Summer Sleuthing

"When I'm rich, my mother'll have a garden and a gardener . . .
And we'll have champagne every evening when she's tired . . .
champagne and a gardener!" (71)

Though I'm not typically a reader of whodunits, these entertaining novels have changed my mind this summer, with their sly wit, droll quips, clever allusions, and existential humor.

Some examples from
B. J. Morison's
Champagne and a Gardener

" . . . Pherousa led a simple existence. . . .
Pherousa, sixteen, was allowed to read fiction
if it had a nautical setting." (25)

"After the usual interlude, passengers began to appear,
with the stunned and / or exalted expression
common to disembarking air travellers." (58)

After hearing several people
refer to someone as “Cousin Cordelia,”
Elizabeth asks:
“Is that lady everybody’s cousin?”
To which Hill replies:

“Well no. Actually her father and Mrs. Worthington
were the children of first cousins. Mrs. Woodhue
is only my wife’s third cousin,
but in Boston they cling to their cousins.
Everybody must have something.”

One of "Poor Cordelia's" hardships:
she has come into some money, but her
husband Ted is spending her capital:

" 'Spend her capital!' echoed Persis, in horror. She may not have the had the exotic worldly thrills that Elizabeth Lamb had experienced, but almost eight years of life spent in the vicinity of Boston had taught her what was the unforgiveable worldy sin." (67)

Additional
Little Maine Murders

************************

And further adventures of
The Thursday Murder Club
by Richard Osman
[Click for previously posted lines from #1]

The Man Who Died Twice
#2 in Osman's Thursday Murder Series

A poignant exchange with Donna,
after Ibrahim is assaulted during a street robbery:

Donna asks, "How's the pain?"
"'It's getting better,' says Ibrahim.
"It only really hurts if I breathe.'"

He then encourages Donna
to discuss her ongoing sense of loneliness:
"'Does it hurt?' asks Ibrahim.
'Only when I breathe,' says Donna. (295, 296)

"All is quiet in this happy place. Another day done, family safe and sound, curtains closed and heating on. Nothing you'll ever see on the news, but something you should really pay more attention to, just the gentle hum of contentment." (394)


Ibrahim: "The secret of life is death. Everything is about death, you see. In essence . . . Our existence only makes sense because of it; it provides meaning to our narrative. Our direction of travel is always towards it. Our behaviour is either because we fear it, or because we choose to deny it. We could drive past this spot once a year, every year, and neither the horse nor ourselves would get younger. Everything is death."

Joyce: "That's one way of looking at things, I suppose."

Ibrahim: "It's the only way." (406 - 07)

Along the same lines as Ibrahim's view of death:
The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead
QK, FN, KL

And this seasonal gem:
"It is another glorious autumn day,
but there is a bite in the air
that tells you there won't be too many left.
Winter is waiting impatiently round the corner." (22)

************************

The Bullet That Missed
#3 in Osman's Thursday Murder Series

Ibrahim gets some of the deepest lines, perhaps because he is the most like Osman himself. In this insightful exchange, the criminal Connie considers hiring Ibrahim as her psychiatrist:

Ibrahim: "I always start with one question. Are you happy?"

Connie: "Well, I'm in prison."

I: "But that aside?"

C: "I mean. Maybe I could be happier?
You know, five percent. I'm OK."

I: "I can help with that.
Five percent, ten, fifty, whatever it might be.
That's my job. I can't fix you,
but I can make you run a little better."

C: "You can't fix me?"

I: "Humans can’t be fixed.
We’re not lawnmowers. I wish we were."

C: "What do you charge?"

I: "Sixty pounds an hour."

C: "I'll pay you two hundred an hour."

I: "No, it's just the sixty.
And my schedule is pretty flexible."

C: "Great. Let's do Thursdays."

I: "Actually, can we do Wednesdays?
Thursdays are the one day I have something on." (60 - 61)

Because there is no commitment more compelling
than The Thursday Murder Club!

And this should go for you too!
Happy summer reading and sleuthing!

************************

P.S.
Bogdan also imparts his share of worldly wisdom:

"Everyone wants to feel special,
but nobody wants to feel different." (22)

P.P.S
Looking for another mystery series?
Try Quirke: KL & QK

Bloomsday

Check out this mystery
~ and review in The Guardian ~
for numerous fun allusions to James Joyce's Ulysses.
Quirke even sees a "lanky-looking galoot
in a gabardine raincoat" (148).
[also on QK]

Happy Bloomsday
from James Joyce and Friends!

Herman Melville

Oscar Wilde

Edgar Allan Poe

All figures available from
The Christmas Company

Also Nativity

Memoirs in May

Contemplating My Own Memoirs

"Go Away I'm Reading"

As you can imagine, I receive a lot of gifts
along these lines, and love them all:

"No Such Thing As Too Many Books"

1.
“Every connection has an obligation
even if the obligation is Joy — to cherish it.” (p 92)

From
Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life
Delia Ephron (b 1944)
[See also QK & KL]

2.

