Girl Detective

I turned the English version of Stieg Larsson’s Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest down once, when a friend offered to lend it to me while I was in the midst of a bunch of other books. But the next time around, when it was released stateside in late May, I couldn’t resist. I found a $16 copy at Target and went with with it.

For those of you who missed it, or skipped it because of length, I recommend the New York Times Magazine’s “The Afterlife of Stieg Larsson” that ran just before the US release of the third Millennium book.

I’m not sure if it matters if I give a review here, is it? You’re either going to read it or skip it depending on your experience with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. What I found was a slower book than its two predecessors. That said, I enjoyed it. It’s less of the third in a trilogy than a completion and continuation of The Girl Who Played with Fire, the ending of which was less than completely satisfying.

Who lives, who dies, who gets away and who gets arrested in the wake of the events at the end of Fire are revealed at the beginning. I don’t think I’m giving much away if I say that Lisbeth Salander lives, am I? She’s confined to the hospital when charges are brought against her for many assaults, while in the background a gigantic conspiracy and cover up is under way. To the rescue is white knight Mikael Blomkvist, beloved by women, who has to figure out what’s going on so Salander can get her name cleared. Multiple plots are up in the air, some more compelling than others. Hatred and violence against women are again a theme, but not as gruesome and graphic as in the previous books. Unlike the last book, though, this one finishes with a satisfying denouement and few hanging threads, a relief since Larsson died shortly after handing in the manuscripts for the trilogies. Good, satisfying, didn’t leave me hungering for more. Not ohmigod-I-loved-it good, but few things are, right?

So, is it worth buying in hardcover? Only at a discount, I’d say. Since it’s a bestseller, the discounts are impressive right now. You might not want to wait, as the discounts will likely lessen as time goes on, and you’re at risk of spoilers from those who have read the book. The hardcover discounted 40% costs about as much as the full-price trade paperback will when it’s released. And the wait lists at the libraries were staggering a year ago; I shudder to think what they look like now.

Apologies for the slight delay to the previously published schedule for my Baroque Summer project. (That is, if anyone’s reading along with me. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?) I have made it to page 217, about a fourth of the way through Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver, the first of his Baroque Cycle trilogy.

As often happens, the correct way of doing this became clear once I was already doing it. Mr. Stephenson has helpfully divided up the first and third volumes, Quicksilver and The System of the World, into three books. The publisher even tried making mass market paperbacks of each of Quicksilver Books One, Two and Three, until they realized, too late, that few people would choose to pay more for three MMPBs than they would for one TPB or used HC. When reading a book divided into three books, it makes MUCH more sense to read one book every ten days. I’ll blog today about the first fourth, but then I’m switching the schedule (again, if anyone’s with me; if you’re not, I’m just probably going to proceed pell mell, blogging madly as I go.) to match the structure of books 1 and 3.

What about book #2, The Confusion, you’re wondering? Well, Volume 2, The Confusion is an alternation between 2 books, so I can’t divine a much better way of splitting it up than doing about a third of it every ten days. Confusion, indeed.

Baroque Summer, revised schedule:

Quicksilver Book 1: June 10th
QS Book 2: June 20
QS Book 3: June 30
Confusion to p. 254: July 10
Cf to p. 556: July 20
Cf to p. 815: July 30
System of the World Book 1: August 10
SotW Book 2: August 20
SotW Book 3: August 30

So I’ll blog here today on Quicksilver through p. 217, but will be back again (I hope) on 6/10 to write about the entirety of Volume 1: book 1. Got it?

After maps, an invocation and a quote, Quicksilver opens on a witch hanging in 1713 Boston, attended by a mysterious man named Enoch the Red, later named as Enoch Root.

