Reaching 40

I reached my 40th birthday a few weeks ago.   I got about halfway through my goal--I read 19 books, though I was not able to post entries on them all as I originally planned. In February I found out I was pregnant, and I gave birth to a daughter in late August.  I hate clichés but in this case, "Life is what happens when you're making other plans" totally applies.  

As anyone can imagine, I've been busy since her birth. I was also very busy before she arrived, tying things up at work in anticipation of 1 year maternity leave, and finishing up the book project.  But I am glad that I did this blog, and I plan to try to finish more books when sleep deprivation and general new baby tiredness becomes a distant memory.  Although there were some books I didn't like, I did discover a few authors that I enjoyed like Margaret Atwood and Julian Barnes which was the point of doing this, really.  You can never be too old to try new things, and in this journey of life, our tastes and interests should be continually evolving and expanding.   

Bringing Up Bodies by Hillary Mantel

This year's Booker Prize winner is announced:
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19965004

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

I know, I know.  I wrote in my last post that the next book would be about Midnight's Children.  But, the public library happened to have this book available for me, so I read it over the last two days.

The story is structured as a road trip, that Mr Stevens, the main character, takes.  He has flashbacks of his life starting from the late 1920s, but most especially dwells on his service as a butler between the two World Wars in the 1930s when it is revealed that his employer, Lord Darlington, was a Nazi sympathizer.  Towards the end of his life, and after Lord Darlington has passed away, Stevens examines his life and his belief in the "perfect butler." 

I have actually not read this book before, but I've seen the film.  The book is really good.  As a librarian for architecture (one of the subjects I cover), I've gotten a few research questions over the last few years about the English country house, which I have to admit I have more of an appreciation for since I saw the film with Anthony Hopkins in.  I also watched a PBS reality show called Manor House http://www.pbs.org/manorhouse/edwardianlife/introduction.html a few years ago, and saw some episodes of Downton Abbey.  Of course, that was the heyday of the English country house.  The real-time of the novel, is set during the decline of the country house.   I recall a great quote from Manor House made the by the butler.  The class system of the country house worked, and worked efficiently, "but at a cost of close personal relationships."

As times are changing, including what is expected of butlers, Stevens ponders the idea of "bantering,"  as his new employer seems to want a less formal relationship with him and this practice, which Stevens has great difficulty with, seems to hold the key.

The Finker Question (and 2 other books)

Alright, I'm cheating a little bit again.  I've tried for the last 2 months to get through this book and I've decided to abandon it.  I completely agree with this book review:
 http://mewandering.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/the-finkler-question-review/  so, I won't go into too much detail about it other than to say I found the main character, Treslove, very irritating.  In fact, I was on the train to London (for a meeting in June), and somebody sitting next to me on the train asked what I thought of the book so far.  He also said he'd tried to read the book, but found the main character irritating, and self-centered.  So anyway if you're curious about the plot, take a look at the review linked above.  Yes, I'm technically cheating, but I'm eight months pregnant, impatient with my body and at the moment, and would rather spend my time reading and writing about things I at least find interesting.  I will try to get on track this week with Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie.  It is a book I've always wanted to read, and hopefully I might enjoy it more than the other authors from India that I've read so far.  

I did manage to read 2 other books this last week when I gave up Finkler.  One was Ines of my Soul by Isabelle Allende.  The other was How Not to F*** Them Up by Oliver James.  They are quite different, as you can imagine.

Ines was a really interesting historical novel centered around a real woman who lived in the 1500s and who was a conquistador that established Chile.  She has 3 great loves of her life, that cause her to go on epic journeys, and true to Allende's style, there is a bit of magical-ness about several of the the woman in the story, as well as either obvious strength of character or subtle fortitude.  There is also a realistic portrayal of war and violence during this period that allows people to empathize (but not idealize) with the native populations of Chile and Peru. It's a pity that Allende does not qualify for the Booker (as she is not part of a commonwealth country), because although some critics claim this is not one of her best books, I think it is much better and compelling than a few of the books on the Booker Prize list.

