Books to the Ceiling

You expect to be haunted by the ghosts of departed family members and close friends. You don’t expect to be haunted by the memory of someone you barely knew. Or at least, I didn’t expect it.

In June of last year, when I still worked part time at the library, I was asked to present a program of book talks for employees at a facility for the frail elderly. The request had come from a board member who worked there. I’ll call her Jill. I had never met her, but she was warm and enthusiastic on the phone, and I looked forward to meeting her and doing the book talks for her staff.

Jill proved as warm and welcoming as I had expected her to be. She was tall and slender, with blonde hair that framed a lovely face. We chatted for a while. When the staff members had arrived, she introduced me, and I launched into my spiel, enjoying myself hugely as I always do when I talk about books.

Here, with some emendations and illustrations thrown in, is the list I handed out that day:

The Many Faces of Crime Fiction, or a selective serving of murder and mayhem!

Variety of locales - some exotic, some not so exotic:

India during the British Raj: The Last Kashmiri Rose, by Barbara Cleverly

Botswana: The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith

Sweden: One Step Behind, by Henning Mankell;The Laughing Policeman, by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo [The Laughing Policeman, written in 1968 and published here in 1970, is one of my alll time favorite mysteries!]

Italy: Death at La Fenice, by Donna Leon

Canada: Still Life, by Louise Penny

[Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowall. They got the idea for their Martin Beck procedurals while translating Ed McBain's books into Swedish.]

In the U.S, some of the “hottest” places are the coldest places!

Steve Hamilton (Michigan’s Upper Peninsula)

William Krueger (Minnesota)

Archer Mayor (Vermont)

Florida and California are still popular settings for crime fiction:

Florida (Edna Buchanan, Carl Hiaasen)

California (Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, T. Jefferson Parker, Sue Grafton)

And of course, there’s Baltimore own Laura Lippman

Historical mysteries:

Middle Ages very popular right now. Started with Ellis Peters’s Brother Cadfael mysteries

Victorian era: Cater Street Hangman and The Face of a Stranger by Anne Perry

The England of Henry VIII: Dissolution, Dark Fire, and Sovereign, by C.J. Sansom

Ancient Rome: Roman Blood and Arms of Nemesis by Steven Saylor

British Inspectors (books commonly known as police procedurals)

England:

Robert Barnard - Death by Sheer Torture

P.D. James (Commander Adam Dalgliesh)

Ruth Rendell (Inspector Reginald Wexford)

Reginald Hill (Andy Dalziel & Peter Pascoe)

Colin Dexter (Inspector Morse)

Martha Grimes (Richard Jury)

Peter Robinson (Alan Banks)

Caroline Graham (Barnaby & Troy)

Ellis Peters - Death and the Joyful Woman* (Inspector Felse)

Dick Francis’s protagonists are primarily jockeys rather than policemen. He has used the character Sid Halley in several of his novels, the latest being Under Orders. [Actually, there's now a new title, Dead Heat,* which Dick Francis and his son Felix wrote together. This is not a Sid Halley novel; it features a new protagonist, chef and restaurateur Max Morton.]

Scotland:

Ian Rankin (John Rebus);

A Scottish setting, though not a police procedural: The Right Attitude to Rain* by Alexander McCall Smith (Isabel Dalhousie series)

International Intrigue

Restless by William Boyd
The Warlord’s Son by Dan Fesperman

Psychological Suspense

Puccini’s Ghost by Morag Joss
The Minotaur by Barbara Vine
Seven Lies by James Lasdun

Legal Suspense

Scott Turow
King of Lies by John Hart

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Historical fiction:

The Lambs of London by Peter Ackroyd
Arthur & George by Julian Barnes
An Imperfect Lens by Anne Roiphe*
Voyageurs by Margaret Elphinstone
The March - E.L. Doctorow
Pompeii and Imperium by Robert Harris
Alice in Exile by Piers Paul Read*

Great reading for folks who just plain love fiction:

Intuition by Allegra Goodman
The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson
The Other Side of You by Salley Vickers*
The Photograph by Penelope Lively
Second Honeymoon* and A Spanish Lover* by Joanna Trollope
The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud
Digging To America by Anne Tyler
Atonement, Saturday, and On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon*
The Whole World Over by Julia Glass*

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Nonfiction

History:

The Mayflower and In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick
Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose

Nonfiction that reads like fiction!

