Remember to visit your local book store!

This is just a reminder to visit your local bookstore the next time you would like to make a purchase.

What?! You don't know where there is one near you?!

http://www.indiebound.org/indie-store-finder

Go exploring with REAL bookworms!!

Pride & Prejudice...& Zombies

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith is a parody of the classic love story that goes to lengths to make it both humorous and palatable for new audiences, unaccustomed to the sometimes wordiness of older writing styles by infusing the text with references of flesh-eating zombies, crane kicks, and ladies who would just as soon eat the still-beating heart of their social enemies than be dishonored by their impudence. Suffice it to say, it is an accurate depiction of what life in early nineteenth-century England might have been like during an apocalypse of the undead, had you been privy to the society of a group of His Majesty’s best-trained zombie hunters, who also happened to be totally consumed with things like social graces, bonnets, and the merits of chasing sexy militia tail.

Haha, I’m so funny. To be honest though, I had a hard time taking this book seriously, which was probably the point. Literature should be fun and it should reflect the tastes of the day and I have absolutely no qualms in taking liberties with classics in an effort to spread their appeal, this book just didn’t appeal to me in particular. I’m not interested in zombies, vampires, werewolves, etc… I just don’t care. Give me wizards, hobbits, and elves any day, but keep your undead, your cursed, and your gratuitous violence.

One of the redeeming qualities of PPZ (Lindsay’s acronym) is that my husband enjoyed it. We had a couple road trips this month when I regaled him with stories of Elizabeth cleaning house with Lady Catherine’s ninjas and I caught a chuckle here and there. I asked for a zombie tutorial from him and was surprised to learn how little there was to zombie-lore: they have a virus, they don’t feel pain, they eat brains. That’s pretty much it. Not a particularly deep mythology I guess.

I did some of my own fact-finding (thank you Wikipedia) and learned that the myth comes variously form Haitian Vodou, New Orleans Voodoo, West African Vodun, and Hollywood. Of course. Hollywood would blend ancient religious practices and modern warfare and come up with “Resident Evil,” well done western culture. Really, brav-o.

The Sensuality of Books

I've recently begun following a blog called The Encyclopedia of Gratitude and it is a little ray of sunshine in my life. Here is a recent post on The Enduring Sensuality of Books. Enjoy!

Coolest Bookmark I've Seen...

Isn't the library great?

The House of Spirits - A Comparison to 100 Years of Solitude

After all of Angela's recommendations for Isabel Allende, it was great to be able to choose a book from this author for our book club with The House of the Spirits. We've already had the opportunity to read one book from the genre of magical realism, 100 Years of Solitude. Even though several months and pile of books separate my reading of these two books, I still noted some similarities between the two stories:

Touches of Magical Realism: The House of the Spirits seemed to have more muted elements of magical realism than 100 Years. If you missed one of these descriptive sentences, you may not catch on to the glimpse until later in The House of the Spirits. One of the more prominent cases that stood out to me was with Rosa the Beautiful and her white skin, yellow eyes and green hair. Clara's work with the paranormal was prominent throughout Spirits, but not as disruptive as other occurrences in the book.

Repetition of Names: For me, it was helpful to have the family tree printed out while reading 100 Years. Otherwise, it was nigh impossible to separate generations of Jose, Arcadio, Aureliano, Amaranta and Renata's. It was not nearly as complicated while reading The House of the Spirits. There was still the repetition of names, but using synonyms instead of repeating the names verbatim. Blanca and Alba are both terms for the color white, and I later found out that Nivea and Clara are synonyms as well. Clever, without being confusing!

Other Similarities:
Alchemy: much more prominent in 100 Years with Jose Arcadio and Melquiades, but still discussed in the first few chapters of Spirits.

Point of view: the narrator changes throughout the generations.

Latin American location

Political struggles: with ties to real world events and struggles the author embeds into the book.

Big homes: the families lived in rather large homes, often with multiple generations under one roof.