What do I have to say about How Not To... ?  Well, I think Oliver James is a marketing genius.  Stealing lines from this article (http://jezebel.com/5547612/its-not-your-kid-its-you-okay) "What, you mean a parenting book called How Not to F*** Them Up is controversial?"  Of course there is controversy, otherwise it wouldn't sell.  What I think is interesting is, about blogs and book reviews, is that many people who've not read the book can feel very compelled to post their opinions.  And they don't even put insightful remarks, they just go into soundbite mode.   For example, " Written by a man, criticizing mothers. Enough said." http://www.circleofmoms.com/debating-mums/would-you-pass-the-good-mother-test-544529.  The book doesn't actually criticize mothers, it criticizes daycare and his own mother who suffered from severe depression because she stayed at home with 4 kids.  He actually says in the book that staying at home with a mother who had depression and was neglectful, was just as bad going to daycare where nobody pays attention to a small child.

So what does his book actually say?  There is a spectrum of parenting styles that can be divided into three general categories: "huggers" (25% of population) "flexi-moms" (50% of population),  and "organizers" (25% of population).  He thinks that each category has benefits and disadvantages. Huggers put their perceived needs of their kids first, organizers think children should accommodate them or the needs of the rest of the family, and flexi-moms, while in the middle, tend to fall into varying degrees of hugger or organizer.  He does seem to think that people on extreme ends of either spectrum have issues they need to sort out with therapists (as Oliver's profession is therapy and psychoanalysis that shouldn't be a surprise).  What is his main message?  Know yourself and be honest.  If you are a hugger, that is great for your under 3 year-olds.  Spend time with them, but make sure that as they get older you gradually allow them to develop a sense of their own independence. If you are an organizer, who will be interested in kids once they get a bit older and would rather work or spend some time working (he seems to think that part-time mothers have the best of both worlds) be honest and get your husband/partner, another relative, or an nanny to look after the kid and form a bond with them, so that the child can get attention and develop. 

I didn't agree with everything he said, nor the way he presented all his ideas.  For example, he did have all these studies about what causes depression in parents, and how daycare can have adverse effects small children (causing them to be more violent, aggressive, etc.)... but I thought it was odd that he made such sweeping generalizations about bad daycare, especially in the US, without details to back up his claims.  (I mean details of real places and actual incidents that occurred, not just studies of children's hormone stress levels, because while that's interesting, you don't know from a small sample what is actually causing stress levels to rise). And when it came to the UK, where he is actually based, he never discussed the role of Ofsted (http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/) and their rating system for preschools and schools.  He just said their were not enough "excellent" places. I went to daycare as a child in the US, and comparing that experience to the UK early years provision (which I've seen a lot of when we visited nurseries), the UK is so much better.  He briefly mentions Unesco standards, for every 3 children you need one adult supervising, but every nursery and daycare center I've ever visited here does that, along with other criteria, or they get ranked low in their Ofsted report.  Most of them also have anti-bullying policies (unheard of in my day).  In the case where there was a mean child at my son's nursery, all the parents knew who he was and talked about him.  (When my husband met the parents of the mean boy, my husband said he knew exactly what was wrong.  The parents seemed to be very nice huggers, who gave the boy no boundaries at all.  Since he was never told no at home, or told "no" in a pleading voice, rather than with authority, he did whatever he wanted).  Basically none of the other children liked him and the parents of the other children would not invite him around for parties, play dates etc. (because who wants to parent someone else's child)?  It seemed to me the nursery was providing some discipline and structure that the boy was clearly not getting at home, because his parents were inept.  (I think it's better for a 2-and-a half-year old to learn that is not right to make fun of other children, then wait until they are 6-year-olds in school).

Anyway, this is a long post about a book that does not meet the "award" criteria, but it is a book I read before 40, so here it is.  As I said, I'll try to get back on track next month.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

This is another novel that didn't win the Booker Prize, but it was short-listed.  I haven't read the 2005 winner, but this is a very, very interesting novel, that falls under the genre sci-fi drama.  The three main characters are:  Kathy (narrator), Ruth, and Tommy.   The novel jumps backwards and forwards from their childhoods until the characters are in their late 20s early 30s.  Throughout the novel it is hinted that these "students" are not ordinary people.  We find out as the story unravels just what they are and the destiny that their world has in store for them.  I don't want to say too much because the surprises are worth encountering first-hand.

