Books to the Ceiling

Re Donna Leon’s novel The Girl of His Dreams; with what pleasure did I encounter mention of a certain Venetian landmark, as Commissario Brunetti speeds via police launch to a watery crime scene:

“They passed Palazzo Mocenigo, then the imbarcadero of Sant’ Angelo, and then they came abreast of the stairs running down into the water to the left of Palazzo Benzon.”

Ah, yes - the Palazzo Mocenigo! This was the sumptuous residence of the family into which Lucia Memmo married while still in her teens. It was just the beginning of the long and turbulent life. Born in 1770, Lucia starts out as a naive, overprotected girl and goes on to become the quintessential woman of substance. Here’s my review of Lucia, and here’s an interview with author Andrea di Robilant, her direct descendant. ( I am envious of his ability to connect so directly and intimately with his ancestors.)

Last night, we finally got around to watching the “deloused” recording of one of our favorite programs, CBS Sunday Morning. What a treat was in store for Your Faithful Blogger! In a segment called “For the Books,” the perennially congenial Bill Geist visited Lloyd and Lenore Dickman. This unassuming farm couple from central Wisconsin have a collection of books that fills twelve buildings, including a former slurry tank (a structure that stores manure) and a disused schoolhouse dating back to the 1800’s.

The purpose of the segment was to entertain viewers with facts concerning the extreme unlikelihood of such an enormous quantity of books being housed in so unique a manner. The Dickmans are booksellers, but they seem sublimely indifferent to the exigencies of the business. A potential customer can be reasonably certain to gain access to this hoard on a Saturday, but on any other day of the week, you just have to hope you can find a Dickman somewhere on this vast tract who might be free to let you in, show you around, and maybe even sell you something.

As I said above, this segment was about the sheer strangeness of all those books gathered in that remote place. But, almost inadvertently I think, it was also a portrait of a marriage. Lenore Dickman obtained a doctorate after she was married - Lloyd supported her efforts wholeheartedly. When, after a hiatus, he wanted to go back to farming, she then supported him. Lloyd and Lenore Dickman come across as two people who, on the face of it, have little in common. What they do have is mutual respect, loyalty, and love. It appears to be a quietly companionable bond, built to last - something for young couples to aspire to.

The Dickmans keep a pretty low profile. Googling them produced only this video segment:

In which Your Faithful Blogger, stuck inside due to inclement weather, reads, writes, and reflects on the following:

Michael Pollan’s terrific “Why Bother?” in the April 20th “Green Issue” of The New York Times Magazine. (April 20? I’m running behind; what can I say…)

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As I gazed into the woods behind our house, I took in for the first time how quickly the trees have leafed out. There are no evergreens back there, so in the winter it’s all bare branches and spindly trunks. There’s a footpath just beyond, though, and I like to watch people walking their dogs. This becomes increasingly difficult once the leafing out process nears completion.

Anyway, all of this put me in mind of a painting by Rene Magritte. It’s called “Le blanc-seing,” which roughly translates as “free hand” or “free rein:”

I first heard of this artist when The Museum of Modern Art put on a major retrospective of his works. This was a long time ago. Magritte died in 1967; he may have been still living at the time of this exhibit. Some scoffed at the paintings, calling them gimmicky; I thought it was the most fun I’d ever had in a museum! Here’s why:

[From top to bottom: The Lovers, The Listening Room, The Sirens, Time Transfixed, The Menaced Assassin]

Born in the province of Hainaut, Rene Magritte lived for most of his life in Brussels. He’s right up there with Georges Simenon and Hercule Poirot in my personal pantheon of favorite Belgians.

[Rene Magritte, photographed by Lothar Wolleh in Brussels, 1967]

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On the DVD front, we watched one of the Ruth Rendell Mysteries, “Orchard Walls.” Set in wartime, this is a gripping tale of illicit love and lost innocence. And it features an early performance by an actress whose artless appeal has captivated fans of PBS’s Foyle’s War: Honeysuckle Weeks.

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I was deeply moved by today’s post on the blog The Other World.

