Tag Archives: fiction

Ignored Characters

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As I mentioned, to my surprise, I loved rereading Little Women. I think I liked it more now than when I first read it as a teenager, simply because the goody-goody characters were refreshing to me after the novels and the nonfiction books I’ve been reading. I related to the girls.

Author Geraldine Brooks read Little Women the first time when she was ten. When her mother recommended it, she said to take it with a grain of salt: “Nobody in real life is such a goody-goody as that Marmee” (Afterword, page 354). With that concept was born Brooks’ Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, March.

While March focuses a little bit on Marmee, the majority of this book is about Mr. March (called March), the father of the girls, who, in part one of Alcott’s novel, is away fighting in the Civil War. In this novel, we read his letters to Marmee, and then we read the truth of what is happening to him in the South. March writes ” promised her that I would write something every day: I never promised I would write the truth” (page 4).

In a fascinating contrast to the girls’ failures in Little Women, March’s failings are huge to him; he cannot solve them in a chapter or even by the end of the book. As Little Women delves into the little problems of teenage girls, March delves into the larger problems of an adult before and during the civil war: slavery, death, violence and war, betrayal, marital and extramarital relationships, and confusion about one’s role in the world and in a family. (Disappointingly, there is a far amount of sexuality in this book, so keep that in mind.) To me, it is an intriguing contrast to the goody-goody world of Little Women.

Geraldine Brooks has thoroughly researched both the civil war and the life of Louisa May Alcott’s father, Bronson Alcott, for many of the philosophies and characteristics of Mr. March. Since Alcott herself based Little Women on her own experience, basing Mr. March on Alcott’s father seemed very appropriate. I love a well-researched novel, especially historical fiction, and this certainly was well-researched.

I also loved the concept of fleshing out a character that otherwise wasn’t noticed. I know I never gave a thought to Mr. March when I first read Little Women. Only on rereading Little Women now, knowing that I’d read March next, did I realize how little attention is given to him.

What behind-the-scenes fictional character would you like to know more about?

Note: I’d recommend reading Little Women (at least part one) before approaching March. They complement each other nicely.

Favorite Authors: Alexander McCall-Smith

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When I was a child, I would go to the library on my bike with a backpack full of already-consumed books, return them, and get another full backpack full of to-be-read books. Sometimes I’d go through a series, reading every single one as they were available at the library. Other times I went through “author phases.” Then I would check out every book by a particular author and read those.

For past two years or so, I’ve been on an author kick again: I was looking for quick, easy-to-read, “empty” fiction that was enjoyable. I realize this isn’t really a good thing. I should always use my precious reading time for books that actually add something to my life. But they do: they add sanity.

I enjoyed reading Alexander McCall-Smith’s The Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency a few years ago; it’s a good book club book and every book club I’ve been in has read it. It is about a “lady detective” in Botswana. How McCall-Smith, a man in a kilt, is able to capture this delightful woman and the intriguing country in this series is just amazing to me. (I know he wears kilts because I met him in Chicago a few years ago: he was wearing a kilt. That was before I knew most of his books take place in Scotland.) When I went to find the subsequent books in that series to read them (I think I’d only read through number five), I found that he had a number of other series.

Note: Some libraries classify him as Smith (SMI) and some classify him as McCall-Smith (MCC) or both (Naperville Public Libraries). My current library has him under MACC.

Here’s the rundown.

The Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency series

These are clean, moral books, with clever characters and an intriguing setting. They should be read in order, as the plots build off of each other. As with many series, I believe the first books are the best; the formulaic style gets old further on. I love reading about Botswana. I never knew anything about it, but reading novels that take place there give me a sense of place. Now I want to go to Botswana to see the terrain!

  • The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
  • Tears of the Giraffe
  • Morality for Beautiful Girls
  • The Kalahari Typing School for Men
  • The Full Cupboard of Life
  • In the Company of Cheerful Ladies
  • Blue Shoes and Happiness
  • The Good Husband of Zebra Drive
  • The Miracle at Speedy Motors (I haven’t read this one yet: it’s either not published yet or not in Australia yet.)

Professor Dr. von Igelfeld Entertainments Series

These are collections of short stories, each book being fairly short. The eponymous professor is incredibly conceited, which conceit places him in rather humorous situations.

