Caleb's Crossing: Discussion 12/19/21

An engrossing good read that brought you on a crossing to another time.  Or an engrossing good read that seemed more  like a novel for young adults.  Opinions differed about how successful the author was at pulling you in emotionally and there lay the split. Yet all continued reading.

Bethia's plot driven life story and crossing dominated instead of the historical Caleb's  crossing. Too difficult to get into the head of a young Wampanoag boy turned scholar of classics?  The life story of Bethia,  the fictitious character, seemed too contrived--too shallow--to be believable.  Her voice stayed that of a young girl, even though she is looking back as an older woman. The best developed "characters" to some were the places--especially Martha's Vineyard.

Those who didn't feel that positive about the book and  who read other Geraldine Brooks' works; i.e., March, Year of Wonders, and People of the Book, were surprised and felt that this was the weakest of her novels.

Oh by the way:

We are proud that one of our members is a direct descendant of John and Priscilla Alden, despite their poor showing in this novel. (Taliban of the 1670s as the sponsor mentioned.)

And we had our first grab bag of gently read books...I got Swamplandia.  Not a great review, but I am looking forward to reading it!

 Members: Send me your book title  and I will  link them to a review.

Another Old List...this one is from 2006-2007

Click on title for links to reviews, etc.

On Beauty 
 Zadie Smith

The Sea
John Banville

The History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters
Julian Barnes

Founding Brothers
Joseph Ellis

The History of Love
Nicole Krauss

Midaq Alley
Mahfouz

So Long, See You Tomorrow
William Maxwell

The Thread of Grace
Mary Russell

The Liberated Bride
A. Yehoshua and H. Halkin

Beyond Black
Hillary Mantel

Next up...Caleb's Crossing

PREVIEW BOOK

New York Times Review

Tinkers

The following is the gist of the discussion...

Tinkers--the story of three generations of men--a preacher--a tinker of words; his son a tinker of pots and peddler of wares; and his son--a tinker who puts together a house and clocks is the first published novel of Paul Harding. (Another novel was discarded and this one was pieced together--tinkered--much like a soldered tin pot.) 

Mixed experiences reading this book even for the members who overall liked the novel.  Sections on the workings of clocks were difficult to get through and most skimmed or skipped over them.  The lack of action  and  lack of clarity was bothersome for some as well.  The peddler experiences in nature also were irksome to read for some.  Perhaps these were the very objections that led to rejection after rejection by publishing companies before Bellevue Press printed  it.

What made this book worthwhile?  The poetic language, the characters, the amazingly realistic capturing of the random thoughts of a man on his death bed. The ending--a Rosebud moment--poignantly moving.

But was this book worthy of a Pulitzer Prize?  Probably not was the majority feeling.  This, a first novel, seemed heavily influenced by the writing style of Harding's mentor...Marilynne Robinson  also a Pulitzer Winner.  A Pulitzer should reward a published established writer who has a body of work and a unique style --a unique voice expressed one member and others agreed. 

Thanks to smart phones we were able to hear a list of previous Pulitzer winners many of which we agreed were given to writers who fit our groups' definition.  Browse for yourself...

Pulitzer Prize Winners 

*Still...on reading the cover...it turns out that this books has been named one of the  best books or notable book of the year by NPR, the New Yorker, Granta, ALA, etc. So....

*Added by the sponsor of the book and this blogger....

And this is added by BB who came late to the meeting...

Harding said in an interview that he was reading Karl Barth, the prominent Protestant theologian of the 20th century who wrote, among other topics, on revelation. Whether a believer or not, the fiction writer has a handy tool in revelation--a God's eye view, so to speak. In the final summing-up of George's life, pieces are fitting together in his mind like the works of a clock. Some of those pieces were not actually known to George previously—his grandfather’s dementia and banishment, for instance—but are now revealed to him. (1 Corinthians 13:12: "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.") Is the reader to believe that as George hovers between this world and eternity, he's seeing God face to face? And is the point of this book that the final stage of life, dying, has value? 

Marilynne Robinson, Harding's mentor, has a big interest in theology, as I think does Harding.

Tinkers by Paul Harding

Click to read about how Harding's book got printed:  Tinkers

We the Animals: Discussion

Everyone...and there were quite a number of members present...liked this lyrical novel that poetically captured the upbringing of three boys by two other children--their very young parents.   A sentence/paragraph which goes on for half a page was read aloud.

"Always more, always hungrily scratching for more.  But there were times, quiet moments, when our mother was sleeping, when she hadn’t slept in two days, and any noise, any stair creak, any shut door, any stifled laughter, any voice at all, might wake her, those still, crystal mornings, when we wanted to protect her, this confused goose of a woman, this stumbler, this gusher, with her backaches and headaches and her tired, tired ways, this uprooted Brooklyn creature, this tough talker, always with tears when she told us she loved us, her mixed-up love, her needy love, her warmth, those mornings when sunlight found the cracks in our blinds and laid itself down in crisp strips on our carpet, those quiet mornings when we’d fix ourselves oatmeal and sprawl onto our stomachs with crayons and paper, with glass marbles that we were careful not to rattle, when our  mother was sleeping, when the air was still and light, those mornings when silence was our secret game and our gift and our sole accomplishment—we wanted less: less weight, less work, less noise, less father, less muscles and skin and hair.  We wanted nothing, just this, just this.” * See BB's paragraph in this style describing her childhood, below.