Enoch rounds the corner just as the executioner raises the noose above the woman’s head. The crowd on the Common stop praying and sobbing for just as long as Jack Ketch stands there, elbows locked, for all the world like a carpenter heaving a ridge-beam into place. The rope clutches a disk of blue New England sky. The Puritans gaze at it and, to all appearances, think. Enoch the Red reins in his borrowed horse as it nears the edge of the crowd, and sees that the executioner’s purpose it not to let them inspect his knotwork, but to give them all a narrow–and, to a Puritan, tantalizing–glimpse of the portal through which they all must pass one day.

At Enoch’s request, a young boy named Ben leads him away from the crowd and to a man named Daniel Waterhouse. It is Daniel, not Enoch, who becomes the main character of this first book. The son of a Puritan, Daniel was early on swayed to the company of alchemists and natural philosophers. He meets and mingles with many famous historical characters, most notably Isaac Newton.

In 1713, Enoch persuades Daniel to return to England. From there, the chapters alternate between the past and 1713, usually between Daniel’s sea voyage and his youth. Throughout both periods, and in ways familiar to those who read Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, fictional characters mingle with historical ones into an almost seamless yarn.

I saw almost because I do occasionally get the sense of the writer in the background shuffling his index cards, saying, “OK, I’m going to put this Newton anecdote here, and this Leibniz factoid there…” Nonetheless, Quicksilver does what the best historical fiction should–makes a new story out of something old, while simultaneously commenting on and revealing things that really happened such as the Bubonic Plague, the Fire of London, along with mythic characters like Mother Goose and Captain van Hoek.

The times were a heady mix of politics, religion, finances and nascent sciences. Daniel, as an intelligent naif, is an excellent avatar for the reader to navigate the twists and turns of the story and its many characters. Stephenson, though, manages a sprawling canvas with remarkable clarity. I’ve been taking notes as I’ve gone along, but wonder if I’d be OK if I didn’t–if I’d lose track of characters or plot points. Taking notes does seem to suck some of the fun out of reading what’s clearly a historical romp, as I found it did last summer with Infinite Jest. Yet I think a slow, careful reading the first time might make for a fast, fun reading the next time. And I’m fairly certain this one will be worth re-reading, not just for its nutrition, but for its tastiness. I often gape or laugh aloud when something is revealed. Thus far, I’m having a very good time.

I recently returned from a class reunion in DC. Most of the people I spoke to live up and down the east coast. But when I said I was from Minneapolis, I usually got an enthusiastic response along the lines of, “I have a friend who lives there, and I love visiting!” Before I moved here, sight unseen, in 1998 from Philly, I found the same reaction. If I mentioned the Twin Cities, most people would gush, in spite of legends of bad winters. (Which I’ve found aren’t that much worse than PA and OH.) And Timeout Chicago sums up some of the charms pretty well:

When it comes to world-class Midwest cities, Chicago handily trounces the competition (not that we’re biased). But Minneapolis-St. Paul exudes its own kind of quiet cool, and we don’t just mean the weather. Dispatched by bus, train, car and plane, four writers discovered that the sleek new Twins stadium, chic restaurants and bars (and legal food trucks!), jaw-dropping art and architecture, vibrant music scene and more outdoor activities than you can shake a stick at (or food on a stick) make the Twin Cities well worth a weekend jaunt. And you know what? The weather was pretty pleasant (except for that brief snow shower).

One more thing that’s meant a lot to me is the plethora of local authors, like Kate DiCamillo and Neil Gaiman, who are part of the thriving reading and writing scene. Hat tip for link to Mustache Robots.

As most of you know, I can be a snob, a cynic and kind of a misanthrope–in other words, not really the reunion type. I skipped most of my high school or college reunions. If I wanted to catch up with people, I figured I’d do it with my small circle of friends, and not be bothered by the crush of other people I didn’t much need to see. But my high school friends swore to me they had a great time at the 15th, and my college friends did the same about their 10th, so I decided to attend the next round. And boy, was I glad I did.

