Indoors Outdoors

Thanks to my friend Nikki for sharing this one:
Sunshine in the Living Room, 1910–1912
by Peter Ilsted (1861 - 1933)

So beautiful to read indoors on a late Spring day . . .
equally lovely to sit outside . . .

Springtime or The Reader, 1872
by Claude Monet (1840 – 1926)

Taurus ~ Shakespeare's Birthday

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

Gemini ~ My Birthday
An excellent birthday quote that most likely remains
true no matter what the ages in question:

"The truth is, your mother doesn't know any more
about being forty than you do about being twenty."
from A: A Novel ~ by Alan Lindsay

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

Reading selection for a lush afternoon:
Rules of Civility ~ by Amor Towles

A few favorite passages:
93: "'Absolutely.'

"A neutral observer would probably have raised an eyebrow at my answer. There wasn't much jingle in my delivery, and one-word responses just have that way of not sounding very convincing. But the thing of it is, I meant it. Every one word of it."

156: "Dicky . . . took relative pride and absolute joy in weaving together the strands of his life so that when he gave them a good tug all the friends of friends of friends would come tumbling through the door."
[Similar to Mrs. Dalloway!]

323-24: "Life doesn't have to provide you any options at all. It can easily define your course from the outset and keep you in check through all manner of rough and subtle mechanics. To have even one year when you're presented with choices that can alter your circumstances, your character, your course -- that's by the grace of God alone. And it shouldn't come without a price. . . . I know that right choices by definition are the means by which life crystallizes loss."

P.S.
"You have learned something.
That always feels at first
as if you have lost something." 

from Major Barbara
by George Bernard Shaw

Location, Location, Location

From
"What They Did Yesterday Afternoon"
By British Poet Warsan Shire

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In each of the following stories, location is practically a character, with time and place dominating each narrative. The small - town despair of Olive Kitteridge reminded me of Kent Haruf's fictional Holt Colorado - the setting of all of his novels - but with perhaps less hope. Ordinary Grace falls into the same category - but with somewhat more hope.

Check out the place names and locales, each so unique, plus a favorite passage from each:

1.
"In any quiet town you can find
a street, a field, a stand of trees,
which breaks into the dreams of its citizens
years after the dreamers have left home for good." (93)

from
Things Invisible To See (1985)
by Nancy Willard
setting: Ann Arbor, Michigan (1940s)


2.
"Safe house. Saying the words to myself in secret.
For safe house made me smile.
Safe house made me feel warm.
Safe house was something small you could hide in, I thought.
Like a dollhouse where if you were small enough to fit inside
you would be so small nobody would come looking for you." (61)

from
Black Girl / White Girl (2006)
Joyce Carol Oates
setting: Schuylersville, Pennsylvania
Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania (1974 - 1975)

3. "It was early September and the maples were red at their tops; a few bright red leaves had fallen onto the dirt road, perfect things, star-shaped. Years earlier when his sons were small, Harmon might have pointed to them, and they'd have picked them up with eagerness...

"The leaves were half-gone now. The Norway maples still hung on to their yellow, but most of the orangey-red of the sugar maples had found their way to the ground, leaving behind the stark branches that seemed to hang like stuck-out arms and tiny fingers, skeletal and bleak.

"By November, the leaves were gone, the trees along Main Street were bare, and the sky was often overcast. The shortening days made Harmon recall a soberness of heart that he had felt off and on for a long time..." (77-78, 89, 91)
from
Olive Kitteridge (2008)
by Elizabeth Strout
setting: Crosby, Maine (1970s - present day)

4. "There's a math problem everyone is familiar with. It involves two trains. One leaves from one location, New York, for example, and theother from another location, say San Francisco. The trains are traveling toward each other at different speeds. The idea is to calculate how far each train will have traveled by the time they meet. I was never any good at math and didn't waste time trying to solve this problem but I did spend a lot of time thinking about it. Not about how many miles the trains would have covered but about the travelers on them. Who were these people and why were they leaving New York and San Francisco and what were they seeking at the other end of the line? Most especially I wondered if they had any idea what awaited them when the two trains met. Because I thought of them as traveling on the same set of tracks, I imagined their meeting as a catastrophic collision. So it always struck me not as a math problem but rather a philosophic consideration of life, death, and unhappy circumstance.