All agreed that it was beautifully done.  But too much agreement may not make a good blog entry. (Sorry for the self-consciousness.)

A few sparks shot up but were not kindled enough to keep the log of conversation rolling--how is that for a mixed metaphor...Not to say people didn't keep talking...they did.  And what they said was certainly articulate.  Oh my, I am digging myself into a hole.

Back to log metaphor...
Here are some sparks:

Spark 1:  The narrator's revelation was not fore-shadowed or developed enough  and seemed abrupt.  This spark created the biggest flame...as a good number of members felt that this was not so.
Spark 2:   This felt like a first novel...(I lost the reasoning behind this comment, sorry.)
Spark 3:   What would the second novel be like?  Can the author write in a different voice?
Spark 4:   Some elements of the novel are autobiographical--we tried to decipher which ones were based on  author's statements.  Don't want to reveal them as they give away some important elements in the novel.

We are all interested in reading more by Justin Torres...Turns out one member's daughter is in a writers' group with him.   Cool!


*Always reading, always devouring more.  And there were times, still times, when my mother was busy in the kitchen, when I knew I wasn’t alone in my solitude, and no noisy brothers, no ringing phone, no burst-open door, no cat yowling outside could distract me, those lavender afternoons when I cocooned in an afghan, myself a pupae, a snuggler, a kangaroo’s joey, with my book and my doll and my old-fashioned ways learned from my mother’s stories and my mother’s books, with their lovable characters, their improbable coincidences, their hair-raising perils and their happy-ever-after endings, those winter afternoons when the sun kissed the horizon radiating pink to violet through the window that looked onto the sun porch, those golden afternoons when I’d lie on the couch between window and fireplace with the book I was inhabiting, when my mother stirred tuna into cooked noodles and sprinkled crushed corn flakes on the other side of the wall, when the air was cool and light, those afternoons when reading was my secret garden and my gift and my proudest achievement—I wanted less: less piano playing, less dishwashing, less dressing up, less acting ladylike, less curlers, combs and barrettes.  I wanted just this—to read. 

by B.B

Book Selections for 2012 to 2013

We The Animals
Justin Torres
October 17th

Tinkers
Paul Harding
November 14th



Caleb's Crossing
Geraldine Brooks
December 19th



The Echo Maker
Richard Powers
January 16th



In the Garden of the Beasts
Eric Larson
February 27th


Gilgamesh
Translator to Come
March 20th

The Patrick Melrose Novels
Edward St. Aubyn
April 17th



Man From Saigon
Marti Leimbach
May 15th

Sense of an Ending
Julian Barnes
June 19th

FIRST Book of the Year: We the Animals

Date of Meeting:  October 17, 2012

New York Times Review

One More Set of Titles...2007-2008

Here are titles from five years ago... linked to reviews, etc.

Slow Man
Arthur and George
The Old Ace in the Hole
Beowolf (Heaney's translation)
Evening
The Future of Freedom
Forgetfulness
The Ministry of Special Cases
Bech

Book List from 2009-2010

Zookeeper's Wife

Wide Sargasso Sea

Olive Kitteridge

Out Stealing Horses

Indignation

A Fine Balance

That Old Cape Magic

A Mercy

Zeitoun

Old Book Lists...

A member cleaning out her desk offered past lists to be posted on blog.
No B.G. reviews available...but a chance to see books previously recommended.
I see a number I didn't read...that I will search out.
Unless a book group member wants to weigh in and let us know which are not worth picking up.

This first list is from 2005-2006.
Click on title to link to Google Books reviews.

Kate Vaiden
The Lemon Table
Saturday
Snow
News From Paraguay
The Devil in the White City
The Master: A Novel
War Trash
Island at the Center of the World


There are three books I didn't read from this list...Kate, Snow, News...
Strongly recommend War Trash, The Master, and The Lemon Table.
This is 6 years ago...so...

Townie Discussion Notes

Temperatures in the high 90's. Despite  the heat, the discussion was surprisingly unheated.  Or because of the heat, everyone wanted to stay cool?  

To a person, Dubus the father was the better writer. And the short story extremely moving. (The son's best writing in the memoir, many felt, was the train scene. No one has read his fiction.) The memoir at times repetitive, sometimes stretching credulity--how could Dubus, the son, not have known about The Red Sox? Was the neighborhood as bad as  he said it was?   

Was Dubus, senior, simply the better writer? Or was it because fiction lends itself to better writing--you are not locked in by the truth...while memoir strives for honesty?  This statement thrown out in the hopes of arousing a discussion, led to one member saying that good writing is good writing and has nothing to do with the genre.  And the thought was blown out the window by the ceiling fan that did little to cool off the room.