I had a blast at my 20th high school reunion and my 15th college reunion. It was a chance for friends to converge in a single space and time, which is harder as time goes on with jobs and kids and everything else. And it wasn’t true that I didn’t want to see all those other people, because often, I had a great time talking to them, laughing about old times and engaging in conversations about new ones. What I noticed especially at my 20th HS reunion was the social walls had dropped. We’d become one small group of 100+ people who’d all had a shared experience in school together, and been through good and bad times after. No one much cared anymore who had been a brain, a beauty, a jock, a rebel, or a recluse.

So this past weekend I flew out to DC for my 20th college reunion. I was part of a group of 10 women, four of whom were my roommates in college. We talked about our present lives, and things like work, kids, moving, cancer, husbands, autism, babies, and more. We laughed about old times, and cringed at old photos of us with big hair and baggy sweaters. We got dressed up and went out in the city to parties, saw other friends and caught up on the lives of others. I learned I’d had a pivotal role in getting one couple together in college! We ate good food, shared clothes, shoes, perfume and makeup. We laughed. There were no husbands or kids (who probably would have been bored anyway at all the “remember whens”) to look after or worry about. Then we laughed some more. One morning, I even slept till almost 10 a.m. I can’t remember the last time that happened. Eight years ago, maybe?

I had a great time away with my friends, and then was glad to be home. I gave my husband and boys huge hugs. I had a good time without them, but I’d missed them, too. Being at reunions chips away at my snobbery, my cynicism, my misanthropy, and any bad feelings about my life. _That’s_ why I go to reunions.

As I thought might happen, given that I was traveling the past two weekends, and trying to finish Stieg Larsson’s Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, I wasn’t able to meet my first page goal for Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver.

I am aware that, as the instigator of this project, this is pretty lame of me. I apologize.

I’m only about 40 pages shy of 217, though. I’ll try to finish tonight so I can comment on it tomorrow. Will anyone be joining me?

I’m a snob, so I’m always wary of the label “Oprah’s Book Club.” But I actually find her magazine pleasant to flip through. A book-group friend liked Oprah’s favorite books of the decade list, and picked Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth for our next meeting. When I began to read, I felt wary, too. It felt very self-help-y and new-age-y.

Is humanity ready for a transformation of consciousness, an inner flowering so radical and profound that compared to it the flowering of plants, no matter how beautiful, is only a pale reflection?

I put my suspicion aside, and read on. And I really appreciated what I found. Tolle writes that the basis of much pain and suffering comes from the ego. Once we can recognize that, we can break free and be on the way to who we truly are.

Knowing yourself goes far deeper than the adoption of a set of ideas or beliefs. Spiritual ideas and beliefs may at best be helpful pointers, but in themselves they rarely have the power to dislodge the more firmly established core concepts of who you think you are, which are part of the conditioning of the human mind. Knowing yourself deeply has nothing to do with whatever ideas are floating around in your mind. Knowing yourself is to be rooted in Being, instead of lost in your mind.

This is by no means a fun, fast read. But it is rich and thought provoking, especially for those of us who have trouble settling the mind, or quashing unkind thoughts. At the fear of overstatement, I think this could be a life-changing book, even if just in small positive ways. And which of us couldn’t benefit from that?

Get your engines started, ladies and gents. My crazy summer reading project begins today, June 1. I’ll be reading all three of Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle trilogy, Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World over the summer. The pace is 200+ pages a week. First post and discussion will be next Monday, June 7. Details are here.

Embarrassing disclosure #1: My geek husband G. Grod and I bought all three when they came out in hardcover (HC). Then we bought the trade paperback (TPB) of Quicksilver when it came out, as I thought I’d read it, and it would be way less wrist strain than the HC. I didn’t make it very far, though. So when I proposed the Baroque reading plan, my husband said he’d read along, and he’d take the TPB and I had to read the HCs since he’s already read them. Then I went book shopping today and found another TPB of Quicksilver, and 2 apiece of The Confusion and The System of the World. So I have a matching his-n-hers set of Baroque Cycle TPBs so my husband and I can read simultaneously, and neither has to drag around the doorstop, author-inscribed HCs. Yes, that means we have 3 sets of the trilogy. Yes, we are geeks.

