Italian Family at Christmas Eve

I guess I am missing them all a little tonight.  They are all gone now.  We had some crazy, maddening, happy times.  When John was born I was at my wit's end with his crying endlessly, my absolute lack of knowledge on how to handle a newborn.  Sal's Grandmother Amelia and his mother Marcella came by for a visit and fussed endlessly trying to help and take over.  They brewed a little concoction on the stove to give him to drink, cut the bottoms out of his booties....I went crazy, grabbed him and stormed off into the bedroom.  They left the house angrily and I could hear them yell at me, "We'll be back when he's ten years old.....if he lives that long!"  It ended up that I came to love those women more than Sal did.....and what's more, I didn't realize they knew less than I did about taking care of babies or young children.  Sal's Grandmother was a singer and declaimer of poetry and Sal's Mother was something of a party girl, waitress, wise-cracking and a little bit of a performer.

Greenridge: A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles

Greenridge: A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles



Since reading this book I have re-read Vladimir Nabokov's "Speak Memory".  A favorite book I keep on a special shelf.

A happy memory of Dmitri Hvorostovsky

Behind Closed Doors

Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I raced through this mystery/psychological novel yesterday cheating like never before to get to the end. I gave it four stars because I just couldn't put it down. Made myself go for a walk to slow myself down.

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A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A beautiful read. Count Rostov and his story has kept me enthralled for days. I read it slowly as the language spills out like poetry, like a good story told by an accomplished racconteur. Full of bright scenes, humanity, warmth and love. Confined by the Bolshevik Tribunal to live out the remainder of his life in a luxury hotel in Moscow and his adventures and accommodations to make life as comfortable and amusing as possible make this the best book I've read in a long time. Here is a link to see beautiful photographs of the Metropol Hotel in Moscow... http://tinyurl.com/koypou3

This beguiling book achieves for me what I tend to seek in all literature, a roadmap of how to live life. The story of Count Alexander Rostov living his life in Moscow’s Metropol Hotel after being sentenced by the Bolsheviks to house arrest in the early 20’s was delightful as well as touching. He shows us how to adapt to misfortune and strive to bring out the best in people. He reveals for us how to be a true aesthete, one who discerns the beauty in the smallest things around us, appreciates the wonder of human creativity, and forges forgiveness for human folly. The character Towles has invented makes for a wonderful model of the perfect gentleman. Against all the horrors of Stalinist totalitarianism, his form of individualism makes for a brave and potent subversive force.

Here is a charming video of Amor Towles being interviewed by the Wall Street Journal at the Russian Tea Room discussing how he came to write the book:
             

http://tinyurl.com/lorr7wl

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"Sweetbitter" by Stephanie Danler

Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I gave this book 4 stars because I read it straight through enjoying it all. If you liked Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential" you might like this book. His was about the cooks and the kitchen crew and this book is about the servers. Tess, the protagonist, is a very pretty young girl thrown into a mix of people who teach her about wine, food, the elements of being a good server. I read some of the critical reviews here and agree with them too. The author is often trying to get a little too "literary". But the basic sense is of a true experience. The drugs, sex and partying might annoy you, but I enjoyed it all. This book was read by my grandson who sent it to his father. I read it last of the three of us. I spent some time googling the author and the restaurant in New York on which the story was based.


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I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by kitten videos.
— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) January">https://twitter.com/JoyceCarolOates/statuses/420335205774159872">January 6, 2014

"Moon Tiger" Penelope Lively

A beautiful creation.  I will hang on to this book and pick it up to re-read beautiful sections that unfold like poetry.  I love Lively's writing and have read "How it All Began" and "Oleander, Jacaranda" (autobiography of her childhood in Egypt).  I have a few of my favorite books in a cubby-hole in our bed's headboard and this book will go there along with Nabokov's "Speak, Memory", the William Trevor short stories, Lampedusa's "The Leopard."
      "Moon Tiger" roams through the life and mind of a woman who has been intelligent and beautiful.  Has she been kind?  Has she been as wise as she imagines?  It is not all simply a life of the mind.  Lively weaves into the narrative an eroticism that illuminates everything.

"Running Blind" Lee Child

Another satisfying read with Jack Reacher.  The joy of his books is in his interior dialog.  It is fun to just follow him around and get his analysis of what to do in any situation, listen to his descriptions of people he meets and places he travels by car or plane.  It's like spending time with a very interesting person.
     This book was written in 2000.  I check the dates because I never know if it is a book I've already read.  The plot line is a little hard to believe in the last analysis.  I think maybe his storylines have become more realistic over time, but no matter -- he is never boring and carries you along for the ride.