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I have now encountered the use of the 2004 tsunami as a plot device in two recent works of fiction: Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri and The Water’s Lovely by Ruth Rendell. In an interesting instance of synchronicity, I encountered yet another mention of that terrible disaster yesterday in Susan Jacoby’s masterful The Age of American Unreason. In a chapter entitled “Middlebrow Culture from Noon to Twilight,” Jacoby discusses authors like Allen Drury, Irving Stone and James Michener. In a footnote, she writes:

I immediately thought of Hawaii when I read about the number of lives lost in the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami because many people, watching the tide suddenly recede, had walked out to see the creatures and coral formations revealed on the ocean floor, only to have the tsunami wave return with deadly force. Michener describes a similar scene in his novel.

Those devoted to the works of Shakespeare should enjoy this article about Stephen Greenblatt that appeared in the Sunday New York Times’s Arts & Leisure section. Seems that Greenblatt, one of our leading Shakespeare scholars and author of the wonderfully readable Will in the World , has himself written a play!

[Stephen Greenblatt, left, with his collaborator Charles Mee]

Here’s a review of Will in the World that appeared recently in the Howard County Library’s blog, “Highly Recommended.”

How endlessly tiring it must be for those who know and love Liverpool, a vibrant city rich in history (some of it very dark), that so many of the world’s people know only one thing about it…

Yeah, yeah, yeah…

(Here’s a post from Martin Edwards’s blog on the newly opened Hard Day’s Night Hotel.)

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Harry Devlin is a solicitor who lives and works in Liverpool. He’s in his office one morning, is going through his messages, when he comes upon the following:

“In Memory

Harry Devlin

Died suddenly,

Liverpool

Midsummer’s Eve

Few events can be as unnerving as reading your own obituary. And Harry is appropriately unnerved. Meanwhile, young women in the area are being murdered. The perpetrator is inflicting the same telltale injury on each of his victims. Is there a serial killer on the loose? Harry has a penchant for running his own investigations, and when Kay, a young woman he knows and likes, is found dead, he has all the motive he needs to look into the matter, especially since the official police inquiry seems to be going nowhere fast.

Waterloo Sunset is the eighth novel featuring Harry Devlin. I don’t think that the first seven books in this series have been “officially” published here. I’m finding it increasingly difficult to ascertain this information, what with small presses - and smaller presses - flitting about. But I don’t want for a minute to put these businesses down. Poisoned Pen Press, which has many fine titles on its list, is the publisher of Waterloo Sunset and of the excellent Lake District mysteries featuring Daniel Kind and Hannah Scarlett.

It can be disadvantageous to the reader to jump into a series in the middle, but I felt that I got to know Harry Devlin rather quickly. As he enters his middle years, Harry at first seems sadder and wiser, having suffered some painful personal losses. But he is not by nature a passive person, and once roused to righteous anger, as he is when he learns of Kay’s murder, he won’t rest until he has answers. There are times when he resembles the proverbial bull in a china shop, and I shook my head and thought, Harry, Harry, what a foolish/dangerous/outrageous thing to do! But I ended by admiring the guy and liking him, too.

Martin Edwards paints a crowded canvas here, and I did have some trouble at first keeping track of all the characters. The process became easier, though, once the narrative gained momentum. And at the same time that Edwards is ratcheting up the tension, the city of Liverpool itself is coming into increasingly clear focus.

In accordance with an European Union initiative, Liverpool has been designated a European Capital of Culture for 2008. (For more information about Culture Capitals, see Wikipedia.) This is basically a chance for Liverpool to strut its stuff. It also provides Martin Edwards with an opportunity to salt his novel with tongue-in-cheek allusions to Liverpool’s new status. There’s a janitorial service called Culture City Cleaners. And there’s Cultural Companions, employers of attractive young women on the lookout for easy money. They get entangled with men looking for more than cultivated conversation. From these encounters, trouble flows in copious streams…

Cue: “Ferry Cross the Mersey,” by Gerry and the Pacemakers

(I admit it - I’m nostalgic for sweetly unpretentious songs like this one.)

Harry’s inquiries take him to Crosby beach, where he encounters a man who must have witnessed a murder. Why? Because he is standing close to where it happened. But he will never divulge his secrets, because he cannot. He is made of iron, and he is not alone: “‘Another Place,’ where where one hundred iron men stared out at sand, sea and sky.”

The sculptor is Antony Gormley, of “Angel of the North’ fame.