Embarrassing disclosure #2: I bought Stieg Larsson’s Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest last week for $16. I was traveling over the weekend, and thought I could tear through it before I had to start Quicksilver. Alas, I didn’t get as much reading time as I thought, and I’m only about a third of the way through the Larsson. I think the best plan is for me to try and finish before I start Quicksilver, but I may be behind next Monday on my own project. Nice. Though I imagine some of you understand, no? Happy reading, all, and I look forward to seeing who’s here next Monday!

Some breaking news for those who like to bask in the sun. The Environmental Working Group has released its 2010 Sunscreen Guide. The not-so-good news? Nearly all commercial sunscreens contain ingredients the EWG says to avoid, including oxybenzone and vitamin A. There are only a few dozen the EWG recommends. You can search for their recommended sunscreens, or you can plug in the name of the sunscreen you’re using for you and your kids. Warning: the latter is likely to be worrying and discouraging. All of the ones I had in the house were there.

Is there cause for alarm? This piece, from the Huffington Post and with the advice of a dermatologist, says no. In spite of what alarmists may say or imply, if you’re going to be outside, properly applied sunscreen will help protect against skin cancer, so it’s better to use it than not. What’s safer than that? Staying out of the sun entirely, wearing protective clothes and headgear, or at least avoiding the peak hours.

Is there cause for concern? Yes. The FDA has not established guidelines for sunscreens, so there’s not regulation on dodgy ingredients. Further, there’s almost always conflicting information on what’s a good or bad ingredient.

What I did was throw away the old, badly rated sunscreens, then bought a tube each of two of the EWG’s recommended brands, Badger Unscented SPF 30 and Vanicream SPF 30. I got the Badger at my grocery co-op, and the Vanicream at Target, so neither involved a special trip.

And, for those still delusional that tanning beds are safer than the sun, a new study from the U of MN shows they increase the risk of cancer, even with the investigators looking at new types of tanning beds, which use a UV spectrum different from the sun and alleged to be safe. (The latter detail is from a scientist friend, though not included in the article.)

So, to sum up. No sun is safe sun in regard to skin cancer, though it is the best source of Vitamin D. Enjoy the sun in moderation. Be safe and smart about your choices. Use a safer sunscreen, and use it correctly. Reapply as needed. Stay out of the sun between 10 and 4. Wear a hat. Cover up.

I started using tanning beds when I was 17. I worked in a tanning salon for 9 months when I was 20. Then I had to see a dermatologist about a patch of skin; he cut it and several others out and found they were dysplastic–possibly pre-cancerous. He told me to never use a tanning bed or lay out again. Since then I’ve had more than a dozen patches of skin removed. Usually a patch has to be cut out twice. Once for the initial test, and again for complete removal. At the risk of stating the obvious, this is unpleasant and painful. I’ve been lucky–no melanoma. Yet.

Be careful out there.

I don’t know the exact date, but it was sometime in May 2000 that I started taking yoga classes. Since then, it has been the only type of exercise I have been able to continuously practice. I’d tried running, swimming, Jane Fonda, aerobics, in-line skates, etc.

Yoga worked, I think, because it was exercise, concentration, meditation and breathing to calm my monkey mind. Or rather, TRY to calm my monkey mind. I go to one or two classes a week, and hope to up it to two to three. Someday, I tell myself, I’ll have a home practice.

In spite of ten years, I still feel very much a beginner. There are some poses I still can’t do, like Crow and Handstand. But there are others I can, like Headstand, that I wasn’t able to for a long time. Also, I’ve learned the pose names both in English and many in Sanskrit, and know how to modify if I need to take a break in class.

Today I have an ambitious goal: bike to a harder class than I’m used to, and bike home. Not sure this is a good idea; not sure how it will go. But I think I’m going to try.

