Thirst by Mary Oliver

According to Wikipedia quoting the New York Times (for whatever that's worth) Mary Oliver is America's best-selling poet.  So, yes. I am woefully under read in the poetry department--I'd never heard of her.  But let me tell you, she's great!  And I didn't even read the collection that won her the Pulitzer!  (That would be American Primitive published in 1984, for those of you who are wondering.)

In Thirst, Oliver is grappling with the death of her partner of over forty years.  Somehow during the mourning process, she fines meaning in the faith of her youth and looks to the passion of Christ to help her navigate her grief.  Since she typically writes in a fashion often likened to Thoreau, her journey to Christ takes us through the natural world, as in "The Beautiful, Striped Sparrow"

In the afternoons,

in the almost empty fields,

I hum the hymns

I used to sing

in church.

They could not tame me,

so they would not keep me,

alas,

and how that feels,

the weight of it,

I will not tell

any of you,

not ever.

Still, as they promised,

God, once he is in your heart,

is everywhere--

so even here

among the weeds

and the brisk trees.

How long does it take

to hum a hymn?

Read the rest here. 

She doesn't hold back when examining the sadness she feels, as seen in "Heavy":

That time 

I thought I could not

go any closer to grief

without dying

I went closer,

and I did not die.

Surely God

had His hand in this,

as well as friends.

Still, I was bent, 

and my laughter,

as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.

Read the rest here.

I don't touch upon faith much on this blog because it is just so personal, but I really liked this collection and plan to read more Mary Oliver.

<I checked this book out of my library.>

Be It Ever So Humble. . .

Fingers crossed!!

I know I have been absent from my blog this month.  But, you guys, we are buying a house!!!  I don't want to jinx it, we haven't had the home inspection or anything yet and it could still fall through.  But, it's looking really promising.  It's four doors down from my grandma's house so we can help keep her in her home as long as possible.  It has 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 bathrooms, a "Florida Room," and an avocado tree (which means I will be the one who brings guacamole to all the parties--so you better invite me!).

So, things may be a bit quiet here, but I will return.

Meanwhile, here's what I've been reading:

High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never
by Barbara Kingsolver
This was part of my TBR Challenge.  It's been sitting on my shelf for at least ten years.  I liked it, didn't love it.  I'm a big fan of her fiction, but sometimes her non-fiction gets a bit too preachy for my taste.  Although there was a very freeing essay on housework.  I never thought about it, but that whole June Cleaver homemaker thing was propagated by the women's magazines of the day as part of the ploy to get women back out of the work force, post-World War II.  That whole way of life, with men as the sole breadwinner and protector was only really sustainable for about twenty years.  She explains it way better than I do, so if you're feeling guilty about those dust bison lurking under your bed, go read this book.
<I owned this book and am donating it to the Friends of the Library.>


The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: Discovering a Forgotten Passion in a Paris Atelier by Thad Carhart
Here's a case of me judging the book by the cover.  A dear friend gave it to me, but I was so put off by the pretentious title that it took me nearly a month to get around to reading it. But, I loved it!  An American ex-pat tells of relationship with the proprietor of a local piano shop.  He recounts his journey toward purchasing the right piano as well as the stories behind all the pianos that passed through the little store.  It made me want to get my piano tuned and start practicing again.  (As soon as we move. . .)
<I borrowed this book from a friend and then bought a used copy.>

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
While I felt sorry for her loss, this book left me cold.  She just seemed enormously privileged and unrelatable.  Steffie on Goodreads echoes my opinion completely.
<I checked this out of my library.>

West with the Night by Beryl Markham
Because I absolutely loved Anne Morrow Lindbergh's North the Orient, a friend recommended West with the Night.  It was interesting and I enjoyed reading about Markham's childhood in Africa and her exploits.  However, her voice didn't sound authentic to me, there wasn't the same honesty and lyricism you get from Lindbergh.  Still enjoyable, though.
<I checked this out of my library.>

The Gates by John Connolly
I enjoyed Connolly's The Book of Lost Things, and so another friend gave me this to read.  It was cute.  Kind of reminded me of Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.  A little boy and his dog narrowly avert the apocalypse.  Lots of silly, disgusting goodness.
<I borrowed this book from a friend.>

Vigils by Aline Kilmer

I'm participating in Kailana and Lu's "Poetry: Read More, Blog More" event and misread the date and so posted my poetry entry yesterday.  So, here's another poetry entry just for kicks.  If you're visiting this site because of the event--welcome!  And, be sure to check out yesterday's post, too.

