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What are we reading? 8th June 2022
Great work Anne...will post an update tommorow...
Thanks a lot, Anne...A warning! I shall shortly post a massive review once I sort out the formatting in GR, but I don't expect everyone to read the whole lot...
If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester HimesI have read and enjoyed several of Himes’ New York set cop tales featuring Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, in which racism plays a part, but nothing prepared me for this - his first novel - which is a brilliant achievement and so much better. It deserves to be considered alongside Ralph Ellison’s ‘Invisible Man’*.
It is 1942, Los Angeles. The USA has recently entered WW2 following the Pearl Harbour attack. Bob Jones is an intelligent working class man who travelled from racist Ohio to seek better opportunities in California, and despite still encountering racist rejections has worked his way up to being a ‘leaderman’ at the Atlas shipyard… this sub-foreman role required the holder to be able to read and interpret blueprints and tell the gang what to do. It is also a ‘reserved occupation’, which protects Bob from being drafted into the army. For the moment then, life is superficially looking good for Bob… he is fairly well paid and has bought a decent car. He also has a girlfriend - the beautiful and intelligent Alice, whose father - a doctor - is “one of the richest Negroes in the city”. Alice herself has an important position in the welfare department. Bob is a bit of a player, and is not yet wholly committed to the relationship; as for Alice, she wants Bob to take up his studies again to qualify as a lawyer. She is aware that there is a glass ceiling for any POC, but is willing to compromise in order to have a quiet and successful life.
Into this developing scene, Bob has a couple of destructive encounters with two whites - he gets into a fight with a fellow worker (a “peckerwood” in Bob’s view), and also meets Madge Perkins, a woman from Texas. Madge and Bob enter a complex and twisted relationship in which desire and revulsion, attraction and repulsion, a wish to possess and to humiliate the other are intertwined. The novel powerfully describes how these relationships play out…
Robert Jones is an imperfect character - we can see that he does have options and choices - but Himes’s genius lies in the way he leads the reader to empathise and feel for him, or even - often - feel what Bob feels. His anger at the injustices of racism are well founded. Since the story is told entirely from Bob’s point of view, we have to assume that his judgements on the other characters are accurate, even if subjective, and that his reactions are understandable, even if extreme. The sexual politics are rather more problematic, being of their time, but the story would lose its power without that element.
The quality of the writing can only be appreciated if I include a number of quotes - but be warned: Himes does make use of the n-word and other iffy terms, so if that is going to offend you, read no further.
On how the war with Japan heightened the racist tension which already existed:
“Cleveland wasn’t the land of the free or the home of the brave either. That was one reason I left there to come to Los Angeles; I knew if I kept on getting refused while white boys were hired from the line behind me I’d hang somebody as sure as hell… Most times when I got refused, I just went somewhere else, put it out of my mind, forgot about it.
They shook that in Los Angeles… It was the look on people’s faces when you asked them about a job. Most of ‘em didn’t say right out they wouldn’t hire me. They just looked so goddamned startled that I’d even asked. As if some friendly dog had come in through the door and said, ‘I can talk.’ It shook me.
Maybe it had started then, I’m not sure, or maybe it wasn’t until I’d seen them send the Japanese away that I’d noticed it… It was taking a man up by the roots and locking him up without a chance. Without a trial. Without a charge. Without even giving him the chance to say one word. It was thinking about if they ever did that to me, Robert Jones, Mrs Jones’s dark son, that started to getting me scared.
After that it was everything. It was the look in white people’s faces when I walked down the streets. It was that crazy, wild-eyed, unleashed hatred that the first Jap bomb on Pearl Harbour let loose in a flood. All that tight, crazy feeling of race as thick in the street as gas fumes. Every time I stepped outside I saw a challenge I had to accept or ignore. Every day I had to make one decision a thousand times: Is it now? Is now the time?
I was the same colour as the Japanese and I couldn’t tell the difference.”
On the rage Bob feels… the drip-drip-drip of racist words and looks coalesce into a visceral hatred for a man he wants to fight:
“It was then I decided to murder him cold-bloodedly, without giving him a chance. What the hell was the matter with me, running in there to fight him for? I wanted to kill the son of a bitch and keep on living myself. I wanted to kill him so he’d know I was killing him and in such a way that he’d know he didn’t have a chance. I wanted him to feel as scared and powerless and unprotected as I felt every goddamned morning I woke up. I wanted him to know how it felt to die without a chance; how it felt to look death in the face and know it was coming and know there wasn’t anything he could do but sit there and take it like I had to take it from Kelly and Mac and Hank and the cracker bitch because nobody was going to help him or stop it or do anything about it at all.”
