orlando

my apologies for my long absence! i took a break from reading "grown-up" novels and plunged into one of my favorite genres: books for the adolescent reader. I love books for kids, in particularly those geared toward the middle grades readers. i figured most people wouldn't be too interested in my reviews, if you call them that, on those books. but then i thought, maybe they would like it. but by then i was in a bad habit of neglecting this blog and that is why i am now reembarking on this journey. i have worn out my flavor, for the time being, of adolescent books and am on to one of my old favorites: virginia woolf.

most people hear her name and think suicide and difficult and depressing novels. however, besides her absolutely brilliant prose and use of the english language, she actually wrote a few lighter novels. the two "lightest" are orlando and flush. she usually wrote her lighter novels after finishing an extremely dense and deep book. she wrote orlando after writing to the lighthouse, one of her most famous novels. she wrote flush after writing the waves, an extremely difficult novel all about, well, death. orlando and flush are both "biographies". at least, that's what woolf deemed them. orlando follows the life of, wouldn't you know it, orlando, who, when the tale begins is a 16th century teenage boy. however, by the end of the book, he has transformed into a thirty-six year old woman in present day (1928). it has been long hailed as a superior commentary, both funny and rich, on the true nature of sexuality. well, we shall see, for this is what i am currently reading. just for those curious, flush is the life story of a cocker spaniel. that's right, a dog. and who's dog? elizabeth barrett browning's dog. not what you'd usually expect from down-in-the-dumps virginia, but she had her moments.

for now, it's into the ever-changing world of orlando. 

olivia

yesterday i read the novella, olivia, by dorothy strachey. strachey was the sister of lytton strachey, a well-known friend of virginia woolf and the bloomsbury group. dorothy only wrote one novel, i.e., olivia. this book is an interesting little thing by a little known author, it is about a young student and her passionate "love" for her female teacher at a french boarding school. (i write love this way because her love for this teacher, while very real to her, has all the qualities of adolescent passion and intensity. who knows if these feeling are really love...maybe, maybe not). while nothing explicitly sexual every happens and it actually ends in some heartbreak, it is an interesting study in that intensity that comes with our first school crushes. the fact that these feelings were between two females only made it more interesting. i've never read a book that dealt with a main character who had same-sex tendencies and i am glad that now i can say that i have. no matter your opinion on the issue, this book reveals the reality of feeling that truly can and does exist between two people. while it's not the best written novel i've ever written, one thing that strachey definitely succeeds at is portraying olivia's earnestness, intense need and desire, and heartbreak over eventual rejection regarding her teacher, mademoiselle julie. a worthy and enlightening read. 

the girl who played with fire

the girl who played with fire is the second in a swedish crime fiction trilogy by the late steig larsson. they are fast, fun, suspenseful reads that are well-written. the second novel builds upon some mysteries from the first, adding more and more plot twists and anxious moments. i really like the characters in these books. the heroine, if you can even call her that, is a punk genius who's had nothing but tough luck and betrayal in her life. she's no-nonsense and hard as nails, but in this novel the reader almost begins to see a softer side.

my only complaint about this book is the brandname dropping. literally, one whole page is devoted to specific IKEA items that the main character purchased. the actual swedish names of the table, chair, nightstand or what have you. do we need to know this? can't we just take a short paragraph and says she spent 90,000 kronor (swedish currency) on new furniture? i.e.--she worked on her powerbook G4 with 17-inch screen. ok. she could see them with a pair of minolta 8x binoculars. right. it got to the point where i seriously wondered if the book was paid for by all the name dropping.

however, don't let that keep you from these novels if you're looking for good contemporary crime fiction. i'm not usually a great reader in this genre, but these are pretty fun.