We had the pleasure of meeting Martin Edwards on our Smithsonian Mystery Lovers’ Tour in September. He is a warm, engaging, and witty speaker. These qualities inform his writing as well. I enjoyed the Liverpool lore; also, Edwards’s allusions to specific songs serve as cultural markers and reminded me of the novels of Peter Robinson. (This would be about the highest compliment I could pay a writer of crime fiction!)

What I’m reading:

Hamlet, Revenge; by Michael Innes, a Golden Age classic (written in 1937) that’s out of print and hard to find. I got my copy several years ago from a small British publisher, House of Stratus. They do not currently stock any copies! And so we beat on, boats against (contemporary publishing) currents, borne back ceaselessly in our search for (out of print) gems from the past (with apologies to F. Scott Fitzgerald).

Waterloo Sunset, crime fiction set in Liverpool and written by the dependably engaging Martin Edwards;

The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby. Well, yes, I do identify with all those irrelevant intellectuals, but so far, Jacoby is preaching to the choir (and that’s one of the problems she addresses in the very first chapter).

The Dog Man: An Uncommon Life on a Faraway Mountain, by Martha Sherrill. The story of the man who almost singlehandedly saved Akitas, referred to in Japan as “snow country dogs,” from extinction as a distinct breed.

An especially meaty issue of The New Yorker. “Uncluttered” is about the Danish/Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, whose work I recently saw at MoMa in New York. And there’s a fascinating piece by Rebecca Mead on The Mount, Edith Wharton’s home in the Berkshires. It seems this venerable dwelling is at the moment threatened with foreclosure. Even the great Edith Wharton has been unable to escape the nation’s current subprime mortgage crisis! [This article is not available online.]

The Mount

Finally, there’s Daniel Mendelsohn’s meditation on Herodotus, occasioned by two new versions of The Histories. [Attention, children's librarians: The New Yorker cover is by the late William Steig, author of one of my all time favorite children's books, Dominic.]

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What I’m listening to: The Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman. George Guidall’s readings of these atmospheric novels of the Southwest are quite simply a joy.

[Geogre Guidall]

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What we’re watching - and that would be on our brand spanking new 32-inch Toshiba 32RV53OU : The Wire, Season Two. I have nothing to say about this astonishing, harrowing program that hasn’t already been said. We finished Season One two weeks ago; I was so wrapped up in what was happening to these characters - especially Kima - that I was going to sleep obsessing about them and then dreaming about them.

[First picture: Dominic West and Wendell Pierce as Jimmy McNulty and "Bunk" Moreland; second picture: Idris Elba and Wood Harris as "Stringer" Bell and Avon Barksdale]

How did they find these fabulous actors? (There was an interesting article about David Simon, creator of this landmark series, in a recent issue of Atlantic Monthly.)

Unscheduled event of the weekend:

My husband’s brave but ultimately futile attempt to convey a piping hot Pepperidge Farm Chicken Pot Pie from the oven to the table resulted in said pie landing with a great splat on the kitchen floor. I’ve eaten this item before - from the table, I hasten to assure you! - and it really is quite tasty. But perhaps there should be a warning on the box concerning methods of conveyance. I’d suggest a picture of the pot pie imploding as its container crumples. A second graphic would have the pie’s crust and innards liberally spread hither and yon, while one’s pet - in this case, Miss Marple, a cat ever alert to novel culinary situations - comes racing in and careens right through the middle of the mess. Don’t try this at home, folks!

The cat in question…

Charlie Weir is a divorced psychiatrist who lives and practices in Manhattan. When we first meet him, he is mourning the death of his mother, a troubled, difficult woman. This loss becomes the occasion for much soul searching. Recollections come flooding in, nearly all of them unpleasant or disturbing. The Weirs are a family that seems to revel in dysfunction. Charlie’s father Fred, an alcoholic, left them when Charlie and his brother Walt were still boys. Their mother suffered from bouts of depression. Currently, Charlie resents Walt, an artist whose successes, both personal and professional, are a sore point.

Charlie had first met Agnes, his ex-wife, while he was treating her brother Danny, a Vietnam vet. Danny had been caught in a downward spiral, unable to deal with a particularly traumatic event experienced in combat. Charlie and Agnes married after a brief courtship. At the same time, Charlie had persisted in his effort to help Danny, whose fate ultimately caused the marriage to end. As the novel opens, Agnes has remarried, and she and Charlie have managed to stay on reasonably good terms, largely for the sake of their daughter Cassie. Hearing of Charlie’s loss, Agnes rushes to comfort him. And stays on, to comfort him further, in bed.

