Skellig by David Almond (novel #245)

 

“What are you?” I whispered.

He shrugged again.

“Something,” he said. “Something like you, something like a beast, something like a bird, something like an angel.” He laughed. 

“Something like that.”

Skellig is a young adult novel of magical realism set in Newcastle, England, in the late 1990s. It tells of 10-year-old Michael and his family. Michael has a lot to deal with: a move to a new neighborhood, a seriously dilapidated home, a newborn sister fighting for her life, and the lack of attention his parents can afford him at the moment. Oh, and he discovers Skellig, an otherworldly creature in the garage. 

Both Skellig and the garage appear to be in their final moments.

It's a charming story, probably suitable for children of Michael’s age and older. There is some eerie suspense, but nothing frightening. It is more about faith, wonder, courage, and friendship. Michael manages to make one new friend, independent-minded Mina, who becomes his one confidant regarding Skellig.

 

And Skellig? Well, he has something to offer…perhaps, if he lives long enough to show it

...he [Skellig] reached out and touched Mina's face, then mine.

"But i'm getting strong, thanks to the angels and the owls." 

 

My rating: 3 1/2 stars

 

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O Pioneers! by Willa Cather (novel #244)

But the great fact was the land itself, which seemed to overwhelm the little beginnings of human society that struggled in its sombre wastes.

Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!, published in 1913, is the first book of Cather’s Great Plains Trilogy: O Pioneers! Song of the Lark, My Ántonia. O Pioneers! tells of the Bergson family, Swedish immigrants to the Nebraska frontier. The story focuses on Alexandra, the only daughter, who, at her father’s death and by his wishes, becomes the business head of the family farm. The Bergsons, like others around them, are struggling to make ends meet, and there is mounting pressure to sell out and move back east.

 

Alexandra’s father is determined not merely to take a living from the land, but to love it and prosper.

 

John Bergson had the Old-World belief that land, in itself is desirable. But this land was an enigma. It was like a horse that no one knows how to break to harness, that runs wild and kicks things to pieces. He had an idea that no one understood how to farm it properly, and this he often discussed with Alexandra.

 

Alexandra inherits the vision from her father, and when he is unable to realize it in his lifetime, he wisely chooses Alexandra to see it through.

 

She had never known before how much the country meant to her. The chirping of the insects down in the long grass had been like the sweetest music. She had felt as if her heart were hiding down there, somewhere, with the quail and the plover and all the little wild things that crooned or buzzed in the sun. under the long shaggy ridges, she felt the future stirring.

 

It is a sweet tale, though not fast-paced nor thrilling. There are sometimes gaps of many years in the narrative. Contextual clues make it clear they were filled with slow, determined struggle, resilience, sacrifice, and human drama.

 

In addition to man, or in this case, woman, versus nature, there is indeed human drama. Alexandra is often at odds with her two oldest brothers, though they acquiesce for the most part. They seem to understand, but never acknowledge, that she is the brains of the operation. And there are two love stories: Alexandra and a family friend, and her youngest brother and his childhood friend. Circumstances don’t allow much of a chance for either.

 

Cather does an expert job of creating empathy for Alexandra. Remarkable since this reader at least has little pioneer spirit, nor any sense of connection to the land, which is Alexandra’s defining trait. She is a completely likable heroine in a story with few villains.

 

I did live in Nebraska a century after Cather, who moved there when she was nine. I lived in a modern city, and she grew up on the plains, so I defer to her portrayal of frontier life.

 

My rating 4 of 5 stars

 

For its timeless portrayal of American frontier life, for its themes of pioneer courage and vision, sacrifice, family, community, and love.

 

This is the second novel by Cather that I’ve read. The other being Death Comes for the Archbishop. I enjoyed both and will certainly read more by Cather, probably from the Great Plains Trilogy. I understand the trilogy is a new set of characters and non-chronological, so it may be read in any order.

 

This novel satisfies the “Wanderlust” category in the What’s in a Name? 2025 challenge. Titles for this category need to include words or phrases related to wanderlust.

 

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They Shoot Canoes Don’t They? by Patrick F. McManus

This is a collection of humorous short stories by Patrick McManus that originally appeared in Outdoor Life and Field and Stream magazines. All of McManus’ stories revolve around his outdoor misadventures – mostly hunting and fishing.