fair and tender

fair and tender ladies is a beautiful book. what set it apart from many novels is the author's development of the main character's voice. fair and tender ladies is an epistolary novel which means it is told solely through letters. ivy, the main character, loves to write letters to her family and friends and the reader gets to know ivy, very well, through her words to sisters, brothers, dead fathers, dead sisters, friends, and even an occasional enemy. ivy was born at the turn of the century (1900) in the mountains of virginia. her story is one of hard work, farming, city life, passion, love lost, mistakes, death, and most of all, life. the readers gets a true sense of mountain life in appalachia during the early twentieth century, but more than that, the reader gets to know a person. ivy seemed as real to me as my own family. by the end, i really felt i had walked through the major events of her life with you. i was the recipient of her letters. she is altogether human, wanting love and children, fresh air and freedom. she also wants adventure and to actually feel alive which leads her to an affair that hurts her family. but even that mistake became part of her in a way that made her life better, her marriage better, her daily life more satisfying. i guess that's the beautiful thing about mistakes. fair and tender ladies is an altogether human book. a human book...that's the best way i, or anyone in my opinion, can describe this novel.

the pan

i probably should've waited to read peter pan until i was "in the mood" for a kid's book, which i inevitably am every few months. however this time i was not. i can definitely appreciate it as a great story and a story that has become immortal. it has all the elements of a great adventure story: imagination, flying, fairies, pirates, battles, mermaids, etc. there are also more tender themes, like the desire everyone has to be cared for by someone. one thing i did not expect (or remember perhaps from what i knew of the story) is that peter is quite the little brat. he is cocky, opinionated, and intolerant of anyone who knows more of him. he shows his softer side many times, but he is still pretty mischievous most of the time. on top of that, tinker bell is extremely tempestuous and fiery, though at the same time, giving and self-sacrificing. all in all, i liked it, but would have enjoyed more if i wasn't looking forward to other books that i'm more inclined to right now. that's the way it always is with my reading. i have to be in the right mood for a certain genre or theme.

next, i am taking a slight derivation from the classics road to read fair and tender ladies by lee smith. it's a contemporary book, given to me by my sister-in-law, sara, and comes highly recommended. technically, it still fits in with my literary journey because i've never read anything by lee smith.

well, this post is boring even me, so i'm signing off.

the undead

when i first started reading dracula, i was pleasantly surprised. i thought it was all going to be about the vampire and his victims, and it is in sort, but the way stoker forms the story is, in my opinion, interesting and unique. the entire drama is told through letters, journal entries, newspaper clippings (though less than the former two), and sometimes telegrams. for the first half of the book, the characters do not really know who or what count dracula is or what he may be doing, although any reader familiar with stoker's famous creation does know. however, there is still a shroud of mystery surrounding the first part of the book. the second half is more what i expected. though still told through journal entries, it is about a group's quest to find and kill--or really kill--the undead count dracula. as a sensational novel, there really isn't much character development, but it is wildly entertaining. one think i did not enjoy, however, was the sheer amount of masculine angst and show of heroics. there is much talk of "manly bravery" and "he's all man, that one," while the female characters are "sweet", "delicate", and "fragile." we may be the two former, but the latter, i think not. still, i have to applaud stoker in that, in the end, the character of mina harker, one of the delicates, emerged as a very heroic and strong person.

all in all, i liked dracula. it was entertaining and, despite the well-known aspects of the story such as stakes through the heart, garlic, and crucifixes, it was still an interesting read.

for my next classic, i choose one a bit lighter in tone: peter pan.

friends

craig said to me last night: "lately i've felt like i want to move...to a new house or a new city. either one. i think it's because i've moved every year for a long time. it could also be that i don't have any good friends here." that got me thinking. besides being true that we have both moved every year for the past several years, it is also true that neither he nor i have a close friend here in savannah yet. we have some friends, yes, but none that i would call when i'm feeling down. none that craig can really just watch sports with and confide in. there are potential close friends; friendships that could be cultivated into something great and hopefully they will be, but when it comes down to it, craig and i are all we've got. and benjamin of course, who is a good listener, but doesn't add much to the conversation yet. part of our lack of bosom buddies is our own fault. we are both fairly introverted and can function just fine with only each other for quite some time. moreover, we are new(ish) parents and are still adjusting to putting benjamin's needs first. our son goes to bed at night between 6:30 and 7, so we can't even have dinner over at another couple's house really. i should've joined a mother's group a while ago but i still haven't done it (but i hope to), and craig spends all his time at his church and with church people, who, great as they may be, just can't be your best friends.

