The Morning News announces the winner of The Tournament of Books. It’s one I haven’t gotten to yet, though on deck after Marianne Wiggins’s Shadow Catcher, which is at bat. The tournament, the judging and the commentary were lots of fun, and I’ve really enjoyed the books I’ve read because of it, and look forward to the ones I haven’t got to yet.
The Guthrie Theater’s recent run of Jane Eyre was so well received that the show was brought back, and is running through Sunday March 30. I didn’t attend the first run because of a middling review, but couldn’t resist the second run’s media blitz and high praise.
The production had many good things about it, especially the lead performances and chemistry between Stacia Rice as Jane and Sean Haberle as Rochester. Also strong were supporting performances by Charity Jones as Bertha and Barbara Bryne as Mrs. Fairfax. The latter character was so funny and significant that she stood out in this stage version as she has not yet done in the book, for me.
The Wurtele Thrust Stage of the new Guthrie was well utilized. The sets were spare, fitting for the severe settings of the story. My seat was high up and stage right, but the view was excellent. While I saw rather more of the back of Rochester’s head than I would have liked, Haberle has an impressive head of hair, and I got compensating views of Rice’s expressive face. I thought her severe hairline well suited to the character of Jane, until I saw her from the side and noticed the bump where the actress’s real hairline was covered. Unfortunately for me, this brought to mind a Ferengi, hardly a beneficial mental image during Jane Eyre.
And there, my praise ends. I understand that details of the story must be cut or compacted to get the audience home before midnight. I missed many of my favorite scenes, such as Jane in the red room. I was disappointed in the staging decisions of others; I would very much have liked for Jane to have thrown a ewer of water on Rochester in his burning bed, if only for the sight of Haberle in a wet nightshirt. And I questioned a few of the casting decisions. Adele was a pale, freckled redhead, as was Blanche Ingram. I thought Bronte’s imagery of Adele as a blue-eyed blond and Blanche as a dark-skinned brunette were strong influences in my experiences of their characters in the book.
All of those quibbles I might have forgiven, but others went too far for me. While the burr of northern England and Scotland was a good reminder of the story’s setting, the accents came and went. Worst of all was St. John Rivers, whose accent often seemed more French than Scottish. With his characterization, this reduced him to a clown, rather than a proud, headstrong man to be pitied. Diana and Mary were simpering and played for laughs, not the intelligent, dignified characters of the books. The greatest problem I had, though, was that Bronte’s strong, beautiful prose has been changed in several places, and for no good reason. Several of my favorite lines were changed, most notably St. John’s statement while he proposes to her that Jane is “formed for labour, not for love,” and Rochester’s exclamation when he realizes Jane has come back to him, “what sweet madness has seized me”.
I am left with the question of why adapt works for the stage and screen if it is necessary to remove so much that is good about them. Perhaps this was enjoyable to those who hadn’t read the book at all, or for a long time. Perhaps it will inspire people to seek out the book. Those are all fine things. But I’m coming to the conclusion, based on this and on the Masterpiece Austen adaptations, that I am not the target audience. I am too familiar and have too much affection for the source material to appreciate adaptations for themselves. And yet, I know I’ll continue to see them, if only for the brief moments that they bring to life wonderful parts of the books, like the humor in Jane Eyre that is so often overlooked in its reductive description as a dark, gothic tale.
Today is the first “zombie” match in the Morning News Tournament of Books–critical darling Then We Came to the End, which I just finished and loved, goes up against Remainder, which I’ve not yet read, and which one reader of this blog hated. Can Ferris continue his march to the final, or will he be defeated by a zombie, hungry for brains, and notoriously hard to kill?
Seven Deadly Words of Book Reviewing (link from Bookslut and Morning News.)
Stretching for the fanciful – writing “he crafts or pens” instead of “he writes”; writing “he muses” instead of “he says or thinks” – is a sure tip-off of weak writing.
Harris mentions one of my personal non-favorites, limn, at the end, but he missed brio. It’s a musical term hijacked by the pretentious. I’ve only seen it in book blurbs, never actually IN a book, and I’ve never heard it used in conversation.
While I agree with Harris, I must shamefacedly admit to using his deadly words in reviews on this blog. I am duly chastened.
The Nonist has posted lovely images from Candida Hofer’s book of photographs, Libraries. (Heads up thanks to Becca.) I had a hard time choosing which to post, since they’re stunning. While the Nonist jokes that it’s like porn for book nerds, I beg to differ.
Sexy? Yes. “Porn”? No. Art, baby, art.
Last week I went with my friend Becca to see Lionel Shriver, author of The Post-Birthday World, one of my favorite books of last year. I already knew Lionel was a woman, and I was not surprised that she was smart and funny in person. I’d assumed that she was English, since her bio says she lives in London and because she won The Orange Prize for her last novel. Yet when she began to speak, her accent was decidedly American, occasionally drawn out as from the South, though she certain words had the elongated sounds of London. She was born in North Carolina, and went to Columbia University. And she changed her name to Lionel at 15 just because she liked the sound of it and had never heard of it before.