"In my own life, the two trains of this problem are the summer of 1961 and the present. And they collide every year on Memorial Day in the cemetery in New Bremen." (301)
from
Ordinary Grace (2013)
William Kent Krueger
setting: New Bremen, Minnesota (1961)

5. "It was quiet out in the suburbs; the views were open, with no tenements or high-rise blocks to obscure the distant hills. The light was soft and gentle—summer was drifting ever onward and the evening seemed delicate, fragile. We walked in silence, the kind that you didn't feel the need to fill.

"I was almost sad when we arrived at the squat, white clubhouse. It was halfway to dark by then, with both a moon and a sun sitting high in a sky that was sugar almond pink and shot with gold. The birds were singing valiantly against the coming night, swooping over the greens in long, drunken loops. The air was grassy, with a hint of flowers and earth, and the warm, sweet outbreath of the day sighed gently into our hair and over our skin. I felt like asking Raymond whether we should keep walking, walk over the rolling greens, keep walking till the birds fell silent in their bowers and we could see only by starlight. It almost felt like he might suggest it himself." (162)
from
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine (2017)
by Gail Honeyman
setting: Glasgow, Scotland (present day)

6.
" . . . he could spin the web
between what he had read
and what had happened in the supermarket,
or what he had heard on the radio."

from
The Guest Book (2019)
by Sarah Blake
setting: New York City
Crockett's Island, Maine (1930s - present day)

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

Not forgetting the option of a more exotic locale . . .

Where'd You Go Bernadette, 2012)
by Maria Semple
setting: Seattle & Antarctica (present day)

~ or ~

A Gentleman in Moscow (2016)
by Amor Towles
setting: The Metropole Hotel, Moscow (1922 - 1952)

“For all the varied concerns attendant to the raising of a child — over schoolwork, dress, and manners — in the end, a parent's responsibility could not be more simple: To bring a child safely into adulthood so that she could have a chance to experience a life of purpose and, God willing, contentment.” (p 309)

“For pomp is a tenacious force. And a wily one too. How humbly it bows its head as the emperor is dragged down the steps and tossed in the street. But then, having quietly bided its time, while helping the newly appointed leader on with his jacket, it compliments his appearance and suggests the wearing of a medal or two. Or, having served him at a formal dinner, it wonders aloud if a taller chair might not have been more fitting for a man with such responsibilities. The soldiers of the common man may toss the banners of the old regime on the victory pyre, but soon enough trumpets will blare and pomp will take its place at the side of the throne, having once again secured its dominion over history and kings.”

P.S. Click for more on
Gentleman in Moscow & Ordinary Grace

Advising Alma

Many thanks to my friend Pam for sharing this fun pic of the
perfect hoodie to wear while working on your book blog! If your
Superpowers are Reading & Writing, you could use one of these!

*******************
The title of this month's post ~ Advising Alma ~ is in honor of the fact that I just finished reading A Gentleman in Moscow, in which all of the words in all of the chapter titles begin with "A": An Anglican Ashore; Advent; An Actress, an Apparition, an Apiary; Arachne's Art; Absinthe; America; Achilles Agonistes; And Anon; and so forth.

As the author asserts:

What’s with All the A-Words in the Chapter Titles?
As you’ve probably noted, all of the book’s chapters are titled with words beginning in A. Why is that so? To be perfectly honest, I don’t have a good answer. Early in the drafting of the novel, I had the instinct that I should follow the rule, and I trusted that instinct. One reader has suggested that it was my own version of playing “Zut”; another has suggested it was a tribute to the first letters in the names Alexander and Amor; a third has suggested it was because the book is about new beginnings. All of these answers strike me as excellent!
~Amor Towles

So, back to advising Alma, my sweet friend
& helpful translator when I visited Medellin ~ Colombia,
who wrote to me a few months ago:

A: I wanted to ask you if you’ve read anything from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie?

K: I read Americanah and would say that it's good, not great. However, I know it was wildly popular. Maybe I'm in a small minority who didn't find it appealing; but, to me, it did not seem novelistic; so many characters were introduced but never developed, which I always find disappointing. I suppose I should read more by her but I probably won't. Life is so short, one has to pick and choose.