On how not all white people are racist:
“I got a funny thought then; I began to wonder when white people started getting white - or rather, when they started losing it. And how it was you could take two white guys from the same place - one would carry his whiteness like a loaded stick, ready to bop everyone else in the head with it; and the other would just simply be white as if he didn’t have anything to do with it and let it go at that.”
On his girl going out with a white man:
“It really galled me to have a white guy take my girl out on a date. I wouldn’t have minded so much if he had been the sharpest, richest, most important coloured guy in the world; I’d have still felt I could compete. But a white guy had his colour - I couldn’t compete with that. It was all up to the chick - if she liked white, I didn’t have a chance; if she didn’t, I didn’t have anything to worry about. But I’d have to know, and I didn’t know about Alice.”
On the glass ceiling:
“I thought of a line I’d read in one of Tolstoy’s stories once - ‘There never has been enough bread and freedom to go around.’ When it came to us, we didn’t get either one of them. Although Negro people such as Alice and her class had got enough bread - they’d prospered from it. No matter what had happened to them inside, they hadn’t allowed it to destroy them outwardly; they had overcome their colour the only way possible in America - as Alice had put it, by adjusting themselves to the limitations of their race. They hadn’t stopped trying, I gave them that much; they’d kept on trying, always would; but they had recognized their limit - a nigger limit.”
On his frustration at this:
“I liked my job as leaderman… more than any other job I could think of; more than being the first Negro congressman from California. But… if I couldn’t have everything that went with it, if I couldn’t be in authority over white men and women just the same as any other leaderman, to hell with it too.
I knew that I was at the bottom of it all. If I couldn’t live in America as an equal in the minds, hearts and souls of all white people, if I couldn’t know that I had a chance to do anything any other American could, to go as high as an American citizenship would carry anybody, there’d never be anything in this country for me anyway.”
On the bias in the justice system:
“…now I was scared in a different way… of America, of American justice. The jury and the judge. The people themselves. Of the inexorability of one conclusion - that I was guilty… The whole structure of American thought was against me; American tradition had convicted me a hundred years before. And standing there in and American courtroom, through all the phoney formality of an American trial, having to take it, knowing that I was innocent and didn’t have a chance.”
The book also includes an interesting introduction by Jake Arnott and an essay by Himes written in 1943, entitled “Negro Martyrs Are needed.”
*Edit: it is some time since I read 'Invisible Man', and I have forgotten most of it... it seems possible, or even likely, that Ellison would not have wished to be linked to Himes's work... from Wikipedia:
Ellison makes a fuller statement about the position he held about his book in the larger canon of work by an American who happens to be of African ancestry. In the opening paragraph to that essay Ellison poses three questions: "Why is it so often true that when critics confront the American as Negro they suddenly drop their advanced critical armament and revert with an air of confident superiority to quite primitive modes of analysis? Why is it that Sociology-oriented critics seem to rate literature so far below politics and ideology that they would rather kill a novel than modify their presumptions concerning a given reality which it seeks in its own terms to project? Finally, why is it that so many of those who would tell us the meaning of Negro life never bother to learn how varied it really is?"
One final point on the language used - Hines gives a terrific description of working in a shipyard, which he knew well from first-hand experience. He tells of the unbearable heat and racket, and uses a number of specific technical terms which I didn't know (the reader can more or less guess what is meant), and also at other times uses some slang terms which have by now disappeared. I enjoyed this richness in the language.
Mod
The weather in the shires sill remains cool for June, am sure a heatwave is due but even moderate 20-22c weather seems elusiveCurrently enjoying the strange, austere, challenging short stories of Paul Bowles in Collected Stories, alongside Phillip K Dicks 1964 sci-fi novel and Thomas Mann's reflections on Germany and WW1
The Tsars Foreign Faiths is a great study of other areas of Imperial Russia, rather than social change, the police state or the geographical challenges of such a vast nation. While Protestants formed only 5% of the population in 1897, the diversity resembles any modern majority Protestant state of that era, with Baltic Lutherans and Baptists, Calvinists in Poland and Lithuania and the multiple Volga German communities with a roughly 60/40 Lutheran/Mennonite split. Not forgetting Anglican communiities in many major cities
Terrific intro, Anne. Lots to absorb, and explore. Glad you’re enjoying Claire Tomalin’s The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. I still have my copy, signed…twice, latterly in 2018? Her biogs are always a highlight. Also have her Jane Austen, Pepys, Dickens, and a couple of others. Another Wollstonecraft On my shelves, though not yet read, is by Lyndall Gordon’s Vindiication. About time I read it, it’s been nudging the Claire T for attention.
