of Afghanistan as a barren pile of beige rubble into a rich and colorful culture that captures the imagination. It’s heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time, and it manages to educate and uplift. I’ve said nothing about the plot, because any summaries I put down here will just feed the stereotypes that western readers will bring to the book. But it’s much more than a history or a peek into Islamic culture, it’s a story of human endurance above all else.

The one criticism I’ll offer is that the book seems to carry on far past its natural ending. The wind-down is still engaging and beautifully written, but once the main emotional conflict is resolved, there follows an inordinate amount of wrapping things up, tying loose ends and bringing everything to a satisfying standstill.

At this point, one feels like Hosseini is checking boxes, paying off each important conversation or detail delivered in the early pages. I kept asking myself, ‘Is this it? Is the curtain coming down on this image?’ And he’d continue for pages. He even redeems characters that had nothing to do with the protagonists left standing at the end of the book. Discoveries are made that would have no impact on the living. He really didn’t have to do this. The emotional punch he delivers is rewarding enough as it is. But what do I know? The man can write. And I loved the book.

Fidel Castro, Beta Reader

You already know him as the Cuban revolutionary turned controversial human rights villain, but did you know he was also one of the secrets to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s literary success? That's right, he's a trusted beta reader for the Colombian author.

“Our friendship was consolidated by books. He’s an excellent reader. I bring him the originals before I publish the book. He’s like an editor. That’s the exact word: editor. He points out contradictions and inconsistencies that professionals miss. He’s very thorough and reads all the time. His car has a light and he reads at night on long trips.”

Start at the 0:37 second mark:

**Update**

No sooner did I post this than I came across this article, which bears the sad news that Garcia Marquez's writing career is essentially over. Dementia is the culprit. Castro's career as a beta reader may just have come to an end.

Denis Johnson's Train Dreams: Revisited

Two messages landed in my inbox when I posted my review of Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams  the other day. The first was an email from my dad that can basically be summed up as “Ouch, that’s rough.” He was reacting to this paragraph in particular:

“There was just... not much there. This book felt less like a well-crafted piece of fiction than the kind of cursory memoir that people goad their aging parents into penning for posterity. It was a list of memorable events, sure, but there was no discernible theme stringing them together. It didn’t really say  or mean  anything to me."

Apparently my dad, who is in the throes of penning his own memoir for posterity, read these words as an indictment of his efforts. Nothing could be further from the truth. So let me say, unequivocally, to all the parents out there, keep writing those memoirs. Your kids and grandkids need them. They help us understand who we are and where we come from, and allow us to get to know you in ways we otherwise wouldn’t. I repeat, memoirs are great.

I’ll add here that I read Train Dreams  during a week that will forever be defined by the slow, agonizing passage of my first (and I pray, only) kidney stone. It was, as the French say, not fun. For all I know, I could have read The Great Gatsby  and still come away unfulfilled. Which brings me to the next email I received.

The second message was from a publicist at Macmillan, who invited me to include an audio excerpt from Train Dreams  alongside my review. I thought this was generous, given the negative impression I gave of the novella- the subtle message being that, good review or bad review, the book should stand or fall on its own merits- not the amateur ravings of some internet hack. And with that I agree completely. 


So without further ado, or any more overly personal medical history, here is the excerpt they provided. Be your own judge.

Bookish Nerd Bait: Vol. 2

First Line Friday: (Copy)Cat's Cradle

We all know the first line of Moby Dick  by heart.

Melville’s “Call me Ishmael” Is probably the most recognizable first line in all of literature. It’s simple, it’s personable, and it’s got the reader asking  questions right away. It just works.

But that’s not the first line we’re looking at today. No, today’s opening comes to you from Kurt Vonnegut’s satirical, apocalyptic classic, Cat’s Cradle.  Here it is:

“Call me Jonah.”

Hold on- wait a second. Hear me out before you send a fusillade of spitwads Vonnegut’s way. Here’s why it’s brilliant. Cat’s Cradle  is a book about man and his madness- much like Moby Dick.  So it’s an homage to Melville in that regard. But Vonnegut uses the familiar (some would say trite), opening as a pivot into his patented humorous style. It quickly becomes a parody, as he spits out lines 2, 3 and 4 in a kind of bumbling narrative that tips us off to the fact that we are about to read something funny, sad and absurd.