I started Laura Lippmann’s What the Dead Know yesterday. I went to bed at 10:30. When I couldn’t sleep, I happily got up and read for another 90 minutes. I don’t think I’ll be posting much till I’m done. Which I hope is soon.
I did such a good job of eschewing library books last year that I missed out on the good stuff from 2007. I hope to read several of the books competing for the Morning News’ 2008 Tournament of Books, but I’m having trouble putting my hands on a few that have too-long queues at the library. Does anyone have a copy that I might borrow of:
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
?
if so, let me know. I’m trying REALLY hard not to rush out and buy them.
One of my favorite books of last year was Lionel Shriver’s Post-Birthday World, which was also EW reviewer Jennifer Reese’s top book of the year, though not everyone liked the diverging tale of a woman’s fateful decision to stay or go. Shriver is touring select US cities to promote the paperback publication of the book, and will be at the University of Minnesota Bookstore next Thursday March 13, 2008 at 4 pm for a reading and signing.
If you’re fortunate enough to live in Philadelphia, you can see Shriver on Tuesday March 11, along with Laura Lippman, whose What the Dead Know is one of The Morning News’s Sweet Sixteen for their 2008 Tournament of Books, and which I just checked out of the library. You can get the books from Joseph Fox Bookshop at 17th and Sansom Streets, where I used to get books for my book group of sacred memory. Then visit Genji Japanese Restaurant, and you’ll have me awash in nostalgia, and burning with jealousy.
Oh, the geek in me loves how simple and functional this is, especially the bookmarking feature. Link from Boing Boing.
Did you know that Newbery-award winning author Paula Fox was the biological grandmother of Courtney Love? I found this memoir by Love’s mother.
For there are, it seems, people who feel stress about owning volumes they haven’t read. Evidently some of them believe a kind of statute of limitations is in effect. If you don’t expect to read something in, say, the next year, then, it is wrong to own it. And in many cases, their superegos have taken on the qualities of a really stern accountant – coming up with estimates of what percentage of the books on their shelves they have, or haven’t, gotten around to reading. Guilt and anxiety reinforce one another.
Who me?
At Inside Higher Ed, Scott McLemee considers some of the online kerfuffle over books on the shelf (link from Bookslut), and offers a kinder, yet still literary, alternative:
If you are going to have a moralizing voice in your head, maybe it’s best for it to sound like Francis Bacon….“Some books are to be tasted,” writes Bacon, “others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”
And ultimately, of course:
It is, finally, a matter of taste.
The Morning News is holding its annual NBA alternative, the 2008 Tournament of Books, starting March 7. (Link from Bookslut.) Judges have been announced, but brackets are yet to come for these contenders, all of which are discounted for the tourney at Powells.com:
Run by Ann Patchett
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
Petropolis by Anya Ulinich
Ovenman by Jeff Parker
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot DÃaz
You Don’t Love Me Yet by Jonathan Lethem
New England White by Stephen L. Carter
Remainder by Tom McCarthy
The Shadow Catcher by Marianne Wiggins
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name by Vendela Vida
Shining at the Bottom of the Sea by Stephen Marche
What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman
An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England by Brock Clarke
I am not romantic you know. I never was. I ask only a comfortable home; and considering Mr. Collins’s character, connections, and situation in life, I am as convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair, as most people can boast on entering the marriage state. –Charlotte Lucas to Elizabeth Bennet, Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
In the March 2008 issue of the Atlantic, Lori Gottlieb makes an argument for settling that reminded me strongly of Charlotte Lucas’s speech explaining her acceptance of the boorish Mr. Collins’s proposal of marriage. Gottlieb, who decided to become a mother even though she’d not found “Mr. Right,” wonders if settling earlier for “Mr. Good Enough” would have made for a happier and easier life.
It’s a fair question, and clearly one that’s been around some time. It made me wonder what advice Jane Austen might have given. The recent PBS Masterpiece showing of Miss Austen Regrets had a few conjectures. Austen commented to her niece that “The only way to get a man like Mr. Darcy is to make him up!” Later, a reader comments to Austen that Elizabeth Bennett only realized she was in love with Darcy after she saw what a big house he had. Austen herself never married, and Miss Austen Regrets raises the question of whether she later wished she had settled. While we can’t know, it’s interesting to wonder, especially since Austen’s ideal of marital bliss as portrayed in her novels was (nearly?) always a combination of financial security and romantic love.
“Stop writing in my books!” said my husband, G. Grod. This was funny because the book, Smilla’s Sense of Snow, was one I brought into the relationship, and one which he has now read several times. G. hates notes in books; he feels much as Katherine, from Shakespeare’s Henry VIII: “What need you note it.” (II, iv)
I, on the other hand, like to write in my books. I am more in line with Helena, from All’s Well that Ends Well: “Worthy the note.” (III, v) If I bought the book, it’s mine. Each time I make a note in it, I’m claiming it, as well as abnegating the American public school education that penalized me for taking notes in books. Notes help me learn, or show me how I’ve learned from previous readings. Yes, I value clean, well-maintained books. But writing in them makes me feel at home with them, like I’ve opened the door, walked in and sat down. They make the books familiar and comforting, like the old friends they are.