My 20 year college reunion is coming up, so I’ve been poking around in old boxes. I was surprised, then disturbed, then kind of gratified, to find a book list I kept in 1985. Here are the first five. Four of these things belong together, see if you can spot the one that doesn’t belong:

1. The Wanton by Rosemary Rogers
2. Desiree by Anne Marie Selinko (this one isn’t as trashy as it sounds. Really.)
3. Mindbend by Robin Cook
4. The Queen’s Confession by Victoria Holt
5. Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Which one do you suppose was for AP English?

OK, here are a bunch more:

6. War and Peace by Tolstoy
7. Hunchback of Notre Dame by Hugo (in French, perhaps?)
8. Thinner by Stephen King
9. Heaven by V.C. Andrews
10. Lucky by Jackie Collins
11. The Fourth Deadly Sin by Lawrence Sanders
12. Rage by Stephen King
13. The Prince by Machiavelli
14. Sweet, Savage Love by Rosemary Rogers

I get literary whiplash just looking at this list. I am abashed by the trash.The good stuff is on there because it was assigned. BUT. Look how far I’ve come. (Abeit in 25 years. And wishing peace to my poor, hormonal 17yo self). I read Crime and Punishment last year BECAUSE I WANTED TO. My book list today is, I think, a richer place than my book list of 1985, just as I hope my inner life is richer than it was when I was 17. So, please, laugh at the preponderance of pulp and trashy romance. I am.

And then I’ll get back to A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. And on to Baroque Summer. But perhaps cramming in The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest if I can. Just because something’s popular doesn’t mean it’s not good.

For my foodie friends, I just finished a piece on sugar and sugar alternatives at Simple Good and Tasty.

Sugar is enjoying a resurgence in popularity after years of being vilified for empty calories and its role in things like tooth decay, obesity and diabetes. As the negative effects of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) have become better known, sugar’s profile has risen. Cane sugar, as opposed to cheaper beet sugar, has especially benefited from HFCS’s bad press; it is actually being touted as a healthful ingredient. Yet cane and beet sugars are highly processed, refined and provide no nutritional value. Other, less refined, sweeteners have some benefits that sugar doesn’t. Yet nearly all of them raise blood sugar, and have little nutritive value. So why bother?

Here’s what I learned/confirmed:

Honey can’t be organic. Maple syrup and honey are the only sweeteners local to MN. All sugars are bad for you, though some are better than others IN MODERATION. Almost all sugars/sweeteners, even if natural, are processed (except raw honey). And finally, I still prefer to bake with not-completely refined cane sugar for the best results. Oh, and Stevia kind of scares me.

June’s selection for the Books and Bars club is The Lost City of Z by New Yorker writer David Grann. Grann, like many before, him, became obsessed with the mysterious 1925 disappearance of Amazon explorer Percy W Fawcett:

…his name was known throughout the world. He was one of the last of the great Victorian explorers who ventured into uncharted realms with little more than a machete, a compass, and an almost divine sense of purpose. For nearly two decades, stories of his adventures had captivated the public’s imagination…

Grann’s story reads like fiction. Fawcett becomes obsessed with finding a lost civilization he’s named Z. He’s secretive about his trips, and on his last one disappears, along with his son and son’s friend. Interspersed with Fawcett’s story (and already knowing the broad strokes of the end of it) are the beginning of Grann’s–how he got involved in the story, and how it became so important he “had” to go to the Amazon to see for himself what might have happened. (In the rainy season, no less. I would have thought he’d learned something from all the tragic narratives.)

The details of early 20th century Amazonian expeditions are fascinating and harrowing. “These men must be crazy,” I thought, as did Grann, until he became so involved that he couldn’t, wouldn’t extract himself. An thumping good read of two men’s obsessions, with enough answers at the end to be satisfying enough.