A Book from Childhood

I have had this book since before I learned to read. It has the loveliest illustrations and plates. It opened up worlds to me. Over the years it has fallen to pieces and a couple of years ago I was able to special order a new (used) copy from England. It is in good condition and it sits on a special shelf behind my bed. It was surprising to read it recently and find out what it was actually saying rather than all the mysteries and stories I had built up around it. The beautiful green binding looks just as in this photograph.

Balzac's "Cousin Bette"

Cousin Bette by Honoré de Balzac
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I first read this book about fifty years ago and loved it. On the rich plot of the story rests a network of beautiful writing and many clever and surprisingly modern observations of life. Recently I suggested it to our book group and I think it was probably too time consuming as only four people came to the discussion.
From Balzac and Jane Austen I believe I came to think great literature must take into consideration the importance money plays in our lives. In this book, Balzac says the greatest luxury for a person is books and flowers, and when you are too poor for beauty, you are indeed poor. I loved his discussion, for an example of modern correlations from Paris of the 1800's to now, about a Ministry in the government. He said the ministry was like a small village without any women, but as rife with gossip, rumor and conniving behavior. Sadly, I didn't mark the page.
From reading reviews after finishing the book, I learn that Balzac was mourning the decline of the Napoleonic Empire and the decline of religion. His saintly picture of Madame Hulot, however, made me think she was simply a doormat.
He wrote fast and he wrote what, on the surface, seems to be a delicious soap opera. Even so, movies made from "Cousin Bette" all fall short of the delight you get reading this book. (My edition was translated by Marion Ayton Crawford.)

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Željko Lučić - Cortigiani, vil razza dannata (Rigoletto)

"Wolf Hall" by Hilary Mantel

Tudor England. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is charged with securing his divorce. Into this atmosphere of distrust comes Thomas Cromwell - a man as ruthlessly ambitious in his wider politics as he is for himself. His reforming agenda is carried out in the grip of a self-interested parliament and a king who fluctuates between romantic passions and murderous rages.(less) I read a review a year ago I think and decided to put a hold on the book at our library. It came just before Christmas and there went the season! I found it difficult to adjust to the writing insofar as knowing who was actually speaking at any one time. I was amazed at the poetic images she conjured that brought each scene to life. The writing went from descriptions of simplicity and humor to beautiful evocations of weather, flowers and costumes all done in an antique style reflective of the time. Just a magnificent tour de force. I've never read anything so beautifully realized.

At the San Francisco Symphony Last Night

They played Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto -- gorgeous piece of music!

When The Killing's Done

I just finished this book in a long rush of interest.  This is another book I would never have read if it hadn't been chosen by our book club.  I think I've read a short story or two in the New Yorker by Boyle, but always felt he was just one of those hip writers who wouldn't be my cup of tea.  Now I will definitely look up another of his books.  I like his long asides that include all sorts of random thoughts, joking references, histories.  His basic story is pretty clear cut -- a contest between someone who wants to restore an ecosystem and one who thinks it is not worth while if animals are killed in the process.  The former is Alma, the latter is Dave.  It seems that both antagonists come to question their own sureness about what they are doing -- but not enough to stop them.  The novel twists back and forth in time -- which I found confusing, but manageable.  There are some dark and ugly scenes of almost unbearable violence. There is an interesting article on Boyle in the  British publication, The Guardian (it is worth looking up)in which Boyle says:

"'Life is tragic and absurd and none of it has any purpose at all." He is sitting contentedly with a glass of wine in the west room of his Frank Lloyd Wright house in Montecito, California. "Science has killed religion, there's no hope for the future with seven billion of us on the planet, and the only thing you can do is to laugh in the face of it all."

I liked the sense of place he conjured up -- the islands themselves, the cities of Montecito and Santa Barbara. I liked his descriptions and evocation of his characters.  So the book had his philosophy spelled out - tragic, absurd and funny.



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'Blackthorn' movie review

'Blackthorn' movie review -- 'Blackthorn' showtimes - The Boston Globe

Playing the aging outlaw Butch Cassidy, Sam Shepard is the nominal star of “Blackthorn,’’ and he’s fine - grizzled and laconic in the best western tradition. He keeps getting upstaged by the cinematography, though.