A: So I've been reading Americanah for about two weeks now. If I had read it in a different time of my life, I might not have liked it as much; but currently I've related in some way to her story as an immigrant in the U.S.

Earlier this year I wanted to read all of Jane Austen's books, and got all the way to Mansfield Park, but struggled a lot with the female characters.

K: Yes, I can see that.

A: So I was looking to read something with a strong female, and hopefully immigrant, character; and that's when I found Americanah.

K: I'll try to think of some more for you!

A: Please do! I'm about to finish it and am looking for my next book for the train rides.

K: Oh fun! Where are you headed?

A: Well, on my daily commutes.

K: I see what you mean! I thought maybe you were taking Amtrak coast to coast!

A: I wish!! Just to NYC!

*******************
K: Alma, not to disrespect Jane Austen, but you might have a little more fun with these two novels that I have greatly enjoyed in the last year or so -- both written by women:

1. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry ~ by Gabrielle Zevin
A.J. is man, who owns a bookstore, but he shares the lead with
Amelia, a traveling book agent, and his surprising daughter, Maya.
So, plenty of strong women to keep you inspired on your commute!
No spoilers here, here, or here!

2. The Truth According to Us ~ by Annie Barrows
Lots of amazing women and a lot of interesting U.S. history.

"Jottie's mind flicked over her own heedless childhood, recalling the protection and authority she hadn't even known she enjoyed. How light and lordly she'd been, how free, how certain that her happiness was the product of her own virtues and powers. How wrong she'd been. How foolish. And how very, very lucky.

"If only Willa could have what I had, Jottie mourned. If only she could be so certain and proud. It was an illusion every child should have. And Willa was losing it, right before her eyes" (83).

"So the story wasn't over. No story was ever really over" (155).

"Let the history commence . . . " (217).

A: Thank you! I started The Truth According to Us and am loving it!
I’m so curious about what’s going to happen!

. . . a few weeks later . . .
A: I was thinking about you today, as I finished The Truth According to Us. What I thought was super funny, was that at the end of the edition that I have, there's an interview with the author where they ask her what she thinks the book is about, and she doesn't mention what I think it's about! Haha!

K: So happy to hear you liked it and curious to hear more about your favorite aspects!

*******************
K: I might have already mentioned this book awhile back; if so please forgive duplication. It's a memoir rather than a novel, but one of the best immigration narratives EVER:

Stealing Buddha's Dinner ~ by Bich Nguyen

And of course I want you to read
The History of Love ~ by Nicole Krauss
because it's about a girl named Alma!

"MY NAME IS ALMA SINGER: When I was born my
mother named me after every girl in a book my
father gave her called The History of Love" (35).

"As soon as you finish this one, you will immediately want to begin reading it again! It's that good -- and that mysterious! A teen - aged girl named Alma Singer narrates her personal, literary quest to understand her name and her family history. Reading about reading; writing about writing."

Additional Suggestions: Does Nanny Have a Line?

From the Desk Of

What the painting looks like with its
"expansive background" ~ hanging on the wall
at The National Museum for Women in the Arts

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

From A Gentleman in Moscow
By American novelist Amor Towles (b 1964)

“A king fortifies himself with a castle,” observed the Count, “a gentleman [or a scholar] with a desk.”

The Count ran his hand across the desk's dimpled surface.

How many of the Grand Duke's words did those faint indentations reflect? Here over forty years had been written concise instructions to caretakers; persuasive arguments to statesmen; exquisite counsel to friends. In other words, it was a desk to be reckoned with. (12, 18)

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

P.S.
For more on the Readerly / Writerly Life
see my current posts

From the Desk of Ernest Hemingway:
"But never feel as good as while writing."

&

From the Desk of Simone de Beauvoir:
On the Side of Happiness

@ The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony

Döstädning: Long Live the Swedish Death Cleanse!

“If you were wise enough to know that this life would consist mostly of letting go of things you wanted, then why not get good at the letting go, rather than the trying to have?"