i have such wonderful friends from my college days. from that hodge-podge of people at berry college, i found myself linked with the most extraordinary men and women. many of them i became closer too after graduation. my best friend and the funniest person i know, rachel, was a freshmen and i a senior when we met. not the best recipe for continuing a friendship considering i was about to graduate, but eight, count e'm, eight years later, i still talk to her more than any other friend and still consider her my best friend. my singing partner for five years, erin, is one of the most original people i've ever known and i learned about being true to oneself and sincerity in friendships from her. there's shannon, who, as she talks with you, does her own commercials, and is probably the smartest woman i've met so far. alyssa, with her quiet strength and despite her questions and doubts, is the first person i want to talk to when i feel i'm having faith issues. emily with her surety and beauty, intelligence and empathy, is the girl who pulled me through the first rough months in nashville and i am so sad we rarely talk anymore, but i still love and think of her. bethany with her consistency, humor, empathy, and talent, reminds me of the simple joys of friends and family. i've always loved the way she loves her friends and family. many of you may not know these great women, but i do and i count myself blessed and lucky to know them still. i hope you all know, despite our scattered communication, how much you have meant and still mean to me in my life.

despite my possibly lonely current state, i have hope. hope that my friends of old will forever be my friends. hope that new friends may come my way. and thankfulness for the friends i have known and the family i have, many of whom are my friends too. sara, you were my sanity during those first months of motherhood, literally. i can't think you enough for always listening to me and giving me comfort. brandon, i look up to you more than you probably know. i admire, respect and love you. as a true little sister, i can gladly regard my big brother as someone i want to be like when i grow up. mom, thanks for always being there for me. despite the common, mother-daughter angst that can sometimes creep up, i'm glad you are my friend and i think you are a strong, interesting and capable woman. thanks to all of craig's family who have accepted me as one of their own with open arms.

and to craig, my love, my best friend, my partner: life with you is half as hard, and twice as good.

the quest for more

last night i finished madame bovary, and i must say, it is quite a tragic novel. it's about a woman who wants more and is never satisfied. married to a "dull" provincial doctor, she longs for the adventures of love and culture, and so falls into a life of adultery, lies, bankruptcy, and an end that none would wish on anyone. the book is an interesting look into the normal human longing for more, for adventure, for something amazing, and a poignant lesson of what happens when we look for those things through less than noble pursuits. emma, the main character, is extremely unlikeable, at least to me, after about the first fifty pages. one understands that she does not and cannot love her husband, but he is such a good fellow and loves her so dearly, her actions are abominable and selfish even to someone who might relate to her unhappiness in marriage (to which i do not). she has a little daughter who is basically raised by the maid and emma's relentless pursuit of her own pleasure leads to an unhappy life for all her family. still, emma represents that tendency in us all to want more than we have. in her case, she was unhappy, but even for the happiest of us, there is always that internal nag for more. call it the product of a consumerist society, but i tend to believe it is a touch of the eternal in us all. the hope that beyond our bodies and what we can see, there is, in fact, more.

my next venture: dracula by bram stoker. oh yeah.

and i quote...(flaubert)

as i was reading madame bovary, i came across a passage where two characters (monsieur leon and madame bovary herself) were discussing their love of books. i really love what leon says about the adventures of reading and so i thought i'd quote it hear as an appendix to my last post.