 

This particular volume includes the first story I ever read by McManus, the title story: "They Shoot Canoes Don’t They?" I read it in a doctor's waiting room, and I’ve been hooked ever since. One of very few authors who can actually make me laugh out loud.

 

The stories are droll and self-effacing, and although they are preposterous, I get the distinct impression many might just be based on actual events, albeit wildly embellished – perfectly appropriate for any sportsman yarn-spinner.

 

They are also marvelously relatable and often reminiscent to any outdoorsman.

 

In one story, "The Fishing Lesson", McManus reminisces...

 

Over the years, I’ve introduced several dozen people to the pleasures of outdoor sports. So what that some of them didn’t want to be introduced!

 

Yep, been there, done that.

 

They might otherwise have ended up as criminals or drug addicts or golfers. I like to think I’ve had some small part in saving them from such dismal fates.

 

This is the third collection published of at least 14. There are numerous recurring characters: Ma and Gramms, sister known affectionately as The Troll, dog Strange. There is his novice outdoorsman neighbor Al Finley and hunting and fishing companion Retch Sweeney. My favorite: the curmudgeonly mountain man and mentor from Patrick’s youth Rancid Crabtree (Crazy Eddie Muldoon does not yet appear).

 

Just good clean hilarious fun!

 

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The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness by Harlow Giles Unger

…harmony among Americans…will be the object of my constant and zealous attentions. ~
President James Monroe

Prior to reading The Last Founding Father, I had a vague impression of the fifth American President as little more than an acolyte of Thomas Jefferson. Harlow Giles Unger does a superb job of dispelling this and other misconceptions.

 

One of the qualities I most admired in Monroe was his uncompromising commitment to national interest over personal loyalty. This ideal led him, on several occasions, to stand opposed to the party line and national heroes George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. Despite this, Monroe was able to maintain a close and enduring friendship with his fellow Virginians.

 

In his opening chapter, Unger offers the following synopsis of Monroe’s life:

 

James Monroe was the last of the Founding Fathers – dressed in outmoded knee-breeches and buckled shoes, protecting the fragile structure of republican government from disunion. Born and raised on a small Virginia farm, Monroe had fought and bled at Trenton as a youth, suffered the pangs of hunger and the bite of winter at Valley Forge, galloped beside Washington at Monmouth. And when the Revolution ended, he gave himself to the nation, devoting the next forty years to public service, assuming more public posts than any American in history: state legislator, U.S. congressman, U.S. senator, ambassador to France and Britain, minister to Spain, four-term governor of Virginia, U.S. secretary of state, U.S. secretary of war, and finally, America’s fifth president, for two successive terms.

 

Unger carefully details each of these accomplishments and many more. One of Monroe’s most impressive achievements occurred near the end of the War of 1812, when he served as Secretary of State and later as Secretary of War under President Madison. Madison, sickly and slight at the best of times, deferred to Monroe on most matters, making Monroe de facto Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief. Monroe’s competence, decisiveness, and courage were not lost on the American Public who elected Monroe by landslide in the election of 1816.

 

Monroe’s presidency, often called the “Era of Good Feelings” was marked by the greatest peace, prosperity and unity the young nation had ever known. It also marked the end of party politics…for a few years.

 

Monroe had studied the Washington years carefully and pledged that, like Washington, promoting “harmony among Americans…will be the object of my constant and zealous attentions.”

 

There is one glaring omission in Unger’s synopsis of Monroe’s life: author of the Monroe Doctrine. (omitted in the synopsis, but not from the biography)

 

If the Monroe Doctrine quelled European ambitions for new conquests in the Americas, it dispelled American fears of imminent attack by foreign powers and unleashed a surge of popular energy that strengthened the nation economically and militarily.

 

It comprised only three paragraphs of the State of the Union Address. The heart of the doctrine is this:

 

…the rights and interests of the United States are involved that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.

 

It was met at once with resounding approval – near euphoria. It is probably Monroe’s most enduring legacy.

 

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North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (novel #243)

God help ‘em! North and South have each getten their own troubles. ~ Nicholas Higgins

North and South is…well I’d call it a Victorian Novel, but I guess it is more precisely a Social Novel from the Victorian era. It is set primarily in the fictional manufacturing town of Milton, England in the mid-19th Century and is based on Gaskell’s adult home of Manchester. Gaskell intended to title it with the heroin’s name, but at the insistence of her publisher, Charles Dickens, she agreed to North and South. Dickens didn’t care for the novel much either.