“Call me Jonah. My parents did, or nearly did. They called me John.

“Jonah­­­‑John- if I had been a Sam, I would have been a Jonah still- not because I have been unlucky for others, but because somebody or something has compelled me to be certain places at certain times, without fail.”

I think that opening sets the tone of the novel beautifully, even if it is  made from 100% recycled materials. What say you?

Behind the Scenes Tour, and $100 to the Winner

We launched this site eight months ago with a contest. As you may recall, we gave you a peek into the Billiard Room here at ShelfActualization.com, and asked you to name as many of the twenty authors pictured as you could:

Well, today we’re going to up the ante a bit. We’re taking you back behind the scenes at Shelf Actualization headquarters to show you four more of our storied spaces: the Grand Entrance Lobby, the Gallery, the Dining Hall and the Conservatory. 

Milling about, you’ll find fifty more unidentified authors. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to name as many of the authors as you can. Up for grabs is a $100 Amazon gift card (or credit to your local indie bookstore if we can swing it.) Click on each picture for a larger view, and scroll to the bottom for contest rules.

Grand Entrance Lobby:

Gallery:

Dining Hall:

Conservatory:

Feel free to conjecture, obfuscate and mislead in the comments below, but email  your entry to editor@shelfactualization.com, listing your guesses for each room from left to right as in the example below:

Lobby (Mezzanine Level):

1

2 Author A

3 Author B

4

5 Author C

6

7

8 Author D

9 Author E

Lobby (Main floor)

1 Author  F

2

3 Author G

4 Author H

5 Author I

6

7

8 Author J

9

Gallery:

Etc…..

Just leave blanks where you have no good guesses. Each correctly named author nets you one point. The entry with the most correct answers wins. Any ties will be settled with a random number generator, based on the order in which the entries came in. Blog or tweet the contest and we’ll add five points to your tally (Just include a link in your entry email.) Any questions? No? Then good luck! We'll announce the winner one week hence, on the morning of July 12th.

Author Look-Alikes: French Heritage Edition

It's Independence Day here in the US. And really, what better day is there to focus on the doppelgangers of some prominent French-speaking writers? (We'll say it's in honor of General Lafayette, d'accord?)

Born to French Canadian parents, Jean-Louis "Jack" Kerouac bears a striking resemblance to Clive Owen.

And with the bags under his eyes and the plump, playful jowels, who can deny that Roland Barthes has got a little Jon Lovitz in him?

Jean-Paul Sartre's prominent laugh lines and funky lips brought Monsieur Buscemi to mind...

Still don't see it? Have a gander at those eyes. Zut alors!

Finally, no single writer has had more artsy, black-and-white publicity stills taken of him than Samuel Beckett. The near flat-top, the sunglasses, the futuristic, otherworldly quality of his portraits- all say one thing to me: This is what an octogenarian Max Headroom would look like, n'est pas?.

Am I wrong?

From the Pen of Jeffrey Eugenides

There are few words to describe how bad that floral print shirt is in combination with the bus driver's vest, but what does Jeffrey Eugenides care? After all, there are even fewer words to describe how good his writing is in combination with the short, to-the-point introductions of characters, cities and sports below. 


I literally laughed out loud when I came across this first example, and had to rewind the audio book two or three times before I'd had my fill. All emphasis is mine:

"Phileda’s hair was where her power resided. It was expensively set into a smooth dome, like a band shell for the presentation of that long-running act, her face." 

 

"Hygenically bald, with a seaman’s mustacheless white beard, Zipperstein favored French fisherman’s sweaters and wide wale corduroys."

"Saunders was a seventy nine year old New Englander. He had a long horsey face, and a moist laugh that exposed his gaudy dental work."

"The window gave onto a view of dove-gray roofs and balconies, each one containing the same cracked flowerpot and sleeping feline. It was as if the entire city of Paris had agreed to abide by a single understated taste. Each neighbor was doing his or her own to keep up the standards, which was difficult because the French ideal wasn’t clearly delineated like the neatness and greenness of American lawns, but more of a picturesque disrepair. It took courage to let things fall apart so beautifully."

