have changed the prayer a little and said,
'Thy will be done in art, as it is in heaven.'
How can it be done anywhere else as it is in heaven?"
~ Willa Cather ~
from her novel The Professor's House (p 57)
Harold Gilman's House at Letchworth, Hertfordshire (1912)
The house of artist Harold John Wilde Gilman (1876 – 1919)
Painted by Spencer Frederick Gore (1878 – 1914)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Recent Reading
1. The Professor's House
by Willa Cather
2. The Thursday Murder Club
by Richard Osman
This novel has so many fun lines and observations, but for right now, I'm just going to pick one: "In life you have to learn to count the good days. You have to tuck them in your pocket and carry them around with you. So I'm putting today in my pocket and I'm off to bed" (88).
The setting is Cooper's Chase Retirement Village, where life is neither miserly nor miserable. A refreshing change from the typical cliche that assisted living is to be avoided at all costs, as in . . .
3. Remarkably Brilliant Creatures
by Shelby Van Pelt
As occurs so often in books and on TV (and in real life), Tova’s friends personify a pronounced anti-assisted living bias and glorification of adults who are willing to live with their elderly parents. Why is the popular media so keen to guilt anyone who does not jump on the sacrificial bandwagon? (For a delightful exception, see above!)
If you're a fan of SeaWorld and love a good coincidence, this is the novel for you! I kept thinking of George Saunders: "Now a coincidence is all right, life is full of them, but a reader's willingness to ingest one is inversely related to how badly the writer needs one . . . "
~from his essay "The United State of Huck" (201)
Spoiler alert: In spite of myself, I like the way it all came together at the end, except I was sad that Tova moved into a new condo instead of keeping the old homestead for her newfound grandson Cameron.
Teen pregnancy may be on the decline, but not in this novel, with three separate subplots revolving around teen pregnancy! Really? Reminded of some throwback to the 1970’s: Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones and The Girls of Huntington House; and more recently Juno (2007) -- all overly optimistic.
4. Hamnet
by Maggie O'Farrell
Anne Hathaway's first impressions of William Shakespeare:
"That you had more hidden away inside you than anyone else she'd ever met. . . . She is rarely wrong. About anything. It's a gift or a curse, depending on who you ask. So if she thinks that about you, there's a possibility it's true" (137).
[See Mary Rose, below.]
And William loves Anne [referred to in the novel as "Agnès"] because "you see the world as no one else does" (115).
His fascination with her falcon mirrors his enchantment with Anne herself: "It seems extraordinary to him to be in such close proximity to a creature which is so emphatically from another element, from wind or sky or perhaps even myth" (35).
Thinking of deceased children: "How frail . . . is the veil between their world and hers" (108).
5. The Ten Thousand Doors of January
by Alix E. Harrow
29, 31: "It's stupid to think things like that. It just gives you this hollow, achy feeling between your ribs, like you're homesick even though you're already home, and you can't read your magazine anymore because the words are all warped and watery looking. . . . I didn't say anything because then I would cry and everything would be even worse."
[See also: in comments]
judge a book by both its contents AND its cover!
by Elin Hilderbrand
7. In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson
by Bette Bao Lord
8. Oh William!
by Elizabeth Strout
[See also: in comments]
9. The Time of Green Magic
by Hilary McKay
Another wacky lovable family (like the Cassons & the Conroys). Abi, Max, and Louis -- living in a big magical house, working together as sibs, dealing with family tensions, and facing their fears (remember Indigo?) real and imagined: "Iffen is real!" (182). From whence came the magic? "It came out of books" (229).
10. Mary Rose
J. M. Barrie
A gentle ghost story, time - travel and loss: ". . . being a ghost is worse than seeing them" (75).
9, 67: "The pictures on her walls in time take on a resemblance to her or hers though they may be meant to represent a waterfall, every present given to her assumes soome characteristic of the donor, and no doubt the necktie she is at present knitting will soon be able to pass as the person for whom it is being knit. It is only delightful ladies at the most agreeale age who have this personal way with their belongings. . . . I have been so occupied all my life with little things -- very pleasant."
32: "I know I'm not clever, but I'm always right."
[See Hamnet, above.]
56, 57: "I can see the twilight running across the fields. . . . happiness keeps breaking through."
65,70: "It is the years. . . . there are worse things than not finding what you are looking for; there is finding them so different from what you had hoped."
11. The House in the Pines
by Ana Reyes
Not to be confused with "Three Pines" or "Twin Peaks." Murder by hypnosis, mesmerism, levitation, and so forth. Somewhere in the woods.