So, you've all heard of that poem that goes "I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree. . ." before right?  It was written by Joyce Kilmer--who was a man, in case you were wondering.  Well, I have to say, I think his wife, Aline Kilmer, was the better poet.  A little background, first.

Joyce and Aline had five children.  Their youngest daughter, Rose, was stricken with polio which led to the family's conversion to Catholicism.  Now, if you have four children (one of whom is paralyzed) and your wife is about to give birth to your fifth child--what do you do?  If you're Joyce Kilmer you enlist in the military to go fight in World War I in order to gain fodder for an upcoming book.


Well, long story short, baby Christopher was born healthy.  However, Rose died at age five, two weeks before the arrival of her brother.  Joyce goes off to war shortly thereafter and, not being satisfied with his boring job of a statistician with the U.S. 69th Infantry Regiment, he transfers to the Regimental Intelligence Section where he was killed four months before the end of the war. Aline was left alone with her four children (another of whom would die in childhood).  What kind of glory hound does that to his wife?

And so, we have Aline's poetry collection, Vigils, published in 1921. It is so beautiful and moving.  Here are two poems that especially stood out:

Things

Sometimes when I am at with tea with you
I catch my breath
At a thought that is old as the world is old
And more bitter than death


It is that the spoon you just laid down
And the cup that you hold
May be here shining and insolent
When you are still and cold.


Your careless note that I laid away
May leap to my eyes like flame
When the world has almost forgotten your voice
Or the sound of your name.


The golden Virgin da Vinci drew
May smile on over my head
And daffodils nod in the silver vase
When you are dead.


So let the moth and dust corrupt and thieves
Break through and I shall be glad,
Because of the hatred I bear to things
Instead of the love I had.


For life seems only a shuddering breath,
A smothered, desperate cry,
And things have a terrible permanence
When people die.

Isn't that so true? Once your loved one is gone, their things do take on such a "terrible permanence."  The next poem is equally chilling, especially considering Michael would die in 1927 at age eleven.

Tribute

Deborah and Christopher brought me dandelions,

Kenton brought me buttercups with summer on

their breath,

But Michael brought an autumn leaf, like lacy 

filigree,

A wan leaf, a ghost leaf, beautiful as death.

Death in all loveliness, fragile and exquisite,

Who but he would choose it from all the
blossoming land?

Who but he would find it where it hid among the

flowers?

Death in all loveliness, he laid it in my hand.

This beautiful little book was another of the gems tucked away in the 800s of my library.  I've said it before, I'll say it again--go check out an old book from the stacks at your local library and give it a circulation statistic.  There's some amazing stuff hidden back in the mustiest aisles.

<I checked this book out of my library.>

Museum of Accidents by Rachel Zucker

I need more poetry in my life.  One of my goals for 2012 is to make a concentrated effort to discover new(to-me) poets.  Already, this endeavor has proved worth the effort.

Rachel Zucker speaks my language.  She manages to capture that weird dichotomy of loving your young children with every fiber of your being while simultaneously resenting that dull, repetitive, mind-numbing domestic pattern that they pull you into.  In "The Day I Lost My De Ja Vu" she writes:

"remember when we 

used to

remember

things, every night, say

remember the time...

and the smells of the past and sometimes a portal 

opened up

and we slipped in there, into the past

rose up to meet us we were not

so alone then, our lives had meaning

and we were not born again every goddamn

day but felt it what it felt like to be there 

in those lost places, the gone?

remember? those days? but I can't.

now all of me but this is gone and I was never a girl.

never but mother never

every same day new again."