The social issue this novel addresses is ostensibly the plight of the working class during the industrial revolution: unhealthy working conditions, poor wages, no job security. However, I think there was another issue: prejudice and ignorance between the industrialists of the North and landed gentry of the South.

The tale opens on Margaret Hale who enjoys an idyllic life in Hampshire, Southern England until her pastor father has a crisis of conscience that causes him on his own accord to leave the ministry and move to Milton where he has found work teaching some of the families in the smoky manufacturing city. Margaret and her mother are distraught by the change in fortune, and even more so by the change in environment and society. However, Margaret supports her father and accepts their new situation intent to make the best of it.

One of Mr. Hale’s most notable and sincere students is John Thornton, a wealthy, self-made factory owner. Thornton and Margaret are intelligent and assertive and quickly develop a courteous antagonism regarding the merits and faults of North versus South. In one exchange Margaret opines…

“Now in the South we have our poor, but there is not that terrible expression in their countenances of a sullen sense of injustice which I see here. You do not know the South Mr. Thornton” she concluded, collapsing into a determined silence, and angry with herself for having said so much.

 

“And may I say you do not know the North?” asked he with an inexpressible gentleness in his tone as he saw that he had really hurt her.

Initially, they hold each other in mild contempt, yet they also have a restrained, perhaps even reluctant admiration for each other.

When Thornton is admonished by his mother that he thinks too well of Margaret, Thorton replies…

“Mother” (with a short scornful laugh), “you will make me confess. The only time I saw Miss Hale, she treated me with a haughty civility which had a strong flavour of contempt in it. She held herself aloof from me as if she had been a queen, and I her humble, unwashed vassal.

Conversely when Mr. Hale chides his daughter for being too hard on Thornton, Margaret declares…

“He is the first specimen of a manufacturer – of a person engaged in trade – that I had ever the opportunity of studying papa. He is my first olive: let me make a face while I swallow it.

You’ve probably read/viewed enough Gaskell, Victorian novels, Hallmark movies to guess where their relationship is going.

Margaret also encounters the working man, specifically Nicholas Higgins and his two daughters. Margaret and Higgins are also at odds initially, but it is merely from misunderstanding different customs. As they become friends, Higgins asks where Margaret is from and she tells him Hampshire.

That’s beyond London, I reckon? And I come fro’ Burnleyways, and forty miles to th’ North. And yet, yo see, North and South has both met and made kind o’ friends in this big smoky place.

Margaret Realizes... 

From that day Milton became a brighter place to her. It was not the long, bleak sunny days of spring, nor yet was it that time was reconciling her to the town of her habitation. It was that in it she had found a human interest.

Higgins is also a union representative, which puts him on no good terms with Thornton, and by proxy does not improve Thornton’s opinion of Margaret.

And yet…

There is reason to be hopeful. 

It's a marvelous read, masterful work. Gaskell is clearly sympathetic to the working class, but she is fair to portray vice and ignorance on both sides, as well as virtue and nobility. I was less aware of the prejudice in England between North and South. Again, Gaskell made what I believe was a fair portrayal of both. This is the second novel I’ve read by Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters being the other. Both were very good, and I will certainly read more.

My rating:  4 out of 5 stars

 

This novel satisfies the “Cardinal Direction” category in the What’s in a Name? 2025 challenge. The title must contain a reference to a cardinal direction. I should get double credit.

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Six Degrees of Separation: Knife to The Princess Bride

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly meme hosted by Kate @ booksaremyfavoriteandbest.

 

The rules do not require reading the starting book or any of the titles in your chain. However, barring the starting book, I try to stick to classics that I’ve read – my own self-imposed rule.

 

This month’s chain begins with Knife by Salman Rushdie, not something I’d read. The title makes me think of a knife as a weapon rather than a tool, which I believe is also the author’s meaning. Weapon made me think of bloodshed, leading me to…

 

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, Blood is not just part of the title; the book is filled with bloodshed. But, from here, I focused on the “meridian” part of the title, which is a line of longitude, which made me think of…

 

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell: my current read. North and South is set in England, but the title reminds me of the American Civil or War Between the States, leading me to…

 

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. This next link is not precisely accurate, but it is my impression nonetheless that Mitchell’s masterpiece was her one great work, similar to…

 

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Don’t get me started on Go Set a Watchman. This next link is a little silly, but again, it’s where my mind went. The character Scout in the nearly perfect film adaption was played nearly perfectly by Mary Badham. In the film, Badham resembles the author Carson McCullers, which led me to…

 

The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers. And of course, wedding could only lead to…

 

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

 

 

 

And that is how you get from Knife to The Princess Bride!