Other thoughts:  the contrast between Senior Dubus in reality and his version of a father in his short story illustrates either that Dubus the son, was wrong about his father or that his father understood what it takes to be a father but couldn't achieve that in real life.  Dubus was actually a good father for his time:  he saw his children weekly and paid child support.  Why didn't he know about their almost tragic difficulties?  Was everyone trying to keep it from him so that he would stick around?  not take them away from their mother?  

Dubus III struggles with but never confronts or questions his father about his neglect.  Which brought up a mention of This American Life Father's Day program on just that...confronting your parent with their past mistakes.   The conclusion:  When you are an adult, your parents are not the same people they were when they hurt you...you can't  question that parent any longer. 

June 20, 2012 Next Book: Townie by Andre Dubus III and a short story by his father...see link below

and  "A Father's Story" by Andre Dubus
Here is link:

A Father's Story pdf

Giving Up The Ghost: Discussion Notes

Arrived late...very late. So this entry will be short...very short despite the fact that  members tried to catch me up on the discussion of this well-liked memoir.  There was a good discussion about  Mantel's vision of evil as a 7 year old.  Was she actually abused in some way that was too terrible for her to write about? Perhaps  she just witnessed abuse? a shocking act?  Or, did she hallucinate--a first migraine aura?  a vision brought on by her religious education? her new awareness of sin?  Most members agreed with the second group of  explanations. This blogger during the  initial reading felt that the author  had either experienced or witnessed an actual trauma.  But on second reading felt that it might have been a vision since Mantel experiences other encounters with ghosts...of the former living and the never living--her unborn, never even physically conceived children.  (I did a little research last night, and found two reviews...that seemed to line up on both sides of the argument.  But no definitive word from Mantel.)

Book talk was enriched by hearing passages read aloud...such as the piece on parents and why they shouldn't be judged by their children.  And a discussion of how the memoir felt honest due to1.  Mantel's structure...not linear but circular --reflecting the way that memories are actually remembered. 2. Mantel's use of  dialogue, sensory descriptions and  imagery that could  have been remembered by a child (Not impossibly complicated scenes that only an adult with a recorder could capture .) 3. By using a voice that mirrored the age of Mantel at each point in the memoir.

Members were interested in how and why Mantel included and excluded aspects of her life.  Where were her brothers? her husband?  (In my research last night, a reviewer said that she wrote about herself as a child and then her childless self--sounds logical.)  We concluded that Mantel wanted to tell the part of her life that she wanted to tell...and not let others including curious readers keep her from that mission.  After 60 years, she wanted no part of other people defining her life for her.

Highly recommended by all.

Many members seemed to think Hilary Mantel’s experience with the devil was psychological, brought on by something she had either repressed or suppressed, most likely sexual abuse—even though she raises and dismisses such a cause. I'm not so sure. HM describes seeing something evil and feeling it enter her, take possession and remain, a spiritual torment. Given how she views what occurred, it seems to me that any redress would also have to be spiritual, an exorcism perhaps. 


by B.B. 

What's Next? Giving Up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel

May 23, 2012

Austerlitz meeting notes...

sol·ip·sism  (slp-szm, slp-)

n. Philosophy

1. The theory that the self is the only thing that can be known and verified.

2. The theory or view that the self is the only reality.

The discussion last night bounced back and forth and back again a bit disjointedly but nonetheless helped do what book group does best...give readers insights that can not be gained through solitary reading and reflection. Some threads of discussion:


A memoir-like novel that is a many layered text.  A work that leads readers to question reality.  Memory.  Time.  And philosophy.

Book talk began with a discussion about the author's decision to include  discarded, flea market postcards and unidentified photos.  The sponsor stated that she valued and recommended the book because of the philosophical questions it raises: What is the reality of a photo, image, or experience? Is reality whatever an   individual interprets it to be, as solipsism suggests. Is only what the self knows or believes real?

Most agreed that Sebald was able to brilliantly  develop his out of focus, disconnected, deeply depressed character, Austerlitz, using scavenged, soft- focus photos and the device of a dispassionate narrator relaying Austerlitz's painful journey.  Sebald's version of the found photos is  authentic...a reality that he created that rings true.  (The sponsor also wondered how the invention of photography and photos themselves affect the way we remember and construct our past reality.  Members briefly mused about how long photos remain recognizable...three generations?...before they are meaningless.)

 A work that tells a  truth about the Holocaust.  All done by Sebald without resorting to traditional plot lines and character exposition.

Conversation was diverted abruptly away from the philosophical towards the emotional impact of the story.  (Mea culpa...but it eventually came back to philosophy.)  One member said that this book, different from many of the novels we have read in the past, did not rely on enfolding of characters through straight-forward narrative and plot. My words follow, so I guess my reality, but it states the premise I think I heard: The Holocaust in Austerlitz is no operatic drama of death, but, instead, a slow, steady erosion of life. A quick sand that sucks you in despite or because of your struggle to free yourself. A Holocaust dependent upon things as mundane as a 1000 French movers earning their salary by clearing out 40,000 victims' apartments. A Holocaust that is so meticulous and thorough,   rosin  from violin cases is painstakingly collected and stacked in a warehouse.  A  Holocaust that masquerades a death camp as a place of culture.  And a Holocaust that mangled Austerlitz's spirit or soul at the age of 4 and a half.  (The  Kinder Transport saved Austerlitz's life, but left him unable to get close to other human beings.  And for most of his life, to face the mystery of his origin. Documentaries of Kinder Transport suggest that the feeling of abandonment never goes away.)

