How Long Was the Story

I finished reading How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn (Scribner, 1967) a couple of days ago.  I have been reading it for about 3 months.  I could probably stop writing there because who will be rushing out to pick up a book that an avid reader like me slowly slowly slowly got through?  I have nothing to say for myself except that it was a good, beautifully written book that took forever to read.

Funny, back at Christmastime, when I was telling my Uncle-in-law about the book I was reading, he had the same reaction that everyone over the age of, say 60, had when I mentioned reading it...they all had seen the movie, they all had loved the movie, they all had nostalgia about the movie.  No one I know, except my sister, by the way, has read the book.  The movie, I am sure you could still find somewhere.

Here is what was great about the book:  the writing.  I once took a fabulous class on Romantic Poetry (not love poems, but from the romantic era: 1798-1832).  Anyhoo, the class introduced me to Keats, Wordsworth, Blake, Byron, Coleridge, etc...  I had never enjoyed poetry as much as I did in this class.  The imagery and language were so beautiful to me and I really was entranced by it all.  I was reminded of that type of writing as I read How Green Was My Valley.  There is a lyrical nature to the writing in this book, as I read, I could hear the lilting singsong Welsh voices and wished that I could talk like them.  It was beautiful, and passages took my breath away with their loveliness.  For example, Huw, the main character, is old enough to get his first pair of long pants (trews, he calls them).  Hear the pride in this passage:

Royal, royal is the feeling, to be standing in your good long trews, and well I 

understand the feeling of gentlemen with sashes round their middles and 

feathers in their hats.  You are brave with glory, and with fear for none. (p. 306)

Later, Huw visits a nearby town for an excursion and skillfully the author describes this small town boy's perception of the strangeness and sadness of the city life:

There is strange to walk in a town.  Something is strange in the faces of 

people who live all their lives in a town.  For their lives are full of the 

clock and their eyes are blind with seeing so many wonders, and they

 have no plesure of expectations or prettiness of wish.  Good things are 

heaped in the windows all around  them, but their pockets are empty,

and thus they suffer in their minds, for where they would own, now they

must wish, and wishes denied soon turn to a lust that shows itself in the 

face.  Too much to see, day after day, and too much noise for peace, and 

too little time in a round of the clock to sit by themselves and think.  (p. 464)

The story is essentially the story of a Welsh coal-mining family and specifically almost a coming of age novel about its main character, Huw.  The world they inhabit is small and the world out there is something to be defended against.  Their world and livelihood as coal miners has been threatened by reduced wages and discontent workers.  However, I loved reading about the pride of this large family, and many moments brought tears to my eyes.  

And, on a completely different and seemingly unrelated note, this story reaffirmed to me something about what it means to honor women.  I wonder if ever anyone else might say that about this book.  You see, the mother in this family was uneducated, perhaps had never left her hometown and didn't have a single ounce of desire for learning, in fact, she didn't hold much value for education at all.  Yet, she was honored, respected and above all adored.  Here's where I go off on a pet peeve of mine.  I think that women's lib was a great thing; women had for centuries been held back from rights that they so obviously deserved.  However, one of the major fallouts for the feminist movement is that no one, not men and even not women themselves, respect motherhood or homemaking anymore.  Now, don't get me wrong, not every woman was meant to be either a mother or a homemaker, and I 100% support a woman's right to determine what she might do, however, when a woman might choose to be "just" a mom or "just" be a homemaker, they ought to be respected and revered for that particular choice.  There is a lot of lipservice out there for both occupations, but as a society, there is no reverence for either.  That said, this Welsh family couldn't have lifted a woman up higher in their awe of her.  She was the wheel that kept the family going and while she wasn't worldy, she was strong and just the kind of woman I would want to be.  At one point in the story, a young Huw witnesses a woman giving birth to a child, and he was obviously upset by the pain, blood and anguish he saw.  His father gave him this bit of wisdom:

"Listen to me.  Forget all you saw.  Leave it.  Take your mind from it.  It has 

nothing to do with you.  But use it for experience.  Now you know what hurt

it brings to women when men come into the world.  Remember, and make

it up to your Mama and to all women."