The movie’s an international coproduction that marks the feature directing debut of Spanish screenwriter Mateo Gil (“Open Your Eyes,’’ “The Sea Inside’’); he and director of photography Juan Ruiz Anchía filmed in the high country of Bolivia, and the thin mountain air seems to have seeped into the camera. Each frame is a crystalline jaw-dropper that places the smallish actions of men within a vast canvas of lush jungle, lunar salt flats, Andean snow, and desert sand. The result is a pretty good movie that almost looks better than it needs to.

It plays like a Sergio Leone spaghetti western with the cynicism replaced by exhaustion and regret. Butch falls in with a hapless civil engineer, Eduardo (Spanish heartthrob Eduardo Noriega), who has stolen $50,000 from fat-cat mine owners and is being tailed by a particularly mean posse. The most satisfying moments in “Blackthorn’’ let us see Butch through the younger man’s eyes, as Eduardo slowly comes to appreciate the depth of the outlaw’s mastery. He still doesn’t know who this old gringo is, but he’s definitely somebody.

After a while, Gil lets the movie stall in a sort of high-plains drift, and he lets the camerawork do most of the heavy lifting. You don’t mind. There’s a beautiful showdown on the salt flats in which Butch doesn’t outshoot a pursuer so much as outlast him, each man on his straining, plodding horse.

Cleopatra, Rome, Alexandria - A Life

Read in December, 2011

Cleopatra: A Life (Hardcover) Stacy Schiff - Little, Brown

I spent all day yesterday reading this book. There are so many reviews here, I thought I would just add the point that I learned so much about Egypt and Alexandria, its wealth and beauty. I could feel the warmth and salt air. Sad to think the old city is so gone, so much under water now. I loved this book. Didn't think Schiff could improve on "Vera". Wonderful writer! I had a little trouble getting started, but when I did I couldn't stop. This book makes so clear the rough and poor quality of the city of Rome at the time, in comparison to Alexandria. And Schiff is a genius to have brought Cleopatra to life with so many gaps in the sources. I really wondered when our book club chose it to read, why such a well-worn old story. Then the towering queen came to life with all her strength, education, languages, pageantry. Wonderful book!

Review of film "Beginners" Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer

Gattopardo Dec 24/2011 - I didn't like this movie.  I thought Christopher Plummer played a selfish man who only had a passing interest in why his son could make no commitments.  I was more interested in the mother -- I'd like to know why she stuck with her bad deal of a marriage.  I also could not get a clue as to why the son loved his father so much.  The gay factor in all this was not done well I felt.  A man as closeted as Plummer might come out, but with all this fanfare?  Also, the son's girlfriend was too phony.  And this ridiculous situation - the fancy hotel, the girl's arch mannerisms - ecch.  And this was supposed to represent his coming to terms with a solid relationship? The young men driving around town painting on buildings for fun?  The odd filming techniques and pastiches intercut in the filming?  Why did none of the reviews warn us?
   The only thing that kept us watching was the charming dog, Arthur; an adorable Jack Russell terrier.

The Hare With Amber Eyes

I loved reading this book written by a perceptive and caring artist about his family and their history.  Edmund de Waal writes about the Ephrussi with such attention to detail about their homes, their cities (Paris, Vienna, Odessa, Tokyo) and the objects they owned and clothes they wore.  It was like poetry to read his analyses of why certain objects (a collection of nearly 130 netsuke the author inherited provide a linking cord through the novel) can have meaning and influence.  I've never encountered a book quite like it.  The larger story is the family moving from great wealth to poverty during World War II, but the author has closed in with skill show their daily lives and the art objects they collected, books they read and all the fascinating friends they knew. The Parisian Charles Ephrussi never worked in the family banking business (they were on a par with the Rothschilds), he knew Proust (who had a character in his books based on Charles).  He knew Renoir (and many of the Impressionists).  He is even in Renoir's painting Bathers on the Seine (gentleman in a top hat). I bought the book in paperback at Costco recently.  I am sad that it is over, but the holiday season beckons, nay demands, my attention now.

The Fifth Witness - Michael Connelly

This was a fun fast legal thriller and a grabber of a read. Mickey Haller (The Lincoln Lawyer) gets into various aspects of the foreclosure epidemic and legal maneuvers that are interesting and informative too.  There are lots of topical references, Facebook, Software thievery, Hollywood film tie ins to big name legal trials.  The name of the book itself was interesting.  Quite a fun read for a rainy weekend.