It's not the most up-lifting novel, but it is fascinating. I bought the book second-hand yesterday at my son's school fair, and wasn't able to put it down.  This is the experience I was hoping for when I started this project and this blog.  I'll be on maternity leave after next week, so hopefully, I can get through a few more books.

Ishiguro is a really good author, I've read another shortlisted book of his, When We Were Orphans, and possibly The Remains of the Day (which did win the Booker Prize in 1989, I'll have to go back and check.)

Art Researchers' Guide to Edinburgh edited by Kerry Eldon and Rose Roberto

Other Guides

Okay, so this book didn't win a Booker Prize, and it's only just been published, so we don't have that many sales yet. But I'm putting it here so everyone can see what I've been doing when not working, and not reading, and let's face it, if I don't market it, who else will, since it's not with a major publisher?

My co-editor, Kerry, based at the National Galleries of Scotland, and I have been working on this book for the past year.  It is the second in what I hope will be a good series of little guidebooks around the UK.  Last year I did a similar one for the city of Leeds.  There is talk about doing a guide to Dublin next, but when it will come out will depend on the sales of this book.

You can find out more about the series here, and order a copy online. [Edit: this is now sold out, but the latest one on Liverpool is available here.]

The book launch for this book was on Thursday night, at the ARLIS conference reception at the UCL Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archeology. We've been getting lots of praise for this little book, so I encourage everyone with any interest in art, design, or architecture to ask your local library to purchase one, and if you are planning a trip to Scotland anytime in the next few years, please get your own copy.  It's light, fits in the pocket, and it's very useful.  The index is pretty unique, so if you're interested in painting, or sculpture, or 18th century botanical illustrations, you will know exactly where to go.  (Yes, it is that detailed). And it's a good price at only £6.50 that won't break your bank.
This guide is now sold out, but more guides are available for Manchester and Liverpool.

Famished Road by Ben Okri

This was an extremely long novel, and I must say will not be to everyone's liking.  The quote on the book said, "It's not like anything you've ever read."  Ominous. If you are a fan of magical realism, you may like it.  I liked it for a little bit, but I'm not convinced that it needed to be more than 500 pages.  I did manage to finish the whole book, but I only accomplished that by reading it in bits on the train ride home.

I was getting very depressed with some of the other titles on the Booker list, particularly where the plot involved violence or abuse towards children.  This novel was very depressing, dealing with poverty in an unnamed post colonial country in Africa, and the main character constantly nearly dying.

The story is told in a dream sequence style, and begins before  the main character is born.  The main character, a boy named Azaro, is in the spirit world, and promises his spirit friends he will return to them shortly.  But after he is born and has lived for a bit, he decides he to stay in the world and live despite the abject poverty, first because of love for his parents, then eventually because he is fascinated by the beautiful and terrible things he sees in the world.

In general, I think I like magical realism in novels.  I certainly liked the novels from authors such as Isabel Allende.  But, I found myself getting a bit bored between the truly depressing parts of this particular novel.

Here's a link I found to someone else's review of the novel in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/jan/20/booker-club-famished-road

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

I've been on the waiting list for this book from the Sheffield Public Library and I was finally able to pick it up on Saturday.  I started reading it this morning, and finished it an hour ago.  I think it's excellent.

The book is divided into two parts.  Part One is narrated from the main character, Tony Webber about what he remembers his last year in school and his first 2 years at University.  He talks about his relationship with a high school friend named Adrian Finn and later a girlfriend, Veronica Ford, at University.  Then about the way he remembers a tragedy, 40 years later when he is in his 60s.

Part Two begins when he gets a letter from Veronica Ford's mother leaving him something in her will.  This letter causes him to re-establish contact with Veronica and re-examine how he remembers the past, and what might have actually happened.