"you empty your mind...and the hours fly past. without stirring from your chair, you wander through countries you can see in your mind's eye, and your consciousness threads itself into the fiction, playing about with the details or following the ups and downs of the plot. you identify with the characters; you feel as if it's your own heart that's beating beneath their costumes."

monsieur flaubert himself. handsome bloke, eh?

a journey into the classics

everyone who knows me knows that i'm a bibliophile. i love books. i love reading them, obviously, but i also love the smell, the feel, the look of books. when i was a kid i used to dump my book into water to make them look "old". my mother still tells that little funny fact about me to her friends. well, i'm beyond dunking books into the bathtub, but i'm still pretty compulsive of how my books look. it's one of my quirky little tendencies. luckily i also love the stories the books contain. while i occasionally run across some modern fiction that is really great, i am a deep lover of the classics. i enjoy the opportunity they provide to experience a different time, a different place, different lives. in these gems of the past, i can live in nineteenth century russia, smell the smells of old london, empathize with poverty without going hungry (to some extent), feel the limitations women experienced years ago as well as their liberation. i can be french, british, asian, male, female, child. this is true of all literature, but what i appreciate about the classics is the culture so unlike my own, yet still similiar in many ways. c.s. lewis said, "literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. it enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become." books and the stories they contain not only let us experience a different reality, they alter our own. and that's what i love about reading.

that being said, there are a few great authors i have never read; authors who, as a lover of the classic tales, i should have already read. i know they are great authors because they are timeless and their stories famous. only the really great stories affect history for so long. so, before i wade through anymore of my beloved kid books (my love of those i'll save for another post), or reread any books or read any unread books by an author i've already read, i'm taking a journey through these unknown (to me) and famous writers and update here on my blog what i think of them. i do not flatter myself that many will really care what i think of a great book, but i'll enjoy writing about it. some of the authors i plan to visit on this tour are gustave flaubert, thomas hardy, henry james, mary shelley, bram stoker, j.m. barrie, dawn powell, graham greene, george eliot, george sand, rudyard kipling, robert louis stevenson (i think i did read treasure island long ago, but i count him as still unread as i remember little), daniel defoe, elizabeth gaskell, mark twain (if i read huckleberry finn in high school, i don't recall it), anne bronte, herman melville, nikolai gogol, lewis carroll, mary elizabeth braddon, d.h. lawrence, fanny burney, nathaniel hawthorne (i did read the scarlet letter in high school), l. frank baum,  gabriel garcia marquez, and i'm sure some others i can't think of right now. join me on the journey if you will.

my first endeavor: madame bovary by gustave flaubert.

and i quote...(cather)

"there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before."

~willa cather

untitled faith

for years i was the girl who wore the cross, carried her bible, sang her praise songs. years. without fail. without question. things are a little different now. so what happened? i still believe in god. i still believe that jesus came to the earth to teach us how to live, how to love, how to die. i believe in some sentimental part of my heart that god loves me. beyond that, i'm not sure where i am. or where god is. after years of fundamentalism, i find myself in some nameless place. a place i can't find my way out of and that others have a hard time finding their way into. i'm stuck between belief and unbelief, wonder and disgust, hope and life-sucking doubt. the humanitarian in me wants to live, in the real sense of the word, the life jesus described: giving our clothes to the poor, feeding the hungry, etc. the selfish part of me wants to write it all off as myth, an opiate to the masses as it's been called often. it would be easier that way. the believer in me wants to touch, hear, taste the god that i know is really out there. the skeptic wants to scoff, and sometimes i do. the intellectual in me wants to discuss the meaning of life and philosophy and theories. the artist-slash-mystic wants to revel in the mysteries that exist in the world. the beauty. the life. the romantic in me wants to know down in my bones that a creator god loves and knows me. so in short, there's a lot to the spiritual aspect of my life right now. it's a journey, to use the cliche, but i really prefer the word process. more and more i'm thinking about that word and how it relates, not only to our the lives of our bodies, hearts, and minds, but also to god.