All of her poems are like this. They truthfully examine the normal, the every day, the routine.

I enjoyed this entire collections, but was reduced a blubbering mess by "Welcome to the Blighted Ovum Support Group" where she recounts the time she was pregnant with a phantom baby.  All the signs of pregnancy were there. The morning sickness, the swelling tummy.  Sixteen weeks, five days pregnant. She told everyone, even her young sons.  Why wouldn't she?  She had managed to successfully navigate that scary first trimester.  I was looking for a section to excerpt, but the whole poem is just so beautiful and so sad and so true that there was no one piece that I could pull out.  Just go read it here.

<I checked this book out of my library but plan to buy it and just bought it.>

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

Yes, it's a dorky cover.
Read it anyway.

I love character-driven novels which means that I don't always get along with fantasy and sci-fi, especially when the world building takes over to the point of leaving out any sort character growth.  I've found some authors do a great job of not only creating fascinating and believable worlds, but populate them with characters who have motivations and foibles and a sense of humor (I'm looking at you, Lois McMaster Bujold and Garth Nix).  However, many authors in those genres place their entire emphasis on world building and that bores me to tears.

Brandon Sanderson, however, has earned my undying affection.  I have to admit that I came to him reluctantly.  A friend (whom I should trust--she never steers me wrong) recommended it.  But, I knew that he is taking over Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series which is hugely intimidating to me, so any author that would be working on it falls outside of my comfort zone.

Let me say, I was wrong to the point of now being willing to try the Wheel of Time series (once it's completed).

Warbreaker is awesome.  There's an interesting political structure and theology which intertwine leading to all sorts of mysterious and surprising interactions between the deities, the priests, and the commoners.  But even more intriguing, to me anyway, are the main characters.

Siri and Vivenna are sisters from the quiet kingdom of Idris.  From birth, Vivenna has known that she is going to have to leave for the bustling (not to mention corrupt) kingdom of Hallandren to marry the God King.  She's ready for it.  She's been training.  Except--her dad decides to send her little sister Siri instead because he can't stand the idea of sending Vivenna away.

So, we have Siri's journey and how she turns from an irresponsible and impulsive young girl to a politically savvy wife of a God King.  And we have Vivenna's transformation from the haughty princess to the fearless renegade who goes off to rescue her younger sister.  Both women change and grow throughout the course of the novel and make startling realizations about themselves, their beliefs, their own people and their religion.  Good stuff!

To make matters more interesting, we get to hear from some of the gods.  Apparently, if someone dies in an honorable way, they are sometimes "Returned" as gods.  So, we have Lightsong the Bold, who has the grave misfortune of not believing in the very religion he represents.  He doesn't believe he should be worshiped because he doesn't view himself worthy.  So he sits around mocking himself and his priests and the other gods all day.  Until there's a mystery to be solved. . .

In addition to the great characters, there were so many unexpected twists and turns.  I could not predict what would happen next and when they did happen, I should have seen them coming a mile away.  Sanderson plants excellent clues throughout.  Best of all, he ties up all the loose ends.  Things that happen near the very beginning and you think are mere peripherals end up having a definite role in what goes down at the end.

Anyways, ignore the goofy book jacket on this one and read it--you'll love it!

It's an illness, really

I complain again and again about needing to cut down on the number of books in my apartment, especially since we are looking at buying a home and I'm sure it will be small and lacking the floor-to-ceiling, built-in bookcases of my dreams.

Knowing this, I still buy more books.  My dear friend at work alerted me to a new $1 book store that has taken over the shell of the old Borders in our neighboring town.  To be honest, I figured I could safely check it out because it would probably only hold multiple copies of The Da Vinci Code and junk by Glenn Beck (I mean it's a dollar book store, what more can you expect?).

But there was good stuff!  Behold:

As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann
(I don't know. It looked intriguing.)