"We thought we were in the best place in the world in this neighborhood, in the all-Irish housing projects where everyone claimed to be Irish even if his name was Spinnoli. We were proud to be from here, as proud as we were to be Irish. . . . Southie was Boston's proud Irish neighborhood. . . .

"I always had a sense of security here, a sense of belonging that I've never felt anywhere else . . . a feeling that someone would watch your back. Sure, bad things happened to my family, and to so many of my neighbors and friends, but there was never a sense that we were victims. This place was ours, it was all we ever knew, and it was all ours. . . .

"That's how I found myself staring out at a sea of faces, looking for my brothers among the living and the dead. I was looking for the truth about their lives and about their deaths. Like me, everyone at that night's vigil will forever be looking for the truth in Southie, where nothing's what it seems." (2, 5-6, 263)

From
All Souls: A Family Story from Southie
Michael Patrick MacDonald (b 1966)

3.
And I'm adding this one here,
because of the subtitle:

Heating and Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs
Beth Ann Fennelly (b 1971)

4.
"There was just Erica Jong, Feminist Icon,
except that she was really not that feminist,
and really not that iconic." (216)

From
How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter's Memoir
Molly Jong-Fast (b 1978)

Except -- could it be that Molly Jong-Fast (while being an otherwise thoughtful and perceptive daughter) and Jane Kamensky (no excuses for her) are underestimating the impact of Erica Jong's work?

I am thinking back to the letter that my sister Peg wrote to me years ago from Frankfurt:

March 17, 1981

Dear Kit,

Since receiving your letter, I've looked everywhere for a copy of Fear of Flying. Do you know that there is not a copy to be found. The library copy is checked out and the bookstore is sold out. I remember seeing several copies in the bookstore about three weeks ago, but now they're gone. So, I've put a reserve on the library copy. Judging from what you say and what I've heard about the book, I figure three are a lot of bored housewives using the book as an "entertainment guide" for Germany. I can hardly wait to read it.

I've not even read the book and I find myself being embarrassed when I ask for it. While at the library, I also requested Firestarter by Stephen King, and everything was normal enough, but I'm certain that when I uttered the first "F" of Fear of Flying, there was an echo that caused all heads to turn and look at me. I never thought of myself as a shy person, and I'm not a prude, but I think I was born too early in this sexual revolution."

Peg and I read Fear of Flying together back in the day, and when How to Lose Your Mother came along, we discussed the life lessons we have retained from Erica Jong's fiction. As a heroine, Isadora Wing may have been flighty (pun intended!), but it wasn't her crazy antics and sexual romp through Europe that left their mark on us so much as her determination to make her own way through a culture of double standards, mixed messages and false promises.

Sure, Jong's soft - core porn approach can be over the top at times yet easy enough to accomodate because she is also telling such a good story and imparting so much wisdom:

On femininity vs feminism
Don't you see that men have always defined
femininity as a means of keeping women in line? (22)

On family
"It was the old psychosomatic side-step.
Everyone in my family dances it at every opportunity.
You've given me a splitting headache! You've given me indigestion!
You've given me crotch rot! You've given me auditory hallucinations!
You've given me a heart attack! You've given me cancer!" (44)

On decision making
" . . . your life may not be simple.
Why do you expect it to be . . .
why do you have to throw everything away
before you give yourself time to decide?
Can't you wait and see what happens later?" (171)

This one is from the sequel
to Fear of Flying
"Many people today believe that cynicism requires courage.
Actually, cynicism is the height of cowardice.
It is innocence and open-heartedness
that require the true courage —
however often we are hurt as a result of it."
(How to Save Your Own Life, 77)

And so much more!

**************************

As an inspiring feminist icon, Erica Jong
has a permanent spot on the sidebar of my daily blog,
along with other notables such as Margaret Atwood,
Virginia Woolf, King Solomon, and Sappho.

And she appears in many of my posts:
FN ~ KL ~ QK

April Foolery

On Facebook

Book Group

The last Thursday of every month was Book Group,
when the books would gather together to discuss Brian.

“It’s no fun here any more,” remarked Bleak House, glumly.
“Why doesn’t he read us?” whined the Grapes of Wrath. “It makes me so angry!”
“I’m sure he only bought me so he can show me off to his friends,”
complained Ulysses, in a stream of self-consciousness.

“I bet he can’t even remember my name, The Idiot,”
muttered a voice from the Russian literature section.
“That’s because he avoids you like The Plague,” said another.
“C’est vrai!” came a cry. “It is like I do not exist.”

“Let’s not give up on him yet.” It was Brave New World.
After some Persuasion, they agreed to give him one last chance.
“Be quiet!” cried Waiting for Godot with Great Expectations.
“Here he comes now!”