i hope you who might read this aren't expecting a conclusion. there isn't one as of yet. i don't have the answers to all my questions. i don't always know what's true, what's farce, what's story, and what's real. i think one problem with the modern christianity we have created is that it always has to have an answer. if you don't have the answer, then you don't really have faith. not only that, but you may not be worthy of god's love. but that's not what god or jesus intended, at least in my opinion. what do they intend? i can't really say that either. i may never know. but i do know that at least in part, love, kindness, peace, and compassion are the good things of life. so i'll strive to those ends. if that's all i ever really know, and practice, i think it will be a life well lived.

and i quote...(plath)

"is there no way out of the mind?"

~sylvia plath

losing

henry w. longfellow wrote, "all things must change/ to something new, something strange." it is certainly true that change has been the marker of the past year. maybe the truth is that change marks every year, though we do not really notice it until the sky begins to fall. if nothing else, not the slow tick of the hours or even the season melting into one, becoming a mother is a "sky is falling" kind of experience. new. strange. inescapable. wonderful. terrifying. beautiful. all of those and more words that only begin to scrape the brim of an already full cup. everyday, all you can do is your best, give your all, while fearing that may not be good enough. but it always seems to be. the true challenges of parenthood seem to begin almost immediately. sometimes i find it hard to accept benjamin as he is. i want to "change" him for his benefit. for example, longer naps or more food or whatever it may be. but what i really want is something predictable, something safe and easy. but that's not motherhood. i am not mother to a machine or even a plant or a pet, but to a human being. a childhood should be safe and easy, but for a mother to make it so, is precarious work. to make it so, she has to lose a piece of herself. she has to lose control. to make it easy on her, the baby would have to change, bend, be unnaturally moldable. but that's not what babies are supposed to do, not now anyway. as babies, the mother moves, bends. accepts. loves no matter what. loses, in a sense.

but she gets it all back whenever he smiles. and she realizes it's not losing at all. just a different way to gain everything that is wonderful and beautiful about life.

and i quote...(colette)

here's the first installment of the "and I quote..." series. i call it series because it sounds cool. sometimes, one wants to express oneself, but doesn't have the energy or time to put it one's own words. thus, the "and i quote..." series. 

"what a beautiful life i've had. it's a pity i didn't notice it sooner!"

~sidonie-gabrielle colette.

introduction

here i am again. another attempt, perhaps in vain, perhaps not, to communicate the many wanderings of my over-crowded mind. i think i even used to have a blog, now lost somewhere in the blogosphere, called 'feathers'. but i like the concept so i'm giving it another go.

'feathers' comes from a poem by emily dickinson. for those unfamiliar with it, i'll quote it here:

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet never in Extremity-
It asked a crumb—of Me.

the reclusive dickinson likens hope to a bird in the poem which makes me think of freedom, lightness, air, grace, and the ability to surmount anything. i love, in the second stanza, the reference to the 'gale'; hope is sweetest in a storm. the storm could destroy it...or not. the third stanza speaks to me of the omnipresence of this elusive hope. it's everywhere if we just look. and what's more, it asks nothing of us in return for its comfort. so there's the poem and the namesake of this blog.

i'm not sure what form this blog will take. with a 7-month old, i have little time to just write and write like i used to. when i do have the time, i usually read. still, there is a need to express myself. express the goings on in my mind. sometimes i feel a little overwhelmed with all the thoughts, all the interests that i fear i'll never get to develop. books, writing of all forms (fiction, essays, poetry), motherhood, wifehood, friendship, god, teaching. there's a lot. maybe this little blog will be like its name; a medium for hope to launch itself on an easily hopeless world. most of the time it will be just be my thoughts. but you never know where hope--or entertainment or just something interesting--can be found.

read on, if you will. i may, periodically, post some poems and whatnot. we'll see if i have the courage. if i have the feathers.