"Yes, Dada," I said.

"And another thing, let it do," my father said. "There is no room for pride in

any man.  There is no room for unkindness.  There is no room for wit at the

expense of others.  All men are born the same, and equal.  As you saw to-day,

so come the Captains and the Kings and the Tinkers and the Tailors.  Let the

memory direct your dealings with men and women.  And be sure to take good

care of Mama."

I have a suspicion that part of the strength of Huw's mother came directly as a result of the undaunted honor that was afforded her by a husband that respected her and a family that longed to please her.  

So, if ever you wanted to savor a page or a paragraph a day and reread and reread passages to soak in their beauty, this book is for you.  If you read it or have read it, let me know, I would love to reminisce about its loveliness.

Forever and a day

It's been forever since I wrote and I promised myself that I would be committed to writing, mostly because it is good for me.  And, I will write, I promise, I promise.  I will write about the book I am currently reading (taking a long time) and in the meantime, I can write about what I am not reading.  

I am not reading God Grew Tired Of Us because it was a movie I watched the other day, not a book at all.  By the way, there are a lot of books about the Lost Boys of Sudan, so if you have something against film, by all means read one.  What I learned from watching the movie mostly beside the great, terrible atrocities that have occured in yet another place in the world, is the power of the human soul to rise above the worst that can be thrown at you.  It is a good film to watch with your family and talk about at the dinner table.  

I am not reading any books about music because I have been listening to Patty Griffin's "Heavenly Day" over and over and kicking myself that I hadn't heard her beautiful voice before.  

When I am done reading what I am reading now I WILL be reading a long list of books that are taunting me.  I just can't remember all their names right now.  

That is the state of affairs around here.  Not much to report.

Full disclosure

No big surprise, but I have a pretty big most embarrassing moment.  For me, anyway.  What might be surprising, is that this one has to do with books.  Or rather, an author.  I have actually told some friends about this horrifying experience, but I have mostly kept it under wraps.

It has taken me a few years to get over it.

I am a big fan of Pat Conroy.  I have read most of his books (The Prince of Tides, Lords of Discipline, The Great Santini, Beach Music, and probably my favorite, The Water is Wide).  I have an affection for southern writers, I don't know what it is, but something about the stories are magnetic to me.  Stories of families exposed and at their most fragile and yet, deeply tied together.  In college, I did an independent study on William Faulkner (the reigning king of Southern Lit in my humble opinion), and while the style is different, the themes are similar.   I'll just bet that Pat Conroy has never been compared to Faulkner before...as I am typing these words, I can feel the earth shift  (hello, all six of you readers!!).  Anyhoo, I digress, get thee to a second hand store or library and pick up one of those aforementioned Conroy books...you won't regret it.

So, and here is the full disclosure part.  Quite a few years ago, probably 15 or so, when I was young, naive and foolish (that's my excuse, and I am sticking to it!), I heard that Mr. Conroy was going to be giving a book reading at a local college and everything was dropped and my sister, a friend and I hightailed it to hear him.  It was great.  Pat Conroy is an amazing story-teller.  He read a little from his new release (Beach Music) and then told some of the funniest stories I have ever heard.  I laughed so hard I cried.  He was charming and funny and just the way I thought he should be.  We could go up after the reading to have our copies of his book signed and I certainly did.  I was working at the time at a very small publishing company and still had aspirations of becoming a writer one day and when it was my turn to get my book signed I told him all of the above and mentioned that I would be heading down to his neck of the woods the next day (Columbia, SC).  We hit it off!!  When he heard that I was heading down to the good ol' south, he said, "You should look up my brother!!"  And, since Pat was now my bestest bud in the whole world, I said "Yes!," and,  "Of course!"  