Now I must away and read the Ed Bookfest programme, which has just slid through the letter box. Yaaay!
Lass wrote: "Terrific intro, Anne. Lots to absorb, and explore. Glad you’re enjoying Claire Tomalin’s The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. I still have my copy, signed…twice, latterly in 2018? Her biogs a..."i thought it was a Sam-esque intro....the best i have seen!
scarletnoir wrote: "If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester HimesI have read and enjoyed several of Himes’ New York set cop tales featuring Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, in which racism plays a ..."
Enjoyed reading your review SN.
Great book which I had the pleasure of reading not so long ago.
Anne - Thank you as ever for the intro. It always tees us up nicely for a new round.
Scarlet – Great stuff on Chester Himes. I’ve read a couple of the NY cop stories, which I thought were ace, and will look this one out.
Scarlet – Great stuff on Chester Himes. I’ve read a couple of the NY cop stories, which I thought were ace, and will look this one out.
scarletnoir wrote: "If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester HimesI have read and enjoyed several of Himes’ New York set cop tales featuring Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, in which racism plays a ..."
glad you enjoyed it, the shipyard scenes and what the shipyards did for the war effort were vital to the changes in LA from 1940-1950, the population growth and diversity. The afro-american population was still small in 1940, though visible and growing,the war employment boom attracted many more african-americans to california and LA, not forgetting the Japanese-American and Hispanic populations in the city too
AB76 wrote: "The weather in the shires sill remains cool for June, am sure a heatwave is due but even moderate 20-22c weather seems elusiveCurrently enjoying the strange, austere, challenging short stories of..."
About your weather - I wonder if you are receiving the effects of El Nino. If so, probably not as much as we are here in the PNW. Would you believe it is raining once again today?
In the past it has been said that summer doesn't begin here until July 11. It looks like that may be true this year. I am glad I don't plant any veggies like my neighbor, but I doubt that they will harvest more than a tomato or two from all their plants.
No Heaven for Gunga DinA unique 1940s fantasy, not published until the 1960s. A group of British and American officers, killed in the Harvesting-Living-War (World War III), march through the afterlife, looking for Heaven, with Gunga Din, their servant, "in their behind."
Fantastic episodes, down-to-earth dialogue, flashes of humor. (Paradise is guarded by Heaven MPs, who become targets of the former soldiers.)
The author was a Persian. During World War II, British, Soviet, and American forces occupied Iran. Like the "Gunga Din" character in his story, the author worked as a servant for occupation officers. He wrote the novel, partly to practice his English, partly to explore religious issues, partly out of mischief. ("You drank these officers' beer, and told them that the bottles broke on the ice.")
Author: Ali Mirdrekvandi
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=...
scarletnoir wrote: "If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester HimesI have read and enjoyed several of Himes’ New York set cop tales featuring Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, in which racism plays a ..."
I'll mention - One-Shot Harry
which I recently downloaded (and listened to) from the library. Of course Harry is Black and is a photographer - one who has to hustle to make ends meet. The book is set in LA in the early '60s. The racism that Harry meets is often so casual that it is obviously just 'business as usual' for some - especially the police. One of the tidbits in the book is the fact that Chief Parker recruited officers from the South. I won't say more than this is a nice, little mystery.
Once again I have to wonder if the USA will ever be able to overcome this stain on the country's character. In the mid-60s when I was married and was a 'military dependent', my husband was assigned to Aberdeen Proving Ground in northern Maryland. When a Black Major who was also a husband and father was assigned there, he and his family had to be given preference in on-Post housing because the realtors would only show him substandard unfit housing in nearby communities.
The apartment complex we lived in was odd in that it was part of a larger community which included a goodly number of homes, all of which were on leasehold which is quite rare in the States. The reason (I believe) was it was a way to deny homeownership to any who were not white. Finally, I met my first real racist there. He was the maintenance man for the apartment complex. A man so full of hate, that it just boggled my mind. He was the kind who would have gladly pulled the rope on any lynching.
