Recap of Novels 211 - 220

Average rating of novels 211 – 220:  3.8 stars (out of 5)

 

211.   ★★★★½         The Blue Castle

212.   ★★★½            Legendsof the Fall

213.  ★★★★             Dombeyand Son

214.  ★★★½             Bangthe Drum Slowly

215   ★★★½             Daphnisand Chloe
216.  ★★★½             American Gods
217.  ★★★★             TheRoad

218.   ★★★★            The Last of the Mohicans

219.   ★★★               Foucault’s Pendulum

220.  ★★★★             The Member of the Wedding

 

 

Favorite: The Blue Castle

 

Least Favorite: Foucault’s Pendulum

 

Best Hero: The Man (unnamed) from The Road

 

Best Heroine: Valancy (Doss) Stirling from The Blue Castle

 

Best Villain: Wednesday from American Gods

 

Most interesting/Complex character: Frankie from The Member of the Wedding

 

Best Quotation: Ludlow was not fool enough to try to order a life already lived… ~ narrative from Legends of the Fall

 

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The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers (novel #220)

This was the summer when Frankie was twelve years old. This was the summer when for a long time she had not been a member. She belonged to no club and was a member of nothing in the world. ~ opening lines

 

The author lets you know what this novel is about right away. Because that’s it; that’s the story. Like the only other novel by McCullers I’ve read, this novel is character-driven, with very little plot. It’s a Southern Gothic, coming-of-age tale.

 

This was the summer when Frankie was sick of being Frankie.

 

What adolescent hasn’t experienced that? Frankie spends most days of the long, hot summer in the kitchen with the African-American housekeeper Berenice and Frankie’s six-year-old cousin John Henry. The three spend hours talking about random things or playing cards. They are halfway through the summer before realizing they are not playing with a full deck…and that’s the depressing feeling the novel has.

 

Frankie’s father is a decent parent and does pretty well for a widower, but he hasn’t a clue about what is going on in Frankie’s mind.

 

And though she tries to explain her “unjoined” condition, Berenice and John Henry can’t really understand; no one can, so Frankie is not a member of anything.

 

Until her brother’s wedding, a day trip away, Frankie determines to join the couple on their honeymoon and life after that, never to return to her hometown. She even adopts a new name to be more alliterative with the happy couple. She is now F. Jasmine. For a day or so, the certainty of this plan makes her content and happy. The reader worries how hard she will take the blow when the impossible plan unravels.

 

The Member of the Wedding feels like The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, my only other experience with McCullers. Both novels strike a nearly universal chord: the feeling that no one understands or the desperate need to make someone understand. The Member of the Wedding is a beautiful and poignant rendering of that sentiment.

 

My Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

 

 

This novel satisfies the category “title about a celebration” in the What’s in a Name 2023 Challenge.

 

^.

 

Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco (novel #219)

(translated from Italian by William Weaver)

 

But whatever the rhythm was, luck rewarded us, because, wanting connections, we found connections – always, everywhere, and between everything. The world exploded into a whirling network of kinships, where everything pointed to everything else, everything explained everything else…. ~ narrator Casaubon

 

Foucault’s Pendulum is a satirical novel set in 1970s Italy and Paris. An Italian academic named Casaubon is the narrator, though probably not entirely reliable. The book satirizes conspiracy theories and secret societies. It opens with Casaubon hiding in a Paris museum after closing, anticipating the arrival of a secret society that he believes has captured his friend and colleague Jacopo Belbo. While Casaubon waits, he recounts the events that led to this climax.

 

You remember so much while you wait for hours and hours in the darkness. ~ Casaubon

 

Casaubon’s recollections make up the majority of the novel and concern publishing business interest in secret societies and corresponding research conducted by Casaubon, Belbo, and another colleague, Diotallevi. Together the three “discover” a plan to take over the world, though they know it is a farce contrived by forced connections. The problem is that their work becomes known to some adherents, giving them renewed conviction and resolve.

 

I’ll only mention one of the many other characters, Casaubon’s lover Lia; she was the voice of reason and nearly saved him.

 

As a satire, I suppose it is effective. It is a dizzying compendium of occult actors, secret societies, and conspiracy theorists – the main groups: Knights Templar, Freemasons, Rosicrucians, Jesuits, and Baconites. There were many more, plus a few charlatans and madmen thrown in. All complicit and all connected over the centuries. Foucault’s Pendulum has been called “the thinking man’s Da Vinci Code.”