Sebald tells the truth about memory, the passage of time.


Austerlitz's suppressed memories  are always lurking ready to appear through faces, an object in a flea market, through a glimpse at photo, by walking in a room. Austerlitz longs to  find what he lost in the past in the corners of the world that seem never to change.  Several members mentioned their  early sensory memories of their world are their most vivid memories.  

A work with sentences that run on for pages and meander on but that contain gems of thought and create a mood that matches the content.

Paraphrased comments:  "Difficult to read.   I had to reread each time I picked up the book before I could move on."  Contrasting point of view: " I could read in snatches or long sections and still feel connected and satisfied." Members who stuck with it, were glad that they did.  

BUT...

One reader just came to find out why she should have read or should have appreciated reading the book, when she didn't.  Forgot to ask her if she found out.  G?  Care to comment?  Another member stopped reading altogether and didn't come to meeting. The foreword we read from, left her even less interested in reading.  After hearing my version of the discussion, she said she might pick the book/Kindle up again.

click comments below for another point of view and other comments

Next Book: Austerlitz April 25, 2012

In a No Man's Land of Memories and Loss

By MICHIKO KAKUTANI

With W. G. Sebald's haunting new book, ''Austerlitz,'' we are transported to a memoryscape -- a twilight, fogbound world of half-remembered images and ghosts that is reminiscent at once of Ingmar Bergman's ''Wild Strawberries,'' Kafka's troubling fables of guilt and apprehension and, of course, Proust's ''Remembrance of Things Past.'' As in Proust's great masterwork, ordinary objects and places reverberate with memories, but in ''Austerlitz'' those memories -- triggered by a train station, say, a deserted house, an old photograph or a domed ceiling -- tend to remain fragmentary, elusive and vaguely sinister.

October 26, 2001ARTSREVIEW
From the New York Times 

Big City Book Group Link Below

New York Times Book Group

Birds Without Wings: Meeting Notes by BB

As eight of us gathered to discuss Birds without Wings by Louis de Bernieres, Lily, the hostess's fluffy white lapdog, greeted us at the door barking.  She calmed down after sniffing doggy treats in the pocket of one of our members and spent the rest of the evening begging and eating.  

De Bernieres is author also of Corelli’s Mandolin, which we read and discussed a few years ago.  In Birds, we found considerable difference between the sections on historical events and personages and those on the fictional characters in a fictional village. The former were so filled with facts we didn’t try to remember them all.  The latter were poignant and often comical.  

We decided that this is primarily an anti-war book as is borne out in the dedication:  “In the grand scheme of things, this book is necessarily dedicated to the unhappy memory of the millions of civilians on all sides during the times portrayed, who became victims of the numerous death marches, movements of refugees, campaigns of persecution and extermination, and exchanges of population.”

 Those of us sided completely with the Armenians, Greeks and Jews after our group read Snow by  Orhan Pamuk now found our sympathies extending to include Islamists and, indeed, all the many peoples in the area who were in turn victims and victimizers. 

 In its descriptions of war, this novel is as gory as anything we’ve ever read and, in its various expressions of love, as lyrically tender.  We were particularly struck by the author’s depiction of women’s feelings.

Members compared this book to Don Quixote for its wise-cracking, philosophical folly and exaggeration and to War and Peace for its juxtaposition of world affairs and domesticity.

One member wondered at how the author, an Englishman, could know so intimately the ins and outs of daily life in his mixed-ethnic fictional village.  Perhaps the answer can be discerned in the acknowledgements in the back of the hardback edition in which the author thanks both Turkish diplomats who made “a huge stack of British Foreign Office records” available to him and also acknowledges fifteen individuals from two bookstore owners to a priest to a cook to a coppersmith.

One of our members brought to our attention “Letter from Turkey: The Deep State” in the March 12 issue of The New Yorker.   

Two of our members have visited Istanbul and were struck by the many layers of history all in one place and by the clash of East and West--women wearing bright, tight jeans and high heels, for instance, along with decorative head coverings.  We talked about the displacement of American Indians and about official narratives persuading us to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Amidst a rich, wide-ranging conversation, only Lily kept her focus on one thing and one thing only.

Next Book: Birds Without Wings by De Bernieres March 28, 2012

“Where does it all begin? History has no beginnings, for everything that happens becomes the cause or pretext for what occurs afterwards, and this chain of cause and pretext stretches back to the Palaeolithic age, when the first Cain of one tribe murdered the first Abel of another. All war is fratricide, and there is therefore an infinite chain of blame that winds its circuitous route back and forth across the path and under the feet of every people and every nation, so that a people who are the victims of one time become the victimisers a generation later, and newly liberated nations resort immediately to the means of their former oppressors. The triple contagions of nationalism, utopianism and religious absolutism effervesce together into an acid that corrodes the moral metal of a race, and it shamelessly and even proudly performs deeds that it would deem vile if they were done by any other.” 

