Another New Review! THE OPTIMIST'S DAUGHTER

 http://tinyurl.com/p9ualay 

Such a beautiful title, beautiful writing, Pulitzer Prize winner in 1973...and so much to say about getting older, losing folks you love. A wonderful book I'm glad I read.

I could have chosen a lot of books - I'm kind of a full-body-immersion kind of reader - but went with Kim, by Rudyard Kipling.

It brings the streets, houses, and trains of the British Raj alive like nothing else imaginable.  It's also a tremendous read, and I recommend it.

Doubleday UK's July book-a-day meme is a goddess-send for me, motivating me to get up off my lazy tuchus and write some waaayyy overdue reviews.

I stole my sister Winter's paperback of this somewhere in the middlin' Seventies (sorry, Winter) and devoured it in a day. And then again, and then again. I suspect I am the curmudgeon that I am today in no small part because of Vonnegut.

This past June, my LibraryThing friend Mark (hey Mark!) featured Vonnegut as his American Author of the Month challenge pick. I re-read the book. 

It holds up.

http://expendablemudge.blogspot.com/2014/07/slaughterhouse-five-ironic-choice-for.html

William H. Gass is a two-bit William Faulkner, that's it.  The fact that David Foster Wallace's favorite book was Omensetter's Luck should tell you something already.  

Omensetter is an innocent sod who decides one day to pack the family up and move to Gilean, Ohio.  He's a babe in the woods but everything seems to work out for him which makes his new neighbors envious since he's such a simp.  When his landlord disappears and then later is found hanging high in a tree, the town-folk take it as a useful opportunity to run him out of town.  His good luck continues as his infant son miraculously recovers from diphtheria.  That's it, as I said.  

Not really.  See Omensetter is the pre-Eve (pre-knowledge) Adam and his life is contrasted to the nasty sinful Reverend Jethro Furber.  Furber, his neighbor, is Omensetter's biggest enemy in town, especially since Omensetter is not a church goer.  Furber is as wicked and sinful as Omensetter is innocent.  There's the gist of something good here, if somebody would just write it. 

How did we get this post-modernist stream-of-consciousness trifle?  Well, the first copy Gass wrote was stolen by a jealous colleague, so he had to think it up again (Much to our detriment.  Why couldn't it just stay lost?).  Such are the ways of petty university politics.  When Gass rewrote it the thing sort of got away from him and the Furber section became the bulk of the book.   But when you're trying to be clever, you leave the title alone.

The idea of the novel is really quite good, but you would have to turn it over to somebody who could actually write a coherent novel to get anything out of it.  Here we have the output of a writer with a poor idea of grammar and punctuation, but a jolly good idea.  Some might call it a difficult read but I didn't find that.

If I didn't know better, I'd pass it off as a literary practical joke.

I think it is in the sf novel Hyperion where Dan Simmons has the Poet say that William Gass is the only prose author still read from the 20th century.  Now that's a literary practical joke.

Moscow firemen in 1913 (according to teh interwebz)

Ah, it's 1913. There'll never be another war. Although if you live in Mexico, Pancho Villa is leading a revolution. If you are Emily Davison, British suffragette, you make a slight miscalculation and are trampled to death by a race horse as you attempts to drop a banner on it. If you're a Norwegian woman, though, you may now vote. If you are the House of Lords, you reject an Irish Home Rule bill, and then on "Bloody Sunday" police injure 400 people in Dublin. If you live in New York, you get a new, uglier Grand Central Terminal and also the Woolworth Building, the tallest building in the world! If you live in Dayton, Ohio, a flood destroys your home. You lucky American, you may also smoke your first packaged cigarette (a Camel.) If you are a balletomane in Paris, you riot when you see Diaghilev's Rite of Spring, set to Stravinsky. If you are tired of the Ottoman empire, you attend an Arab conference with other Arab nationalists. If you are Black in South Africa, you are officially outlawed from owning land. If you live in Copenhagen, you enjoy a beautiful new statue of The Little Mermaid. If you are a miner in Wales, you may be killed in an explosion; if you are an Indian miner in South Africa, Mohandas Gandhi leads you on a march. If you are Greece, you annex Crete, which had just barely shaken off Turkey. If you are Woodrow Wilson, you sign the Federal Reserve into existence. If you are Yuan Shikai, you are the first elected president of the Republic of China.

But what will you read to while away the hours?

Virginia by Ellen Glasgow

A forgotten masterpiece about a woman named Virginia from Virginia who has an "ordinary" life with marriage and children. The downfall of this marvelous book: racism. My long review here.

It's on the table, next to my cat.

Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier (also called The Wanderer)

I read this book in 1998 and I remember how beautiful and haunting it was and what a special experience it was to read it, but I remember almost nothing about the plot. There was a little boy. . . another boy. . . a school. . . a house. . . a party. . . . a girl. . . a journey. That might not even be right. It wasn't about the plot. I think it was about innocence.

I just inherited my mother's two copies, one in English and one in French. I remember we talked about it when I read it and she told me how much she loved this novel. You can tell she loved it, because she didn't read French but she had a French copy.

From L to R: my original copy, my mom's copy, my mom's copy in French.

Her bookplate.

Sons & Lovers by DH Lawrence

I read this in the mid-1990's, so once again I don't remember it well. It's about a sensitive, artistic boy who doesn't fit into his working class family (his father is a miner?) but he's very close to his mother. As I recall, there is some sex and it seemed very emotionally authentic.

The Tale of Pigling Bland by Beatrix Potter

I did read this as a child, but what I chiefly remember is that we had a record of Claire Bloom reading it out loud. She really gave a killer performance, bringing all the depth and meaning to the surface. The parts I remember best: "Beware of bacon, cream, and eggs. Always walk on your hind legs!" and the ending (sorry for spoiler) "Over the hills and far away, she danced with Pigling Bland." I think it's about a pig who goes on an errand, gets into trouble, meets another pig, and they escape.

The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum

One of three books the prolific Baum published in 1913. I remember this as one of the best of the Oz books. The Patchwork Girl is a stuffed doll brought to life for the convenience of humans, similar to the Scarecrow. My brother pointed out what a terrible conundrum it is that Ojo the Unlucky must break the most important rule of Oz (do not harm any living creatures) in order to save his uncle's life.

The Little Nugget by PG Wodehouse

Every book I have read by PG Wodehouse has been charming and diverting, and this was no exception. Until now I have mostly read Jeeves books so I was surprised at the differences in this one—specifically, that there was gunplay, a proper romance, and the main character was of near-average intelligence. There were two butlers though—but there’s something suspicious about one of them! My favorite character was Smooth Sam Fisher. The book design was lovely--the publisher was Overlook. Unfortunately there is one use of the “n word” which I think a good editor should take out in the next edition. Oh, I should say, the novel is about a kidnapping, or a series of attempted kidnappings. Agatha Christie said this was her favorite Wodehouse novel. But Wodehouse was very offended by this because he had written dozens more since then, so he thought that meant she hadn't read any of his later work. I bet she did, but she just liked this the best.

Up Next: More of the Best of 1913!