Brian entered the room, with his phone.
He sat down and watched some videos of baby pandas falling over.
After an hour or so, he started googling cats dressed as celebrities.

On the shelf, the books waited with uncracked spines,
their silence speaking volumes.

By Brian Bilston (b 1970)
More on FN & QK & FB

Plus, something funny:
The Sex Lives of Cannibals:
Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific

And, something for
Shakespeare's Birthday

Book on Windowsill

Spring in Gościeradz (1933)
Leon Jan Wyczółkowski (1852 – 1936)
Leading Polish painter and educator

I love the way Wyczolkowski captures the ethereal
energy coming from book, curtain, tree, light!

And just what is that golden book upon the windowsill?
Could it be . . .

1.
The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 1
by Beth Brower
Recommended by my friend Lisa

Hilarious, in manner of Oscar Wilde's
Importance of Being Ernest.  Very droll!
Would make a better mini-series than Downton!

2.
August is a Wicked Month
by Edna O'Brien
Sent as a gift from my friend Vickie

While brooding about some ill-considered personal choices, the heroine repeats a mantra to herself . . .

173: "'It's not a crime, it's not a crime, it's not a crime,' she kept saying, arranging her footsteps to tune in with that one sentence. 'It's not a crime,' she said again . . . But even as she was saying it was not a crime she thought back to herself . . . the ivory girl in her tower of gold. Would they recognize her now?"

193: “She had not thought of him once. Not once. That was her crime. Under the soft skin and behind the big, melting eyes, her heart was like a nutmeg. Some of it had been grated by life but the very centre never really surrendered to anyone, not to the mother who stole for her, nor to the drunken father, nor to her far-seeing but poisoned husband, and not to the child in the way it should have.”

3.
Marriage and Other Monuments
by Virginia Pye
A must read for the local color of Richmond, Virginia,
written by one of my former Philadelphia neighbors

208 - 09: "Why are Black women always so angry at me? I haven't done anything to them."

"Jesus, Melissa, after all these years you don't get why someone might be less than friendly to you?

She shrugged. "I do, sort of, but come to think of it, no, not really."

220 - 21: "She [Cynthia] had left Bobby beause she was unwilling to be his helpmate, but maybe helping was an unavoidable part of the arrangement. Maybe marriage was a pact to keep each other afloat against all odds, natural and manmade. To ease the boat of life downstream through rough waters, including old age."

4.
The Hounding
by Xenobe Purvis
Sent as gift from my friend Laura

Here's what I noticed about this mysterious novel -- especially since I did not look ahead or read any reviews, not even the book jacket -- I honestly did not know and could not guess what was going to happen! Even up until the last page, I did not see it coming -- the murder, the reprieve, the escape.

I can see how some readers want a more detailed conclusion, but maybe it's better for the reader to wonder where the sisters are going and what will happen and whether or not there is a rational explanation. Personally, I want it to be a novel about imaginations running wild, completely unnecessarily.

I loved the thoughts of the grandfather about how strong and independent he wanted the girls to be.

~ Or these ~

5.
With commentary from from
my daughter - in - law Cathleen

6.
Sent as a gift from my friend Katie
[a bizarre connection!]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another painting of
window and book

The Young Cicero Reading
by Vincenzo Foppa (c.1427–c.1515)

Posted previously on The Ides of March

The Beginning of Happiness

Virginia Woolf, 1912
portrayed while knitting
by her sister Vanessa Bell

"It had seemed like the beginning of happiness, and Clarissa is still sometimes shocked, more than thirty years later, to realize that it was happiness; that the entire experience lay in a kiss and a walk, the anticipation of dinner and a book. The dinner is by now forgotten; Lessing has been long overshadowed by other writers; and even the sex, once she and Richard reached that point, was ardent but awkward, unsatisfying, more kindly than passionate. What lives undimmed in Clarissa's mind more than three decades later is a kiss at dusk on a patch of dead grass, and a walk around a pond as mosquitoes droned in the darkening air. There is still that singular perfection, and it's perfect in part because it seemed, at the tie, so clearly to promise more. Now she knows: That was the moment, right then. There has been no other." (p 98)

from The Hours
by Michael Cunningham, b 1952

Conversation Piece, 1912
by Vanessa Bell (1879–1961)

Mother - daughter dialogue
from the movie script:

Julia: I bumped into Louis Waters.

Clarissa: Oh, you did? Where?

Julia: In the street.
They're all here, aren't they? All the ghosts.
All the ghosts are assembling for the party!
He is so weird.
Oh, what? You can't see that?
You can't see that Louis Waters is weird?

Clarissa: I can see that he's sad.

Julia: Mom, all your friends are sad.
You've been crying. What's happening?

Clarissa: Earlier today I looked around this room
and thought: I'm giving a party.
All I wanna do is give a party!

Julia: And?

Clarissa: I know why he does it.
He does it deliberately.