― Louis de Bernières, Birds Without Wings

 Louis de Bernieres BIO

UNTIED by Barbara Mcgillicuddy Bolton...book group member

Her daughter picked her up at South Station, the baby on her hip.  He stared at his grandmother as though she were a complete unknown, an alien from outer space, when in reality she lived only four hours away by train, but it had been a while since she’d made the trip from New York to Boston.  Sarai gave her mother an enthusiastic one-arm hug, the baby wide-eyed.

In the Jeep, the baby strapped in the back, Sarai’s face took on a careful expression.   “Sam and I have finished furnishing the place,” she said, “for the time being.”

Nina said nothing.  She was no fool.  She knew darn well she’d gone too far last time she’d visited and she had resolved to behave herself.  She had talked the matter all over with her friend Bonnie during their daily walks around Prospect Park.  Remember when you were first married, Bonnie had advised.  Actually, Nina couldn’t.

“What I’m saying, Mother…”

“Yes, yes, I hear you, dear.  And I’m sure you’ve done a lovely job.”  The last time Nina visited she kept finding items on the street to drag home to Sarai and Sam’s, usually with Sarai’s approval, sometimes with her assistance.  Sarai fell in with Nina’s ideas, but—as Bonnie cautioned—Nina had to remember that Sarai was married to Sam, not to Nina. 

Well, Nina knew that.  It was just that the young couple had used all the money they had—plus cashing in Sarai’s life insurance policy Nina had turned over to them with the idea that it would stay intact while Sarai was actually alive and well—to buy a money-sucking Victorian in one of those close-in suburbs that surround Boston.  Nina had furnished her own “working man’s” brownstone in Park Slope, Brooklyn, in sidewalk finds.  When they were young, her children were perfectly willing to help her tote home an oak side table or a glass-topped coffee table or framed prints, rejoicing with her in their good fortune.  Now that they were grown, only brand new things—Ikea and the like—were good enough for them.  It had something to do with the people they’d married.  Sam was particularly keen on everything being new, even though anyone could see that quality and endurance—and even style—might be lacking.  It seemed the young were satisfied only with what they had to pay for.

That was a luxury Nina couldn’t afford when she was raising her family.  It had been up to her to hold things together, especially after Declan up and left her and the children for good.  Four children under eight and Nina with no more than an associate’s degree.  She’d have gotten her BA before she’d gotten married if Declan hadn’t been in such a hurry.  He had his BA, he argued—and, let’s face it, she agreed—what need did she have to get hers?  Besides, they needed her waitressing wages first while he finished grad school and then to save for a house where they could start a family.

She got her BA, eventually, at great price, not in the carefree way of young students but while working at a succession of jobs—taxi dispatcher, short-order cook, department store clerk—and running her house and raising her kids.  At one point, Megan, her oldest, held it against her that Bobby, the youngest and the only boy, cried for his mother some of those evenings when the children were left in the care of one indifferent teenager after another.  Nina couldn’t very well expect a child to understand that it was all she could do to hold things together. 

After she got the BA and started substitute teaching, she found that her knack for holding things together extended to the classroom as well.  Some of the younger teachers had no grasp of discipline or organization.  They couldn’t seem to learn, any more than a cat can be taught to read, what was to Nina second nature.

Mr. Peevis hired her to teach special education at MS 12, the middle school down the street from her house.  Megan and Claire had already passed through the revolving door that is middle school and gone on to high school in Manhattan, and Sarai and Bobby were in 7^th and 6^th grades at MS 12.  Things got easier after that.  Nina had only one job now and she could take courses for her master’s degree one at a time.  Most school day mornings, she left her house at the same time her children did, spent the day in her self-contained classroom taming and grooming her dozen or so charges, and walked home to eat supper with her children and spend the evening with them.  She was holding things together.  All four of her children and, as far as she could tell, some of her MS 12 students turned out fine.  Bobby had joined the Navy to see the world and sent Nina postcards from around the globe.  The girls were all married, Sarai, third in line, having leapfrogged over the others to produce the first grandchild.

The Jeep had swooped through the underground route that was the fruit of Boston’s Big Dig and was gliding through the leaf-canopied streets of Sarai’s town.  “I don’t know about you,” Nina said, “but I’m always glad to get out of those tunnels.  I read in the Times about a piece of the roof coming loose and crashing through a car and killing the driver.”  The driver was about Nina’s own age, if she remembered correctly.

Sarai slid her eyes toward her mother and smiled the sort of indulgent smile one might give a child.  “Now, mother, Boston is no less safe than this street we’re on.”

“You can’t believe that!”  Nina looked out at the neat lawns and flowering shrubs and brick walks leading up to white-pillared porches.