City of Falling Angels by John Berendt
The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr
Archie and Amelie by Donna Lucey*
England’s Mistress by Kate Williams*
May and Amy by Josceline Dimbleby

Nonfiction in a class by itself:

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler

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A pleasure to listen to:

Imperium by Robert Harris, read by Simon Jones

Judge Dee mysteries by Robert VanGulik, read by Frank Muller [Do yourself a favor and get your hands on these - either the audio versions or the books. They are just great! And Robert van Gulik himself had an amazing life.]

Dorothy L. Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey novels, read by Ian Carmichael.

[ Ian Carmichael, perfectly cast as Lord Peter Wimsey]

Digging To America by Anne Tyler, read by Blair Brown

The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency* series by Alexander McCall Smith, read by Lisette Lecat

Lilian Jackson Braun’s Cat Who mysteries and Tony Hillerman’s Navajo mysteries, read by George Guidall

*love story alert!

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Useful websites for readers:

Mystery and Romance

Stop! You’re Killing Me

On this site you will find information on the geographical location of a mystery series, type of protagonist, e.g. policeman, lawyer, academic, firefighter, etc., and ethnicity of protagonist, as well as the order of books in a series.

Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine

This great little “fanzine” is one of the first places I turn to for reliable recommendations.

A Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection

This exceptionally literate site is maintained by “guru” Michael E. Grost.

The Romance Reader

On this site, you’ll find reviews, recommendations, and author interviews.

General, including book clubs

Overbooked

This site pulls together starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist.

Reading Group Guides

Find a discussion guide for the book your group is reading.

Novelist
Available on your library’s website, this terrific resource has book lists galore, plus exceptionally thoughtful reading group guides.

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(Jill had mentioned during our phone conversations that several members of my prospective audience were devotees of the love story. Although I don’t ordinarily read books specifically labelled as romance, I nonetheless often encounter love stories in my reading. Several of the books on the list qualify, I informed her. This is how the “love story alert” came about.)

As it happened, nonfiction titles got relatively short shrift. Jill made note of that fact, and I responded that I hadn’t really thought about it; the list had just turned out that way. After a pause, she commented, “I used to read a lot of fiction, but I don’t any more. Now, I want to read for knowledge.” She glanced sideways at me and smiled, an enigmatic half smile like Mona Lisa.

When I left, Jill presented me with a gift bag containing, among other things, a ceramic mug with the name of the facility embossed upon it.

Five months later, after I had retired, I opened the local paper and saw Jill’s face staring out at me. She really was beautiful. I recognized the smile at once.

It was the obituary page.

The mug is dark blue; the lettering is gold. I fill it with tea or coffee and think of Jill. And in recent months, I have come to favor nonfiction over fiction (with an exception made for my beloved mysteries). I retain a vivid recollection of Jill stating, in simple terms, her own preference. I too now read primarily for knowledge - though whether the knowledge I need most urgently will come to me as a result, I cannot say.

Meanwhile, as we pursue happiness and dwell in pleasant gardens, like the one depicted in the post just below this one, we cannot entirely escape the ancient reminder, Et in Arcadio Ego. Or, as a poet in our own age has rather mordantly put it: “Most things may never happen: this one will.” The line is from “Aubade,” by Philip Larkin:

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what’s really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
– The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused — nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear — no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can’t escape,
Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

On this overcast morning, the entire out of doors seems suffused with the most intense green. You only see this in the early Spring. It made me think of the above line of verse, from Andrew Marvell’s poem:

The Garden, by Andrew Marvell

How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays ;
And their uncessant labors see
Crowned from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow-vergèd shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid ;
While all the flowers and trees do close
To weave the garlands of repose.

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence, thy sister dear!
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men :
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow ;
Society is all but rude,
To this delicious solitude.