"There was something about tennis - its aristocratic rituals, the prim silence it enforced on its spectators, the pretentious insistence on saying “love” for zero and “deuce” for tied, the exclusivity of the court itself, where only two people were allowed to move freely, the palace-guard rigidity of the linesmen, and the slavish scurrying of the ball boys - that made it clearly a reproachable pastime."

Bookish Nerd Bait: Vol. 1

We thought we'd start sharing some of our favorite quotes from the books we love, and do it in a way that's easy for you ladies to share on your pinboards. Here is the first installment. Enjoy.

The Future of Print

Thought this was kinda cool. And since it's Sunday, you've probably got time to watch it. Enjoy.

EPILOGUE: the future of print from EPILOGUEdoc on Vimeo.

The Tour de France kicks off today

“I have started many stories about bicycle racing but have never written one that is as good as the races are both on the indoor and outdoor tracks and on the roads.  

“…I must write the strange world of the six-day races and the marvels of the road-racing in the mountains. French is the only language it has ever been written in properly and the terms are all French and that is what makes it hard to write.”

-Ernest Hemingway, in A Moveable Feast

(And yes, in the 20s there was a slightly higher incidence of smoking on the Tour than you’ll probably find today. But that’s awesome in its own way.)

First Line Friday

MacEvoy has been putting a bug in my ear as of late about The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides.  I haven't read it, but I did take a look at the first page earlier today.  As such, I figured we might as well examine its first line:

"To start with, look at all the books."

Hmmmmm.  I don't love it, to be honest.  It's too flippant.  Too brief.  Too colloquial for my taste.  MacEvoy may disagree . . .

(Side Note:  I am considering discontinuing First Line Friday to pursue other opportunities, such as "Title Tuesdays" or "Metaphor Mondays." What say all of you?  Are we tired of First Line Fridays?)

Review: Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson

So I’m working my way through the ill-fated 2012 Pulitzer finalists- you know, the ones that became entangled in controversy when no prize was awarded earlier this year? I took a look at Karen Russel’s Swamplandia!  here. And today I dig into Denis Johnson’s much-acclaimed novella, Train Dreams,  the story of a day-laborer in the American West named Robert Grainier.

I should say up front that I’m not disparaging the writing, which was more than capable. After all, Johnson’s the National Book Award Winning author of Tree of Smoke, which is high on my future reads wishlist.  Rather, I’ve got a bone to pick with the lack of “evocative and poignant fiction” that I was promised by reviewers and blurb writers. Is this book truly “an epic in miniature” as they claim?

Well, it is miniature. And it does cover the span of a lifetime. But in creating such a spare and economical work, it seems Johnson has cut out all the emotional impact of the story along with any semblance of a rewarding plot structure.

There was just... not much there. This book felt less like a well-crafted piece of fiction than the kind of cursory memoir that people goad their aging parents into penning for posterity. It was a list of memorable events, sure, but there was no discernible theme stringing them together. It didn’t really say  or mean  anything to me.

I guess there’s something to be gleaned about the crazy cast of characters who won the American West, and the sometimes inexplicable reasons they held their ground in the face of untold hardships. But I just wasn’t carried away like the advance press said I would be. It was okay. But I don’t think okay is good enough these days. Not for a major prize, anyway.

I didn’t even really care when the main character’s wife and baby daughter were consumed in a forest fire, because I didn’t feel like I knew them at all. I didn’t even know anything about him  except that he worked as a logger and had once wanted to throw a spastic Chinese railroad laborer off a bridge.

I don’t know. The more 2012 Pulitzer finalists I get to know, the more I think the jury got it right by not awarding a prize. That should be a pretty high bar to clear. Maybe the Pale King  still has a case that it was jobbed, but Swamplandia!  and Train Dreams  haven’t given me too much hope.

Anybody disagree?

Poet's Corner: "At The Cancer Clinic" by Ted Kooser

Alright. Today’s poem-for-the-common-man is short and sweet. There’s nothing overtly profound about it, but it still manages to tear your heart out. See for yourself:

At the Cancer Clinic

By Ted Kooser

She is being helped toward the open door

that leads to the examining rooms

by two young women I take to be her sisters.

Each bends to the weight of an arm

and steps with the straight, tough bearing

of courage. At what must seem to be

a great distance, a nurse holds the door,

smiling and calling encouragement.