At some point in the story he re-reads a letter he sent to Adrian, his last contact with his friend before the tragedy.  He has forgotten what he wrote, and the bitterness he felt at the time.  This is a clever novel, as the memory sequences go back and forth between the present and the past.  It also makes readers ponder: Is there is a way we see ourselves, a narrative we write about ourselves, that is different from how others see us? And is what we think at the time what actually happened? 

As I approach 40, I do find myself looking back at events 10 and 20 years past.  There are certain, strange details that you remember with clarity, and through the prism of time understand them better than you did then.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

I read this book a few years ago shortly after it won the Booker Prize.  I'm taking a short break from reading them, because most of the ones I've picked up lately, while good stories, seem to have some form of child abuse or neglect as the main story-line.  As I have a young child and there is another on the way,  I doing some "lighter" reading at the moment. This may be of interest to some.  An article about how to spot bad books: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=418955

That being said, Wolf Hall does open with the main character, a 15-year-old boy, who will grow up to be Thomas Cromwell, being beaten to a pulp, before he runs away.  However, at least this character is somewhat in charge if his own destiny, unlike some of the past titles I've read recently, where once a mistake or tragedy happens the main character is forever affected by it.  We as readers, or at least I personally, don't completely like Cromwell, but I do feel like we have a  good understanding of what makes him tick and why he does what he does in his rise to power as one of Henry VIII's most trusted advisers.

Interestingly enough, in the article that I refer to above, one of the contributors mentions Wolf Hall as a very bad book.   Says Susan Bassnett, from the University of Warwick,
"High on my list of Really Bad Books are two best-sellers: Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, both of which I rate as dreadfully badly written. Brown wrote to a computer game formula: solve one level and move on to the next, whereas Mantel just wrote and wrote and wrote. I have yet to meet anyone outside the Booker panel who managed to get to the end of this tedious tome. God forbid there might be a sequel, which I fear is on the horizon."

I think Bassnet is being overly harsh... I don't think Wolf Hall was that bad.  It was a bit long, and it is not the Tudors (TV series of recent years) by any means... some people may like that about the book.  However, I thought it was worth reading.  Interestingly enough that same year I did read Hilary Mantel's much shorter An Experiment in Love.  As I now live in the north of England where many of the flashback scene's take place, I did find it very evocative of a certain time and place, though for the life of me I still didn't understand the meaning of the title.  An Experiment in Love centers on the first year of two female students in 1970 (the first in their respective families to undertake university degrees).  As in Wolf Hall, I think Mantel is very good a creating scenes and interactions between her characters, but again, I didn't completely like them as people, although I felt like I had a good understanding of what was going in their heads.

The Bone People by Keri Hulme

This is a compelling and disturbing novel centering around 3 people who clearly love each other but who have deep problems.  Set in the South Island of New Zealand, and incorporating Maori myth and language, the reader is immediately thrust into a realistic story that at the same time has a dream-like quality about it.  The story opens when Kerewin, a hermit, falls asleep outside on the beach.  When she wakes up she finds a little sandal.  Upon going home she finds an 8 year-old boy, the owner of the sandal, perched in a high window in her house.  The boy's name is Simon, he's mute, and he has in fact injured his foot.  Kerewin finds herself, as the novel progresses, intertwined in the life of Simon and his adoptive father, Joe 
This is a very well-written novel, some of it was difficult for me to get through, I must admit, because there are scenes of violence against children.  But I think an author that gets you into a novel enough to make you feel quite strongly about her characters has managed her craft very well.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Just finished this book on the train ride home today. It is quite a tome, but I enjoyed reading it.  The story centers on two sisters, Laura and Iris Chase.  One of them died shortly after WWII by suicide, the other is an old woman in 1999 recalling her life and the life and death of her sister.  Within this novel are two other narratives: the first one follows two lovers (one of the sisters and a young man) meeting clandestinely in the 1930s;  the other narrative is a story that the lovers are sharing with each other.  This story shared becomes the title of the actual book, The Blind Assassin, as well as the title of the fictional book written by Laura Chase and published after her death by her sister. 