If any here have not read The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
, I highly recommend it.
Apropos of nothing at all - except the power of Google and how cheap storage space has become. I was wondering if there were any record of the phone for an office in the Pentagon (when I was there in the early '80s). So I asked Google and sure enough I got it!Why, you wonder? I have a habit of trying to associate user ids/passwords with something I can remember. Anyway, that's my excuse for today.
AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes..."The afro-american population was still small in 1940, though visible and growing,the war employment boom attracted many more african-americans to california and LA, not forgetting the Japanese-American and Hispanic populations in the city too"
It seems clear from both the book and a brief look elsewhere that African-Americans were drawn to LA by the prospect of work linked to the war effort, and also the perception that California was 'less racist' than their home states - Hines clearly felt that the difference was more theoretical (linked to state laws) than real (linked to attitudes and practice).
As for the Japanese - they were unfortunately interned en masse early in the war, as Himes notes in the first quote... James Ellroy also covers that in his near-unreadable Perfidia and This Storm.
Internment rarely ends well - I was actually a student in NI in 1971 when the Stormont Unionist government - with the support of the British - introduced it and locked up 340 IRA 'suspects' without due process:
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/polit...
MK wrote: "I'll mention - One-Shot Harry One-Shot Harry by Gary Phillips which I recently downloaded (and listened to) from the library. Of course Harry is Black and is a photographer - one who has to hustle to make ends meet. The book is set in LA in the early '60s."
Thanks for that, and the rest of your interesting comment. I have added the book to the virtual TBR pile, but it's rather expensive in all formats currently (in the UK) so it may be some time before I get to it...
MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "The weather in the shires sill remains cool for June, am sure a heatwave is due but even moderate 20-22c weather seems elusiveCurrently enjoying the strange, austere, challenging sho..."
the problem the SE of England has is the positioning of low pressure systems from Scandianavia and how far they cover the island usually, so it can be very cool and quite wet in June, while europe is warm and dry although usually warmer than may. the bizarre thing with 2022 has been a very mild winter, followed by a very mild spring, so the late may temps of 17c are less impressive and cooler than mid April. The long range in May said an el-nino effect was unlikely but i am wondering now
PNW for me is the one place in the USA i would love to live for its moderate climate but last summer was a heat shocker, as all the PNW residents on here reported. What concerns me about the climate in SE England is moderate autumns have been the norm for 5 years now, where the first chilly days are usually November, which is incredible for our latitude, the gulf stream does keep the UK much milder than other northerly latitudes but sustained mild weather from November to March is a real concern
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes..."The afro-american population was still small in 1940, though visible and growing,the war employment boom..."
i have done a lot of reading about the Japanese-American experience, found some good maps recording their population in each state and which camps they went to. There is a drama on BBC now set in 1942 concerning their experience with a horror angle called "The Terror". (George Takei, who experienced the camps stars in the drama)
From LA county ethnicity records it must be one of the few american locations where the Japanese-Americans outnumbered the Chinese-Americans well into the 1980s
The youngest owl chick born last Saturday didn’t survive and was duly eaten by the second oldest. Nothing wasted in nature.The five remaining chicks are getting quite lively.
Mod
I think we've written about this before here - I'll recommend again a memoir Nisei Daughter and a novel When the Emperor Was Divine.
scarletnoir wrote: "If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester HimesI have read and enjoyed several of Himes’ New York set cop tales featuring Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, in which racism plays a ..."
When I started to read crime fiction a long time ago I was not into "noir" at all. Yet I still read a number of Chester Himes. Because they were published by Rowohlt in their "rororo thriller" series. More or less a guarantee for quality irrespective of author.
They were fairly cheap, sold in high numbers and therefore easy to find in second-hand bookshops where you could get five for the price of a new one. So even a poor student could binge.
I could really kick myself that one day I decided to get rid of my "collection". Tattered paperbacks, yet so many 60s/70s classics of crime writing when I think about them.
Thanks for that interesting review. Reminded me, in a roundabout way, of Walter Moseley.
And of Toni Morrisons "Sula": a tunnel is about to be built. Young, strong men of the local black community queueing up day after day, not only willing but even hoping to get the chance to do backbreaking work. Only to realize, in the end, that they will not be hired. Because the construction company prefers to shuttle in white men from further away.