Here is the moment where I hang my head.  I hadn't totally grasped the whole lovely notion of pleasantries, I was just a youngster, you see.  I flew down to Columbia, South Carolina, the next day.  And because I was beginning to have a sneaking suspicion that Mr. Conroy did not, in fact, actually intend for me to find his brother and hang out with him, I waited until the last day of our visit to look up Mr. Conroy's brother in the phone book.  But, I felt a moral obligation, so I felt I must call him!  I promised!  And, as I dialed the number and a stranger's voice answered the phone, I realized what a dope I was.   But, it was too late.  I had Pat Conroy's brother on the other end of the line and I couldn't just hang up on him.  So, I tried to chat a minute, let him know I had promised his famous brother that I would call him up and then things really took a turn for the worst when he strongly hinted that he needed to go because his WIFE and he had plans that night (he did emphasize WIFE, for goodness sake).  He thought I was hitting on him, maybe even using him to get to his brother (did I mention that Pat Conroy is going to be 65 this year?...that makes him 27 years older than me.)!!  I hung up the phone quickly just as I noticed my husband standing in the doorway of our hotel room shaking his head and vividly grimacing. He didn't know he had married an author groupie.   I hated that he had to find out that way.

It is a wonder I could ever pick up another book written by Pat Conroy.  And while a little teensy bit painful, not enough to deter me from a good story.  He has just recently (as of August '09), come out with a new book, South of Broad.  I'll let you know how that goes.

Daniel Pinkwater!

I was pleasantly surprised to discover a new author...about 30 years later than I wish I had. Daniel Pinkwater has written, according to his website, about 100 books. He is also a contributor on NPR's All Things Considered. Which means I probably have heard him before, I just hadn't heard of him. And it's a shame.

I bought my 5th grade daughter The Neddiad the other day because simply it looked like a good book. And with the subtitle: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood and Saved Civilization, I was won over. It sounded like a good adventure any 5th grader could get into. She couldn't put it down. When I asked her to tell me about the story, she said that it was about a boy who gets a turtle and has to keep it safe and people were trying to get it from him. That sounded like an okay story. Although. She couldn't stop reading it and talked about it quite a bit (and told me that it was really hard to explain the story) and then wrote a letter to the author for a class project (hasn't sent it yet, I'll get back to you on that).

The next thing I knew she set it down on the kitchen counter one morning and was FINISHED. And, I thought to myself...maybe I should read this book, too; see what she liked, and try to get a grasp of what was so hard to explain about it. About 7 delightful hours later, broken up, of course, over two days (or the family would have complained mightily), I was done. One might think, like I did, that since the title is a dead ringer for the Iliad, that it might be a retelling of that monumental tale. But, really, it isn't. Instead, on one level (the level that perhaps a fifth grader might most easily understand), it IS the story of a young boy given a mysterious and courageous task and how he accomplishes it. Also, there are wacky characters, shamans, a ghost that joins in the story, even aliens...who could ask for more?

On another level (the one that I have been pondering in the five days since I finished the book), it is the classic story of good and evil. The story that transcends culture, time and place. Daniel Pinkwater basically took the mythical heros and demons of many cultures and threw them all in a pot, mixed them together and wove them all into a great book. Like the Saturday matinees the characters in the book so love to watch, Neddie's trip across America to the land of Hollywood (where new myths are recreated over and over again for the screen), Neddie is the good guy (and really a good kid) who unwittingly becomes a mythical force for good against the bad guy. The book is chock full of references to mythological figures of good and evil, which I have to think Pinkwater must have had a gigantically delightful time digging up to tuck into every corner of the book.

This is such a good, fun read. Read it with a kid you know (on Amazon, it is recommended for 5th-9th graders, and I agree), and enter Daniel Pinkwater's zany world together, it would be a thrilling ride. I am planning on reading The Yggyssey next, after, of course, my daughter reads it.

Check out http://www.pinkwater.com/ .

On another note...

We had guests over the other night.  After lots of delicious food at Christmas, I wanted to lighten things up.  I made a Peasant Vegetable Soup (and when I defined "peasant" for my daughter, she said..we aren't poor, are we?  Those pesky nuances!)  and some No-Knead Bread with a tossed salad.  Hit the spot perfectly.  