Magical visitors - Melquiades returns to the village of Macando to share fantastics stories, inventions and items for trade in 100 Years. Uncle Marco visits his family several times in Spirits, including the part of the story where he flies off into the mountains and returns several years later.

The House of the Spirits

Though not as circular as One Hundred Years of Solitude, The House of the Spirits does begin and end with almost the exact same sentence. It does however, reflect the cycle of social lives and how they repeat and occasionally change from generation to generation. Furthermore, I’ll repeat what I said about Marquez’s epic and apply it here: The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende is not for the faint of heart, nor the short on imagination.

Published in 1982, it is a fairy’s tale of love, ambition, the mysticism of humanity, and the course of history in one Latin American country told from the perspective of someone who truly lived it. Allende is a master when it comes to creating magical realism that stays true to itself: what she writes is both magical and real. In The House of the Spirits she has delivered us a tale of the fictional Trueba and del Valle families and allowed us to share in their lives as they live them alongside the political clashes that marred South America’s history in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, the divisive gulf that (still) exists between the indigenous and the criollos there, and the very real Poet and the Candidate/President.

In short, to understand social justice, liberation theology, or South America, one must have read this book. The clash that marks the beginning of the end of this text really happened, on September 11^th, 1973; a different kind of terrifying 9/11. The torture, the horror, the human rights violations are all true. A good follow-up to The House of the Spirits would be Allende’s Of Love and Shadows followed by My Invented Country.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I adore Allende’s books. I chose this book in April for our club to read because I want other people to read her and love her too. And if they don’t I can’t say I didn’t try. She opens up a world of literary possibility that is a bit more accessible than Marquez while giving the reader a glimpse of a culture, history, and people that we know so very little about in the United States, despite our government’s involvement there, despite our dependence on oil from there, despite our proximity, and despite our common history of invasion and colonization.

Alice Revisited

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass may seem like a manic trip of a children's tale on first glance. Our book club tackled this tale as an earlier read, and I joking pulled some lessons out to share at that time. Still, I was surprised to see an image and a quote from Through the Looking Glass in recent business meeting.

In "Through the Looking Glass" Alice and the Queen are running faster and faster without seeming to go anywhere. Exhausted from this, Alice says "Well, in our country, you'd generally get to somewhere else - if you ran very fast for a long time, as we've been doing." The Queen replies, "Now, here you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

So what is the lesson I am to take from this? If the business thinks this is important enough to show in a planning presentation, I have to show my boss and my management that I am running twice as fast for the good of the business. As the economy recovers, we must not appear to stand still as other companies may surpass us.

True Grit

People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenger her father’s blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day.

So begins Charles Portis’ epic novel, True Grit, the story of Mattie Ross and her presumptuous quest for justice. When her father’s killer is not pursued by any “law,” she takes it upon herself to dispense retribution for the cold-blooded killing, enlisting the help of federal marshal Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn, full of “true grit” she had heard; and inheriting a Texas Ranger who had been on the killer’s trail for four months, chasing him on charges of the murder of a senator.

I love a good Western and this one includes a woman (and adolescent!) of substance, something too often missing from great Westerns. Mattie’s fortitude, determination, and abundance of her own “grit” drive the heart of the story. She is impudent and pious and has no time for the vices of men, but she takes aim and makes herself the center of the story.

Ryan and I saw the movie at the Hopkins “dollar” theatre and thought it was fantastic. The Coen brothers, St. Louis Park natives and direction/production dynamos, brought the book to life beautifully. It was one of those films that make me understand why cinema is an art form. It doesn’t hurt that Jeff Bridges is brilliant and Matt Damon is brilliant and foxy, but the cinematic scope of the film both brought the story to life and gave it an authenticity often missing in films as producers seek to glamorize stories. The Coen brothers are not overly concerned with the characters’ beauty, but of their internal fiber and the beauty of human nature as it lies, flawed and filthy though it may be.