The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie
(I need to finally read me some Rushdie.  I've built him up in my head as too intimidating and it's time to get over that.)

Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler
(Because I can't seem to pass an Anne Tyler book without buying it.)

The Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando Skyhorse
(First of all, that author's name is awesome, second Echo Park is just down the freeway. I need a little local literature in my life.)

What Remains by Carole Radziwill
(I had actually checked this book out of the library to read and didn't get to it over Christmas, so this one was perfect timing. I haven't read much about the Kennedy family, but this came highly recommended to me by a coworker.)

Model Home by Eric Puchner
(Over the summer, I saw a review of this on Flavorwire under "10 Novels About Lost Wealth and the Great Recession" and have been wanting to check it out.)

Maytrees by Annie Dillard
(Pilgrim at Tinker Creek kicked my butt.  I didn't donate it back to the Friends of the Library, because I will finish it at some point, darn it.  But, I thought maybe I'd try a different work by Dillard first.  Fresh start, you know.)

Shipwrecks by Akira Yoshimura
(I read about this on a blog before I started keeping track of where I heard about books.  Sounded good.)

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
(Because I had chosen it for the classics challenge I'm taking part in!)

101 Dalmations by Dodie Smith
(Some bedtime reading for me and my daughter.)

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
(Because I LOVED Behind the Scenes at the Museum and want to try something else by her.)

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
(Because a good friend from Arkansas says she loves this book and it really captures the atmosphere of the South.)

Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro
(I've been wanting to start reading Munro.)

There you have it.  In the face of that kind of temptation, what's a girl to do?

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall

Before I start my review, let me just say. . .good job W. W. Norton & Company.  Physically, this is the most well-constructed book I've read in ages.  The binding is tight, the book falls open naturally and stays open.  The font is a good size and the margins are nice and big.  The pages are a nice bright ivory that don't show signs of yellowing (at least not yet).  It was a pleasure to read, which is especially nice since it was 602 pages.

Now for the story.  Think the HBO series Big Love but funnier and at times, more poignant.Golden Richards has four wives and twenty-some-odd children and is--I know this sounds crazy--considering an affair.  He's never been a big decision maker and life just seems to "happen" to him.  His first wife, Beverly, was the result of his father's death (long story) and Beverly wanted a big family so she arranged for more wives.  Things just kind of snowballed. This affair he's thinking of (though has not acted on) is more of a way to escape his current life and perhaps restart his life as a "normal" man with one wife somewhere else.

Photo Credit

Meanwhile, we gain insight into the lives of each of Golden's wives.  There is Beverly who has posted signage everywhere reminding Golden to wipe his feet, close the lid, etc. etc.  Yet, she is harboring a dark past which comes to light by the end of the book.  Then there are the sisters, Nola and Rose-of-Sharon.  Nola is overweight and compensates by having an even larger personality.  Meanwhile, Rose-of-Sharon quietly fades more and more into the woodwork and is constantly on the verge of another nervous breakdown.  Finally, there's Trish who is only 27.  She was raised a "plyg kid" but when her father died, her mother gave up the principle and moved with Trish to Reno where they lived a Vegas-style life.  Trish marries too young and ends up divorcing only to land back into the polygamist community with her young daughter.  Each wife has her own motivations and hopes and disappointments, particularly as they pertain to Golden.

Finally, we get a beautifully depicted portrait of eleven-year-old Rusty, or "Son #5."  He's the one setting off firecrackers, trying on his sister's underwear (because at least they have clean, nice things), and generally causing mayhem in order to get some attention from his parents.

All of these intertwining stories give a true picture of what it means to be part of a family, particularly showing how family members can both smother and support you.  It also examines why we stay in a marriage even when it seems too difficult. And somehow, it does all this with a humorous tone.  I was laughing out loud at points and reading passages to my husband (poor guy--he was trapped with me on a long car trip).

I liked this book a lot, but then I'm all about a large cast of quirky characters.

<I checked this book out of my library.>