And this wouldn't be a blog about books if I didn't mention the two cookBOOKS I rescued those recipes from.  The first one, The Silver Palate, by Sheila Lukins and Barbara Russo (I have the old edition) is full of the best kind of recipes.  And, numerous reviewers claim it is the only cookbook you need.  Beware:  lots of ingredients, lots of chopping but...that equals homecooked food better than pretty much any run of the mill restaurant around.   

The other cookbook was one I received for my birthday from my sis.  My Bread:  The Revolutionary, No Work, No Knead Method by Jim Lahey and Rick Flaste.  All I need say is, remarkable.  

You don't need, of course, to buy the cookbook, there are lots of good recipes online.

Eat up.

To loose the chains of injustice... The Help by Kate Stockett

"Is this not the kind of fasting I have chosen:  to loose the 

chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, 

to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?"  

Isaiah 58:6

Last year, my oldest daughter read a book about the sit-ins that occured during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's.  She was telling me about the book she read (can't remember the name) and I thought immediately that while her interest was still peaked, she should try to contact an old friend of mine whose father participated in some sit-ins in North Carolina.  I wanted her to talk to a real, live person who participated in the history changing events of that time.  To make a long story short, George, my friend's father, contacted her and here is an excerpt of the note that he wrote:

Dear _____ ,

I was 20 years old, from Georgia, and, like everyone I knew, believed black people and white people should be separate in every way.  No one had ever told me any differently.  In those days, black people were not allowed to eat, or play, or go to movies, or, really, do anything with white people.  Then, one day, I saw something on TV that made me think.  It was something that happened in Greensboro, NC, just a short way from where I (and, many years later, your mommy) went to college.  Some black college students had gone into a store that had a lunch counter, had sat at the counter, ordered food, been refused and told to leave, and had refused to leave--just sat there!  I saw it on the news.  They interviewed one of the black students, who said something that changed my mind--and, really, my life.  He said, "I can shop at any counter in Greensboro, by the lunch counter.  When I get hungry, I have to go back to the black neighborhood to eat.  That isn't fair."  Listening to him, I had to admit that it wasn't fair, and began to think about it.  

Next day in my philosophy class at Wake Forest, we talked about that, and I thought about it some more.  A few days later I saw one of the people from that class, and he was all dressed up.  I asked why, and he said, "We're going to meet some black students, and do what they did in Greensboro.  Want to go?"  It sounded exciting to me, so I said yes, got dressed up too, and went.  After I got downtown, where we were to meet the black students, I realized I'd never really known a black person who was like me before.  So this was a big deal for me.  We met the black students, and paired up.  My partner was named, Skeet Diggs.  It was scary, but exciting, to meet somebody so different, but, really very much like me.  So we went to the store with the lunch counter.  As soon as we entered, the manager came out and closed the store (because there were black people there).  So we went to another store.  There, they'd called the police, who were waiting for us.  

The policeman said we had to leave, or be arrested.  We didn't leave, and got arrested.  Over the next few months, people all over the South did the same thing we'd done, got arrested, and got people thinking.  Within a year, all the lunch counters in the South were desegregated--which means, black people could eat there.

It was very scary to be involved in that.  I never thought I'd be arrested by the police for anything.  I'm not sure I understood what I was doing at the time, but people who did understand, and who got arrested for reasons like that, did so because they believed that the law itself was unjust, and that it should not be obeyed--in this case, the law that allowed  lunch counters to decide that only white people could eat there.

_____, I'm very proud of you for being interested in this.  You will probably be in situations where you will be told, by older people, by friends, or, even, by the law, to do something you know is wrong--or not do something you know is right.  I'll bet you will be brave, and do what you know is right, whatever the risk or the cost.

Needless to say, this note to my daughter was more inspirational and real than any story could ever be.  

Reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett inspired me even more.  The story is written in the voices of two black maids to Jackson, Mississippi families and one white young woman who endeavors to write their stories during the 1960's.  I don't think I am giving anything at all away when I say that the book is filled with the kind of tension and intrigue akin to stories of Jewish resistence in Nazi Germany.  The story is fiction, but for all intents and purposes, it is real.  