Gpfr wrote: "AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "reading about the Japanese-American experience..."I think we've written about this before here - I'll recommend again a memoir [book:Nisei Daughter|6..."
thanks GP
AB76 wrote: "There is a drama on BBC now set in 1942 concerning their experience with a horror angle called "The Terror". (George Takei, who experienced the camps stars in the drama)."Interesting - thanks for that... it's not a genre I usually watch, but I may make an exception in this case. I woke up around 2am today... might be just the thing to keep me awake, or alternatively put me back to sleep!
Gpfr wrote: "I think we've written about this before here - I'll recommend again a memoir Nisei Daughter and a novel When the Emperor Was Divine."Thanks - I'm not surprised the topic has been discussed... good suggestions. I suppose that, living in Europe, I never thought much about or was aware of the Japanese internment in the USA until I read Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson... in fact, learning about that experience was for me the most valuable aspect of that book, as I found it overpraised as a novel.
Georg wrote: "Reminded me, in a roundabout way, of Walter Moseley.... And of Toni Morrisons "Sula""Thanks for that - you should have kept those books! (I know many of us have moved frequently, and I have a few 'victims' I deeply regret...).
I'm pretty much up to date with the Mosley 'Easy Rawlins' series, which I love - though in the last one Easy seemed, indeed, to be leading too 'easy' a life in a sort of gated community for the rich - I preferred it when he was poor but aspirational, hardscrabbling his way up the ladder... Another character, ex-jailbird Socrates Fortlow, is the (anti-)hero of the Mosley book with my favourite title, which seems to sum up the USA black experience: Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned.
I have yet to read Toni Morrison, but by a coincidence I ordered Jazz last week - it should arrive any day now. I know that Beloved is better known, but I really can't 'do' ghosts so we'll see how this one goes - it will fill in a gap in my reading/education. If I'd done all this later, I would almost certainly have taken your recommendation for 'Sula' instead... and I'll read it if 'Jazz' works for me.
Edit: what you say about Mosley reminded me of this comment from Wikipedia:
Some regard Chester Himes as the literary equal of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.[11] Ishmael Reed says: "[Himes] taught me the difference between a black detective and Sherlock Holmes" and it would be more than 30 years until another black mystery writer, Walter Mosley and his Easy Rawlins and Mouse series, had even a similar effect.
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "There is a drama on BBC now set in 1942 concerning their experience with a horror angle called "The Terror". (George Takei, who experienced the camps stars in the drama)."Interesting..."
i see it mixing serious drama about the plight of the incarcerated with a horror element
Mod
Thanks - I'm not surprised the topic has been dis..."
Recently I listened to an old Backlisted podcast on The Plague and I by Betty MacDonald. The Plague and I is based on her experiences in a sanatorium when she had TB in 1938 and Monica Sone (author of Nisei Daughter) was in the sanatorium at the same time and they became friends. In the book, she's Kimi, if anyone has read/reads it. I recommend the book and the podcast.
Thanks for the introduction Anne. It’s better than ever to read now the threads last a month. It suits a summary more.
It must be a big effort, but your time is much appreciated.
Two from me..
The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark
The old Abbess is dead and the nuns are preparing to elect a new one. Initially, Sister Alexandra looks like a dead cert. During her tenure as sub-prioress, she introduced many innovations, including courses in IT. Conversely, she brought back the old Rule of St. Benedictine; prayers at midnight, 3am and 6am, no idle chatter, strictly no laughter, and nettles and cat food for supper.
Sister Felicity, with her ‘insufferable charisma’, becomes a challenger, preaching her gospel of love. But skeletons are discovered in her closet in the form of love letters to a Jesuit priest, just as she is creeping up the pre-election polls. She had been unaware of the CCTV Alexandra had had installed.
Now very concerned, Alexandra arranges Jesuit novices to break into her cell. Initially they steal a thimble to prove it can be done, then, as they move in for the letters, they are caught.
Felicity takes the huff and leaves, threatening to tell all to the press. Alexandra instructs her entourage to stall, what fuss over a thimble.
Big-hitter Sister Winifrede is caught in the men's toilets paying hush money to the Jesuit novices, and is mercilessly thrown to the wolves.
It seems nothing stop Alexandra.
Written originally as a satire of Watergate, this very humorous short novel could well now equally send up other political farces.