No white nor red was ever seen
So amorous as this lovely green ;
Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,
Cut in these trees their mistress’ name.
Little, alas, they know or heed,
How far these beauties hers exceed!
Fair trees! wheresoe’er your barks I wound
No name shall but your own be found.

When we have run our passion’s heat,
Love hither makes his best retreat :
The gods who mortal beauty chase,
Still in a tree did end their race.
Apollo hunted Daphne so,
Only that she might laurel grow,
And Pan did after Syrinx speed,
Not as a nymph, but for a reed.

What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head ;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine ;
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach ;
Stumbling on melons as I pass,
Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness :
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find ;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas ;
Annihilating all that’s made
To a green thought in a green shade.

Here at the fountain’s sliding foot,
Or at some fruit-tree’s mossy root,
Casting the body’s vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide :
There like a bird it sits and sings,
Then whets and combs its silver wings ;
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.

Such was that happy garden-state,
While man there walked without a mate :
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet!
But ’twas beyond a mortal’s share
To wander solitary there :
Two paradises ’twere in one
To live in Paradise alone.

How well the skillful gard’ner drew
Of flowers and herbs this dial new ;
Where from above the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run ;
And, as it works, th’ industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers!

[Photos above of Stourhead Gardens, Wiltshire, England]

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Highland cattle - I love them!

Poitou donkey with Annie Pollock, a retired veterinarian who has worked tirelessly on her Hampshire farm to save the breed from extinction.

Thursday night April 10, I took my friend Helene, a balletomane like myself, to New York City Center to see the Kirov work its magic. The program consisted of scenes from four different ballets: Le Corsaire, Diana and Acteon, Don Quixote, and La Bayadere.

How was it? Superlatives fail me. I don’t have the words, but the poets do. I keeping thinking of two passages in particular:: Romeo’s astonished declaration that “I ne’er saw true beauty till this night;” and the final lines of one of my favorite poems, Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn:” “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — That is all / Ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know.” Here’s the entire poem:

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter, therefore, ye soft pipes, play on,
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never, canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping song for ever new,
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea-shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity. Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’

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As a meditation on the age-old desire to stop cruel time in its tracks, this work, for me, has no equal. I wished very powerfully that the performance we saw that night could be frozen in time, like “the marble men and maidens overwrought” on Keats’s vase. But I will cherish the memory. And there are pictures…

The corps de ballet in the exquisite La Bayadere.

Soloists in La Bayadere

Leonid Sarafanov, whose spectacular leaps and light-as-a-feather landings repeatedly thrilled the audience.* (Here’s a “head shot” of the astounding Sarafanov taken last year. Doesn’t he look as though he’s all of fourteen years old?!)

This photo of Diana Vishneva, taken by Andrea Mohin, appeared in the New York Times on Sunday April 13:

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The music, by turns robust and delicate, was played beautifully by the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre; most of the choreography was done by the great Marius Petipa. Helene and I gazed at the program in awe - such storied names…

Here is the Mariinsky Theatre’s official site. It is very oriented to the here and now - not much in the way of history, except for the acknowledgement, in tiny print, that this is there 225th season. For some interesting background, and great photos of the theater itself, see the Wikipedia entry.

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For a fascinating cultural hisory of Russia, see Natasha’s Dance by Orlando Figes. (I won’t claim to have read through this massive tome; I’ve been using it primarily as a reference work since I purchased it several years ago.)

*For more terrific portraits of ballet dancers, see Gene Schiavone’s site.

The “Met” currently features special exhibitions on two extraordinary French painters: Gustave Courbet and Nicholas Poussin. I went to see the Courbets first. I had read an article in the Washington Post by Blake Gopnik, on whose discernment in such matters I depend; he described the exhibit as “jaw-dropping.” It is.

Born in 1819 in the village of Ornans in the Franch-Comte, a region in the north east of France, Courbet came to Paris to paint in 1840. He immediately set about smashing icons and in the process infuriating the critics, a staid and stuffy lot, from all appearances. He lived large, becoming quite large himself in the process.