This morning, the sun was shining, the humidity was down, so I walked with 4yo Guppy and his friend to the coffee shop, which is closing this Saturday, but will reopen with new owners in late June/early July. The breeze ruffled my hair as I walked with two little hands in mine. We waved and said hello when we saw R, our mail carrier. We chatted with a neighbor and her son who were going to look at the fire house, then waved at the fire fighters as a truck drove by.

In front of the shop, M, the owner, greeted the kids by name. I asked T, the barista, for my usual–a double short latte in their smallest for-here cup. I didn’t have to tell her what it was; she made it flawlessly and suggested a raspberry Italian soda for the kids. They so loved it they could barely sit still to drink it.

I thanked M for her shop, said it had probably saved my life–we moved to this neighborhood in the fall. It turned cold early and we knew few people. I was at home with a temperamental 1yo, so the walk to the coffee shop ensured I’d get outside and talk to an adult before my husband got home. That carried me till spring, when I took ECFE classes, joined a moms group, and met neighbors when they emerged from their houses.

The kids played pretend backgammon while I sipped my drink. On the walk home, we said hello to an older couple up the street, whose daughter in law is one of the current baristas, and one of the new owners. The husband asked us to wait then went to get a wooden top he’d made, and showed the kids how to use it. They were delighted, and so was I when the man urged us to have it. “You’ve walked by our house for years,” he said to me (it’s on the way to the coffee shop). “Enjoy.” We took it home, and that’s exactly what they did.

Until the bickering started. But then it was lunchtime, and time for preschool, and so we moved on through our day.

This is going to be quick, quick, quick because somehow the hour between 2 and 3 evaporated as it always does, and I need to meet the school bus in 10 minutes.

Moon is a moody, small sci-fi pic from last year that was praised highly somewhere to put it on my radar. In preparation for my upcoming folly, Baroque Summer, I’ve recently cut my library queue to the bare bones for dvds (taking off all those that I feel I “should” watch, like Sugar and Man Push Cart, and leaving on ones I really want to watch, like In the Loop and The September Issue.), and removed ALL books. But my husband G. Grod really wanted to see Moon, so not only did it stay in the queue but I watched it too. And, as so often happens, I’m glad I did.

Sam Rockwell is Sam Bell, the lone human inhabitant of a dark-side-of-the-moon mining station. He’s kept company by an A.I. machine named Gertie, voiced by Kevin Spacey. Sam is nearing the end of his 3-year contract and looks forward to his return to Earth to see his wife and young daughter. But Sam seems to be unraveling–seeing things that aren’t there. And when he goes out of the station, things start to get really weird. But good.

Rockwell, as usual, is fabulous in a challenging role. This is reminiscent of 2001, Solaris, and other sci fi films that are more about the psychology and mystery than they are about the effects. Intriguing and thought provoking.

I recently read and loved Big Machine by Victor LaValle, and was lucky enough to attend a Skype chat with him for Minneapolis’ Books and Bars book club. The video is at Mustache Robots, and is worth the ten minutes if you enjoyed the book.

from “In Praise of Prose” at Commentary Magazine:

In a literary age dominated by absurdists, genre benders, hysterical realists, and post-modern transgressives, Francine Prose quietly goes about her business within the great tradition of the novel, coming out every year or so with a new book that unravels human complexities by telling an interesting story about them. Although she has received far less critical attention and praise than other novelists of her generation (Marilynne Robinson, Richard Ford, Jane Smiley, or Richard Russo), and though she has never received the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, or even the Orange Prize for fiction by a woman, Francine Prose has produced a body of work that, taken as a whole, is without peer in contemporary American fiction.

I’ve now read three by Francine Prose, A Changed Man, Reading Like a Writer and Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife. All are excellent, and I plan on reading more as I’m able. She is erudite, but accessible, and her work makes me want to read and learn more. Is there higher praise?