How patient she is in the crisp white sails

of her clothes. The sick woman

peers from under her funny knit cap

to watch each foot swing scuffing forward

and take its turn under her weight.

There is no restlessness or impatience

or anger anywhere in sight. Grace

fills the clean mold of this moment

and all the shuffling magazines grow still.

 *******************************

Am I right? The imagery is simple, and yes, it’s got some nice lines. But what makes this poem truly great, in my view, are the seven words that make up that last line:   “and all the shuffling magazines grow still.”

Criminy, that’s good! One minute we’re reading some poem where almost nothing happens, and in an instant we’re made part of a crowded hospital waiting room, frozen in admiration of this woman’s courage, or reverently marking her impending death, or silently cheering her fight for life. Or Maybe all of the above. 

Sometimes all it takes to give us a little perspective is to watch the right person shuffle weakly down the hall.

Hats off to Mr. Koozer. Anybody else been bowled over by a poem lately?

Short Story Club: "An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge"

Come on in and have a seat. We’re just getting started.

What did everyone think of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge?”

It’s a little different than the other stories we’ve covered, but I think it’s got a great opening- one that has you asking yourself questions immediately. After that it seems Bierce quickly overplays his hand, getting bogged down in a lot of overly detailed stage direction: who was standing where, how they were holding their guns, what their ranks were, etc., etc, etc. Most modern readers will find themselves skipping ahead. (You're pathetic. Go hang your heads in shame.)

But I’m actually going to defend Bierce here. At first I chalked the heavy description up to the time period and the nineteenth century tendency to belabor every detail. Then I started to think that maybe he was just capturing the hyper-awareness of a man who was staring at his imminent death- sponging up every last impression that this world could give him. Both of those theories might be true, I suppose. But I think he’s doing something else here.

He feeds us all those details so that we’re drawn into the story once all of those pointless bystanders start to play a significant role, as they react to his noose snapping and rush to shoot him in the water instead. The reader revisits those early details and tries to figure out whether our hanged man has a real chance at escape. I thought it was a great way to build up the tension.

I also liked the flashback explaining how we got to the hanging. Bierce lets us chew on what’s happening, while he cuts away for some interesting backdrop. Again, he’s letting the tension simmer and percolate.

And then we really get some nice things happening. The noose breaks, our man is in the water, and what was a kind of sleepy, plodding story is now a life and death struggle. I love the description we get along the way:

“He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed, preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf--saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant-bodied flies, the grey spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon flies' wings, the strokes of the water-spiders' legs, like oars which had lifted their boat--all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he heard the rush of its body parting the water.”

And then, of course, the ending! Bierce has yanked our chain! And yet we’re not angry, because hey, maybe that really is  what occurs in that instant before your neck snaps. Sounds pretty plausible to me.

Here's the Oscar-winning short, for those of you who were too damn lazy to read it.

Anyone else like it? Hate it? Tell us why in the comments.

Short Story Club Selection for June

Yes, friends. It’s that time once again.  

This month we’re going to take a trip in the WABAC Machine and examine a story that was first published in 1890:  Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge.” Why did we choose this story? For one, we’ve never talked about brother Bierce on this site. And for another, this particular story contains one of the all-time great, swift-kick-to-the-crotch  endings.

Here’s how it begins:

“A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees.”

Click here to read the full story, and then get yourself back here tomorrow for the discussion. Tucker’s making his world famous bruschetta, you won’t want to miss it.

The Writer's Voice: F. Scott Fitzgerald

We often become so familiar with the distinctive literary voice of an author, that it can be somewhat jarring to hear their actual speaking voice. Unless, of course, that author happens to be F. Scott Fitzgerald. Then you have no choice but to be lulled into a peaceful slumber by his dulcet, velvet voice.

Sweet dreams, readers.

Hemingway and Gellhorn

Anyone see “Hemingway and Gellhorn” yet? I don’t subscribe to HBO, but they must have had a free preview a couple weekends ago because I was able to snag it on the ol’ DVR. Now that I’ve had a chance to watch it, I thought I’d weigh in with my thoughts.