Julia: Oh, is this Richard!

Clarissa: Of course. He did it this morning.
He gives me that look.

Julia: What look?

Clarissa: To say: your life is trivial. You are so trivial.
Just daily stuff, you know, schedules and parties, and details.
That's what he means. That is what he's saying.

Julia: Mom, it only matters if you think it's true.
Well? Do you? Tell me.

Clarissa: When I am with him, I feel: "Yes, I am living!"
And when I am not with him,
yes, everything does seem sort of silly.

I don't mean with you, right? God!
Never with you. Just all the rest of it.

Julia: Sally?

Clarissa: The rest of it. False comfort.

Julia: Because?

Clarissa: If you say to me, "When were you happiest?"

Julia: Mom!

Clarissa:"Tell me the moment you were happiest."

Julia: I know! I know, it was years ago.

Clarissa: Yeah.

Julia: All you're saying is: you were once young.

Clarissa: I remember one morning, getting up at dawn,
there was such a sense of possibility!
You know? That feeling?
And -- and I remember thinking to myself:

"So this is the beginning of happiness.
This is where it starts!
And, of course, there'll always be more."

Never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning.
It was happiness. It was the moment. Right then.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Down, down into the midst of ordinary things."

"Let us not take it for granted that life exists
more fully in what is commonly thought big
than in what is commonly thought small."

~ Virginia Woolf ~

Theo of Golden

A nice thing to do with this book:
buy an extra copy, wrap it in a golden bow,
and give it as a birthday present.

A few favorite passages
from Theo of Golden
by Allen Levi

This one just made me laugh:
29: "The sidewalk tables at the pubs and restaurants along Broadway were all occupied, and foot traffic was robust, made up predominantly of college students and other adherents to the idea that weekends begin on Thursday."

The significance of a picture frame:
128: "How is it, Theo wondered, that a piece of paper -- a letter, a photo, a ticket stub, a sketch, a painting - is suddenly transformed by placing it in four bits of wood beneath a pane of glass? What does it mean that we place permanent boundaries around transient moments? What does it say of humankind that we take such trouble to freeze specific memories, that we devote such energy to capturing and preserving the 'minute particulars' of our lives?"

The signficance of the bicycle:
146 / 166: "William Saroyan said 'the bicycle is the noblest invention of man.' And in 'Rescue the Perishing,' that story, the little boy did not want a new bicycle. He liked the one he had. It cost him $27.50 of his own money. Well, I don't want a new bicycle either . . . I like mine perfectly fine. . . ."

250: "They [brothers Tom and Douglas in Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine] ride all over Green Town on their bikes. And they think Leo Huffman invented the bicycle, so they ask him to invent a Happiness Machine too."

Additional references to
Saroyan's "bicycle stories"
reminded me of
Flann O'Brien & H. G. Wells
For Ellen, as for so many of us:
146: ". . . books were her language, her neighborhood, her connection to reality."

Including: 148: Eudora Welty, "Why I Live at the P.O."
150: Carson McCullers
250: Harper Lee
254: James Hurt, "The Scarlet Ibis" -- I remember Ben & Sam reading this one in high school
256: Faulkner (Blue Jay)

The magic of majoring in English:
171: "After high school, I went away to college and got an English degree, so I could be a teacher. I read this essay one time about an English teacher, Whenever somebody asked him about his job, he would say he taught a course in magic. That made sense to me. Still does. He taught his students that words and books are like magic."

One big river
179: "Might it be that the water from the river of his childhood had found its way to this one, that the cyclical life of rainfall -- sky to earth to sky again, over and over -- had brought the elixir of the Iberian wine country to this place? That the river of gold in Portugal had come, through cloudburst and current, to this river of gray in Golden? And had soe of Golden's flow found its way to the hillsides of Theo's childhood? Was there, after all, only one big river that flowed across the earth?"

254: Additional memories of the River Marne

Theo's boyhood memory of seeing a fisherman pause
from his work on the boat to take up his paintbrush:
181: "Any fisherman knows that this is the best time to be fishing. But artists know this is the enchanted hour, when the sunlght is most magical. It's hard to know sometimes. Fish or pai, right? FIsh or paint? Well, I tell you, this time of year, I'm afraid I have no choice. I always make time for this."

The lasting impact of serving in Vietnam and
seeing the Memorial Wall for the first time
186: "It's amazing how a flat piece of stone can change your life, but that damn thing brought stuff up in me I'd been holding in for a long time. I'm still not sure why I went to see it, and I'm not sure I should have, but it probably did me some good."