For me, it’s not Spark at her best, I prefer her when she writes more darkly, but nonetheless it is thoroughly entertaining.
and, Everest 1922: The Epic Story of the First Attempt on the World's Highest Mountain by Mick Conefrey
This book concerns the second of Mallory’s three Everest attempts, and arguably the least written about. The previous being the year before, and the third, the much documented expedition of 1924 on which he died.
Conefrey attempts to get to the reason as to why the expedition failed.
Initially, it was a huge challenge to even get to the mountain, straddled between Tibet and Nepal, both of which were closed off to the world.
Funding was also incredibly difficult. But having overcome those hurdles, after many years of planning, the expedition was drastically poorly equipped with particular regard to clothing. It also suffered from a lack of food despite taking more than 800 cases of provisions, which included 24 bottles of champagne..
This is a book for devoted to the history of the mountain. Whereas much of what Conefrey relates is not new, his research is impeccable and there is plenty of minutiae, some of which is of interest.
There’s always a danger in this sort of book in becoming nostalgic in not simply recounting the facts, and Conefrey does fall into that trap on occasions, but overall the book was worth the read, if for nothing less than the half dozen or so snippets of information that I was not already aware of.
Gpfr wrote: "Recently I listened to an old Backlisted podcast on The Plague and I by Betty MacDonald. The Plague and I is based on her experiences in a sanatorium when she had TB in 1938..."Haha! When I read the first line, I thought it was going to be a book about the person's relationship and reaction to Camus' The Plague. Just shows how easy it is for us to interject our own passions and prejudices into any discussion.
Andy wrote: "The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark."I checked the titles of Spark's novels a moment ago - many were familiar to me, but I don't recall reading any of them... I have Memento Mori on the TBR pile following a recent review... would that be a good place to start?
As for the mountaineering book: ...after many years of planning, the expedition was drastically poorly equipped with particular regard to clothing.
Was this because the organisers were simply ignorant about what, exactly, would be needed? Or was the information 'out there', but they preferred to pack champagne? Lack of information, or lack of common sense?
scarletnoir wrote: "Georg wrote: "Reminded me, in a roundabout way, of Walter Moseley.... And of Toni Morrisons "Sula""Thanks for that - you should have kept those books! (I know many of us have moved frequently, an..."
In my personal pantheon of 20th century writers two would sit side by side at the top: Toni Morrison and John Steinbeck. As different as they are.
At the same time I think that Toni Morrison might be a bit like marmite: love at first sight or not.
"Beloved" truly is a work of beauty in many respects. Yet It is also my least favourite book of hers because, like you, I have "issues" with magical realism. Which is absent, or only unobtrusively there, in her other books.
"Sula"? Well, the eponymous protagonist is not very likeable by a long stretch. Many of Morrison's characters are quite flawed. Yet she boldly puts them out there, leaving them to the mercy, or consideration, and, in the end, judgement of the reader.
Looking forward to your thoughts on "Jazz"/Morrison however they go.
Just finished the brief, angry A Small Place by West Indian writer Jamaica Kincaid, written in late 80sIts a non-fiction portrait of her home island Antigua, which she left for the USA in her teens. She carefully with cold anger speaks of the colonial history of the island leaving behind a corrupt and corrupting place. Its a good 35 years ago that she wrote it but i wonder if her island has got better.
The mention of drug dealing politicians reminds me that the PM of the BVI was arrested for drug trafficking a few months ago...
I'll put a plug in for - https://www.wingluke.org/tateuchi-sto... Wing Luke Museum in the heart of Seattle's ID (International District) is a great place to visit if you ever make it to town. There are even walking tours, but really all you need to do is start a 4th & Jackson and meander East and occasionally venture onto a side street.
The Costa awards are being scrapped:https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
A pity, I suppose - even though I often find award nominees and winners not to my taste, there are some gems and it's good publicity for books and reading. Rather oddly, the company hasn't sought to pass the baton to another sponsor - so far, anyway.
So there is a gap for any enterprise which is looking for new ways of garnering publicity. It can't be that hard to set up and run a book prize - can it?
Georg wrote: "Toni Morrison might be a bit like marmite: love at first sight or not... "Sula"? Well, the eponymous protagonist is not very likeable by a long stretch."'Jazz' arrived at lunchtime - I glanced at the first page and liked what I saw, so that's promising.
As for unlikeable characters - I could not care less, so long as they are interesting - I have a low boredom threshold.