The “comforting” continues. Agnes’s husband Leo seems strangely absent from the scene. Then Walt introduces Charlie to the (somewhat) mysterious Nora Chiara. She and Charlie are instantly attracted to each other; an affair begins almost immediately. Meanwhile, Charlie continues to sleep with Agnes. At this point, one does not have to be especially perceptive to catch sight of the looming train wreck. But the form that it assumes is not what you’d expect.

Charlie Weir’s specialty is helping people deal with repressed traumatic events by remembering them and confronting them. The hope is that by taking these steps, individuals can reduce, or even vitiate altogether, the trauma’s power to damage and warp their lives. In the course of his career, Charlie has had considerable success in helping patients to achieve this goal. But the trauma that he most needs to deal with lies buried deep inside his own psyche.

I’ve read several novels by Patrick McGrath. What distinguishes them is his exceptionally fine prose and his laserlike ability to penetrate and illuminate the vagaries of the human heart. And he is particularly good at conveying the torments of one whose mind is full of scorpions. (Yes, I know, I’ve used that phrase from Macbeth before, but it is so vivid - and often so apt: “How full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!”)

McGrath was born and raised in Britain. His father, a distinguished psychiatrist, was for many years the medical superintendent at Broadmoor, England’s famed high security hospital for, among others, criminals who are unfit to plead. The elder McGrath was not averse to sharing the stories of his patients with his young son, who admits he was enthralled by them. (Patrick McGrath currently lives in New York City, and Trauma is very much a New York novel.)

Last year I read another fiction title with a psychiatrist as the protagonist: The Other Side of You by Salley Vickers. I’ve taken every opportunity to rave about that stellar novel. While I don’t think Trauma quite measures up to the work by Vickers, it is still very, very good, and I recommend it.

Here’s a great new source for recommendations of books and movies. On “Highly Recommended,” you’ll find reviews of books and films, as well as information about library events, classes, and seminars.

This brand new blog is an initiative of the Howard County Library staff. I can tell you from my twenty-plus years of working with these folks that they are tremendously knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the books and movies that they work with on a daily basis. Moreover, they love to share that enthusiasm with the reading and viewing public.

So, have a look. I think you’ll be pleased by what you see!

[Spoilers lurk in ths post - beware!]

Last night, Literary Ladies (aka “Book Babes”) met to discuss The Senator’s Wife by Sue Miller. I’ve already posted a review of this novel, and I was interested in what the group members would have to say about it.

The marriage of Delia and Tom Naughton was the subject that intrigued everyone the most. Why would a woman stay with a man who was such an unrepentant philanderer? There followed some discussion on the mysteries of the human libido - especially, as it is manifested in the male of the species. Did we reach any profound conclusions? No - but we had fun speculating!

Ultimately, we decided that Delia must have been genuinely hooked on the adrenalin rush of campaigning. Also, she had never really stopped loving Tom. As a result, Tom more or less got to have his cake and eat it, too. That is, right up until he was felled by a stroke. Even then, it seemed as though he would continue to enjoy the comforts of home, nursed along by Delia as he slowly recuperated. But then “the oddly sullen Meri,” as one reviewer called her, had to work her mischief…

I have to say that this was one of those book discussion nights in which the book itself almost seemed beside the point. All nine of us were either present or former employees of the library and we had alot of gossip to catch up on. This we did during the delicious dinner served to us by Kathy, that most gracious of hostesses. (Mmm, that salmon nicoise was to die for! I’m always grateful when something I’m allowed to eat plenty of also happens to taste good.)

After that most excellent repast, we talked about the book for a time, and then the conversation took a somber turn. We remembered two of our departed library colleagues; then some of us talked about loved we had lost, and how difficult the experience had been. I felt cocooned in compassion and empathy while these sad recollections were being recounted. And we did, finally, get happy again as the evening drew to a close.

I just have to say this: I am profoundly grateful - honored, too - to have these women as my friends.