Stockett manages skillfully and respectfully to tell the stories of personal injustice that many of us would rather not think about really happened in the not too distant past...in our own country.  The book so captures the wide reaching effects of prejudice on a community, on a nation and on individual men and women, both white and black.  It also highlights the bravery of a few individuals who risk everything for simple freedoms and relationships.  

As my friend, George, so skillfully wrote in his letter to my daughter, one person can make a difference, one person's bravery does move mountains...as a matter of fact, it is only one person that each of us can account for...ourselves.  

This story made me ponder what injustice I am willing to overlook, what wrong do I turn away from without thinking, and how can I open my eyes and begin to see what just me, one person, can do to loose the chains of injustice.

I cannot recommend this book enough.  I am incredulous to the fact that I know many many people who were young adults during the events of the Civil rights movement, and yet, I had heard so little about it growing up.  What we now take for granted (a societal disdain for prejudice) was once completely accepted and expected.  Prejudice is insidious, it exists in the minds and hearts of unknowing people.  The reality is we ought to know, we ought to consider how everyday actions reinforce situations in which people needlessly are diminished.  

"Let us not become weary of doing good, for at the proper

time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."  The Apostle Paul

Half Broke Horses, by Jeannette Walls

"Sometimes, after I finished a particularly good book, I had the urge to get the library card, find out who else had read the book, and track them down to talk about it."

-Half Broke Horses, by Jeannette Walls, page 90

Pumpkin's in the oven making the smells that remind me of the busy week ahead.  So, to start it off, I think I must write about my latest book.  I just finished it a few days ago, so it is hot off the press, so to speak.

The quote above pretty much sums up my feelings when it comes to reading a good book.  I just have this urge to sit down and chew the fat with some other person who read what I just read and needs to process like I do all the thoughts, emotions and reactions I had to said book.  I am, when I am being honest, slightly disappointed in how many people in my life just aren't readers.  Different strokes for different folks, I know, but for goodness sake, talking about a good book is such a bonding experience.  It is like a window into another's soul. 

On that note, Jeannette Walls' second book is a lot like her first (The Glass Castle).  It is another story of passionate human spirit and in a way, a deep look at her own DNA.  And it is fascinating.  While The Glass Castle is the memoir of her own childhood, she names Half Broke Horses "a true life novel" about the life of her tough, hardworking, no nonsense grandmother, Lily Casey.  And here's the thing I loved:  it is Lily under the microscope, warts and all...yet, and for me the thing I love most about Wall's writing, there is a deep admiration for this woman which is balanced with a healthy look at her faults.  For instance, she pulls herself up by her bootstraps, makes her way up from almost no formal education to becoming a passionate teacher during the depression (performing almost a miracle in schedule juggling to get her degree at one point) yet, she can be mean...really mean, exacting corporal punishment on her daughter which really goes too far.  

This is a reminder to look at the whole person.  The sum of the parts is what elicits admiration, not the isolated incidents of human failings.  Wouldn't we all wish to have that gracious gift given to us?  To excuse the disappointing moments in favor of the beautiful composite.  

I recently went to the Guggenheim to see the most recent exhibit (on Kandinsky).  I noticed that the visitors there stood back as far as they could in order to study the works, only a very few got up close.  Actually, those who got too close, were shooed away by the museum guards.   You were SUPPOSED to stand away from the painting to take it all in, the purpose was the whole thing, not one part over another.  It was the whole painting that was the masterpiece. 

   

Kandinsky, Improvisation 28, 1912

After I read The Glass Castle, I was amazed at Walls' ability to take pretty much a story of an awful life, with looney parents and seemingly hopeless circumstances and imbue it with a sense of pride and loyalty in those parents and circumstances.  Don't get me wrong, when she writes in Half Broke Horses about her grandmother, she doesn't gloss over those bad decisions, but calls it like it is:  the good with the bad, and if I may extend the analogy even further, paints the whole picture.  

Well written, interesting and inspiring...what more could you want from a good story?  Now, I just have to hunt down someone else who's read it!