Steinbeck... tried 'The Grapes of Wrath' and didn't care for it, much - too long ago to be sure why... it may be that it was too 'preachy' for my taste - I don't like it when authors too obviously mount on a soap box unless the character(s) are wholly convincing and three-dimensional - but in all honesty, I'm guessing here. I don't remember.
Edit: I just remembered that there IS a book by Steinbeck which I thoroughly enjoyed - his Travels with Charley: In Search of America. Perhaps he was better at reporting on real people and events than inventing characters and stories? I'd say that was true of Orwell, too.
scarletnoir wrote: "Andy wrote: "The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark."I checked the titles of Spark's novels a moment ago - many were familiar to me, but I don't recall reading any of them... I have
SN.
Spark is so varied you could start with any.
I started with A Far Cry from Kensington, but then second I think was Momento Mori.
The Abbess book is a diversion from her usual style really, but lots of fun.
I’m sure several others here have read her, so be interesting to know what they would advise.
My own favourite is The Portobello Road but I have many left to read.
Re 1922, poorly equipped for several reasons, finance, bickering amongst committees, poor choices. I think if this interests you then the book would. His research is meticulous.
Andy wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Andy wrote: "The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark."I checked the titles of Spark's novels a moment ago - many were familiar to me, but I don't recall reading any of them... I h..."
the girls of slender means...wartime kensington is a must read
Muriel Spark: I've read only her first novel, the Comforters, and an early 1980s one, Loitering with Intent, both very good. Between those two, I would probably rate The Comforters slightly higher so that would be my recommendation. I have Memento Mori lined up to read soon as well - I decided to skip her second novel, The Robinsons, for now, though I may go back to it later.
scarletnoir wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "Recently I listened to an old Backlisted podcast on The Plague and I by Betty MacDonald. The Plague and I is based on her experiences in a sanatorium when she had TB in 1938..."Haha!..."
Andy wrote: "and, Everest 1922: The Epic Story of the First Attempt on the World's Highest Mountain by Mick Conefrey [bookcover:Everest 1922: The Epic Story of the First Attempt..."
scarletnoir wrote: "Andy wrote: "The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark."
I checked the titles of Spark's novels a moment ago - many were familiar to me, but I don't recall reading any of them... I have [book:Memento Mo..."
Re: the history of mountaineering equipment, I'd recommend "Invisible on Everest: Innovation and the Gear Makers," by Mike Parsons and Mary Rose. Much innovation in climbing equipment was so-called user-led; e.g. undertaken by climbers (who then often went on to found businesses - examples too numerous to mention). In this respect it is appropriate that this book is co-authored by Mike Parsons, who built the small firm founded by his parents into Karrimor. Mary Rose is a business historian, formerly of Lancaster University (and someone I happen to know well).
I've not read it, but I would imagine Vanessa Heggie's "Higher & colder: a history of extreme physiology and exploration," must have material on clothing for extreme conditions, even if that isn't its main focus.
In the US, Rachel Gross is writing a history of the outdoor equipment industry.
I finished Henry Green's "Living" last weekend. As readers here know, I'd never heard of Green until a few weeks ago. When I asked about him there some strong endorsements, for which I am very grateful. I think I'm still processing "Living," first published in 1929 and set in and around a Birmingham engineering firm of that period. It is undoubtedly an odd book. First, there is the writing, an approximation of dialect and almost entirely missing the definite article. In truth, I didn't struggle with this, adjusting to it very quickly (though it never sounded like a Midlands accent in my head). The plot, which is scant, has an intense circularity. People try things. They don't work out. They're in the same place at the end of the book. Stasis and inertia rule. Trickier is parsing this as political comment. The book is intensely aware of class. Green was himself the scion of Birmingham business family, a conservative, and - as a writer - a modernist. The sources of the stasis and inertia are unclear. Perhaps he saw them as a property of the system as a whole?
"Living" came in a single volume with two other Green novels, "Loving" and "Party Going." I tried starting both but never got far with either. I don't think this is a reflection on their individual qualities, but simply that reading "Living" was quite an intense process and that it was a mistake to try and go straight into another. But I will definitely go back to them at some point.
A few days later I picked up the copy of Colm Tóbín's early "The Heather Blazing" bought randomly at a second hand bookstore a few days. I'm enjoying its quietness a great deal.