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This morning, at the library, I led a discussion of The Professor’s House by Willa Cather. (Run, Roberta, run!) I’ve already posted twice on the subject of this singular writer and her memorable masterpiece, and to be honest, I almost did it again earlier this week. I’ve had several days’ worth of Willa Cather immersion leading up to this morning’s discussion.

What a remarkable woman Willa Cather was! Growing up on the plains of Nebraska, she soaked up the cultural riches that Eurpoean immigrants had brought with them to the new land. She read the classics, studied foreign languages, and developed a passion for classical music and opera that lasted throughout her life. She attended the University of Nebraska, graduating in 1895.

While still in her teens, Cather experimented with her appearance and her dress, cutting her hair short and wearing men’s clothing. One gets the sense that her parents were reasonably enlightened people who, realizing that they had a prodigy on their hands, albeit a somewhat eccentric one, allowed her the freedom to follow her muse.

I asked the group this morning if anyone felt frustrated by the way in which the story of Tom Outland’s sojourn in the Southwest (and briefly, and disastrously, in Washington D.C.) interrupts the story of Professor Godfrey St. Peter and his family. One reader was in fact made so impatient that she skimmed a good deal of that part of the novel. We all agreed that it was an unusual structural dislocation, and that as readers, we were made to shift gears rather unexpectedly. And yet, there is some magnificent descriptive writing in Tom Outland’s Story. Those of us who have traveled in the Southwest appreciated the love of the landscape that Cather expresses so eloquently.

On reading The Professor’s House again, I felt, to a greater degree than on my first reading, the pervasive sadness that suffuses this narrative. Godfrey St. Peter has known passion, both intellectual and romantic, but as he enters middle age, he must come to terms with the fact that his great adventures in both spheres of activity are behind him. What lies ahead represents a diminution of all things, culminating finally in that greatest adventure - “that last hard bed” - that last house.

One final word here: I’d like to recommend Willa Cather: The Road Is All, a film that appeared originally as part of the American Masters series on public television in 2005. It is beautifully done.

In a capsule review of William Trevor’s story collection A Bit on the Side (2004), I made a rather lighthearted reference to his new collection, Cheating at Canasta, which I had not yet read. I should have known better! To me, that title hinted at a possibly inconsequential or humorous event. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the title story, Mallory sits alone at Harry’s Bar in Venice, honoring a promise he made to his late wife Julia to visit once again the places they had always loved. He cannot help reminiscing about her long decline, during which he had kept up the charade of playing canasta with her. (The games had become a charade because she barely remembered how to play; at times, she barely remembered Mallory himself.) Despite his almost overwhelming sadness, Mallory is able to offer an oblique kindness toward a troubled young couple from America as they leave Harry’s Bar. His action, coming from the depths of his sorrow, may be their salvation.

The opening story, “The Dressmaker’s Child,” is about Cahal, a young auto mechanic who gives a lift to a Spanish couple who have come to the town to see a statue of the Virgin. The statue reputedly weeps real tears, and though this legend has been largely discredited, the couple want to see the statue anyway. On the way back, in the back seat, they begin to kiss passionately. Watching them in the rear view mirror, Cahal is mesmerized. He takes his eyes off the road for too long a time, with disastrous results. Not a crack-up - something worse…

In another story, “Olivehill,” a family transforms a large chunk of their property, part of a lovely old estate in Ireland, into a golf course. They must do this in order to hang on to their house and what little land remains around it. Each family member is to some degree appalled by the prospect of this this action, none more so than James, the patriarch of the family. James dies thinking that he and his wife Mollie have made a successful stand against the golf course. But they have not. For her part, Mollie is tormented by the question of what she owes to James’s memory.

Despite what this scenario might seem to bode, this is a loving family that is by no means riven by conflict. True, the two sons are prime movers in pushing the golf course scheme forward, but they are not happy about it and don’t pretend to be. Somehow, the shared anguish and resignation of both parents and children makes the story all the more poignant.

These tales are luminous and beautiful, but taken all together they are an almost unremitting chronicle of the pain of the human condition. For that reason, I could not read the collection straight through. I am reminded of the line from Julius Caesar that I have quoted before. It is from Mark Antony’s funeral oration: “If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.” I also think of the expression from The Aeneid, “lacrimae rerum,” quoted by Penelope Lively in The Photograph.