I haven’t yet seen the original version of the film but hope to soon. I highly recommend both the novel and the new film, though it is visually a bit graphic, but such was the nature of the West.

Emily Dickinson

My favorite poem is one by Emily Dickinson that begins “I dwell in Possibility-“ and having been given a lovely gilt-edged book calling itself The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson by my parents many years ago, last year I finally creaked open it’s spine intending to read it cover to cover to find the source of my favorite line. Alas, having (at last) come to the end this winter, I hadn’t found the gem and was beginning to fear that the verse I loved was a mirage, inauthentic, and quickly fading in its glory.

I had found the rest of the verse online but knew it didn’t count unless I saw it on a page in a book with Emily’s name by it. As I searched the shelves of Magers & Quinn one afternoon in January, I found it in a couple texts, which was a dear relief, but was still curious as to why it wasn’t to be found in my lovely edition. A helpful bookseller answered my query with a most logical response: “collected” isn’t a synonym for “complete.” Ah. Thank you.

Thusly, I am a dope. I printed the poem from the Almighty Internet and taped it to the inside cover of my pretty gilt-edged book, full of my handwriting in the margins:

I dwell in Possibility—

A fairer house than Prose—

More numerous of Windows—

Superior—for Doors—

Of Chambers as the Cedars—

Impregnable of Eye—

And for an Everlasting Roof

The Gambrels of the Sky—

Of Visitors—the fairest—

For Occupation—This—

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise—

Oh Emily, your love of simple verse is so cumbersome! For so long I’ve wanted to love you! To understand what on Earth you were feeling when you wrote. Mostly, I experience abrupt confusion. What are you talking about?! After months, (years!) of trying, I have resigned myself to allow room for growth and love what I can pick out, what I can glean meaning from. For instance: “There is no frigate like a book/to take us lands away,/Nor any coursers like a page/Of prancing poetry.” I know! I know this feeling.

As I revisit the text I find others, many, that I marked with made-in-Minnesota, 3M-issue flags and bookmarks of all kinds. I feel fondness for many of Emily’s poems, some of the longer ones even. I’m not so dense!

I have no life but this,

To lead it here;

Nor any death, but lest

Dispelled from there;

Nor tie to earths to come,

Nor action new,

Except through this extent,

The realm of you.

Oh dear! The passion! The desire! Did spinster Emily have a Love? Was it her quiet and cursing God? Was she a Protestant nun? Who on Earth is she talking about?

Wild nights! Wild nights!

Were I with thee,

Wild nights should be

Our luxury!

Futile the winds

To a heart in port—

Done with the compass,

Done with the chart.

Rowing in Eden!

Ah! the sea!

Might I but moor

Tonight in thee!

Yikes! She goes on, in praise of Nature, God, Time, & Eternity. We dance around the classics, never getting to know them intimately but rather, acknowledging that they are Classic and therefore Wonderful. I want to know them, want to say: I’ve read that, I get it. Or: Give me a break! It’s not that great. Or: What do you mean you’ve never read it? How can you understand anything at all without knowing the truths from this text?

So I started with Emily because she wrote short poems and they weren’t intimidating but I underestimated the weight of brevity and the depth of bumblebees and God. Perhaps the most important thing to remember about Emily is that her words weren’t meant to be read by others; she wrote as many of us breathe: feverishly, out of need, and with gusto. She existed in her little room in her white gown to leave behind the documentation of her personal musings for the validation of our similar thoughts. Thanks Em.

I will leave you with this active verse, that hearkens a bit to Lewis Carroll:

Could I but ride indefinite,

As doth the meadow-bee,

And visit only where I liked,

And no man visit me,

And flirt all day with buttercups,

And marry whom I may,

And dwell a little everywhere,

Or better, run away

With no police to follow,

Or chase me if I do,

Till I should jump peninsulas

To get away from you,--

I said, but just to be a bee

Upon a raft of air,

And row in nowhere all day long,

And anchor off the bar,--

What liberty! So captives deem

Who tight in dungeons are.