As the title suggests, the film is a biopic on Hemingway and his third wife, war correspondent Martha Gellhorn. Clive Owen plays the role of Hem, while Nicole Kidman plays Gellhorn. Both are about 10-15 years older than the real Hemingway and Gellhorn were when the actual events took place. But Kidman, I think, still manages to pull of a youthful look. Owen… not so much. More on that later. The supporting cast include Robert Duvall, David Strathairn, Parker Posey and a surprisingly obese Jeffrey Jones (picture Edward R. Rooney with about 80 lbs too many.)

The movie takes us to Key West, Cuba, Ketchum and even China, but focuses for the most part on what I think is the most captivating period of Hemingway’s life: his involvement in the Spanish Civil War and his documentation of it in For Whom the Bell Tolls,  and in the short propoganda film, “The Spanish Earth.”  (If you haven’t read FWtBT,  repent forthwith, and if you haven’t watched the film he helped write and narrate, go here.)

But make no mistake, this is Gellhorn’s story. Hemingway is continually portrayed as an overbearing, sexist lout- all of which he probably was. But you won’t find any of Gellhorn’s well-documented infidelities in the film. Her story feels a little too white-washed. When an assignment from Collier’s takes her to China, no mention is made of Hemingway’s own credentials with PM magazine, or his post as an intelligence officer for the US Treasury Department. The viewer just assumes he’s tagging along on her assignment and resenting her for it. In another scene Hemingway is shown practically raping her backstage in order to “feel like a man” and overcome a bout of stage fright before speaking. Gellhorn is then called out on stage for impromptu remarks which outshine Hemingway’s in every way.

At other points he is shown flying off the handle for no apparent reason and challenging a Communist General to a game of Russian Roulette. He stabs people in the back, rides roughshod over everyone in his path. And I don’t know how they did it, but they made Clive Owen appear tired, pasty, sniveling and frumpy. Hemingway is no doubt far from perfect, but the continual pile-on just didn’t ring true.

Don’t get me wrong, I came out of this movie with a desire to know so much more about Gellhorn and her life, but I felt that they gratuitously “over-caricatured”  Hemingway to provide a compelling foil for her. Too many pot shots at an easy target.

Anybody else see it? Anyone disagree?

First Line Friday

I've been a little bit of a downer recently with the first lines I've highlighted.  I haven't love them all.  And I am going to continue the trend today.

"I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, Where, and I said, To be with the Good Lord, and you said, Why, and I said, Because I'm old, and you said, I don't think you're old."

Hmmmmm, pretty shady punctuation, isn't it?  For my taste, it's far too meandering, too random, too loosy goosy.  The novel is Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.  And, having said all of this, I think I can predict what the rebuttal will consist of.

So go ahead, disagree with me, if you will.

Haiku-ption Contest #8

My haiku is below. Give us yours in the comments.

Jackie Onassis:

Graceful former first lady,

Planking pioneer

Symbolism in Literature: Not so fast, my friend...

INTERVIEWER:   Would you admit to there being symbolism in your novels?

HEMINGWAY:   I suppose there are symbols since critics keep finding them. If you do not mind I dislike talking about them and being questioned about them. It is hard enough to write books and stories without being asked to explain them as well. Also it deprives the explainers of work. If five or six or more good explainers can keep going why should I interfere with them? Read anything I write for the pleasure of reading it. Whatever else you find will be the measure of what you brought to the reading.

INTERVIEWER:   Continuing with just one question on this line: One of the advisory staff editors wonders about a parallel he feels he’s found in The Sun Also Rises  between the dramatis personae of the bull ring and the characters of the novel itself. He points out that the first sentence of the book tells us Robert Cohn is a boxer; later, during the desencajonada,  the bull is described as using his horns like a boxer, hooking and jabbing. And just as the bull is attracted and pacified by the presence of a steer, Robert Cohn defers to Jake who is emasculated precisely as is a steer. He sees Mike as the picador, baiting Cohn repeatedly. The editor’s thesis goes on, but he wondered if it was your conscious intention to inform the novel with the tragic structure of the bullfight ritual.

HEMINGWAY:   It sounds as though the advisory staff editor was a little bit screwy. Who ever said Jake was “emasculated precisely as is a steer”? Actually he had been wounded in quite a different way and his testicles were intact and not damaged. Thus he was capable of all normal feelings as a man  but incapable of consummating them. The important distinction is that his wound was physical and not psychological and that he was not emasculated.