This was a very compelling, intriguing book that slowly reveals family history and has a couple of surprising twists.

I think it is one of my favorites from this Booker prize list, so far.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

This is a fascinating novel.  It centers around two twins, Rahel, the sister, Estha the brother, their dysfunctional family and the repressive society that they live in.  The story unfolds in two time periods, the present, when the twins are 31 years old, and in 1969 when the twins were 7 years old and tragic events occur which transform their lives and propel them into wounded adulthood.
The characters are complex, the main villain, Baby Kochamma, the aunt of the twin's mother, is a bully, but also  the victim of mistreatment herself.  None of the characters escapes the small things that together bring ruin, but they are all defined by their own experience of lost opportunity, personal endurance, and love.

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

When I was living in San Francisco in the mid 1990s, my housemate Julie owened this book.  I'd seen the film, and I liked it.  She said she hated the film, and that the book was much better.  If I'd read the book first, I might have agreed.  But since I did see the film, and let's face it Ralph Finnes is excellent, I can't honestly say I like the book better.  I like them both, but feel they are two different things.

In the novel, you get to know more about the the other characters inhabiting the Italian Villa at the end of WWII.  We learn about Hana, the nurse taking care of the English Patient, who is a 20-year old Canadian nurse.  Hana is dealing with the loss of her father, who burned to death earlier in the war, as well as the loss of a former lover, also a soldier, and her living with her decision to terminate her pregnancy upon hearing of her lover's death.  We learn more about David Caravaggio, who knew Hana and her father before the war, and who is a professional thief recriuted into Allied intelligence.  We also learn more about Kip, the Sikh who works as a sapper, defusing bombs for the British/Italian forces.  He is a very interesting character, and it think it is a pity more of his story was not made of in the film.  In fact, if memory serves, Kip only seems to hook up with Hana at the end of the film, which is not the case in the book. 

Hana has some interesting daddy issues, as you would imagine, as she is tying herself to a man who is dying in the way she believes her father did.  Caravaggio has been tortured by the Germans, has had his thumbs cut off, and has become a morphine attitic in during his recovery.  He also knows how to make an interesting morphine cocktale that eventually gets the English Patient to talk.

The writing is superb, although it takes a few pages into the book to get into it.  The narrative is not straight forward or chronological, and is often narrated from different points of view.  The "English" Patient's character is morally ambigious. He sleeps with his friend's wife.  He works for the Nazi's. But even when he is burned to a crisp and high on morphine, he is charming as the devil and the author makes him very sympathetic. I think the filmmakers just found it easy to focus on his story, because aerial footage of the desert is a cinematographer's wet dream. The passionate love story which takes center stage in the movie, makes up a third of the novel, but as I said, there are a whole lot of other interesting things going on.

The four characters are living in their own world at the end for the war.  They've made their own little community and have their own mechanisms for keeping the destruction outside away from themselves for several months.  It think its interesting that most of the novel takes place in North Africa or Europe, but what jolts them back to reality are the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I don't recall any of this being mentioned in the film.  Colonial/post colonial history and politics affected people in a very personal way.  This novel is more than a simple love story.  It's about personal survial, nationality vs making your own identity, and memories that transcend time and space.

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan

I finished reading this book on the train home from work last night.  Despite the title, only one chapter of it takes place in the Netherlands, the rest of the story happens in various places around London and the Lake District. 
McEwan is a wonderful writer, at times putting his characters and his readers in very strange, weird situations, that spin out of control.  Atonement, his other novel that I've read, while a completely different story all together, does manage to go over some similar themes: memory, moral dilemma, delusion and betrayal.

This story opens with two old friends, successful in their professional fields, one a classical composer, the other a chief newspaper editor. Both men are their late 50s, at the funeral of, Molly Lane, the former lover of both men.  The death of this vivacious woman makes them think about their own mortality. Over the next few weeks, a pact made with each other after the funeral, turns their friendship into personal tragedy.