Courbet painted everything from portraits (including quite a few of himself), landscapes, seascapes, hunting scenes, and nudes ( some just this side of pornographic) with a breathtaking combination of abandon and precision. To wit:

The Young Ladies of the Village

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The Desperate Man

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Woman with a Parrot

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The Wounded Man

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The Meeting or Bonjour, Monsiuer Courbet

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River Landscape

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Flowers

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The Stormy Sea or The Wave

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Chateau de Chillon [Yes - This is the same Chillon that inspired Lord Byron's two poems, "Sonnet on Chillon" and "The Prisoner of Chillon." The latter is a narrative poem of great power. See the final stanza below*]

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In his later years, Courbet became involved in politics - defiantly and disastrously - and joined the short-lived Paris Commune in 1871. Having survived six months in prison, he was then forced into exile in Switzerland, where he died in 1877.

While at the Met, I purchased the DVD entitled Gustave Courbet, made in France last year (possibly in conjunction with the exhibit at the Musee D’Orsay. See Jonathan Jones’s eloquent review in The Guardian.) We watched it last night. It is beautifully done.

Among other things, we see in this film  lovely views of Ornans, which appear essentially unchanged since Courbet’s time. Something to be thankful for, in addtion to an astounding body of work by this genius painter.

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*Final stanza of “The Prisoner of Chillon,” by George Gordon, Lord Byron:

It might be months, or years, or days–
I kept no count, I took no note,
I had no hope my eyes to raise,
And clear them of their dreary mote.
At last men came to set me free;
I ask’d not why, and reck’d not where,
It was at length the same to me,
Fetter’d or fetterless to be,
I learn’d to love despair.
And thus when they appear’d at last,
And all my bonds aside were cast,
These heavy walls to me had grown
A hermitage–and all my own!
And half I felt as they were come
To tear me from a second home:
With spiders I had friendship made,
And watch’d them in their sullen trade,
Had seen the mice by moonlight play,
And why should I feel less than they?
We were all inmates of one place,
And I, the monarch of each race,
Had power to kill–yet, strange to tell!
In quiet we had learn’d to dwell–
My very chains and I grew friends,
So much a long communion tends
To make us what we are:–even I
Regain’d my freedom with a sigh.

William F. Buckley was an iconic figure for those of my generation, even if our politics were diametrically opposed to his. That wit, that urbanity, the multisyllabic vocabulary, the faux-British accent - it all added up to a package that was hard to resist.

George F. Will has a nice valedictory piece, “A Life Athwart History,” in today’s Washington Post. In it, he quotes a stanza from “Vit(ae) Summa Brevis Spem nos Incohare Longam” by Ernest Dowson. I have seen this poem before but forgotten its haunting beauty. Here it is in its entirety:

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate;
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

Poor Ernest Dowson! He was one of those wayward, sensitive souls doomed to flame out at an early age. Here is a brief, poignant memoir of his life by the poet and critic Arthur Symons.

Some will recognize the phrase “days of wine and roses” as the title of a terrific film from 1962 starring Lee Remick and Jack Lemmon. The film depicted the ravages of alcoholism in a way that has rarely been equalled, before or since. And from another poem by Dowson comes the title of an acclaimed American novel that became an even more acclaimed movie. See line 13 in “Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae.”

Ernest Dowson 1867-1900

I’ve been trying to avert my gaze from the horrible story of the massive beef recall until this article in today’s Washington Post shoved it in my face. I got on the Humane Society’s site but could only bear to watch the first few seconds of the video that brought about the recall.

In recent years, the Humane Society has bombarded me with tchochkes and trinkets in an effort to solicit contributions. I know they do good, necessary work, but I find this particular fundraising strategy truly irksome. However, in recognition of what they’ve just achieved by sharing that video footage with an appalled public, I opened my heart - and my wallet - this morning and made a donation.

Before I close, I just want to say that is what happens when you treat animals like things. You become a thing yourself - and worse.