-From the Paris Review Interview published in 1958

Literature and The Art of Manliness

If you liked our post from Fathers Day, you'll probably also enjoy these similar posts from one of my favorite sites, ArtofManliness.com.

Lessons in Manliness From Atticus Finch

Lessons in Manliness From The Old Man & The Sea

Lessons in Manliness From Beowulf

More Author Look-Alikes

Ay-oh, Oh-ay! Look at those deep-set eyes and pouty lips. The only difference between Virginia Woolf and Judith Light is a hairdryer and a little makeup. (And probably a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.)

Here's Tobias Wolff with unquestioned mustache domination, but Richard Dreyfuss has the edge on scalp coverage and protruding chest hair. Otherwise not a shabby match.

Facial hair, heavy eyelids, and prominent eyebrows... Alfred Molina matches Marcel Proust feature for feature.

Two words came into my head when I saw this picture of D.H. Lawrence: Daniel Faraday. A concerned and bearded Jeremy Davies is right about spot on.

Last but not least, T.C. Boyle and Terrence Stamp. Kneel before Zod!!

Be a Better Dad, Read a Novel...

Fathers Day’s got me thinking. There just aren’t many great fathers in the world of literature. Scan your bookshelves and tell me how many decent, loving fathers you come across. You’ll find that the dearth of dads is pretty striking. It seems we get better stories when our fathers are dead, cruel, or out of the picture altogether. Even when they’re there, they tend to be hapless milquetoasts (I’m looking at you, Tom Joad Sr.) There’s a lot more tension that way. And it lets the main character figure things out on their own.


But of those select few who can be held up as examples, I think you’d have to put To Kill A Mockingbird’s  Atticus Finch right at the top of the list. A quick perusal of that book can give some great pointers to those of us trying to figure out fatherhood. Channel Mr. Finch, and you’re well on your way.


For example, teach your kids to read. Teach them to respect their elders. Teach them all about life. But most of all, teach them by example. Don’t be afraid to take a principled stand. Sure, today’s casting directors will put Latinos, Asians, and wheelchair-bound Aborigines in just about every show they watch on tv, but nothing says ‘racism isn’t cool’ like defending a falsely-accused black man when the whole town is forming a lynch mob.


Treat your kids with fairness. Show them what integrity means. At the same time, respect their need to understand the rationale behind all your silly rules. 


Let your kids be kids. Let your girls be tomboys. Give them a long leash and let them explore the world around them.


But know when to give that leash a tug. (Hint, if they’re using a fishing pole to drop provocative messages into your neighbors’ back window, they’ve probably overstepped some important boundaries.)


Be humble. If you’re the deadest shot in Maycomb County you don’t have to go bragging about it. Just be ready to take care of business when mad dogs come to tear your kids to shreds. You never know when the Sheriff’s going to crap his pants under the pressure of a “one shot deal.”


I could go on and on. Is Atticus perfect? Definitely not. But where he has faults we can also learn from his mistakes. 


For instance, when the town lowlife swears revenge on you and your family, don’t just wipe his loogie of your face and say you’re too old to fight. Put the bastard out of commission, because sooner or later he’ll come after your kids, and unless they happen to don protective giant ham costumes made of chicken wire, or unless your reclusive neighbor can put a kitchen knife between his ribs, well, things probably won’t end well.


Oh, and maybe this was okay to do with old ladies during the Depression, but nowadays you probably shouldn’t lend your kids out to the neighborhood morphine addict to help wean him or her off their special sauce.


Anything I missed? Any other great fathers from land of literature? As a dad myself, I’d love to hear more…

Happy Bloomsday!

On this date in 1904, James Joyce took his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle, out on a stroll through a Dublin suburb. It was their first date. Years later, Joyce would choose this date as the setting-in-time for his monumental novel Ulysses.


Fifty years after that original outing, admirers of Joyce inaugurated the very first “Bloomsday” celebration, with a pilgrimage along the same route that Leopold Bloom traced in the novel. 


For those of us who can’t be in Dublin to take part in the festivities, we’re sharing the short film below. Dublin filmmaker Noel Duffy takes you on a 23-minute tour of Bloom’s famous route. It borders on boring, and I cannot explain the appearance of “Video Killed the Radio Star” in the random and intermittent soundtrack, but then, who really needs an explanation to rock out to the Buggles? That’s right- not me, and not you.