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

I just finished reading my first "new" (new for me) Booker Prize winner this evening.  The only reason I picked up this one first was because it was what happened to be available at my local library branch when I was on my way to work on Thursday.   If I'd planned this reading challenge earlier I would have been more organized and picked up Amsterdam on my way to the Netherlands and read it there.  Never mind.

So, what can I say about this book? Truthfully, I'm glad I read The Inheritance of Loss, because now it is off my list.  Although I thought the writing was solid and most of the story was pretty interesting, it is not one of my favorites.  Overall, the world outlook is pretty bleak and one feels like the characters are doomed to their fate.   I did learn a lot of things, for instance, I didn't know about the USSR recruiting Indians to be part of their space program (which competed with the USA Apollo missions), or the details about the civil unrest in northern India in the 1980s.

After I finished reading this novel, I was curious to see what other critics thought.  Many of those reviews are mixed, too.  For example there is a lot of praise for her descriptions and in-depth characterizations. On the other hand, some people found a lot unnecessary descriptions of minor characters led to a bit of confusion.  (I personally found that just made the story drag in some parts, rather than adding confusion.)  There was also high regard for her  ability to seamlessly integrate social history--colonial, post colonial, and 1980s style American capitalism--with personal memory, racism, xenophobia, and physical and emotional abuse.  She did address these subjects realistically,  too, and she made things like personal shame of poverty and shame of one's cowardly acquiesce to an unjust status quo understandable and cringeworthy at the same time.

If you have read this book, let me know what you thought about it.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Do you skip bits of a book?

I read this novel in 2003 - 2004, when I was living in Cardiff.  A Cypriot friend of mine said she only got half way through the book and she just couldn't finish it because the middle section of the novel has a very, very long boat ride. The main character, Pi Patel, an Indian boy on his way to Canada, is stranded in a lifeboat that is set adrift.  Having read the book, and getting her to agree that the writing was great, as was the opening of the story, I told her if she was impatient, she could to skip to the last part of the book.  It would then make her want to go back and read the middle section.

I'm sure a lot of my writer friends would take issue with this.  A writer lays down as story as they want it to unfold to the reader, and while they are writing it is their baby.  I agree on a certain level.  But at some point I think a story becomes its own entity and takes on its own life, and if certain parts of a story are told out of order, it doesn't matter if it makes it accessible personally to a reader, and if the story is good in itself, it can transcend the order.  This novel does.

I can give another example of times when I skip bits. I finished a quick-to-read novel called, A Gathering Storm, last week before Christmas.  We find out about the main character in a series of flashbacks to World War II, where she worked for Allied intelligence, and at some point gets captured in Occupied France.  There were torture scenes. You get an idea of what happens to her because after she escapes and is returning to England, she mentions that she's glad her fingernails are growing back (and other things are healing).  So yeah, when I get impatient or squeamish, I don't necessarily read it as the author intended.   While I am truly grateful the text this there, I do admit I skim/skip, sometimes.  I'm pretty sure we all do it, for different reasons.

What Animal are you?

What facet of your personality does your pet or any animal you relate to reveal?  I seem to collect a lot of cat-loving friends. A cousin of mine collects anything that has to do with squirrels.  A friend from college told me on Facebook that she named her dog, Pi, after the main character in this book.  I've always wanted to get another dog (I had 3 when I was growing up) and name him Boba Fett officially, but call him "Bo" or "Boba" most of the time. (My husband doesn't the responsibility of a dog, and with the amount of traveling we do, it would be unfair to the dog to keep one now).  But anyway, this is a good question raised in the novel, that gives it, its twist.  How do we perceive ourselves? How does what we do make others characterize us...even under extraordinary circumstances?

Cool math tricks / owning your inner geek

Pi, is a feisty boy that you've just got to admire. Early in the novel, he takes control in a classroom situation to avoid years of bullying because of his strange name, which is Italian for "pool."  He says something proudly like, we Indians are a nation of mathematicians and engineers,  (indeed, they did invent 0) and nicknames himself "Pi."  
Not sure what teachers today would think of a student taking over their black/white board on the first day of school, but admiration for their knowledge probably trumps a bit of cheekiness.  