This is from Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, a lesson learned “by his own example:”

Farewell, farewell ! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest !
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small ;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

[Title of post from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 1]

One of the pieces included in the fine anthology Best American Magazine Writing 2007 is by one of my favorite writers, Paul Theroux. “Living with Geese” originally appeared in the Smithsonian Magazine. In it, Theroux describes his ten years’ experiencing breeding and raising these singular creatures. His powers of observation are astute, as anyone who has read his novels and travel narratives can attest. He does, however, expend what seems to be a rather inordinate amount of energy critiquing E.B. White. I didn’t know this, but White also raised geese, but in Maine, rather than in Hawaii, where Theroux lives. White too wrote on this subject, in an essay that’s apparently held in affectionate esteem by many readers. But not - definitely not - by Theroux.

He complains that”…E.B. White patronizes his geese, invents feelings for them and obfuscates things.” This incessant tendency to anthropomorphize, Theroux contends, gets in the way of understanding the true nature of the animal in question. I can agree with him there. But then he goes on: “E.B. White is never happier that when he is able to depict an animal by humanizing it as a friend. Yet what lies behind the animal’s expression of friendship? It is an eagerness for easy food.”

I sighed deeply upon reading this. Whenever folks want to denigrate us doting pet owners, they trot out this argument. Well, okay, “easy food” is a major benefit for dogs and cats who share their dwelling space with humans. But if you’ve lived with these wonderful creatures for any length of time, it becomes increasingly evident that, at least to some extent, your affection for them is reciprocated in kind. Many little gestures on their part serve to reinforce this conviction. And naturally, at this point, I just have to slip in a picture of a certain cat…

[ Miss Audrey Jane Marple, irrepressible sidekick and beloved friend]

Theroux makes one assertion in this essay that I find even more troubling: “Animal lovers often tend to be misanthropes or loners, and so they transfer their affection to the creature in their control.” The examples he cites are Joy Adamson of Born Free fame,Timothy Treadwell, who was the subject of the documentary film Grizzly Man, and Dian Fossey, who did groundbreaking research on the mountain gorillas of Central Africa. Fossey, Theroux states, was “a drinker and a recluse.”

I remember reading articles about Dian Fossey in the 1980’s, both before and after she was killed in Rwanda in 1985. I did not recall reading that she had a problem with alcohol. Theroux’s remarks brought to mind “The Woman Who Loved Gorillas” by Alex Shoumatoff. This piece first appeared in Vanity Fair, but I read it in African Madness, a collection of four long essays by this author.

I read this book when it came out in 1988. As luck would have it, there are still two copies owned by my beloved Central Library! I brought one home because I was looking for a particular passage that I did recall. Here it is:

“In general, people who are drawn to nature and become animal lovers fall into two groups, which might be described as the Shakespearians and the Thoreauvians. The Shakespearians consider man and his works to be part of nature; while loving animals, they have warm, positive feelings toward people, too. The animal love of the Thoreauvians, however, is inversely proportionate to their compassion for their own kind.”

(The description of the Shakespearians put me in mind of these lines from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage by Lord Byron:

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar;
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal. )

Shoumatoff goes on to theorize that Throeauvians, who often have “extraordinary empathy with animals,” are often the product of a lonely, isolated upbringing. Such indeed was the case with Dian Fossey.

Although I obtained a copy of African Madness so that I could find that passage, I found myself reading “The Woman Who Loved Gorillas” in its entirety. Once again, I was riveted by this sad, compelling story. Fossey was a difficult, complicated woman; as the years passed, her relations with the students at Karisoke, the research station she had established, became increasingly strained. Relations with the native population went from bad to worse. She became a fanatic where poaching was concerned, and some of the actions she took against those she suspected of this crime are, in retrospect, pretty shocking. One gets the picture of a woman going off the rails. And yes, she was drinking.

But, as with so many complicated situations involving complex personalities, ambition, and bruised egos, there is more to this story. There is Dian Fossey’s tremendous contribution to our knowledge and understanding of those magnificent creatures, the mountain gorillas. There was her Herculean effort to preserve their habitat and their lives, work which one desperately hopes will not prove to be all for nought.