By Miranda July (b 1974)
From her novel The First Bad Man
~ Thanks to Natasha for the reference! ~

For years I have had this Steven Wright quotation on a magnet in my kitchen but never thought to learn more about the author until my son Ben and his friend Mark took an interest a few weeks ago and filled in the gaps:

American Comedian ~ Steven Wright (b 1955)

Wright's droll observation echoes perfectly
the message of this concise and illuminating book
that my friend Katy shared with me last month:

The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning:
How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter.
By Swedish artist ~ Margareta Magnusson (b. 1930s)
Döstädning: this Swedish term combines death (dö) and cleaning (städning), but not in a sad way. Magnusson explains that this kind of deep cleaning does not have to be a morbid activity but just a natural and timely life passage. For awhile you need a bunch of stuff -- then, after awhile, you don't need it anymore.

Nor is the discipline of döstädning reserved only for right before or right after death. In fact, it can -- and should -- occur in conjunction with any transition that lends itself to downsizing: spring cleanings, rummage sales, whenever you move, and so forth. Magnusson's thesis is that starting at about age sixty - five we should all begin the ultimate "Death Cleanse" for ourselves. The practical outlook of this eighty - something author is a refreshing reminder of just how smart some old people can be. No, they are not all crazy and self - centered! Magnusson urges us to face reality and assess our belongings on our own terms:

"Some people can't wrap their heads around death. And these people leave a mess after them. Did they think they were immortal? . . . Do not ever imagine that anyone will wish -- or be able -- to schedule time off to take care of what you didn't bother to take care of yourself. No matter how much they love you, don't leave this burden to them" (2, 7).

Everything you get rid of now will spare your kids having to throw it in a dumpster twenty years from now! Plus, if there's anything they should actually want, they can have it now, rather than waiting until you are dead and they are old and the stuff itself has lost its value. For example, our kids needed bookshelves now, so I was happy to consolidate and eliminate. The shelves have a new home, the public library has a stack of books for the annual sale, and I have less clutter. Win - win - win!

No sooner had I finished The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning than I passed on a copy to both my sisters because it offers such an accurate description of our recent trial by fire, alongside of our three brothers, of sorting through our parents' belongings. As my little sis concluded: donate now -- no dumpster later! We learned our lesson!

~ See Also ~

1.
Two more of my posts:
Light as a Feather & Goodbye Old Brown Furniture

2.
A Gentleman in Moscow
By American novelist Amor Towles (b 1964)

Thanks to Elizabeth Barrett for suggesting this novel
and to Robert Kurtz for sharing this passage
and to Katie Field for giving me a lovely copy
for my birthdy (24 May 2019):

"Tis a funny thing, reflected the Count as he stood ready to abandon his suite. From the earliest age, we must learn to say good-bye to friends and family. We see our parents and siblings off at the station; we visit cousins, attend schools, join the regiment; we marry, or travel abroad. It is part of the human experience that we are constantly gripping a good fellow by the shoulders and wishing him well, taking comfort from the notion that we will hear word of him soon enough.

But experience is less likely to teach us how to bid our dearest possessions adieu. And if it were to? We wouldn’t welcome the education. For eventually, we come to hold our dearest possessions more closely than we hold our friends. We carry them from place to place, often at considerable expense and inconvenience; we dust and polish their surfaces and reprimand children for playing too roughly in their vicinity—all the while, allowing memories to invest them with greater and greater importance. This armoire, we are prone to recall, is the very one in which we hid as a boy; and it was these silver candelabra that lined our table on Christmas Eve; and it was with this handkerchief that she once dried her tears, et cetera, et cetera. Until we imagine that these carefully preserved possessions might give us genuine solace in the face of a lost companion.

But, of course, a thing is just a thing."

3.
"Recipes for a Tidy and Tasty Death"
By Dwight Garner


4.
Downsizing The Family Home:
What to Save, What to Let Go
By Marni Jameson


5.
The Interrogative Mood: A Novel?
By Padgett Powell
"Do you have trouble throwing things away? If so, do you ever retrieve them after a period of anxiety over the throwing away. Is it then easier or more difficult than the first time to throw the thing away a second time? Do you have a limit for this kind of behavior? . . . Do you have any impulse to wish that everything you own could somehow without overmuch trauma be made to disappear?"