Imagine Chevy Chase standing by a pool, clapping his hands, saying “This is crazy!” over and over. That’s kind of how I feel about putting this in writing. But as of this moment, I still want to read Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle trilogy this summer, which includes Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World. I read and loved Crytonomicon, Snow Crash and Diamond Age, and am assured by my husband that the trilogy is worth it.

So, here’s the plan. The pace is about 30 pages a day, or 200+ a week to finish the whole trilogy over the summer. Anyone who’s crazy enough to think they’d like to join me can chime in with feedback in the comments.

June 1, 2010: begin reading Quicksilver. Stop just before “Aboard Minerva, Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts” on p. 217
June 7, 2010: discuss up to 217 QS. Read up to p. 430 “Saxony”
June 14, 2010: discuss up to 430 QS. Read up to p. 659 “London”
June 21, 2010: discuss up to 659 QS. Read through 927, end of Quicksilver.
June 28, 2010: discuss end and all of Quicksilver. Start The Confusion. Read up to p. 197 “Off Malta”.
July 5, 2010: discuss up to 197 TC. Read up to p. 412 “London”.
July 12, 2010: discuss up to 412 TC. Read up to p. 617 “Book 5″.
July 19, 2010: discuss up to 617 TC. Read through 815, end of The Confusion. (insert Neal Stephenson joke of your choice here)
July 26, 2010: discuss end and all of The Confusion. Start The System of the World. Read up to p. 225 “Cold Harbour”.
August 2, 2010: discuss up to 225 TSotW. Read up to p. 448 “Westminster Palace”.
August 9, 2010: discuss up to 448 TSotW. Read up to p. 667 “Library of Leicester House”.
August 16,2010: discuss up to 667 TSotW. Read through 892, end of The System of the World. Pat self on back, unless it’s injured from toting around huge tomes all summer.
August 23, 2010: discuss end of The System of the World and entire trilogy. Wax rhapsodic about all the short books you’ll be reading next.

Note: chapters often split in the middle of pages, so all chapter titles above are where I’ll stop, not what I’ll read through. Also, I believe the page count is good for both the hardcover and the trade paperback (it is for the copies of Quicksilver in our house. Yes, we own two.)

As I said for my 15/15/15 challenge, I’m not a seasoned pro at this online reading challenge thing. I have no logo and nothing fancy, and links and discussion will be from the comments section. But I’m open to ideas.

My friend A of New Century Reading and I have a semi-regular book swap going now. We lend each other books with overlong library queues, or, in the case of Susan Hill’s Howard’s End is on the Landing, ones that are otherwise not easily available.

I think it was at Pages Turned that I first read about this book, and knew I must read it, then was stunned to find it not at the library, as it’s not (yet) published in the US. I successfully fought down the “WANT IT NOW!” urge to buy it from some site I’ve forgotten the name of (probably for the best) that sells international books for only $25 and no shipping or something, and was thrilled to find that A. had a copy.

Hill is an English author. One day while looking in her shelves for a book she knew she owned, she instead found many unread books, and many more that she had formerly loved and wanted to re-read. Like I’ve done many times, she made a book vow. Unlike me, though, she kept it (or if she slipped, she didn’t admit it in the book.) Hers was to only read from her shelves for a year.

The journey through my own books involved giving up buying new ones, and that will seem a perverse act for someone who is both an author and a publisher…

I wanted to repossess my books, to explore what I had accumulated over a lifetime of reading, and to map this house of many volumes. There are enough here to divert, instruct, entertain, amaze, amuse, edify, improve, enrich me for far longer than a year and every one of them deserves to be taken down and dusted off, opened and read…

There is no doubt that of the thousands of new books published every year many are excellent and some will stand the test of time. A few will become classics. But I wanted to stand back and let the dust settle on everything new, while I set off on a journey through my books.
(p. 2, 3)

The book is both an autobiography of the author’s literary life, including numerous encounters with famous figures in literature. At times I found the name dropping tiresome. But the book overall so engaged me that, like a friend, I accepted it on its merits, which are many. Hill loosely chronicles her year and the books she reads. All of those she writes about are re-reads of favorites, like those of Iris Murdoch or Elizabeth Bowen, or a defense of oft-maligned former favorites, like those by Enid Blyton and Anthony Trollope. She didn’t write about reading any books from her shelves that were new-to-her, however long they’d been sitting.