“Well, inner city problems spill over into the suburbs, you know mother, even here—drugs, for instance, and guns.”  They had turned into Sarai’s driveway and arrived at her kitchen door.  The baby had fallen asleep, and Sarai unhooked the harness of his car seat and gingerly placed him against her shoulder where his little body molded itself to her.  She turned to her mother and placed one finger to her lips. 

Nina hunched her shoulders in agreement.  That was another thing that had gotten her into trouble the last time she’d visited.  She’d never insisted on quiet for her own babies.  For one thing, after Megan, quiet wasn’t always possible.  Her babies learned to sleep through anything.  Was it her policy, a theory of child rearing, or just the way things worked out?  Nina couldn’t remember.  So much of the past had become a blur—perhaps because she had been so very busy.

But, of course, this baby was breastfed, and that seemed so much more delicate an endeavor than bottle feeding.  On her previous visit, Nina had suggested to Sarai that she give the occasional bottle.  Sarai—and Sam too—had reacted as though Nina were a matron in a Rumanian orphanage drugging babies around the clock with paregoric.

Sam met them at the door and, as always, greeted Nina with a bear hug.  He was an emotional man, rather like Declan, and, also like Declan, capable of being a little full of himself.  He had fixed dinner for them and set the table.  Nina fell in easily with his desire for praise.  She liked Sam—when she could put aside the ways in which he reminded her of Declan.

“Have you told your mother our plan?” Sam asked once they were seated at the table.  He dished out a slice of meatloaf onto Nina’s plate.

For a moment, Nina was afraid she was going to be given a list of instructions regarding breastfeeding and scavenging.  But, of course, her children and sons-in-law were all too circumspect—and kind—to scold.

“Well, if the baby stays asleep…”  Sarai trailed off as though such a possibility were remote.

“You can nurse him just before we leave.” Sam served himself last.  “There’s no hard and fast timetable.”  It turned out that his college roommate was hosting a gallery opening that evening in the neighboring town.  Nina could see that it wasn’t just the wine and cheese and showing up for his friend that Sam wanted.  He wanted to get out, to get out with his wife, without the baby.

“Well, of course!”  Nina made herself sound enthusiastic.  To tell the truth, she was a little afraid of being put in charge of a breastfed baby.  The last time she’d visited she could hardly hold the baby without his crying for his mother.  One of the reasons she’d dragged home furniture, she realized now, was that she had wanted to be of some use to the household.

The baby woke up half way through supper.  At first, he wanted only his mother.  Then he let Sam dandle him while Nina did the dishes and Sarai changed into gallery-going clothes—brand new, unlike the carefully chosen thrift-store finds Nina had raised her children on.  Finally, the baby accepted Nina’s arms, giving her the solemn expression he’d greeted her with at the train station.  Sarai nursed him again just before she and Sam were ready to leave and, handed him, wide awake, back to Nina.  “Now, mother,” she said at the door, “if he’s unhappy, you call me and we’ll come right back.”

The baby complained when Nina when into the living room and sat down.  So she stood up and walked and he resumed his stoic expression.  She walked with him though the entire house talking to him as she went.  He looked at her as though he understood.  She decided she liked him.  Why had his parents named him Peter Declan?

For some reason she couldn’t grasp, the children all loved Declan.  He had been a frequently preoccupied father when he lived with them and an erratic presence thereafter, but, again, for reasons she couldn’t fathom, they all forgave him.  He showed up at each of the girl’s weddings—accompanied by the very woman he’d left his family for—walked each daughter down the aisle, and was persuaded at each reception to sing “Danny Boy,” at the end of which everyone except Nina was in tears, his children—even his son—throwing themselves around his neck.

The baby lay his head against Nina’s shoulder.  She continued to walk.  She would have named her first-born Declan if Megan had been a boy, but her husband said oh, no, they’d be no Declan the Third.  He wanted any son of his to have his own name, not a handed-down one. 

But there was a Declan the Third, after all.  After a series of miscarriages over a number of years, Declan’s second wife finally produced a son, who was given the name that rightfully should have been Bobby’s.  That boy was at the weddings, too, a completely ungoverned boy who talked out loud in church and raced around the receptions knocking people in their knees causing drinks to spill.  Nina sized him up as ADHD, a label that the private school Declan and wife somehow could afford wouldn’t touch with a ten- foot pole.

The baby’s eyes were heavy.  Nina kept walking and began to hum so as to maintain the delicate art of keeping him quiet.  The previous spring Mr. Peevis had called her into his office during her prep period and putting pencil to paper showed her how she’d be just as well off financially whether she continued working or not.  You’ll be free to follow your dreams, he’d said.  Only afterwards did it strike Nina that Mr. Peevis had the school’s welfare in mind as much as he did hers.  He could hire two kids right out of college—without MA’s—to fill her one position.  Bonnie retired, too, and threw herself into the year-round pursuits she’d had to squeeze into spare time.  Nina had never had the time to develop hobbies.  For the first time in her life, she felt at loose ends.

The baby had fallen asleep.  Nina walked to the playpen they kept for him in the living room.  She knelt on the rattan rug, lowered the side of the pen with one hand and eased the baby onto a woolly blanket.  She covered him and raised the side.  She sat back on her haunches, the baby’s imprint remaining against her chest.  No wonder Sarai adored him.  A sensuous memory of her own babies suffused Nina. 