Many more references to art and literature
51: Shakespeare & Co

161: "The biblically literate among them might have expected a finger to start writing on the wall at any moment: Mene, mene tekel, upharsin."
Previous connections on the Quotidian Kit
Blue Jay & Ginkgo & Picture Framing

Another blogger's
favorite Theo quotes

&

My random notes to self

1.
Is the mystery woman Mrs. Ponder?
(mentioned 2x: the photograph on Mr. Ponder's desk
and the painting in Asher's studio)

2.
Review Theo's visit to Asher's studio
and compare to concluding series of letters

3.
142: missing time
not sure about this one . . .
it's bad enough to misunderstand your own notes,
but particularly when it is a note about something
that's missing, expecially "missing time"!

Perhaps upon rereading, I can figure it out!

The Midnight Blogpost

The Moon on New Year's Eve

If you're looking for something to read
when the clock strikes twelve, how about this novel
concerning the quirks and tweaks and funny tricks of time:

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
At least 4 friends (Gene, Katy, Kerry, Laura), all on separate occasions, recommended this novel; plus, it was a clue on Jeopardy! so I knew it was going to be a good one. I admit that I was not consistently enamoured of Nora and the multiverse, but I was perpetually enthralled by the manner in which it brought to mind so many other things that I deeply love, such as

1. This poem by Ernest Sandeen

My Two Lives

The life I could have lived,
that other, better one,
is also mine. Who else
can claim it?
Each morning, stooping down,
I know that I am not worthy
to tie my own shoelaces.

Ernest Sandeen, 1908 - 1997
Notre Dame Professor and Poet

2. This poem by H. D.

Never More Will the Wind
Never more will the wind
cherish you again,
never more will the rain.
Never more
shall we find you bright
in the snow and the wind.
The snow is melted,
the snow is gone,
and you are flown:
Like a bird out of our hand,
like a light out of our heart,
you are gone.

by H.D. (aka Hilda Doolittle, 1886 – 1961)

3. The dreamy (also nightmarish) poetic novel:
Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman

4. The dreamy (also nightmarish) historical novel:
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

5. The Mirror of Erised -- Desire reversed -- in the Harry Potter novels -- where Harry glimpses a chance for the desire of his heart: communication beyond the grave.

6. A few movies come immediately to mind:
Coherence, Sliding Doors, It's a Wonderful Life
-- and doubtless there are many, many more.

7. Who couldn't use a do-over, right?

In each of these narratives, the characters are able to visualize a world in which they make better choices, maximize their options, achieve better outcomes; and try, try, try again for a more palatable existence.

And that's what The Midnight Library is all about:

"Every life contains many millions of decisions. Some big, some small. But every time one decision is taken over another, the outcomes differ. An irreversible variation occurs, which in turn leads to further variations. These books are portals to all the lives you coud be living. . . . You have as many lives as you have possibilities. There are lives where you make different choices. And those choices lead to different outcomes. If you had done just one thing differently, you would have a different life story. And they all exist in the Midnight Library. They are all as real as this life.” (p. 31)

One of my favorite features is "The Book of Regrets." Although Nora is only 35 years old, her "Book of Regrets" is already so heavy that she can barely pick it up (p. 34). However, it gets lighter and lighter as she realizes that no matter what alternative life she may have chosen, it would not have been perfect (pp. 155, 266). In fact, those other lives may not have worked out well at all, so she can relinquish her regret -- based only upon imagination and lack of knowledge -- for not having chosen them. Similar to the Parable of the Cross is her discovery "that the place you wanted to escape to is the exact place you escaped from. That the prison wasn't the place, but the perspective.” (284)

Nora also learns some hard realities:

1. " . . . death is the opposite of possibility." (p. 69)

2. " . . . you can choose choices but not outcomes." (p. 83)

3. " [her] father . . . had been a difficult man. . . .
Nora had felt that simply to be in his presence
was to commit some kind of invisible crime." (p. 87)

4. “'You’re overthinking it.’
‘I have anxiety.
I have no other type of thinking available.'” (p. 109)

5. "'You might need to stop worrying
about other people's approval . . .
you don't need a permission slip to be your--'" (p. 193)

6."Nora wanted to live in a world
where no cruelty existed, but the only worlds she had
available to her were worlds with humans in them." (p. 197)

7."'It seems impossible to live with hurting people.'
'Well, in fairness, dying hurts people too.'"
At the core of the novel (truly, the exact half - way point!), Matt Haig presents his core message, in a short chapter entitled "Expectation":

“Nora had always had a problem accepting herself. From as far back as she could remember, she'd had the sense that she wasn't enough. Her parents who both had their own insecurities, had encouraged that idea.

She imagined, now, what it would be like to accept herself completely. Every mistake she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every dream she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every dream she hadn't reached or pain she had felt. Every lust or longing she had suppressed.

She imagined accepting it all. The way she accepted nature. The way she accepted a glacier or a puffin or the breach of a whale.

She imagined seeing herself as just another brilliant freak of nature. Just another sentient animal, trying her best.
And in doing so, she imagined what it was like to be free."
(p. 143)

The Full Moon After Yule

Are the library and librarian for real, or just a whirlwind vision, a frantic exploration of the dusty shelves before the clock strikes midnight?

