THE VACATION NOT YET TAKEN

Weekend Assignment #7:  Share the vacation you most want to take, but haven't taken yet.

Okay, since this is one of my Life Goals and I'm already getting extremely long in the tooth, it's nice that you asked.  Talking about it may be all I ever get to do.  But, there's a dance in the old dame yet and I fully intend to do this before I cash in all my chips.

It's The Galápagos Islands, off the coast of Ecuador, one of the earth's most amazing places.  I want to take one of the ecologically-oriented boats that take you out to the islands. You live on the boat, dive off the boat, have naturalists who guide you on the islands, give lectures and talks on board ship.  These islands were, of course, Darwin's inspiration, and they still have much of the amazing life forms that he encountered there.  For the birds, the lizards, the volcanic rock formations, for the sea life in the surrounding waters  - this place has long been my ultimate dream.  I could wax into a frenzy about the birds alone, the blue-footed booby, the masked booby, the frigate bird,  birds that don't even sound or look real.  About 90% of the islands are National Park land, and here is a great website to visit to learn more about the Park.  I'm not going to give you any pictures, because I've never been there! but the site has plenty. To see the birds of the islands, go to Birds of the Galápagos and check the list and photos. I do have a friend who took herself on this trip for her 60th birthday present, and I've seen her mind-blowing pictures. Go take a virtual trip and you'll see why this is my Dream Vacation.  You might also look for this book:  The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time,  by Jonathan Weiner.  Just to keep this in the book journal vein.

PHILOSOPHICAL SUPERHEROES

Both Sappho's Breathing and John Scalzi are linking to these guys (all guys, yes, no Hannah Arendt, no Simone de Beauvoir), and they are certainly worth a visit.  But both Scalzi and Cleis are Philosophy Scholars - I believe I have somewhere read that Scalzi was a Philo major, and Cleis is studying it right now.  Feminist Philosophy, for her part.  These Superheroes may have a limited audience.  Since I went to a Catholic University, well, no, TWO of them, I have more than a passing aquaintance with all of these sages.  We were required to take years of philosophy.  It was never exactly my strong suit, however.

THE JANE ADDICTION

I've just finished reading the most delightful and entertaining novel, The Jane Austen Book Club,  by Karen Joy Fowler.  You may be shocked to learn I've never been much of an Austen fan, read Pride and Prejudice years ago, started Sense and Sensibility around the same time, but abandoned it.  I actually remember little of what I did read of these books.  Now, however, things may change.  This delicious novel may have convinced me to give Jane herself another try. 

The book takes two very popular subjects, Austen and book clubs, and entwines them, six Austen novels, six chapters, six meetings of the club.  The prologue opens with this sentence:  "Each of us has a private Austen," then the novel proceeds to display the truth of that statement.  The members of the club are six women and one man, of different ages and life conditions.  Along the way we learn a good deal more about their lives, to tell the truth, than we actually do about Austen's novels.  This makes it possible to enjoy the book even if you have not made a close study of the novels themselves - the book commentary is actually rather shallow and perfunctory, whereas the rest of the dialogue is entirely captivating and believeable. It is the lives of the people discussing the books that make this book so entertaining.  Bernadette, Jocelyn, Sylvia, Allegra, Prudie and Grigg are so endearingly portrayed, through a narrative voice that is a little mystifying - sometimes a plural omniscient "we," which then moves into, one at a time, each character's life, history, thoughts - that I felt I knew them well.  And became quite fond of them.  Romance, match-making, happy endings, all these Austenesque elements are here for these characters, albeit in a very 21st century fashion.

At the end of the book there are several interesting appendices:  a Reader's Guide to the Austen novels, quick character and plot summaries - perhaps a good idea to read this first, if it's been a while, or you have never read Austen;  a section called "The Response" which lists reactions and responses to Austen's writing from such diverse personae as members of her own family and friends to Mark Twain ("Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone.") to Kingsley Amis to Andy Rooney ("I have never read anything Austen wrote.  I just never got at reading Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility. They seemed to be the Bobbsey Twins for grown-ups.") to Margaret Drabble to an editorial in Forbes magazine.  I particularly love Fay Weldon's quote:  "I also think...that the reason no one married her was the same reason Crosby didn't publish Northanger Abbey.  It was just all too much. Something truly frightening rumbled there beneath the bubbling mirth:  something capable of taking the world by its heels, and shaking it." 

