Category Archives: Authors

The Stolen Child

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I suppose if I’m going to start somewhere, then W. B. Yeats isn’t a bad place to begin gaining an appreciation for poetry. No thanks to whoever my English and French teachers were in high school (there were lots of schools, lots of teachers), poetry seemed like something mostly technical  which required lots of memorizing, both things I’ve never had an interest in, and which left me unwilling to dwell into verse any longer than was strictly necessary. A shame really, though of course it’s never too late to begin again.

Yeats was unknown to me before, other than by name and reputation, until I picked up a couple of great little audiobooks featuring some of his most beloved poems accompanied with biographical comments putting them into context. Hearing poetry read aloud by talented readers is probably one surefire way to gain a new appreciation for it. Then I found a lovely little book, W. B. Yeats: Poems Selected by Seamus Heaney, part of Faber and Faber’s 80th Anniversary Collection published in 2009. The following poem will no doubt end up on my list of all-time favourite poems one day:

The Stolen Child by W. B. Yeats

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we’ve hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand. Continue reading →

On Discovering Stefan Zweig

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Austrian author Stefan Zweig (November 28, 1881 – February 22, 1942) was a novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer who, at the height of his literary career in the 1920s and 1930s, was one of the most famous writers in the world. While he’s still widely read in Europe, he’s fallen into relative obscurity in North America, though there are publishers who have been actively making efforts to get him back in print in the English language. I’d heard of Zweig before because of several readers who had a lot of good things to say about his posthumously published novel The Post Office Girl. That book went on my wishlist some time in 2011, where it sits among hundreds of others, so I may very well have left it at that for a good long while. Then, less than a month ago, while I was surfing around the net, I saw that there were recently issued audiobooks of his work in French translation. I decide to check the library catalogue and sure enough, found a whole treasure trove of Stefan Zweig recordings, free! Usually when I haven’t read anything by a specific author, I start with one book to get a feeling for his or her writing, but since Zweig mostly wrote short stories, I went ahead and borrowed all they had on audio, and ended up with just over half a dozen titles, including a biography on Marie-Antoinette. I had a feeling I would like him very much and decided to listen to the books in the original publication order. Last night I started with Letter From an Unknown Woman (originally published in 1922 under the title Brief einer Unbekannten, or Lettre dune inconnue in French, read by Léa Drucker), in which a woman who’s child has died moments ago, admits to a lifelong obsession to a famous writer. It’s safe to say I LOVED my first Zweig and was very affected by it. I thought I’d best take a break between his stories, no matter how short, because of the sheer potency of the emotions he evokes. But today I went ahead and listened to the next novel in line, 1925′s Fear, which was read by the French actress Fanny Ardant and which I finished a couple of hours ago… I’m thankful I was in the quiet of my own home at that moment because the ending made such a strong impression on me that I shed a few tears. What a wonderful writer. I’m very glad I’ve finally discovered him. Next up will be either Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman or Confusion: The Private Papers of Privy Councillor R. von D., which were originally published together, along with a third story, in 1927. I’ll be sure to share my reviews on all these once I’ve gotten around to writing them, though the only thing I can think of to say about those two I’ve listened to already is: you must discover this author as soon as you get a chance.

A Not So Common Reader

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Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman ★★★★

Author Anne Fadiman has book love well anchored in her genetic pool. A cursory glance at wikipedia tells us she is the daughter of the renowned literary, radio and television personality Clifton Fadiman, who among other things, was in charge of The New Yorker’s book review section between 1933 and 1943, while her mother is author and former World War II correspondent Annalee Jacoby Fadiman. She  also attended Harvard University, graduating in 1975 from Radcliffe College. I would say therefore, that I have one major grudge with this book: that the title “Confession of a Common Reader” is quite misleading, if the word is taken to mean  “ordinary”. But my grudge won’t hold. True to her scholarly and literary background, Fadiman’s title pays homage to Virginia Woolf’s essays written under the title The Common Reader.  A 1925 review of Woolf’s Common Reader in The New York Times stated: “Anything that Virginia Woolf may have to say about letters is of more than ordinary interest, for her peculiar intelligence and informed attitude set her somewhat apart.” and also: “Mrs. Woolf is no common reader, try as she may to be one.” These words could equally be applied to Anne Fadiman. Continue reading →