"There is a chance that just before you die you'll get a chance to live again. You can have things you didn't have before. You can choose the life you want. . . . this whole library is part of you. Do you understand? You don't exist because of the library; the library exists because of you." It turns out that all Nora needs is "the book of her future . . . in this one that future was unwritten." The book of regrets can be left behind: "That is the last book you need. That will be ash by now. That will have been the first book to burn." (pp. 225, 265, 270 266)

The novel concludes optimistically:

She had to try harder. She had to want the life she always thought she didn’t. Because just as this library was a part of her, so too were all the other lives. She might not have felt everything she had felt in those lives, but she had the capability. She might have missed those particular opportunities that led her to become an Olympic swimmer, or a traveller, or a vineyard owner, or a rock star, or a planet-saving glaciologist, or a Cambridge graduate, or a mother, or the million other things, but she was still in some way all those people. They were all her. She could have been all those amazing things, and that wasn’t depressing, as she had once thought. Not at all. It was inspiring. Because now she saw the kinds of things she could do when she put herself to work. And that, actually, the life she had been living had its own logic to it. . . . What sometimes feels like a trap is actually just a trick of the mind. She didn’t need a vineyard or a Californian sunset to be happy. She didn’t even need a large house and the perfect family. She just needed potential. And she was nothing if not potential. She wondered why she had never seen it before.” (p 269)

Related reading for 2026:
The Personal Librarian (suggested by Igor)
by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray.

Maybe after that, I'll look for something else
with the word Library or Librarian in the title!

Or perhaps the word Book
as in The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl
recommended by Gene;

or the personification of text
as in Inkheart by Cornelia Funke,
from Katie

See previous book blogs:
January 2025: bookstore = cathedral
"If you are in a cathedral,
you are quiet because you are in a cathedral,
not because other people are there.
It's the same with a library." (185)

Chernobyl:
"He seemed like he would be able
to sit in a field near Chernobyl and
marvel at the the beautiful scenery." (204)
April 2016 & May 2016

& The Quotidian Kit:
Children in the Leaves & Straw

Some other lives for me:
stick with childhood swimming and piano
end bad relationships sooner
stay single longer
major in accounting
go to art school
accept offer to model for art class
go to Hallmark or Ideals

Emily Dickinson, Writer

Emily Dickinson
drawings above & below
by Barbara Cooney

Quotations from I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died
an Emily Dickinson mystery by Amanda Flower
320: "If you are a writer, a true writer, you can always write if only but a little. You thrive on it. You need it, and it needs you."

247: "Being paid for your work doen't necessarily make you a writer. Being able to contribute to the world in any manner of the written word, on the other hand, does."
"Fame is a bee.
It has a song—
It has a sting—
Ah, too, it has a wing."
In the novel, Emily murmurs these words to herself as she discovers a bumblebee nestled in an indoor flower arrangement and gently places the cut stem outdoors to spare the bee's life:

"The bumble deserves this flower because he gave me much inspiration tonight. Anyone who can inspire a poem deserves a flower to have and keep. . . . The blossom will be withered in the morning, but for this night he will sleep in bliss." (182)

In addition to deep thoughts of writerly introspection and references to many poems, Amanda Flower has filled her novel I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died with light-hearted speculation -- was Emily Dickinson a sleuth, investigating local crime; did she have a loyal made and confidante such as Willa; did she ever meet Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 1850s?

A young gardener working for Emily purchases a ceramic American goldfinch ornament as a present for his fiance in Ireland: "to give her a bit of hope to hold on to" (171). Throughout the novel (179, 324), the repeated motif of the figurine merges with Dickinson's iconic line: "Hope is the thing with feathers".

Repeated lantern imagery (268, 270, 317) reminded me of this questing metaphor:
"I am out with lanterns, looking for myself."

~ Emily Dickinson ~
[from an 1855 letter to her friend Elizabeth Holland]

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Click to see:
a beautiful slide show
of the Dickinson Homestead

Happy 195th Birthday
December 10, 1830 ~ May 15, 1886

"If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?"

letter from Emily Dickinson to T. W. Higginson
August 16, 1870

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Previous Emily Dickinson mystery by Jane Langton

Previous posts: KL ~ FN ~ QK

Skeleton Flowers

"Late October showers
bring delicate skeleton flowers.
A ghostly sight
on Halloween night,
they softly glow for hours."

by Calef Brown
from Polkabats and Octopus Slacks

A super fun, totally unique storybook
for Halloween and all year long!
You've gotta love a book whose first
two stories feature Kansas City & Route 66!

Polka Bats for Halloween!
Also check out Hallowilloween!