The third appendix is a wonderful little quirky end note, called "Questions for Discussion" it consists of questions from the characters, members of the book club.  Some of the questions refer back to points raised during discussions of Austen's novels, some have to do with personal events in the characters' lives, some are just darned interesting questions about books and reading, or how they relate to life, in general.  For instance:  Do you ever wish your partner had been written by some other writer, had better dialogue and a more charming way of suffering?  What writer would you choose?   A question worth considering, hmmmmm?

WEEKEND ASSIGNMENT #6

Weekend Assignment #6: Tell us about your best friend in second grade (or the grade closest to that in which you remember having a "best friend"). Where is he or she now? Do you still keep in touch?

My best friend in second grade, in Walpole, Massachusetts, was Mary Allen Hawkins.  We are no longer in touch, a fact I lament, because she was my first "best friend" and I remembered her fondly long after that.  Still do, in fact.  My name is Mary Ellen, hers was (hopefully still is) Mary Allen, it was made in heaven. We were both bookworms, somewhat pudgy, wore glasses, had long pigtails down our backs, did not have TV's in our households.  We were, I now see in retrospect, second-grade nerds!  We didn't know that, though, and so we had lots and lots of fun together.  We read the same books, talked about them, acted them out  (big fight over who got to be Jo, in Little Women, because of course we both wanted to!), went to the Library together, rode on the Swan Boats together in the Public Garden in Boston. 

We were tight as ticks for that one year.  My father was going to grad school at Tufts in Boston, but by the next school year we had moved away to Pennsylvania and I entered third grade as a newcomer.  Because my father was a dentist in the U.S. Army, this happened constantly.  I can't even count the number of schools I attended in my life as a dependent child.  However, Mary Allen and I remained long-distance friends.  We wrote, we phoned, and  -this will show you what a long time ago this all was, what a different world we lived in-  that next summer I rode the train, by myself, from Philadelphia to Boston, where Mary Allen's family met me and I spent part of my vacation there.  (Can you imagine putting an eight year old on a train by herself nowadays?  I sure wouldn't.  My mother sat me beside, and put me in the care of, a Nice Lady who was also traveling to Boston.  Still, knowing my mother, even in those days she worried constantly until the phone call came of my arrival.)

The snake in the garden though - I had aquired a New Best Friend in PA by then, Molly O'Day was her name.  We remained BF's through fifth grade, after which my family moved off to the Next Place.  Mary Allen and I remained in touch for a long time, with decreasing frequency of course.  I tried to find her when I moved back to MA in the 1980's as an adult.  But the trail was cold.  She'd grown up, probably married, moved away.  Mary Allen - if you're out there somewhere in Internet Land and this finds you - send up a flare!  I'd love to know your story.

Haven't yet unearthed a picture from this time, but I'm going thru boxes.  I see you get Extra Credit for pictures!

Later the same day:  no Extra Credit for me.  The closest I can come to a second grade picture is a first grade First Communion picture.  Pretty darn cute it is too.  Maybe it will fit into some later weekend assignment, who knows?

AMERICAN GODS, AND OMG, NEIL GAIMAN!!!

With deep regret and sorrow I just closed the back cover on one of the most astonishing books I've ever read:  American Gods, by Neil Gaiman.  I seldom feel this way, but right now I have half a mind to go back and open the front cover and start all over again.  There is so much in this book, and I fear, because I read so fast, I may have missed a good bit of it.  Mara, of Muse nLA, asked if this is the same Neil Gaiman of The Sandman series, and yes, indeed it is the very same.  This guy has an amazing mind, which I first encountered reading his children's books.  They're not your usual cute cuddly stories, they're warped and scary and I think actually in touch with the sorts of fears children have about the mystifying world of parents and life.

