Hemingway the First

Book #1 in my year of Hemingway is complete, although I probably should have worked my way up to this title instead of starting with it.  Biographical info on Papa H. tells me that this book is based on Hemingway’s own experience in the Italian campaigns during WWI.  It was during this time that he met and fell in love with a nurse named Agnes.  I suspect she may be the subject in question in The Paris Wife, the novel that initiated this whole project.  I figured I needed to understand Hemingway and his thirst for love, danger, as well as his addiction to heartbreak and pain in order to understand that novel. 

Farewell follows the war career of expat, Frederic Henry serving in the ambulance corps of the Italian army.  The novel is broken into five books – five long chapters?  five novellas? Call them what you like. The first section covers Fredric’s army career including being wounded by a mortar shell.  In a Milan hospital, he meets and gets a little frisky with his nurse, Catherine.  The remaining chapters take us through their relationship – the calms and the storms all leading to a devastating end.

You can always count on the happy times in a Hemingway novel to exist just a beat away from great sorrow.  Maybe I’m going about this all wrong, Maybe I should be reading a solid Hemingway biography, rather than reading his novels.  I am not sorry I read this book, but doing so made me wonder who the Hemingway’s of today are.  Over the years, I have demoted myself to reading works that hover near the equator between literary and pop.  I have enjoyed both, but returning to more classic works occasionally cement for me how terrifying and inspiring the written word can be.

What's next?  I haven't picked anything out yet, but  I am two Chet and Bernie books behind so that may be a good place to start.

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Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude stands as the most heartbreaking novel I have ever read.  The emotional torture emerging page after page was nearly unbearable, yet it was grounded in such an admirable premise that I couldn't stop reading.  So, I pretty much understood the intensity I was in for upon deciding to pick up another work by this Pulitzer Prize winner.

Again, Marquez got me with his masterful storytelling.  But more than that, this story is filled with truisms about human nature that lead to confusing contradictions we cannot control.  The book opens on the morning of Santiago Nasar's death.  Santiago does not know he is about to be murdered, but most people in the village know.  He goes about his day interacting with individuals, none of whom share with him the fact that the Vicario twins have announced repeatedly that they will murder Santiago that day.

It seems that Santiago disgraced their sister, and when her newlywed husband discovers the deception on their wedding night less than 12 hours earlier, he deposits her back with her family.  The Vicario brothers decide then and there that they must defend their family's honor and destroy that which has destroyed them.  They really don't want to do it, but they see the murder as an obligation.  

The brothers tell everyone in their path about the plan.  They openly go to a butcher shop to sharpen the knives they will use in the attack.  The confess to anyone who will listen, and after the fact, the go to church and confess to a priest.  Throughout the day, it is obvious they are hoping someone will stop them or at least, that someone will warn Santiago.  No one does.  Everyone in the little village has a different reason why they kept silent. When questioned, no one can even agree up simple things like what the weather was like that day, let alone how much they know, who told them and why.   Each person's reason for not speaking up is simple and to a degree acceptable in its own rite - and yet, each person's silence contributed to a death.  

Lots of symbolism.  Lots of sentences and paragraphs and lines to be read and re-read.  Lots to think about in this short, lyrical one-hundred-twenty page novel.  This is one to sink your teeth into.  Sometimes I need a "sinker" as a follow up to a lighter, Lifetime movie type novel.  This fit the bill.

How's the Hemingway project going?  Not so good.  In fact, it's almost as unsuccessful as 2014's write-a-haiku-a-day plan.  I will persevere.

What's next?  Not sure.  I might just close my eyes and pull a book randomly from my reading pile.  Of course, the last time that happened, I grabbed The Valley of the Dolls and then stupidly went on to suggest it to our book discussion group.)  Maybe I should edit the pile first.

Thanks for stopping by.

Defending Jacob

When Nicholas Sparks and "People" magazine blurb a book, I get worried.  Spark's popularity cannot be denied, and many people look to pop magazines for book reviews.  That's all good - just not my kind of reading these days.  I welcomed the cold snap as it gave me a reason to spend however long it would take to work my way through what I suspected would be a disappointing read.  I was wrong.  Sure, the basic premise is one that has been batted around in movies and recently in a number of fiction offerings, but William Landay's approach covered all bases - logos, ethos, and pathos.  Nicely done.