She was surprised to hear the kitchen door open.  Sarai and Sam were back earlier than expected.  Two sets of heavy footfalls came quickly through the kitchen.  Fear rose to Nina’s gorge and she got to her feet as two young men, one burly, the other slight, tramped into the room and gaped at her.  When she was a child there were jingles about Fat and Skinny—Fat and Skinny went to bed.  Fat rolled over and Skinny was dead.

This Fat and Skinny spoke to each other in language Nina had forbidden in her classroom and her home. They could have been two of her old MS 12 students a few years along in life.  If they had been in the classroom, she might have mustered the inner resources to hold sway over them.  But she quickly surmised that their shifty eyes and twitchy mouths were due not to their neglecting to take their Ritalin that morning but from involvement with some more potent and unpredictable drug.  She hadn’t spent all those years as a special education teacher not to realize when she was out of her depth.

Fat gave orders to Skinny, who bounded towards Nina with jerky steps and pointed to a chair next to the playpen.  She sat.  With his herky-jerky movements, he pulled clothesline rope from his jacket pocket, pulled her hands behind the chair and tied them.  Next to her ear, his breath smelled of bubble gum.  The first semester she taught, she took a lenient attitude toward gum chewing, but after finding wads on the undersides of chairs and desks and smeared on the floor, she became a convert to the school’s no-gum policy.  Skinny came around the chair and knelt to tie Nina’s feet.  He had two swirls on the crown of his head, a sign Nina had half-believed in childhood that he would live on two continents.  Fat took off then while Skinny stood, squinched his eyes and said, “Sorry ‘bout this.”  Then he was off too.  Nina heard them rummaging in the bathroom medicine cabinet.  Each of the three floors in this monster house Sarai and Sam had bought had a bathroom, and the men raced to each while she sat helpless and completely without dignity.

She had felt helpless the day Declan walked around their brownstone bedroom packing to leave, this time for good.  And she had cared nothing about her dignity.  Please don’t do this she had begged, the baby in her arms, his head on her shoulder.  She would have put the baby down and fallen to her knees and hugged Declan around the legs if she thought that could change his mind.  She didn’t yet know about the other woman, didn’t know that Declan had a destination.  She only knew that she loved him and couldn’t go on without him, couldn’t possibly finish by herself this gigantic house-and-family project they’d undertaken together.  Declan said nothing until just before he went out the front door—You’ll manage; you always do.

That night, she’d taken all four children into her bed—hers and Declan’s—and held onto one or another of them through the night to keep herself from shaking.  The next morning, she got the children’s breakfast, walked the older two to school, and later while the younger two were napping consulted the want ads in the paper.  She’d managed.  And she’d continued to manage the others in her life right through her last day at MS 12.

She realized now, sitting bound hand and foot, that she’d never really taken advantage of the freedom Mr. Peevis had promised.  It was foolish of her to think she could fill her time with her children the way she’d had to do all those years.  She didn’t want to do the things close to home that Bonnie was so fond of.  She wanted to take the old fashioned Grand Tour of Europe, sail to the Galapagos Islands, walk on the Great Wall of China, things she’d read about and now was actually free to do.  She’d sign up for tours.  She’d been so busy for so many years that she didn’t have a great many friends, but now she was free to make new friends, friends who were also free and craved adventure as much as she did.

Declan would never be free.  That boy of his was a handful and he was going to grow up to be a care, Nina was sure.  For the first time, she felt sorry for Declan.  And for his wife, Rose.  The poor woman had lost one underdone baby after another.  How she must have grieved—perhaps still grieved—before finally, at the biological last moment, going full term.  Nina had had four pregnancies and four live births—how could she have endured the loss of any one of them?—and now, while still in the prime of life, was free of responsibility.

The intruders came pounding down the stairs.  At the door of the living room, they stopped and looked agape as though in their race from medicine chest to medicine chest they had forgotten all about her.  Again, Nina blocked their vile utterances and studied their body language.  Fat reached into his pocket and brought out a gun.  Skinny put his hand on Fat’s, in protest, and Fat shook it off. 

Nina had watched enough episodes of Law and Order and its spinoffs to know what had to come next.  She was a witness, after all.  And they had a gun.  “The baby,” she whispered loudly.  Don’t hurt the baby.  He can’t do anything to hurt you.”

The shot, when it came, felt like a swift, powerful, yet painless blow.  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—was it she who spoke or the skinny intruder?  Or was she merely thinking the words.  A montage tumbled through her mind: she and Declan feeding cake to each other on their wedding day, Baby Megan eating ice cream with a spoon, Claire at the supper table imitating her third grade teacher’s outrageous Brooklyn accent.  And then her own father singing to her when she was a baby herself, before the time when she would have thought it possible for her to have a memory. 