Steinbeckathon Parts 1 & 2

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Some time last year, after I finished re-reading The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (a five-star read for me which I reviewed right here), I decided it might be time to focus on this author’s work, re-read some favourites and discover many new-to-me titles. I mentioned this idea over on LibraryThing and quite a few people said they’d like to jump in too, and so the Steinbeckathon was born. A few buddies and I came up with a schedule for the year, thirteen novels in twelve months, highly feasible considering some of his works run no more than 100 pages. I’m a little bit late reporting this, since we started in January of course. Our first work was the short novel Cannery Row in January, which we’ve followed up this month with The Wayward Bus (links lead to the discussion threads). Here are my reviews for those first two novels:

Continue reading →

An Afternoon with Marsh, Sayers & Albertus Seba

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A spread from Albertus Seba's Cabinet of Natural Curiosities

Not much to report today, actually, but I thought it might be nice to give signs of life. I’ve been exhausted all week and sleeping unseemly hours. My dad phones for my pre-arranged wake-up call in the morning, I thank him and say I’ll be right up, fully intending to do so, but then am dragged under and go back to sleep till the middle of the afternoon, which means I’ve hardly seen any daylight. I’d say ‘please don’t tell him’, only he reads this blog and I would have told him sooner or later anyway. I’m sure it’s just a passing thing and soon enough I’ll have overdosed on sleep and be up before the sun. Or so I (sort of) hope.

I plowed through my first Ngaio Marsh mystery, Artists in Crime, which was admittedly very short, only to discover, to my dismay that I had gotten an abridgement by mistake. Darn! And how I do scrupulously try to avoid those silly things. Truth be told, I found the story so convoluted and hard to follow that I’m not sure I’d have wanted to stick to it for that much longer. For all I know, maybe it was confusing precisely because it was abridged; I guess I’ll never know. I’m not letting that influence my opinion on this new-to-me author and contemporary of Agatha Christie known for her very own darker style; I’ve got Overture to Death in my audio library to look forward to.

Another audiobook I plowed through today was Whose Body? by another Mistress of Crime, Dorothy L. Sayers, who is also a new discovery for me. I was plugged into the amusing evah-so-English Lord Peter Wimsey mystery most of the afternoon and evening and kept listening as I started a drawing and nearly finished it in watercolours. It’s a piece I’m doing for the Visual Arts Centre, where I take my art classes. They’re having a gala event where they’ll be selling art donated by the more advanced students and professional artist, the profits of which will go to the school, which is a not for profit organization. I put off the project practically till the last-minute (big surprise!), as we have to hand-in our finished pieces on Monday, but I intend to make two more versions over the weekend and choose the best of the three. In case the piece doesn’t sell and I get to keep it, I’ve done a watercolour which fits into a series I started based on Albertus Seba‘s Cabinet of Natural Curiosities (1734-1765), a book which I acquired recently for the purposes of this project and which is an absolute treasure-trove of visual inspiration. I’ve taken some photos of the previous pieces I’ve worked on and will photograph this new batch to include in a post I’ll put together some time this week to put on my art blog.

 

Chinoiseries

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My mum sent me the above image link today, which I of course hurriedly followed up on. They have a beautiful selection of children’s and young adult illustrated books; their French byline translates to “Illustrated literature for children, or all those who have been children”. This publishing house based in France has a mandate to promote multiculturalism and as such, pairs Chinese texts and stories with French illustrators in the creation of their titles. I was pleased to discover that I had already picked up one of their books, a sublime affair illustrated by Agata Kawa, called Tigre le dévoué (The Devoted Tiger). You’ll find my short review and some image samples below. I’ve now reserved another one of their titles which I found at the library called Yin la jalouse (Jealous Yin), which will be an introduction for me to the work of illustrator Bobi + Bobi; click on the links to have a look at their sites, which are brimming with wonderful examples of their work. Continue reading →

Pearl S. Buck Fictionalized

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Pearl of China by Anchee Min ★★★½