If you have seen "The Bad Seed" a movie from the late 50's or so, you will find similarities in this plot.  An ADA's fourteen-year-old son is accused of murder.  Because of the father's legal connection, the story includes a lot of smart narrative about the legal process.  No insults here - just solid legal information and analysis.  Balance that against the parent's gripping internal struggle to believe in their son's goodness even when the evidence points in another direction.  In fact, it has been pointing in another direction for years, and their believable parental blindness would not allow them to be open to the possibility that their child was born evil.

Nature V. nurture is the common theme in this book and in "The Bad Seed" the compelling black and white film starring blond braided Patty McCormack as Rhoda, as slick a child as you will ever see.  As strong as this book is, the author went a little Picoult at the end, writing two unneeded incidents in the final pages. Landay beat me over the head with the conclusion he had  already led me to before those last way too obvious  pages.  But, just in case I missed something, he went ahead and confirmed that conclusion for me not once, but twice. 

I prefer books that are driven by strong characters rather than by plot or theme. Defending Jacob is clearly theme driven, but there are several characters that are mulit-dimentional, and therefore interesting.  they are flawed, just like all of us, and therefore they are relateable.   Worth reading...

So....what are you reading?  Let us know on our Facebook page.

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Pretty Ugly

It has long been my belief that one should not read anything too taxing or cerebral during the holidays.  Instead, judging by the cover alone, opt for something that promises page after page of mindlessness, insuring that if you lose your place, beginning at any random spot will immediately return you to unengaged tranquility.  Yes, you are reading, but with no obligation to retain or appreciate a single word . But yet you are reading.

Pretty Ugly  fits those requirements.  Plus, it is written by Kirker Butler, producer of "Family Guy".  I have never watched that show - don't really like cartoons except for "South Park" but that's a discussion for another time.  However, the commercials for the show clearly telegraph episode after episode filled with dysfunctional family drama.  

That  sums up this book as well - dysfunctional and hysterical.  No attempt at a socially significant story line here, just loads of laughs.  Come on, admit it,  You know a quirky family dedicated to something you find totally useless - like geocaching for instance. Really.  People spend entire weekends deciphering map coordinates in an attempt to discover a hidden treasure, generally the size of a peanut.  Once discovered, they date and sign a paper wadded up with the gift.  Sometimes they even take the finding and leave a new peanut-like surprise in its place.  An item is cached near LaDeDa but I won't tell exactly where. I enjoy watching the frantic hunt that possesses those people who will implode if they can't find and initial the crusty yellow paper hidden inside of the medicine bottle tucked in...OOPS...no more info on that.

Back to Pretty Ugly.  Miranda Miller's mission in life is to make sure her nine-year-old daughter, Bailey, continues to be one of the most successful child pageant contestants in the southern United States.  But lately, Bailey has been secretly binge eating to gain weight so Miranda will let her retire.  Even worse, the reality show Miranda was planning for Bailey (and herself) has been given to a competitor.

Miranda's husband, Ray, has a wife, a mistress, two jobs, three kids, and one more on the way, a mountain of debt and no friends.  He says he is desperately trying to put his life back together but the pills he swipes and pops during his shift as an ER nurse cancels that assertion.

In addition to Bailey, and the new little beauty queen with whom Miranda is pregnant, the Millers have two boys. They are home-schooled by Miranda's mother, a well-intentioned widow who spends most of what should be instructional time playing solitaire and planning a murder.

Frivolous. Silly. Dark.  At times I am reminded of The Family Fang, another biting dysfunctional family saga, but that novel offers some serious questions about nature v. nurture and other debatable subjects.  Pretty Ugly - pointless  - but so much fun.  Read it and be reminded of someone you know (perhaps you or a relative) who is dedicated to something you see as useless.  Then ask yourself, "If these thoughts and images made me laugh, are they really useless?"  

What am I reading?  Still working on A Farewell to Arms.  Just to remind you - a few weeks ago I was determined to re-read, and in some cases read for the first time, all of Hemingway's works.  Why?  Just to get a deeper understanding and appreciation of The Paris Wife, the story of the great love he walked away from.  Here we are, on January 3, 2015, and I am already thinking this resolution is not going to last much longer.  

Deadline for Death now in stock.  Pick one up soon.  You won't be disappointed.