Hill writes clearly and with affection, both of the books she admires and the people she’s known. Many of the authors she mentioned I knew, but many I didn’t. Reading this was like spending several afternoons in the company of a bookish, learned friend. It reminded me pleasantly of Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer. (Heavens, was that really almost four years ago?) The major downside to both of those, though? Now there are so many more authors I want to explore, beyond those already sitting on my shelves.

A companion book to Jane Gardam’s Old Filth, The Man in the Wooden Hat returns to the characters of Edward Feathers, nicknamed Filth because of his success abroad (it’s an acronym for Failed in London Try Hong Kong) and his soon-to-be wife Elisabeth, or Betty.

Told mostly from Betty’s point of view, the book often veers into different storytelling styles, such as that of a play script, or into omniscient awareness. All this is handled with such authorial facility by Gardam, though, that it’s not intrusive, but impressive and entertaining.

Old Filth was mostly Edward’s story, and this one is largely Betty’s.

“Yes, I will,” the girl was saying in the shabby hotel in the back street, and street music playing against the racket of the mah-jong players on every open stone balcony. The overhead fan was limp and fly-spotted. On the beds were 1920s scarlet satin counterpanes with ugly yellow flowers done in stem stitch. They must have survived the war. Old wooden shutters clattered. There was the smell of the rotting lilies heaped in a yard below. Betty was alone, her friend Lizzie out somewhere, thank goodness. Betty would have hated not to be alone when she read Edward’s letter. What lovely handwriting. Rather a shame he’d used his Chambers writing paper. She wondered how many rough drafts he’d made first. Transcripts. He was wedded to transcripts. This was meant to be kept.

And she would. She’d keep it for ever. Their grandchildren would leave it the to a museum as a memento of the jolly old dead.

Eddie Feathers? Crikey! He does sound a bit quaint. (Would you consider our being married, Elisabeth?) Not exactly Romeo. More like Mr. Knightley, though Mr. Knightley had a question mark about him. Forty-ish and always off to London alone. Don’t tell me that Emma was his first. I’m wandering. I do rather wish Eddie wasn’t so perfect. But of course I’ll marry him. I can’t think of a reason not to.

She kissed the letter and put it down her shirt.

It takes many of the events from the previous book and adds dimension and further perspective on them, though it goes a bit beyond the ending of the first, which is interesting (and again, rather authorially daring), given the timeline of events.

As with Old Filth and the story collection in which he appeared, The People on Privilege Hill, I was delighted to enter this world and spend time with these rich, wonderful, deep characters again. I laughed and cried. I was both eager and reluctant to finish the book. And I look forward to reading more by Gardam. And many thanks to my friend Thalia for lending me Jane Gardam so many years ago, or I might not have read these books that I have so very much loved.

Goodbye, Solo is another film I borrowed from the library based on A.O. Scott’s recommendation. It’s directed by Rahmin Bahrani, who also did Chop Shop, which I watched earlier this year. This movie, like that one, is not a crowd pleaser. It’s a small, intense, unflinching laser-focused portrait of a growing relationship between Solo, an upbeat Senegalese cab driver, and William, a taciturn old man with an intriguing request. Set in Winston-Salem NC, it takes place mostly at night. The dark edges of the film add to its moody ambience. There is violence, sadness, but also joy and celebration, too.

This reminded me of Wendy and Lucy, another film that went deep into one individual’s life. It doesn’t move quickly, but it moves deliberately and though-provokingly. It’s lovely, human, true, and moving.

For more on these moody, intense, character-driven movies, see A.O. Scott’s NYT piece on the New New Reality in film, which I linked to here.