Pi is geek chic.

Possession: A Romance. By AS Byatt

I'm still on winter holiday in Holland, and have no access to Man Booker Prize books.  So this first entry (or two) will be from memory.  In a way it is related to the David Lodge book I'm reading now, Small World, as it's about English Literature academics and poets, and it is a romance, in the classical sense... yes there are love stories in the novel, but as a whole it is about the medieval notion of the quest/finding adventure.

There are four main characters, two modern day academics, Roland Michell and Maud Bailey, and two poets who lived during the Victorian era, Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte. (These are non historical characters, but Byatt was inventive enough to create poems "written" by them.)  The basis of the novel is that the modern day academics discover love letters revealing an affair between the two Victorian characters, which is a surprise, because Randolph was married, and Christabel was in a long-term lesbian relationship.

The book takes a few pages to get into, because AS Byatt really wants you to feel like you're entering another world, a magical strange world, and uses heavy language, but the story is compelling.  One of the loveliest scenes in the novel has to do with one of the characters interacting with their child for the first time on an ordinary day, in a meadow.  "Of some things their are no records"  that section of the book says.  This is true.

As a busy parent, there are lots of mental images I have of my son that have never been captured with a camera or discussed with his dad or family or friends, but merely dance around in my head and can be triggered by anything.  When I see a leaf falling from a tree in autumn, for instance, I recall him and a friend of his sprinting past me after school, and scattering a big pile of leaves as both five-year-olds run through it, looking at each other and laughing, in the exuberant way only the young can laugh.  It was a gray day, the leaves were brown and pale yellow, so their blue uniforms made a very striking picture.

Similarly in Possession, a little girl makes a chain necklace of flowers, runs around in the Spring grass, and laughs.  She enjoys herself thoroughly, but she forgets the mundane happy moment, and a message she was meant to pass on.
 
I read this book in the mid 1990s, when I was still living in San Francisco, so the fact that I still remember parts of the story vividly is pretty revealing about how good it is. How much do you possess those you love?  How much does what you love posses you? The reader ponders these issues of free-will, relationships, and hidden personal history in this book.

This ain't no bucket list

This year I turn 40.  I wanted to mark it by doing something that is pleasurable, requires brainpower and stamina, and ultimately benefits me.  No, I'm not thinking of becoming a banker.  (I can't do that in less than one year.)  I've decided I'm going to read all the novels that have won the Man Booker Prize .

I've never counted the books I've read in one year, so it will be interesting to see if I can manage this.  I know many people think that librarians spend all their time reading,  we do read a lot, but that is on our own free time.  With a few exceptions, most of us don't get to sit around and read literature at work.

There are a few reasons I've picked the Booker Prize winners.  First, there are more than 40 books on that list (the Prize was established in 1969).  Second, I've read 3 of the books already, and I know that they are good.  Third, I wanted to read contemporary fiction, including books I might not normally pick up.  Forth, (I hate to sound like a project manager here) you need measurable criteria and a clear beginning and end, otherwise, this will just be one of those great ideas that someone had and never did anything about. 

In general, I think when people make a list of things to do by the time they are such-and-such age and publicly share it, that's just asking for all sorts of criticism.  (For example, on many of these lists people put "learn another language."  That sounds laudable, but to really, really learn a language, I think you need to travel and actually be in another country or culture for some period of time.  To think you can learn a language just by listening to some tapes is like saying you want to be a great gardener, but only getting a house plant or two.)  Also, there are lots of things you may want to accomplish, but like many things in life that are worth pursuing, doing, and/or having, like publishing a book, or getting a house or stating a family, or going on that special trip, there is a lot of luck involved and many things that you have no control of.

So, this blog will not be about aspects of my life I have no control over.  This blog will be about books as I read them this year. I'm blogging about them to make sure I do it, and I invite comments on what other people think about those books. 

Do I have life list, at all?  When I was 22, I did write one.  I'm happy to say that I've done most of the things on that list (as well as things I never thought I'd do) but no, I'm not sharing that list here.