So, then I went to Gaiman's website, a place to which I must return for a considerable period of time.  He has a blog there, called a journal, but - you know, same thing.  Here is where you can read more about American Gods, it has its own page.  You can even read an excerpt, also pages from longhand notebooks he kept while writing the book.  Something I didn't know - it won the Hugo last year.  That's the big lit prize for Science Fiction.  I had no idea how to categorize this novel:  fantasy fiction?  science fiction?  stoner fiction?  It won the Hugo for best Science Fiction/Fantasy Fiction novel of 2003, so I guess it's everything!  Having recently read His Dark Materials, I have to say I see some resemblances among these books: the interpenetration of worlds, mythic wars,mythic beings interacting with humans, etc.  These are certainly the stuff of many a fantasy or science fiction book, so I guess it's actually the gods in both books that make me see a connection. 

More later on this.  I'm off to do some more reading on Gaiman's site.

FLOTSAM AND JETSAM

But, first - check this out!  This little book journal is featured on AOL's Book Page right now.  I just discovered this fact by doodling around over there to see what was on offer.  It's on the Book Clubs page, when you get there click on "AOL's Book Lovers" and there is The Biblio Philes!  Did you know about the book interest pages here on AOL?  I didn't, until I discovered the links on Random Readers' book journal.  I'd love to have this bring some more readers around to visit here, and comment, leave: suggestions, book thoughts, favorite authors, wishes, lies and dreams.  any old thing.

Some books I'd ordered arrived today - always an exciting event.  My brother-in-law was loving this one, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, so much that I decided I had to have it.  Besides, I teach writing!  And often have punctuation quandries of my own.  This book was a great best-seller in the UK and is now also one here.  It's sub-titled "The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation."  Sounds dull and boring, no?  No.  It's quite wittily and engagingly written, as it would have to be to become a best-selling punctuation manual. 

I'm mulling over John Scalzi's weekend assignment, whether to bite or not.  It's to tell a tale of a personal celebrity encounter.  I do actually have several, but the one that stands out is with Annie Dillard.  It's not very nice, either.  So, I'll continue to mull for a while before I decide whether to write it up. 

I finished FlashBack, the mystery novel I mentioned yesterday, while waiting for the AC in the Matrix to be fixed (a blown O ring, allowing the freon to drain away).  It's truly not worth discussing.  The best I can say about it is it had great local color.  Began in Burgundy, France, spent quite a while in North Africa, returned to Paris, then wandered off to Eastern Europe.  The Morocco section was my favorite.  Made me want to catch a plane immediately.  Even though it involved a lot of nasty violence. 

LATER:  I've decided to forego the telling of my Annie Dillard story.  I still love her writing, even though I think she may be nuts.  Instead I'll tell my "first celebrity crush" story, as that was one of the weekend assignment options.  It happened when I was nine years old - my mother took me to see Peter Pan on Broadway, with Mary Martin in the title role.  I fell in love.  With Mary Martin, with Peter Pan, with Broadway, with The Theatah.  I came out of the theatre in a total daze, setting my brandnew handbag down on the sidewalk when I knelt down to tie my shoes, getting up and walking off leaving the purse behind me.  By the time my mother realized what had happened it was too late.  It was, of course, long gone.  I went home, saved up my allowance until I had enough to buy the cast recording of Peter Pan, played it until I knew every song by heart (and I still do), read everything I could find about Mary Martin.  Then went on to read everything I could find about every Broadway play that had ever happened.  There was a kind of yearbook that was published about every year of the theatre in New York, I don't know if this is still true.  Eventually I had taken every one of them out of the library and knew every actor, actress, singer, dancer, playwright, director and everything they'd ever done.

From that nine-year-old play-going on through college, I had but one ambition:  to act.  And act I did, in high school plays, in college plays and musicals, in USO performances for the troops during my junior year abroad in France.  I gave up the idea of trying to make a career of my passion, due mainly to parental horror at the idea.  I've done a little acting since then, in amateur groups here and there, but in recent years haven't had time for it.  There are times, even now, when I regret listening to my parents - I never see a play or a musical without wishing I was up there on the stage, not necessarily with my name in lights - the chorus would do just fine.  And I followed Mary Martin's career and life to the end, and mourned her deeply when she died. 