  • Portuguese Irregular Verbs
  • The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs
  • At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances

The Sunday Philosophy Club Series or Isabel Dalhousie Mysteries

How do I say this? While the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series is full of Botswana morals and Dr. von Igelfeld is a pompous, conservative, middle-aged German professor, these books are modern. They are set in McCall-Smith’s Edinburgh, and feature an almost 40-year-old single woman’s life and decisions, including her love life. While I enjoyed the mystery in the first novel, the “mysteries” in the subsequent novels have only disappointed me and Isabel’s immoral decisions disappoint me. I’m not sure I’ll read any subsequent novels. Maybe I don’t get in to the series because I just don’t relate to her. They aren’t spectacularly written, and the setting and character don’t interest me. It’s just Scotland (sorry if that offends anyone). It seems to rain a lot.

  • The Sunday Philosophy Club
  • Friends, Lovers, Chocolate
  • The Right Attitude to Rain
  • The Careful Use of Compliments

44 Scotland Street Series

In the tradition of Dickens, McCall-Smith writes a serial novel as a regular column in the newspaper, in this case The Scotsman. The novels track the daily life of persons living at said address in Edinburgh (although some of the characters move to a new address) through two-four page chapters. There are some other interesting characters that keep me interested, such as the six-year-old Italian-speaking, saxophone-playing Bertie, who has an overbearing mother. I enjoy these very much.

  • 44 Scotland Street
  • Espresso Tales
  • Love over Scotland
  • The World According to Bertie
  • The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (I haven’t read this yet; it either hasn’t yet been published yet or it hasn’t come to Australia yet)

McCall-Smith has also written a few collections of short stories, children’s stories, and academic text books (he was a Medical Law professor), none of which I have read.

What author(s) do you like and keep returning to, year after year?

Castles in the Air and Growing Up (A Little)

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It’s been a long time since I’ve read a young adult novel (other than Harry Potter, which doesn’t count), so when I picked up Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women this week, I was at first taken aback by the rosy, generic moral lessons within it. As I began, I didn’t think I’d have much to ponder, since it’s a reread for me. But I was wrong.

At first the moral lessons were a bit silly to me. For example, when the girls want a holiday week, without any chores, their mother agrees and lets them, knowing they will learn their lesson. Sure enough, by the end of the week, they are ready for chores again! If only lessons are really learned that way.

By the middle, though, I was finding myself relating to the teen angst as the girls began courting and dealing with each other and their life dreams. They plan their “castles in the air” for what they want to be doing in ten years, when they are — get this — between twenty-two and twenty-seven.

What’s your castle in the air for ten years from now? My castle in the air is a four-bedroom house with a fenced-in back yard, a few mature trees, and a few children swinging on a swing set and otherwise playing together. But I’ll go where ever Heavenly Father wants me to be and I’ll accept whatever little blessings he wants to send me (or not send me). I never envisioned Australia, and my life now is essentially my castle in the air. I don’t want my life changed too much. I am very happy.

As I was reading Little Women, I really found myself enjoying the story, as childish and “rosy” as it is. Then, during a scene when a character marries, I had a moment of bizarre realization: I’m not one of them. I’m already married. I have a baby. How am I relating to these girls?

It felt so weird to realize that I’m beyond that stage of life. My life has moved on.

Do you ever have moments when you look at your kid(s) or your job or your degree and wonder how you got there? I know I’ve lived each day to get here, but that moment just seemed out of chronological order. How did I get here already?

By the way, Nancy was the randomly selected winner for Buy Your Friend a Book week.

Book Tag

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Jessica tagged me with this:

1. Grab the nearest book (at least 123 pages)
2. Turn to page 123.
3. Find the 5th sentence.
4. Post said sentence on your blog.
5. Tag five people.

The book nearest me is Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. I just finished it. It is a book of short stories, so this sentence of dialogue doesn’t make much sense out of the blue: “You are wiser than that, Eliot.”

In a sense, each short story in this book is about a person who feels isolated and lonely. In this story, the 30-year-old woman from India feels lonely away from her family. In this sentence, she is telling the ten-year-old boy that she can tell he already knows that he will be alone in his life. He is wiser than she is because he expects to be alone; she doesn’t.

I tag Paige and Liz (but only if you want to participate). I think you are the only people who read my blog that have a blog and haven’t already been tagged. If you read this, you have a blog, and you haven’t been tagged, consider yourself tagged: and let me know that you are reading!

East of Eden: Good versus Evil

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John Steinbeck’s East of Eden has been banned before. I’m not surprised. It deals with attempted fratricide, prostitution, and murder. One character, Cathy, is described as a monster. But as I read it and recognized the obvious references and echoes of Genesis, I was overcome and enlightened. Combining the plot with the incredibly well written descriptions of the characters, the Salinas valley (California), and five decades, this is a novel I want to reread.

I am reminded of Mosiah 3:19.