 

Rabbit, Run by John Updike (novel #242)

There is this quality, in things, of the right way seeming wrong at first. ~ Harry (Rabbit) Angstrom

Rabbit, Run is the first of five in Updike’s “Rabbit” series, which follows the life of Harry (Rabbit) Angstrom. Rabbit has been described as the “middle-class everyman,” presumably of the
American 1950s.

 

Ugh…I hope not. I would borrow from another commentator, different author, different character. For me, Rabbit is “one of the most feckless characters in literature.

 

But before I comment further on this novel, I want to mention that in addition to being a Pulitzer-winning novelist, Updike was a distinguished literary critic. The following are his personal rules for literary criticism:

• Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.
• Give enough direct quotation—at least one extended passage—of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.
• Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy précis.
• Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.
• If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's œuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

I like these rules. They are fair and systematic. So, in deference to the author and the critic, I will attempt to review Rabbit, Run according to Updike’s rules.

 

Harry Angstrom, or Rabbit, a nickname picked up in childhood for a nervous flutter under his nose, is a married father of one, plus one on the way. He has an uninspiring job, demonstrating and selling kitchen gadgets. Rabbit was a big basketball star in high school and daydreams about his not-so-long-ago heroics. He reminds me of the characters from Springsteen’s Glory Days. His wife, is simple, alcoholic, and seven months pregnant.

 

So, I get the “everyman” designation. He has a deep sense of dissatisfaction; how could he not, following the world-saving exploits of the Greatest Generation, selling vegetable peelers, must have felt maddeningly impotent.

 

One evening, after work and getting his honey-do list from Janice…

Rabbit freezes, standing looking at his faint yellow shadow on the white door that leads to the hall, and senses he is in a trap. It seems certain. He goes out.

Meaning he runs. He intends to make it to the Gulf of Mexico and sleep on the sand, but he doesn’t have a map or much of a plan. He stops to ask directions, though Rabbit cannot say precisely where he is headed. He doesn’t get any helpful advice and prepares to leave…

[Rabbit] walks to his car door. He feels through the hairs on the back of his neck the man following him. He gets into the car and slams the door and the farmer is right there, the meat of his face hung in the open door window. He bends down and nearly sticks his face in. His cracked thin lips with a scar tilting toward his nose move thoughtfully. He’s wearing glasses, a scholar. “The only way to get somewhere, you know is to figure out where you’re going before you go there.”

 

Rabbit catches a whiff of whisky. He says in a level way, “I don’t think so.” The lips and spectacles and black hairs poking out of the man’s tear-shaped nostrils show no surprise. Rabbit pulls out, going straight. Everybody who tells you how to act has whisky on their breath.

I’m not very good at determining an author’s intent, and I’m not sure that Updike ever called Rabbit “every-man.” However, it does seem that he is trying to explain a dreadful ennui pervasive in mid-century American men. Did he achieve this? Powerfully, but I’m unconvinced that Rabbit was “every-man.” Most did not drive away, leaving wife and family.

 

I didn’t like Updike’s style of prose at first. There is never a break, never a pause. He doesn’t have chapters and only one or two blank passage of time sections. There might be a name for this, but I don’t know it. I’m certain this is not right, but it was almost like stream of consciousness by the omniscient narrator. I did grow more accustomed to his style, and I think it worked. It may have been intentional to show that life never lets up, leaving Rabbit feeling trapped.

 

I know this…I didn’t like Rabbit. I couldn’t even feel sorry for him most of the time. I just wanted to say, “Dude!?” An unlikeable character does not mean bad storytelling, but maybe Updike intended Rabbit to be at least a little likable. In that regard, for me, he failed. While reading this, I often thought of the eponymous character from Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March. Augie was immature and his own worst enemy, yet somehow, I liked him. He says of himself…

Lord, what a runner after good things, servant of love, embarker on schemes, recruit of sublime ideas, and good time Charlie.

Now that I’m done, I think I’ve written a fine review. Updike was a clever fellow.

 

My rating:  3 1/2 out of 5 stars

 

 

This novel was my read for the Classics Club Spin #40

 

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