Additional
Halloween Favorites (2024)

And in years previous
The Witch Family ~ by Eleanor Estes
More posts: FN ~ QK ~ KL

Not to be confused with
Little Witch ~ by Anna Elizabeth Bennett

Redheaded Readers

Little Red Haired Girl
[on facebook]


Paintings above and below
by Italian Impressionist
Federico Zandomeneghi (1841 – 1917)


The Good Book, 1897

♥♥♥

Young Girls Reading
(aka The Two Sisters), 1889
by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)
[also on FN & on facebook] ♥♥♥

Woman Seated on a Red Settee
by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864 – 1901) ♥♥♥ Red Heads in the Family

My Sister Diane

My Grandson Dean

Eternal Sunshine & Da Vinci Code

In the movie Operation Mincemeat,
the nearly true - to - life Winston Churchill
makes the fictionalized observation:
“I applaud the fantastic.
It has many advantages over the mundane.”

I love the way this cat, radiating
Eternal Sunshine has chosen to live
smack- dab in the middle of the fantastic!

"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd".

from "Eloisa to Abelard"
by Alexander Pope -- or Pope Alexander
[as so sweetly blundered by Kirsten Dunst]

In a movie full of insights,
this mild exchange provides strong caution
against erasing bad memories:

Kirsten Dunst / Mary:
Q: How did I look?

Mark Ruffalo / Stan:
A: You looked happy.


After re-watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,
I was inspired to review my favorite lines from Dan Brown

~ The Da Vinci Code ~

Chapter 62, p 266:
“In my experience," Teabing said,
"men go to far greater lengths to avoid
what they fear than to obtain what they desire.
I sense a desperation in this assault on the Priory.”

~ Angels & Demons ~

Chapter 37, page 137:
Remember! she told herself. Remember the solution to this test!

Remembrance was a Buddhist philospher's trick. Rather than asking her mind to search for a solution to a potentially impossible challenge, Vittoria asked her mind simply to remember it. The presupposition that one once knew the answer created the mindset that the answer must exist . . . thus eliminating the crippling conception of hopelessness. Vittoria often used the process to solve scientific quandaries . . . those that most people thought had no solution.

Chapter 45, page 173 - 174:
Vittoria sensed she was starting to come unhinged, an alien distress she recalled only faintly from childhood, the orphanage years, frustration with no tools to handle it. You have tools, she told herself, you always have tools.

“Terrorism,” the professor had lectured, “has a singular goal. What is it?”

“Killing innocent people?” a student ventured.

“Incorrect. Death is only a by product of terrorism.”

“A show of strength?”

“No. A weaker persuasion does not exist.”

“To cause terror?”

“Concisely put. Quite simply, the goal of terrorism is to create terror and fear. Fear undermines faith in the establishment. It weakens the enemy from within . . . causing unrest in the masses. Write this down. Terrorism is not an expression of rage. Terrorism is a political weapon. Remove a government’s façade of infallibility, and you remove its people’s faith.”

Loss of faith . . . ”

Is that what this was all about?

[All italics and ellipses in original]

Forgotten Mermen

Julián Is a Mermaid
by Jessica Love

Reading this sweet story of a boy who creates his own mermaid outfit for the costume party reminded me of these Victorian poems that I had not thought about in many years:

1. First, Tennyson's companion poems of the pensive mermaid and merry merman:

The Mermaid

I.
Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?

II.
I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb'd I would sing and say,
Who is it loves me? who loves not me?
I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall
Low adown, low adown,
From under my starry sea-bud crown
Low adown and around,
And I should look like a fountain of gold
Springing alone
With a shrill inner sound,
Over the throne
In the midst of the hall.

Till that great sea-snake under the sea
From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps
Would slowly trail himself sevenfold
Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate
With his large calm eyes for the love of me.
And all the mermen under the sea
Would feel their immortality
Die in their hearts for the love of me.

III.
But at night I would wander away, away,
I would fling on each side my low-flowing locks,
And lightly vault from the throne and play
With the mermen in and out of the rocks;
We would run to and fro, and hide and seek,
On the broad sea-wolds in the crimson shells,
Whose silvery spikes are nighest the sea.
But if any came near I would call, and shriek,
And adown the steep like a wave I would leap
From the diamond-ledges that jut from the dells;
For I would not be kiss'd by all who would list,
Of the bold merry mermen under the sea;
They would sue me, and woo me, and flatter me,
In the purple twilights under the sea;
But the king of them all would carry me,
Woo me, and win me, and marry me,
In the branching jaspers under the sea;
Then all the dry pied things that be
In the hueless mosses under the sea
Would curl round my silver feet silently,
All looking up for the love of me.
And if I should carol aloud, from aloft
All things that are forked, and horned, and soft
Would lean out from the hollow sphere of the sea,
All looking down for the love of me.

AND

The Merman

Who would be
A merman bold,
Sitting alone,
Singing alone
Under the sea,
With a crown of gold,
On a throne?