Nina is by the ceiling looking down.  She sees the chair tipped over and herself inert on the rattan rug, a pool of blood widening around her.  Peter Declan is standing in the playpen holding onto the bars and wailing.  The shot must have woken him up.  His parents will be home any minute.  Sarai will pick him up and put him to the breast to let him drink and sob and shudder until he finds peace.  Everything will be all right.

Nina wells up with emotion, an eternal springing forth.  She has never felt more free.

DISCUSSION notes by BB: Best Short Stories of the Twentieth Century

Eight members gathered on Wednesday, February 29--a once-in-four-years eventuality--to discuss a once-in-a-century production, namely "Best Short Stories of the Twentieth Century," edited by John Updike.  The book's sponsor had selected from the tome's cornucopia five faves.  The first, published in 1916, was "Little Selves," in which a dying old woman immerses herself in her rich memories, briefly bringing back to life all those little selves that will die with her.  We were struck by the biographical note on the author: "Mary Lerner published several short stories in national magazines.  Nothing more is known about her."  Nothing, not even the dates of her birth and death!

We all knew Richard Wright from his novels but his 1939 short story "Bright and Morning Star" was new to us.  We were intrigued by the dialogue, the imagery and the connection between Southern blacks and the Communist Party.  One of our group had seen--and been moved by--a play based on the story.

We were all moved by Bernard Malamud's 1964 "The German Refugee."  Some found this portrait of an immigrant who's lost everything almost too much to bear.  We disagreed over what exactly causes the refugee to lose hope and just what his Jewishness means to him and how much his thinking has been distorted by the persecution he has suffered.

Thom Jones's 1993 "I Want to Live" also divided the group into those who chuckled over the dark humor and those who couldn't bear to get so close to the main character's journey through cancer.  (Basically, wicked funny as Jones is, those who had seen a loved one through the ravages of disease made this writer feel somewhat callow.)  We all admired the author's skill writing from a woman's point of view.

In discussing Pam Houston's 1999 "The Best Girlfriend I Never Had," we departed from the subject of death.  This contemporary, gritty, dark, funny piece is no feel-good, however.  The hope that sustains three of the previous four stories is lacking here, and Houston's plucky thirty-something young woman is as adrift as Malamud's refugee.

At the end of the evening, the hostess, in keeping with the theme, distributed copies of a short story of her own--one in which death is no stranger.

Even though this collection of short stories is too unwieldy for reading on the subway or in bed, we thought it just right for people leading fragmented lives and/or "losing it."  The five we read represented different time periods and were just the right number for lively discussion.  We concluded the meeting intending to read more of the stories on our own.

In a postscript to last month’s entry, Wallace Shawn, according to the February 29 NY Times, is planning a filmed version of Ibsen's "Master Builder."

Next Book: Best American Short Stories of the Century February 29, 2012

Review of Collection by New York Observer

http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-9780395843673-8

Stories to Discuss:
Bright and Morning Star by Richard Wright
The German Refugee by Bernard Malamud
Little Selves by Mary Lerner
I Want to Live by Thom Jones
The Best Girlfriend You Never Had by Pam Houston

Look for discussion notes in the next few days....

The FEVER...meeting notes

Got to the meeting late.  And got to writing this too many days after the meeting.
Since I rely on my memory...not good.
I am hoping that my shy book group colleagues will correct and/or add to this entry...Come on! Write up! Or...email me and I will post...

Here goes my best attempt to reflect the ideas expressed...

It seems that this play was liked by the majority of members.
Although the ones that didn't like it, really didn't like it.  They seemed to be really turned off by the circular, somewhat disjointed, stream of consciousness.  And they stopped reading.

However, during the meeting, we played  the audio of Wallace Shawn reading The Fever.  Just the first 8-minute segment, anyway.  As a result, (and most likely hearing the discussion motivated her as well) one member who stopped reading...wants to listen instead. And someone will be giving the CD to her husband instead of the book.

BUT, not everyone was converted in favor.  One member, who couldn't get a copy of The Fever electronically, was not going to pick it up after the discussion and even after listening to Shawn.  She said (paraphrased of course) she disliked intellectual rich upper class folks who bash intellectual rich upper class folks and got richer from doing so.

By the way...,
After listening to Shawn,  members felt hearing his voice revealed new insights into The Fever. When you hear his tone, you realize that he  is conscious of the absurdity of trying to escape one's  values, life, culture...to sacrifice everything...in order to save all humanity.  The narrator isn't going to do this...Saints are few.  And he isn't one.

We talked about what can be done to better the world--and we agreed that political action such as that of the Anti War Movement of the '60s can. Actions taking by people like Rachel Lloyd...Girls Like Us...can help save the world...girl by girl, woman by woman.


More ...

Members enjoyed Shawn's anecdotes...we assume he is the narrator who grew  up in Manhattan in the rarefied artistic and intellectual circle of his parents' world...but some of us are not sure we are supposed to take his getting stuck  in the middle of a revolution literally...Was Shawn ever in  Nicaragua?

Some examples of anecdotes:  we liked the wrapping paper and description of good and bad neighborhoods.

We also explored connections between Shawn's work and Woody Allen's exploration of class differences. Memory fails...Does anyone want to deepen this link?