Lincoln in the Bardo

Book Review: Lincoln in the Bardo

Review

I finished this book yesterday and am still wondering what I think of it. Our book club leader jokingly tried to "sell" it to us by saying, "....there's a lot of white space..." I don't know how anyone could read it as an audio book. First, you have to acknowledge that it represents a great feat of imagination. It took some time to figure out what was going on and there are still points I missed. Why were some of the denizens of the graveyard "staying" on and others were suffering horrors in the pit or on the fence? I see that the author was trying to show that Lincoln's visits to his son and the conceit that the denizens could enter his body and touch his mind were responsible for his great and growing empathy at a serious low point of the Civil War. All the characters were quite representative of their time in history (also their names) and you did get a sense of the era. It also had many bawdy moments. I will continue to think! George Saunders is certainly one of a kind! A virtual reality view of Bardo from the New York Times https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phuCt... interview with Jeffrey Brown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9MKN... (less)

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Family Photo from John and Julie's Wedding Reception

Eleanor Oliphant is Perfectly Fine

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this story. I can see why it ranks so high on the best seller list. Sure, it has its warm and fuzzies (along with incredibly bleak), but they are the stuff of real life. A slight whiff of what living in Glasgow is like as the writer is a Scot. My only critique was a feature of the book that is very similar to another book on the bestseller list. Read it. You'll enjoy meeting all these people.


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Why are poor people in America so patriotic?

https://www.salon.com/2018/06/11/why-are-poor-people-in-america-so-patriotic-one-man-went-on-an-odyssey-to-find-out/

What is a puzzle for you and me is actually not a puzzle for them at all. It is, in fact, the opposite. It is precisely because so many things have gone wrong for them that they get so much mileage out of being an American, which still happens to be a very prestigious national identity. One could argue that in a way it gives them a sense of identity like nothing else. They’re hanging on to it precisely because they have nothing else to hang on to.

They don’t have their history wrong. I think they’re being too harsh on themselves. They also differentiate between themselves and the government and say, “What happened to me is my responsibility.” In the end, they hang onto this idea. They feel motivated to continue and to do better the next morning. Many of them said that.

I would push back and ask, "Have you reconciled what happened to you with your love of country? Didn’t you get screwed?" They would respond, “No, what happened to me is my thing.” This is not false consciousness. This is a true sense of dignity that they get from the social contract as they perceive it.

I was talking to people who were prostitutes, former drug addicts and current drug addicts. Many were homeless. They would say several things in common. One was that they felt free to come and go and do the things they wanted and also to do and think whatever they wanted. In Montana, I met a young white person in the library who was homeless. I asked him, “Why are you homeless?” He said to me, “I’m homeless because it’s basically a sabbatical from life for me. I’m working on an app.” I thought, that cannot possibly be true. He then said, “In other countries, they would probably force me into a shelter. Whereas here, I can stay homeless and nobody bothers me for it.” I thought to myself, that is amazing.

. Many of them felt very autonomous. Many of these people would also say fantastical things to me like, “Look, I’ve turned a corner a month ago" or "I found God six months ago. Now I’m in good standing before God I don’t drink anymore. On Monday I have a job lined up." I don’t know if that was true or not.

The God thing, I should say, was also very prevalent. This sense that they’re walking with God and that America is God’s country. God loves America more than he loves other countries. This sense, still, of walking with God in God’s country, trying to do the right thing.

How did the poor and working-class people you spoke with feel about the rich?

I asked that question many times. I would wait for the right moment when, for example, a big Mercedes would drive by. In almost all cases, what I heard was, "They earned it and they made it on their own. Just like my failures and my faults, their successes are their successes." Now I would challenge that and say, "Come on, you were probably born in a certain context that was not helpful to you. They were probably born in well-to-do families."

I have these quotes in my head. One fellow said to me, "It’s got to be choices. It’s got be bad choices or good choices, but it’s got to be choices. It comes down to choices." But this same man had just told me how his father had beaten him up all his life. He was 14 years old and homeless; he ran away. Those are not choices. It was very difficult to get them away from that type of thinking. They thought that the rich essentially deserved it. The rich were generous. They get a lot of things as a result of that. These poor and working-class people actually told me that.

What were some of the conversations and life stories that really moved you?

One person I spoke with was a white woman struggling with brain cancer. She was young. She had three kids. We chatted at a bus station in Colorado but she was from Alabama. She was talking to me about her life. It was very important to her to have her kids read the Pledge of Allegiance, recite it at home. She was struggling to teach them the right values before she dies.

There was an African-American I met in Alabama. She was studying at a community college or the like to be a chef. She said to me, “Life out of country, life out of me.” She was saying: If you take the country away from me, you take the life away from myself; I have to have that. She was in her late 30s or early 40s.

I also met this couple who were living out of a very old Saab. I met them at laundromat in Billings, Montana. He was probably 20 years older than she was. He was probably in his 40s. She was in her early 20s. She had served in the military. He hadn’t.

She was expecting. We had an amazing conversation. They were very articulate and very thoughtful. It was him who said, “We have to be patriotic. You have to have a shred of dignity. Yeah, the system is corrupt, the police are corrupt, we’re being watched by everybody." Mind you, this is Montana, so they were very libertarian.

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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