 

Well I must be a dunce. I understand that Eco was satirizing, and he does a good job of explaining how people get caught up in these things – wanting to find “connections” and therefore seeing them. But for me, the story was just absurd.

 

There are four kinds of people in this world: cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics. ~ Belbo

 

 

My Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

 

 

The title refers to an actual pendulum designed by French physicist Leon Foucault. It demonstrates the Earth’s rotation. In the novel, it is on display at the Musée des Arts et Métiers, France. It has a role in “the plan”.

 

It’s been nearly three months since I reviewed a novel. I haven’t been slacking, but this is a long novel, and I wasn’t enjoying it. That always takes me more time. But more significantly, I’ve been busy. I retired and moved six states away to my dream retirement home in Michigan. More about that transition HERE.

 

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Final edition - NOVA this Week

I was never very faithful with this theme anyway. But that’s not why I’m shutting it down. As I post this, my wife and I have departed the Old Dominion (Virginia) and are in our new home in Michigan. I have retired, and this time REALLY retired. I retired in 2007 after 22 years in United States Air Force, spent a couple years as a Defense Contractor, and the last 13+ as a DoD civilian. Hence really retiring this time. I don’t believe I will have another career, unless perhaps as an author.

 

But that’s just sort of a dream.

 

Speaking of dreams, all my working years I dreamt of retiring on a private lake, great fishing, quiet country view, a sandy beach for the grandkids, and just a few neighbors. But I sort of thought it was probably just a dream.

 

Back in February this year, we closed on a house on a private lake, with great fishing, beautiful views, a sandy beach, and just a handful of friendly neighbors in Southwest Michigan. God is good!

 

Most importantly it’s a 30-minute drive for two of our kids and grandkids, and 2 hours from a third child and family.

 

So, no more NOVA (Northern Virginia) this Week. Perhaps I’ll start a new thread…News from the Mitten.

 

Cheers

 

The Wanderer

James Madison: A Biography by Ralph Ketcham

The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is that the United States be cherished and perpetuated. ~ James Madison

 

This is an enlightening read about the 4th President of the United States.

 

Previously, I had a general perception that Madison, along with James Monroe, merely rode Jefferson’s coat tails, that he had a role in the establishment of the Constitution, and got stuck with the untenable prospect of avoiding war with Great Britain. I was woefully ignorant of this remarkable man.

 

He was closely aligned with Jefferson, but he was far more than a Jefferson disciple. Indeed his counsel often tempered Jefferson’s impetuousness.

 

Jefferson called Madison his…“pillar of support through life.”

 

But we might learn more about a man from his foes rather than his friends. John Adams said that Madison

...acquired more glory, and established more Union, than all his three Predecessors, Washington, Adams and Jefferson put together.

 

And we can learn yet more by what he says about his opponents. Madison had many throughout his career, including some who changed course over the years, but he was always, careful, measured, and respectful when speaking of men like Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry, John Adams, or Benjamin Franklin.

 

James Madison was a Virginia planter, who rose to prominence in the American Revolution. Physically, he was unimpressive: short, shy, and soft spoken. He had a quiet passion for his young country, and deliberate, unassailable logic.

 

Madison was a close personal advisor to President Washington, Secretary of State under President Jefferson, and of course President of the United States from 1809 – 1817. But these are just roles. His two greatest achievements were the creation of the U.S. Constitution, and his leadership during the War of 1812.

 

Madison recognized the Articles of Confederation were insufficient for guiding the new nation, and wrote the Virginia Plan which was the model for the U.S. Constitution.

 

He was the “Father of the Constitution” which is pithy and trite and doesn’t do him justice. With the many competing factions, it is miraculous that the convention ever reached an agreement, and then a second miracle that it was ratified by the states. Madison, more than any other single individual was responsible for both. He wrote

 

…we kept steadily in our view…the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence…

 

 

He considered his role in establishing the Constitution his moment of special destiny.

 

Though, he couldn’t anticipate his presidency and the War of 1812. For decades, the U.S. had struggled to remain neutral in Anglo-French conflicts, but the demands of Great Britain, only slightly more egregious than the demands of France finally made it impossible. The three main complaints from the U.S. perspective were: impressment of U.S. seamen into the British Navy, British naval harassment and seizure of U.S. commercial vessels, and Britain’s Orders of Council. Madison, was plagued by inferior numbers in the army and navy, lack of professional officers, inept and even treacherous cabinet officers, and lack of money to fund the war effort. Yet somehow the U.S. survived with honor.