The government of Rwanda eventually charged the man who discovered Dian’s body, American primatologist Wayne McGuire, with her murder. Most observers considered the charge baseless. Although McGuire needed more time to collect data for his doctoral thesis, he left Rwanda on the advice of the American consul. The murder has never been solved.

Shoumatoff’s piece concludes with a visit to Dian’s grave in Africa. She is buried at Karisoke, near her cabin, among the gorillas who died before her.

“Hers was a pure, selfless love, forged in the pain of loneliness, like an artist’s love, which doesn’t feed or heal your soul, and takes a lot out of you. A damaged, driven person, herself a victim of unlove, she had this extraordinary love, without which there would probably be no gorillas in the Virungas. It was her love that she will be remembered for.”

Oh - and by the way, “Living with Geese” concludes with Theroux moving Heaven and Earth to aid and comfort an aging gander in his flock. Having in recent memory endured the pain - always so much greater than you think it will be - of losing an animal companion, I understood why he was going to such lengths. When his efforts proved successful, I was happy for him.

There’s an excellent article in today’s Washington Post about Beowulf, the poem and the movie. Blake Gopnik is a writer whose coverage of the arts is unfailingly intelligent and perceptive. I am full of admiration for the fact that he studied this amazing masterpiece in the original Anglo-Saxon!

Several months ago, I read the Seamus Heaney translation and was struck by the utter strangeness of the world which I had unwittingly entered. Then I listened to the recorded version on the Naxos label of the Benedict Flynn translation, read by Crawford Logan. Ancient sagas like Beowulf were recited before they were written down, and listening to the poem is a different experience from reading it. I recommend highly the Naxos issue. I also want to take this opportunity once again to direct people to Benjamin Slade’s site, Beowulf in Steorarume (Beowulf in Cyberspace).

I have not seen the movie yet, but I’ll report back when I have…

Musings on aerobics:

It is fatal to look at someone who is out of sync - you too will get out of sync along with him or her! It’s best to have an unobstructed view of the instructor. If that’s not possible, fix your gaze on another “regular” - someone who you know has the moves down. There’s a strange and interesting affect that I get if I’m doing the latter: I feel as though I am moving around in someone else’s body!

The music: sometimes the most banal ditties take on a new life as you move to the beat: This even includes ABBA songs!! Instructors often save the really interesting stuff for the final cool down and stretching. Sometimes the music is very New Age, with crashing surf in the background. But the other day, Geroge played an Andrea Bocelli CD that nearly had me in tears. How, I wondered, as Bocelli belted out aria after aria, can someone be unmoved by this glorious music? And speaking of the cool down…

Usually the instructor lowers the lighting or turns the lights off altogether at the end of our session. As the stretching component begins, we are lying on our backs, and so, of necessity, staring straight up. Gradually the details of the ceiling are revealed. I have been thinking lately of the singular miracle of the human eye, in particular, the way the pupils enlarge and contract. It occurred to me yesterday, while stretching my quadriceps, that we don’t take nearly enough advantage of our eyes’ remarkable capacity to adjust swiftly to differing levels of light. (Don’t ask me what I mean by that last statement because.. I’m not sure!)

Meanwhile, while coming and going from the various gyms I patronize, I have been listening to a set of lectures entitled Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition. These lectures are produced by the The Teaching Company; the CD’s are accompanied by an excellent course guide containing outlines of the lectures and bibliographies.

Professor Elizabeth Vandiver begins the series by laying the foundation of the civilizations of the Near Eastern and Mediterranean. She goes on to discuss the epic of Gilgamesh and certain books of the Old Testament, specifically Genesis, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and Job. (The section on Job was particularly profound and thought-provoking.) From there, we go on to the great Homeric epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey. That’s as far as I’ve gotten at this writing.

These lectures are mesmerizing! I had made a resolution that when I retired, I would go back to reading the classics. By “classics,” I had meant the great novels and stories of the 19th century; now, I am thinking of really going back - way back! Lucky the students at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, where Prof. Vandiver teaches. Her incredibly deep knowledge of classical literature is matched by her passion for it. There is nothing as galvanizing as being taught by someone who genuinely loves his or her subject. Professor - you rock!