Build a library into your staircase. No good for those of us with small kids, but one can dream. 
(Staircase Library link from Boing Boing)
I wrote last year of Mothering Sunday, the antecedent to Mother’s Day. Mothering Day is Sunday 2 March 2008. Here is an excerpt from a recent email by the delightful Persephone Books:
‘Mothering Sunday? I never heard tell of that.’
Anna smiled at the intent look on his face.
‘”Those who go a-mothering find violets in the lane.” That’s a very old saying. I believe the custom dates from the days when the children went away to work at a terrible age, poor little things, especially the girls into service. On mid-Lent Sunday they visited their mothers and on the way picked her a bunch of violets and the mother made them a cake. The cake was half boiled and half baked and was called a simnel cake. You must remember simnel cakes, Mr Pickering; delicious they were, usually with little birds on them.’
–from Noel Streatfeild’s 1950 novel Mothering Sunday
There is a recipe for Simnel Cake in Florence White’s Good Things in England, Persephone Book No.10 Order three Persephone books this week by Friday 29 February and receive Good Things in England for free.
Remember that long ago date, what was it, ELEVEN DAYS AGO, when I wrote
My hope for this year (I prefer hopes to goals; I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a simple transposition makes them gaols) is to read two shelf books a month, to continue my library patronage, and to keep book buying to a minimum.
The shopping goddess thought it was time for my uppance to come. I broke that vow within 48 hours. I broke it again three days later. And again, five days after that. Curse you, Half Price Books. Herewith are the books I bought, and how I came to rationalize buying them:
Four volumes from The Gresham Publishing Company’s Complete Work of Charlotte Bronte and her Sisters: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Villette, Shirley, and The Professor. Me: Gasp! I was just thinking I wanted to read more Bronte books, and here are these lovely old editions in good shape with photo and illustration inserts! Wait, I’m not supposed to buying books. Wait, it’s my birthday at the end of the month. Happy birthday to me….
Pride and Prejudice, Norton Critical Edition. Me: I was JUST thinking that I’d like an edition of this with notes. And here it is!
Wuthering Heights Barnes and Noble Classics edition. Me: I am really craving notes right now, and these look pretty good.
Jane Eyre, Penguin Classics. Me: Look, notes!
Wide Sargasso Sea, Norton Critical Edition. Me: I can take this off my amazon wish list now. It’s cheap! And full of notes so I can understand the book this time!
Ironically (or pathetically; you decide) the reason I’d gone into the bookstore was that they were holding a mass-market paperback (MMPB, i.e., portable) copy of Little Women. But in the excitement of rationalizing EIGHT books, I forgot to pick up the one on hold. So I had to go back, three days later.
Little Women, Signet MMPB. Me: I really want to re-read LW before I read Geraldine Brooks’ March, and I don’t want to lug around my big HC even if I love the illustrations.
Ken Follett, Pillars of the Earth MMPB. Me: Ha! Who needs to buy the expensive TPB Oprah edition! This is much more portable for when I read it again, which I’m sure I’m going to do soon.
Then, five days later, I’m in the bookstore again. (It’s near where I have doctor appointments; I did have legitimate reasons for being there.)
Ann Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho MMPB. Me: I am loving Northanger Abbey, and have to read this, since it’s mentioned so often.
Caleb Carr’s The Alienist $1 MMPB. Me: Becca just commented that this was a thumping good read, and since I’m so into Victorian literature lately, I’m sure I’ll read this soon.
Marisha Pessl’s Special Topics in Calamity Physics UK HC. Me: Ooh! Pretty textured cover! So much nicer than the US editions!
There you have it. I expressed a hope to keep book buying to a minimum, and within ten days I bought thirteen books. Better get reading.
Blogenheimer, then Becca, two of my well-read friends, have found the book I was wondering about yesterday: The Dark Clue by James Wilson. (No, not the character from television’s House. Or is it? He does have an affinity for noir; see his office posters for proof.)
For bonus points, Weirleader came up with a more recent book, The Minotaur by Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine.
Many thanks for your sleuthing. They’ll be added to my crazy-big “shelf” of books to consider in my library at Gurulib.
Perhaps one of you can help me. About ten years ago, I read a good review of a book, probably a mystery title. It was described as either a sequel or an homage to Wilkie Collins’s Woman in White. That’s how I became aware of WiW, and I told myself I wasn’t allowed to buy that new book till I read the Collins book; that didn’t happen until recently. Google searches have turned up nothing. I even emailed Uncle Edgar’s, where I remember seeing and not buying the book. They didn’t know what book I was thinking of.
Here’s what I know, or rather, what I remember, whether correctly or not. It probably came out sometime in the late 90’s or early 00’s. It might have been a New York Time Notable Book of the year, since I subscribed back then. It was related in some way to Wilkie Collins’s Woman in White, so I think it was a mystery. And it may have had a black and yellow cover.
Some girl detective I am. Any ideas, anyone?