I would be a merman bold,
I would sit and sing the whole of the day;
I would fill the sea-halls with a voice of power;
But at night I would roam abroad and play
With the mermaids in and out of the rocks,
Dressing their hair with the white sea-flower;
And holding them back by their flowing locks
I would kiss them often under the sea,
And kiss them again till they kiss'd me
Laughingly, laughingly;
And then we would wander away, away,
To the pale-green sea-groves straight and high,
Chasing each other merrily.

There would be neither moon nor star;
But the wave would make music above us afar —
Low thunder and light in the magic night —
Neither moon nor star.
We would call aloud in the dreamy dells,
Call to each other and whoop and cry
All night, merrily, merrily;
They would pelt me with starry spangles and shells,
Laughing and clapping their hands between,
All night, merrily, merrily,
But I would throw to them back in mine
Turkis and agate and almondine;
Then leaping out upon them unseen
I would kiss them often under the sea,
And kiss them again till they kiss'd me
Laughingly, laughingly.
Oh! what a happy life were mine
Under the hollow-hung ocean green!
Soft are the moss-beds under the sea;
We would live merrily, merrily.

both by Alfred Lord Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892)

Illustrations by Eric Kincaid

2. Second, Arnold's sad tale of the merman bereft of mortal love:

The Forsaken Merman

Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below!
Now my brothers call from the bay,
Now the great winds shoreward blow,
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away!
This way, this way!

Call her once before you go—
Call once yet!
In a voice that she will know:
"Margaret! Margaret!"
Children's voices should be dear
(Call once more) to a mother's ear;

Children's voices, wild with pain—
Surely she will come again!
Call her once and come away;
This way, this way!
"Mother dear, we cannot stay!
The wild white horses foam and fret."
Margaret! Margaret!

Come, dear children, come away down;
Call no more!
One last look at the white-wall'd town
And the little grey church on the windy shore,
Then come down!
She will not come though you call all day;
Come away, come away!

Children dear, was it yesterday
We heard the sweet bells over the bay?
In the caverns where we lay,
Through the surf and through the swell,
The far-off sound of a silver bell?
Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep;
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,
Where the salt weed sways in the stream,
Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round,
Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground;
Where the sea-snakes coil and twine, Dry their mail and bask in the brine;
Where great whales come sailing by,
Sail and sail, with unshut eye,
Round the world for ever and aye?
When did music come this way?
Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, was it yesterday
(Call yet once) that she went away?
Once she sate with you and me,
On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,
And the youngest sate on her knee.
She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well,
When down swung the sound of a far-off bell.
She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea;
She said: "I must go, to my kinsfolk pray
In the little grey church on the shore to-day.
'T will be Easter-time in the world—ah me!
And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee."
I said: "Go up, dear heart, through the waves;
Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!"
She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay.
Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, were we long alone?
"The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan;
Long prayers," I said, "in the world they say;
Come!" I said; and we rose through the surf in the bay.
We went up the beach, by the sandy down
Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd town;
Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still,
To the little grey church on the windy hill.
From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,
But we stood without in the cold blowing airs.
We climb'd on the graves, on the stones worn with rains,
And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes.
She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:
"Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here!
Dear heart," I said, "we are long alone;
The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan."
But, ah, she gave me never a look,
For her eyes were seal'd to the holy book!
Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door.
Come away, children, call no more!
Come away, come down, call no more!

Down, down, down!
Down to the depths of the sea!
She sits at her wheel in the humming town,
Singing most joyfully.
Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy,
For the humming street, and the child with its toy!
For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well;
For the wheel where I spun,
And the blessed light of the sun!"
And so she sings her fill,
Singing most joyfully,
Till the spindle drops from her hand,
And the whizzing wheel stands still.
She steals to the window, and looks at the sand,
And over the sand at the sea;
And her eyes are set in a stare;
And anon there breaks a sigh,
And anon there drops a tear,
From a sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden,
A long, long sigh;
For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden
And the gleam of her golden hair.

Come away, away children
Come children, come down!
The hoarse wind blows coldly;
Lights shine in the town.
She will start from her slumber
When gusts shake the door;
She will hear the winds howling,
Will hear the waves roar.
We shall see, while above us
The waves roar and whirl,
A ceiling of amber,
A pavement of pearl.
Singing: "Here came a mortal,
But faithless was she!
And alone dwell for ever
The kings of the sea."

But, children, at midnight,
When soft the winds blow,
When clear falls the moonlight,
When spring-tides are low;
When sweet airs come seaward
From heaths starr'd with broom,
And high rocks throw mildly
On the blanch'd sands a gloom;
Up the still, glistening beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie,
Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry.
We will gaze, from the sand-hills,
At the white, sleeping town;
At the church on the hill-side—
And then come back down.
Singing: "There dwells a loved one,
But cruel is she!
She left lonely for ever
The kings of the sea."

Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888)

Beyond the little mermaid . . .

~ Medieval MerPeople ~
Mermaid & Merman