Literary notes from recent reading:
Hemingway's Boat lives up to the hype on all fronts thus far (I've just started it). What's most interesting to me is the discussion of how so many former editors and friends seemed gleeful over Hemingway's downhill slide in his older years. It was almost like they were circling an aging lion, delighted to see the former beast now weak. I'm also interested in the whole notion of how Hemingway set so much of the 20th century stage for what a man is (or manly conduct). It was not his design but more a wave he rode as men (and women) searched for a definition of manhood. I think we are seeing the same thing in that regard these days with all the tough guy personas on reality tv. Not that Hemingway has anything to do with that, of course.
Lost in Wonder by Colette Brooks is proving to be a stream of consciousness flight of scientific fancy that I am finding more and more pleasant the longer I read. There is a long chapter on the space program and thoughts on Lindbergh and the Wright brothers and even the woman who invented Stove Top Stuffing (utterly amazing story) but mostly it is just the idea of science and how it infuses our lives and it is written in the most gorgeous language, basically a writer's guide on how to write beautiful sentences on thought-provoking subjects. This is a subtle and lovely look at history and life and who we are. I adore it - I'm lingering over each and every word:
Forty-two years after his flight, Lindbergh himself will experience the wonder of witnessing a spectacular feat of aviation. Later he'll write a note to Michael Collins, the only crewmember of Apollo 11 who did not descend to the lunar surface: "There is a quality of aloneness that those who have not experienced it cannot know - in some ways I felt closer to you in orbit than to your fellow astronauts I watched walking on the surface of the moon."
He had waited most of a lifetime for someone else to understand.
This would make a lovely holiday gift to a curious reader. (I'll be reviewing it in my February column - perfect for older teens.)
Radiant Days by Liz Hand should not be on my nightstand right now. It's not due out until spring and I have yet to really have any handle on my Feb column so I should be mostly reading for that and yet, well, Liz Hand and Rimbaud. How could I resist? It is about art and poetry, about being young and wanting to create so desperately much that you feel you might explode and yet not having the means or the wherewithal to know just what all that desire for creation really means. It's about the doorstep of possibility - the future looks so bright! It's set in 1978 and 1870, it's about a girl of today and Arthur Rimbaud, literary hero of yesterday. If you were the slightest bit taken by Patti Smith's Just Kids then you will want to read this one. I've just gotten to the point where a bridge is found across time, where the two teens discover each other. I'm not sure what happens next but it's the journey - the words - that have me here. I have found Rimbaud only through the words of others which is so interesting to me. I was never taught a single thing about him in school (too nontraditional for the south - too unsettling?) and so I find him in little pieces through how he affected others. And now I read what Liz Hand thinks. I shall so enjoy reviewing this book; make a note everyone, you will want to read it, I promise.
Finally - don't forget the Holiday Book Fair for Ballou Sr High School. All these books we have to read - all these books we enjoy so much and they have so few. If everyone buys one book - just one - then imagine what we could do. We could make a serious difference, all of us together. One book, one kid - a library and a school get transformed that way. And then the world, of course. All of us together, we transform the world. (And with books - we do it with books!!!!)
THANK YOU!
[Hemingway was a b-day gift, Wonder & Radiant are ARCs from pubs.] [Lucky me!] [post pic by Robert Capa]