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

When Adam and Eve left Eden, they, for the first time, had wickedness within them. They were able to give in to temptation. But they had the choice to choose the good. In Genesis, Cain chose evil and was sent “East of Eden” (see 4:1-16). Nevertheless, Cain had the choice to choose whether he would follow good or evil throughout his life: he was not condemned straight away.

In this novel, what makes Cathy and others evil is that they don’t “choose” the good. They don’t put off the “natural man.” And that makes all of the difference. On the other hand, other characters in the novel seem to completely miss the “natural man” and are thus overwhelmingly “good.” Ultimately, though, Steinbeck’s point is that we all must choose what we will do: the crux of agency is that we are free to choose. Everyone is!

I don’t know how many reading this review will want to read the novel. Some of the situations and characters are downright evil. But I think a key to reading literature is finding how it relates to your own life; part of what I gain by reading East of Eden is a better appreciation of what it means to have agency.

How Do You Read?

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In John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, Steinbeck contrasts two of his characters, and I love this imagery:

And the books that came into the house, some of them secretly–well, Samuel rode lightly on top of a book and he balanced happily among ideas the way a man rides white rapids in a canoe. But Tom got into a book, crawled and groveled between the covers, tunneled like a mole among the thoughts, and came up with the book all over his face and hands.

Part 3, Chapter 23

I think I’ve always been like Samuel: riding along a book (especially novels) without really thinking about them. A few months ago, my husband called me a “page-turner”: as long as I’m turning pages I don’t care what I’m reading, and as a result, I can read two pages and not remember what I just read. The bottom line is, I read too fast.

When my husband pointed this out to me, I decided it was time to read more carefully. I’ve been trying to “crawl between covers” lately — that’s one reason I’ve been giving book reports on this blog.

How do you read a book: do you ride the rapids or tunnel like a mole? If neither, is there another image that you can apply to yourself?

Painting a Novel: East of Eden by John Steinbeck

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My writing teachers have always instructed to “show not tell.” I didn’t understand it, really, until I began to read John Steinbeck’s East of Eden last month.

I thought “showing” meant describing the character in a context: hair color, quirks, and personality traits, mentioned as the story unfolds. Here’s a silly example I just thought of: “She tossed her mousy brown hair over her shoulder, crossed her arms in front of her, and narrowed her dark brown eyes as the wicked man sauntered toward her.” With that type of description, I can picture what is happening: the movie is playing and I don’t need to guess what people look like or how they react to a situation.

Steinbeck does not do that. He steps aside from the plot development to show us who these characters are. This could be boring, but it is not when Steinbeck does it. Here are a few paragraphs describing Liza Hamilton.

Liza Hamilton was a very different kettle of Irish. Her head was small and round and it held small round convictions. She had a button nose and a hard little set-back chin, a gripping jaw set on its course even though the angels of God argued against it.

Liza was a good plain cook, and her house — it was always her house — was brushed and pummeled and washed.

She wore her hair always pulled tight back and bunned behind in a hard knot. And since I can’t remember how she dressed, it must have been that she wore clothes that matched herself exactly. She had no spark of humor and only occasionally a blade of cutting wit. She frightened her grandchildren because she had no weakness. She suffered bravely and uncomplainingly through life, convinced that that was the way her God wanted everyone to live. She felt that rewards came later.

(Part 1, Chapter 2)

Steinbeck’s approach gives us a description of this woman as if he were describing a photograph (her head, her nose, her chin, her hair) and we can picture Liza in our minds because the description gives us the information a photograph would. But Steinbeck is also able to give her a personality: Liza Hamilton becomes real to me. As a result, as the novel progresses, I am able to anticipate how she would react simply because her character is so full of life. That is hard to do.

And guess what? She was real: Steinbeck based Samuel and Liza Hamilton in the novel on his own maternal grandparents of the same name. That underscores what I’ve always known: write what you know about and it will come alive. By extension, if a writer doesn’t know a character (or a setting or time period) — her personality, physical description , and personal history, for example — he can’t truly describe her so the reader feels he knows her too.

Have you ever looked at an oil painting up close? Some strokes of color are thicker than others; each stroke of paint leaves a texture. The painting may not look like a photograph: the colors will be different and the artist’s interpretation of the person, place, or thing will be different from the “real thing.” But often there is a texture that makes an oil painting much more interesting than a photograph would be.

Steinbeck writes an oil painting. He paints the characters, the setting, and the decades. I recognize the textures as I read the novel. It feels rich and full of life, and I love to read it. Truly, this texture helps make it a classic.

I have much more to say about East of Eden. But, for now, tell me: can you recommend any other novels that you feel “paint” the characters, the setting, and the time period? I want to read more.