Enjoy.

First Line Friday

Greetings all!

Today, I'd like to look at the mediocre first line of a tremendous novel. Your rebuttal is welcome, as always. Here is the first line:

"There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills."

Fair enough . . . perhaps the road is lovely. But this first line just doesn't cut it for me. It offers nothing that is unique, intriguing, or edgy. Granted, it's simple, and there is beauty in simplicity, but . . .

The novel, of course, is Alan Paton's Cry, The Beloved Country. Now, go ahead.  Rebuttal?


*** MacEvoy weighs in ***


A lot of our email and RSS followers won't read the comments, but looking back through the introduction of my copy of C,TBC  I discovered a couple things that are interesting enough to tack on here. Consider this my rebuttal. 


Paton wrote this book while on an international tour of penal institutions. I'll quote the account of the genesis of this first line:

"He also took a side trip to Norway to visit Trondheim, and to see the locale of a Norwegian novel that interested him, Knut Hamsun's Growth of the Soil.  

Traversing the unfamiliar evergreen forests of the mountainous border landscape, Paton grew nostalgic for the hills of Natal... Jensen then brought Paton back to his hotel and promised to return in an hour to take him to dinner. In the course of that hour, moved, as he says, by powerful emotion, Paton wrote the lyric opening chapter beginning: "There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills..." At that juncture he did not know what was to follow. He had sketched no scenario for a novel.

So he was moved by a memory of his homeland, and he poured that emotion into writing. My own opinion is that his emotion can easily be felt by the reader, especially as his first paragraph continues: 

"...These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond the singing of it. The road climbs seven miles into them, to Carisbrooke; and from there, if there is no mist, you look down on one of the fairest valleys of Africa."

But there's another reason I think it's a great opening line. The setting of South Africa, and the love of one's homeland are the major  themes of this novel. Read the passage we quoted in this post, for a taste of that. And here is Paton in his own words:

"So many things have been written about this book that I would not know how to add to them if I did not believe that I know best what kind of book it is. It is a song of love for one's far distant country, it is informed with longing for that land where they shall not hurt nor destroy in all that holy mountain, for that unattainable and ineffable land where there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, for the land cannot be again, of hills and grass and bracken, the land where you were born. It is a story of the beauty and terror of human life, and it cannot be written again because it cannot be felt again. Just how good it is, I do not know and I do not care. All I know is that it changed our lives. It opened the doors of the world to us, and we went through."

I think the simple opening line is the perfect way to launch that kind of book.

Review: Silas Marner, by George Eliot

It’s been a while since we’ve reviewed anything, so let’s talk about Silas Marner,  shall we?

This book was my first experience with George Eliot, but Marner  is certainly not her best known, or most highly acclaimed work. Still, I thought it would be a good way to edge myself closer to Middlemarch  one day. Turns out it was a nice little read.

There’s a great use of dialect and colorful characters, and you can tell that Eliot had a blast recreating the quaint village life that serves as a backdrop for the story. In fact, the one criticism I’ll offer is that she got a little too  carried away- relaying entire scenes that have nothing to do with what’s really going on. At certain points it occurred to me that a more appropriate title might have been “The Villagers of Raveloe… and Silas Marner,”  but hey, who am I to complain? A story about a reclusive weaver? Catalepsy used as a plot device? Sold. Enough said.

Silas, the strange central character, is not at all likeable at first glance. But here’s what Eliot does so well:  right off the bat, she gives us his backstory- a sad tale of betrayal and lost love that explains why he’s become the miserable misanthrope and village bogeyman that we meet in the first few pages of the book. You can’t help but cheer for the guy as things progress.

And progress they do. One reason I love to go back to the classics is that, for any of their other faults, they tend to be very well plotted. Things that occur in the opening chapters will come full-circle and be paid off in the end. In the case of Silas Marner,  these twists and turns alternate between gut-wrenching losses and exhilarating stokes of luck. Ultimately, though, we’re given a happy ending, and Silas is utterly transformed by his character journey.

On top of all that, Eliot presents the reader with themes that are as relevant today as they were in her day. It’s a book about redemption, and community, and religion, and family. And if she wanders off on some tangents of “village color,” well, I think I can forgive that. Check it out.