Veufveuve wrote: "I finished Henry Green's "Living" last weekend. As readers here know, I'd never heard of Green until a few weeks ago. .... almost entirely missing the definite article..."I think Green omits the definite article because it's often hardly pronounced in Midlands (and Northern?) English. A lot of writers show that by a t' such as 'up at t' top' but in reality it's mostly just a glottal stop so I think Green's way of showing it is more correct. Lacking a glottal stop symbol in normal written English - though not in IPA - there wasn't anything else he could do.
And I know each to his own but the reason I love Loving is that the characters are fantastic!
Veufveuve wrote: "I finished Henry Green's "Living" last weekend. As readers here know, I'd never heard of Green until a few weeks ago. When I asked about him there some strong endorsements, for which I am very grat..."i couldnt get past 30 pages in "Living", 20 years ago, far too stylistically messy i was going through a period of lesser known english working class novels like "Love on the dole" and works by alexander baron. I loved Baron but loathed Greenwood, as for Green i have "Loving" in a pile, so may try that sometime
scarletnoir wrote: Steinbeck... tried 'The Grapes of Wrath' and didn't care for it, much - too long ago to be sure why... it may be that it was too 'preachy' for my taste - I don't like it when authors too obviously mount on a soap box unless the character(s) are wholly convincing and three-dimensional I struggle with the word "preachy" because I don't know what exactly you mean by it.
TGoW is a fictional account of reality. The Joads (which I found to be convincing and three-dimensional enough) stood for thousands of real people who were powerless. Steinbeck gave them a voice. He wrote with passion and compassion. He was, with good reason, accused of being a socialist.
If TGoW were preachy, couldn't this word be used for every book that indicts social injustice? Or could works of social realism be divided into preachy and non-preachy? If that were the case: what would be the criteria?
Georg wrote: "I struggle with the word "preachy" because I don't know what exactly you mean by it."I'm not going to respond to your points specific to Steinbeck, because - as I said in my original post - it's too long ago and I don't recall in detail exactly why I was not blown away by this classic. I did finish it, though, so that's something.
By 'preachy', I mean that some authors use their books and characters to make their points in such an obvious and black-and-white way that there isn't any light and shade, or subtlety. I find books like that boring. It's far more interesting if the villain has some plausible justification, or if the hero has to act in a morally ambiguous way.
As for the evils of capitalism - I'd think that the fairly obvious examples from real life would be both more timely (when well reported) and more powerful, than depictions in fiction. Working people in the UK are currently being forced to use food banks... the government advises them to either work harder or to move to a better paid job.
I ask you!
Thanks to all for their Muriel Spark recommendations - I'll very likely read one sometime in 2022.Thanks also for the responses re. the mountain climbing expedition - I didn't expect such detailed replies! In all honesty, I expected short answers to the question, and feel a bit guilty now as I doubt that I have the interest in the subject to read the excellent books recommended. My bad.
Collected Stories by Paul Bowles is going well, they are generally on the shorter side with a few of novella length.The violence and dis-orientating set pieces of his late 1940s stories has faded a little, however there is still a cold, calm, calculating sense of fate, without morals. Characters exist on a skittish plane of conciousness, there is no real censorship on what may occur, to these people.
So far Africa hasnt dominated the locations, the skill and talent of Bowles as a writer is apparent, having being more used to his novels, short stories of his can leave you wanting more. I aim to read through from the 1950s to 1980, leaving the last two decades of his life till another time
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I have polished off the next two books in Mick Herron's Slough House series, Spook Street and London Rules. I had a lot of fun with both. It was then on to RC Sherriff's Greengates. I loved Sherriff's The Fortnight in September and I was hoping Greengates would cast a similar spell over me. I found it not quite as glorious as TFiS, but it was as charming as one could wish for and left me soothed in spirit. I'm now reading The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft by Claire Tomalin which has been compellingly page-turning so far, about a third of the way in.
Over to you now. Let's kick off with a much loved writer. Gpfr was:
FrancesBurgundy updates us on her progress with the monumental 800 page Reading I've Liked by Clifton Fadiman:
Congratulations to Russell on finishing Herodotus's Histories, but it is his review of Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams that I bring you:
Congratulations to CC who has turned 84:
Science fiction from Tam:
I haven't given you Russell's Herodotus, but I will take you back to the ancient world courtesy of Veufveuve:
Through time and space to Andy in Africa:
And now to Spain to find AB:
We come to rest at the feet of Elmore Leonard, where scarletnoir fills us in:
And finally, the best news on the thread. Anastasia has returned to us:
Happy reading, all.