UP-DATING ON MY RECENT READS

As you can see from the sidebar, I've been reading up a storm.  The Amateur Marriage was one of the saddest books I've ever read - Anne Tyler has outdone herself.  I've read all of her previous books, loved them all, but none as much as this one.  Though sad, I think it is her best book yet.  Before this my favorite was Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, which my youngest sister claims I relate to all too well.  Amateur Marriage is the story of, yep, a marriage, beginning in 1943 in the midst of the War and continuing up to the present day.  It's a simple story of life as lived by real people, no fancy plotline, no exotic locale, just very real people living very real lives.  with all the twists and turns, pains and joys, problems and sorrows that entails.  to say more would be unfair; as i said, the plot is simple:  two people meet, marry, have children, grow older.  a lot happens along the way, but much of it will happen unexpectedly (again, as in life).  i don't want to spoil it or give anything away to anyone who might plan to read this marvelous book.

A Certain Slant of LIght probably suffered from being read immediately after Anne Tyler's novel.  I might have liked it better if I had read it long before or long after.  It's a good story, a man living alone in a cabin in rural Maine, who has become a sort of hermit after a terrible family tragedy destroyed his previous life.  He's been there for twenty years, with only animals and a few neighbors for company, when his solitude is interrupted by the arrival, in the midst of a late-winter ice storm, of a mysterious pregnant woman.  He unwillingly takes her in, what else can he do?  fully intending to "get rid" of her as soon as the roads are once again passable.  and thereby hangs the tale.  It's a story of guilt, pain, loss, redemption, ultimately, not to sound totally hackneyed, of the triumph of life over death.  The writing style occasionally annoyed me; it's written in the present tense, and though I understand why - it grated now and then.  I've registered this book with Bookcrossing and will "release" it in the coming days.

I've been neglecting Bookcrossing, but have just registered three books and look forward to following their journeys.  Three of the six books I released earlier have been "caught" and enjoyed by other readers, one just yesterday. 

Currently I'm  back to trashy mystery reading, nothing heavy or deep.  Jenny Siler's most recent book, FlashBack, is keeping me intrigued and puzzled.  The library called to say they have three books I've ordered, so I'll pick them up on my way out of town.

STILL HERE, STILL READING

As I've said ad nauseum in my other journal, I'm currently totally nuts with end-of-semester flotsam and jetsam, all of which will be over and behind me by this time next week.  Then I'll be heading to Texas for a week or so with family there.  Long ago I promised I'd write about the young people's trilogy His Dark Materials, a promise upon which I have so far failed to make good.  It will take me some long thoughtful time to write about those books, so have a seat while you're waiting. 

In the meantime, I've just read John Dunning's latest Bookman mystery (a "bibliomystery"), The Bookman's Promise.  If you like both books and mysteries and don't yet know John Dunning, hurry to your nearest source for books and get Booked to Die and The Bookman's Wake.  Then pray for some long rainy days you can spend guiltlessly reading.  The one I just finished is the third one in the series, and has been way too long a-coming.  Our hero is a former cop, now owner of a used-and-rare bookstore on East Colfax in Denver.  Seems like a stretch?  Cop to bibliomaniac?  No, it has never felt that way to me, I believe in Cliff Janeway's bibliopassion  and have learned some interesting tidbits from reading these books.  This latest begins with Janeway's being interviewed on NPR about a rare volume he's just purchased at auction, a two-volume set by Sir Richard Burton (no no no, not one of Liz Taylor's husbands, a Victorian traveler, explorer, linguist, writer, renaissance man).  The story takes us back in time and place to the American South just before the Civil War.  So if you like a little history in your mystery, there's that too.

John Dunning is himself a retired used-and-rare book dealer. His books are engaging mysteries, entirely convincing pictures of the trade, and you can tell yourself you're not just reading another trashy mystery, see?  I learned enough about this Burton to make me want to read more about and by him.  One of his many achievements was translating, for the first time, the Arabian tales of The One Hundred and One Nights.