 

And you cannot talk about James Madison, without talking about Dolley. Madison married the widow Dolley Payne Todd when he was 43 and she was 26. In the early 19th Century, the President’s success was measured partially by his social standing, where Dolley ensured her husband triumphed. Additionally, she often played hostess for the bachelor President Jefferson, so she was defacto first lady for 16 years. Madison considered her so critical to the nation’s morale, that after the British forces quit the capital, President Madison urged her

 

…for the sake of the city’s morale, you cannot return too soon.

 

James Madison once expressed the wish to expire on the Fourth of July, as Jefferson and Adams had. But on June 28, 1836, at the age of 85, he declared he’d had a change of mind, and passed quietly away.

 

This biography sometimes necessarily bogs down in the details, but overall an excellent and enlightening read.

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The most exciting two minutes in sports

Every year on the first Saturday in May, I take a brief detour from the reading theme of this blog to announce who is going to win the Kentucky Derby.

The heavy favorite will be the dark brown colt Forte. He’ll probably be about 3:1.

But my money will be on Jace’s Road who may get as much as 30:1 Pictured here winning the Gun Runner Stakes as a two-year old. 

The Kentucky Derby is exclusively for three-year olds. Jace’s Road hasn’t really distinguished himself yet in his three-year old campaign, but I feel he could be sitting on a big race. I like him mostly as the son of Quality Road, a favorite of mine, winner of the 2009 Florida Derby. 

But to be honest, the Kentucky Derby is a crap shoot. It’s a cavalry stampede with 20 horses; anything can happen. (a typical thoroughbred stakes race will have 7 – 12 runners) 

Trivia – Thoroughbred is not an adjective like purebred. Thoroughbred is name of the breed.

The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports – unless we are very fortunate and the winner crosses the finish line in a fraction of a second under two minutes. Only three colts have achieved that distinction: Secretariat, Sham - runner-up to Secretariat, and Monarchos.

The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare

The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, written late sixteenth century.

 

Like most of Shakespeare’s comedies, there is more than one story. The title refers to Katharina, the shrew, and the efforts of her husband, Petruchio, to tame her. The secondary story is about Katharina’s sweet sister Bianca and her three suitors: Lucentio, Gremio, and Hortensio.

 

In one sense, this play does not age well. It’s quite misogynistic. Petruchio overtly declares…

 

She is my goods, my chattels…

 

But that was the reality of sixteenth-century Italy. A wife was not a partner. Her husband was lord and master. It isn’t very believable, at any rate. It’s a preposterous farce.

 

Katharina was beautiful and came with a good dowry, but she was indeed a shrew. Even her father avowed as much. When she briefly thought Petruchio had left her at the altar, she leaves the room crying, and her father professes…

 

Go girl; I cannot blame thee now to weep

For such an injury would vex a very saint,

Much more a shrew of thy impatient humour.

 

Petruchio was wealthy in his own right and presumably could have wooed a more amiable companion. I’m unsure what set his mind on Katharina, but he was confident he could tame her. I’m not sure what convinced Katharina to consent either. But they are wed, and Petruchio begins the taming. He withholds food, decent clothing, sleep, and other wishes until his wife becomes more dutiful. But at different times, he is unphased and even pleasant in response to her spite. And it seems to work. Katharina wonders...

 

The more my wrong, the more his spite appears:

What, did he marry me to famish me?

Beggars, that come unto my father’s door,

Upon entreaty have a present alms;

If not, elsewhere they meet with charity:

But I, - who never knew how to entreat,

Nor never needed that I should entreat, –

Am starved for meat, giddy for lack of sleep;

With oaths kept waking, and with brawling fed:

And that which spites me more than all these wants,

He does it under the name of perfect love;…

 

Or, from Petruchio’s perspective…

 

This is a way to kill a wife with kindness

And thus I’ll curb her mad and headstrong humour.

He that knows better how to tame a shrew,

Now let him speak; ‘tis charity to show.

 

And then there’s the contesting for sweet Bianca. And that just gets silly. At least four persons assume someone else’s identity, a common ploy of Shakespeare, though I wasn’t always certain what the deception was supposed to accomplish. It works for one in the end, who wins fair Bianca. One of her other suitors gets a different wife, and at the end of the play, the three new husbands wager on who has the most dutiful wife; of course, Katharina wins the day.