“Pearl Buck and I have a long history together, and in some sense that story is at the heart of my novel. As a teen back in China in 1972 during the Cultural Revolution, I was asked to denounce Pearl Buck as an “American cultural imperialist.” Though I wasn’t given a change to read The Good Earth, I dutifully went ahead and made the denunciation. Years later, when I was living in America, [...] I read the book on a plane and burst into tears. I cried because I realized how beautifully Buck had told the story of the Chinese peasant, in a way that few others, even Chinese, had ever done. And I cried because I was only then realizing that I was only one of a generation that had been indoctrinated to think poorly of Buck. I wrote the novel to show where Pearl’s great sensitivity and insight into the Chinese and Chinese culture came from. And also to show how the relationship between Pearl Buck and China changed over time, just as mine had changed.” — From a Q&A with Anchee Min in the Bloomsbury edition of Pearl of China Continue reading →

From China with Love

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The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck ★★★★★

“And what will we do with a pretty woman? We must have a woman who will tend the house and bear children as she works in the fields, and will a pretty woman do these things? She will be forever thinking about clothes to go with her face! No, not a pretty woman in our house. We are farmers. Moreover, who has heard of a pretty slave who was virgin in a wealthy house? All the young lords have had their fill of her. It is better to be first with an ugly woman than the hundredth with a beauty.”

I won an advance reader copy of Anchee Min’s Pearl of China recently, which finally gave me that extra little push I needed to pick up this Pulitzer Prize winner by Nobel Laureate author Pearl S. Buck, who happens to be one of the main characters of Min’s most recent novel. When we meet Wang Lung in the opening pages of The Good Earth, he is a poor farmer taking care of his elderly father. On this day he is preparing for a special event: today is the day he will go get himself a wife, and he looks forward to his new life, when he will no longer have to boil the water for his father to drink in the morning, nor have to prepare food, nor clean house, as there will finally be a woman by his side to take care of all these things. Wang Lung feels in a celebratory mood, so he puts a few tea leaves in his father’s water and goes as far as taking a bath, even as his father objects to such waste and luxury. Indeed, what if the new wife comes to expect these things? All the same, Wang Lung has in mind to have a feast that night and works out that with his few coins, he might be able to afford some meat and even perhaps to get a shave from a barber. Continue reading →

On Henry James

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Someone over on LibraryThing shared the poem that follows, which was on The Writer’s Almanac today.  I discovered Henry James for myself only this year, and he’s a writer I will continue reading for certain.

Henry James

“Poor Mr. James,” Virginia Woolf once said:
“He never quite met the right people.”
Poor James. He never quite met the
children of light and so he had to invent them.
Then, when people said: No one is like that.
Your books are not reality, he replied:

So much the worse for reality.

He described himself as “slow to conclude,
orotund, a slow-moving creature, circling his rooms
slowly masticating his food.”

Once, when a nephew asked his advice
on how to live, he searched his mind.
Number One, be kind, he said.
Number Two, be kind and
Number Three, be kind.

“Henry James” by June Beisch, from Fatherless Woman.

Portrait of Henry James by John Singer Sargent, 1913

From Aldous Huxley to Missed Connections

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The Crows of Pearblossom by Aldous Huxley, illustrated by Sophie Blackall ★★★½

Mr. and Mrs. Crow, who have a nest in a cotton-wood tree in Pearblossom, haven’t had much luck so far when it comes to growing their family. Every time Mrs. Crow has laid an egg, it has disappeared before getting a chance to hatch. When, coming home early from her errands on day, Mrs. Crow catches the rattlesnake who lives at the bottom of the tree eating her latest egg, she tells her husband he must go and kill the snake. Mr. Crow isn’t sure this is a good idea, so he consults his friend Mr. Owl, who comes up with a brilliant plan to teach the snake a lesson he is likely never to forget. A fun and slightly wicked story by the author best known for Brave New World, this was Huxley’s only children’s story, which he wrote as a gift for his niece Olivia, who had moved to Pearblossom, California with her parents. Bright and cheerful illustrations by Sophie Blackall. (click on cover to view larger) Continue reading →