Double Stuff

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and Eleventh Stack are celebrating Black History Month by highlighting books, music and movies by African American Artists. We also have a ton of great events and programs for children, teens and adults. You can view all of our Black History Month posts here.

I love novels that break all the rules, and that become something even more awesome than they would have been if they’d just quietly followed the conventions of the modern novel (which, of course, was developed mostly by white men). Fran Ross’s 1974 classic Oreo definitely falls into this category.

It follows the journey of Christine Clark—a half Jewish, half black teenager nicknamed Oreo—as she tries to “discover the secret of her birth,” i.e. track down her father using a very obtuse set of clues (“sow” is one, as well as “the sword and the slippers,” which turns out to be a mezuzah necklace and a pair of socks). This, as you may have guessed from the clues, is not a serious novel. Ross uses hyperbole, crazy metaphors, improbable circumstances, and actions bordering on the fantastic to create what has rightly been called a “hilarious” novel by Paul Beatty, whose novel White Boy Shuffle is one of our Black History Month book list picks.

Terrance Hayes, a pretty famous local black poet who picked both White Boy Shuffle and Oreo for us, had this to say about the two novels:

The book that comes to mind as a provocative Black History Month work is, White Boy Shuffle, the 1996 debut novel of Paul Beatty. I read it in one fevered sitting twenty years ago. The protagonist, Gunnar Kaufmann, is an irreverent, poetry writing, basketball playing, black kid. In the novel Beatty satirizes Race, America, education, Blacks and Black history with a radical mix of ridicule and ridiculousness. It’s very much in conversation with Fran Ross’s 1974 novel, Oreo, another bildungsromanic book about a smart and smart aleck young black protagonist—a half black half Jewish teen girl. Ross was one of Richard Pryor’s comedy writers so you can imagine the book’s hilarity. In fact, Beatty and Ross take cues from Pryor’s style: scathing, self critical, unapologetically funny and smart. Both books celebrate creative freedom; both celebrate Black History by freely satirizing Black History.

The novel doesn’t start with Oreo’s journey, however. It starts way back with her family history, and slowly works up to Oreo, who is sort of like an every-day superhero. Ross doesn’t rely only on straight prose or text to give the reader a glimpse into the minds of her characters. She uses equations, menus, dialogues, logos, and other textual and non-textual ephemera.

The effect, in whole, is to create a novel that destroys (and in doing so comments on) traditional novel structures and rebuilds them in a new way. Considering the time period in which the book was written, this makes sense. From the afterword:

Under the banner of the Black Arts movement that emerged as the cultural component of Black Power politics of the 1960s and 1970s, African American writers and artists struggled to define and practice a distinctive black aesthetic that departed from traditions based in the history and values of European cultures. The Black Arts movement was fueled by the desire to use art to recover—or, if necessary, to create or reinvent—an authentic black culture based in the particular historical experience of Americans of African descent.

Oreo isn’t just based in black culture or the Black Arts movement, though. It’s also firmly rooted in Jewish culture and tradition. Although Oreo’s parents got divorced when she was too young to remember anything about her Jewish father, her mother adapted some Yiddish into her everyday speech. And then there’s her grandfather, who made it his life’s mission to get rich from creating products meant to trick Jews. (I assure you, though, this is handled in a hilarious way, not an offensive way. The grandfather is portrayed as being ridiculous and maybe a little crazy.) If you don’t know a lot of Yiddish, some of the book’s subtler points might be lost, but not knowing doesn’t detract from the book’s enjoyment.

Although I didn’t really get into this book until Oreo has embarked on her journey to find her father and gets tangled up in all sorts of adventures, the beginning is still, objectively speaking, hilarious.

If you’d like to give Oreo a try, reserve a copy and join us on Thursday, February 18 from 1 to 2 p.m. in the Large Print Room at CLP – Main for a lively discussion.

-Kelly

Ready, Set, Write!

Ah, November. The time for shorter days, hot beverages, curling up on the couch with a good book, spending time with loved ones and finally writing that novel you’ve got banging around in your head.

In case you are not one of the hundreds of thousands of writers who gather (digitally and in person) each November for National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, let me explain. From November 1 to 30, the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel (that’s 1,667 words per day).

Sound hard?

Well, that’s probably because it is. I’ve been participating in NaNoWriMo since 2007 and have only met the word count goal three times—but even the “failures” aren’t really failures. I always end the month with more written than I had at the beginning, and even if my novel fizzles out, I can use what I learned for my next draft.

Also, it’s fun.

Think you can’t start because it’s already November 3? Think again! As of this writing, I haven’t written a single word toward my NaNo novel. That’s okay, though, because I still have 27 entire days to pound out those 50,000 words. I’ve written as many as 10,000 words in a single day, and there are people who do the whole 50,000 in a single day or weekend.

Even if you’re only a hobbyist, or want to write a fanfic novel for fellow diehards and don’t care about traditional publishing, the Library can help you train with one of our handy books on writing.

No Plot? No Problem by Chris Baty
Baty is NaNoWriMo’s founder and ultimate guru. The original No Plot? No Problem came out in 2004 when NaNo was just starting to take off. An updated version came out in 2014 (the Library has the print as well as the eBook version). This guide psyches you up for your Herculean writing effort, and it provides tips and tricks for such dangerous acts as writing at work. It takes you through the stages you’ll go through with your novel (sort of like grief), and acts as a general novel-writing cheerleader. A must-read for NaNo newbies.

Book in a Month by Victoria Schmidt
I haven’t read this personally, but it has good reviews on Goodreads. Unlike Baty’s book, this one breaks down the novel-writing process into a structured timeline with specific milestones meant to be reached on certain days. And, since you aren’t limited to November with this system, you can pick any month that works for you.

Is Life Like This? by John Dufresne
If writing 50,000 words in 30 days seems like something a crazy person would do, how about writing a novel in six months? Like Book in a Month, this title gives you a goal to work toward and milestones to hit along the way. Great for those who prefer distance running to sprints. Or for those who don’t want to cut themselves off from all social activity for thirty days.

Kicking in the Wall by Barbara Abercrombie
Abercrombie’s book gives you prompts and exercises to practice your writing craft throughout the whole year, not just during November. Or cherry-pick for ideas that speak to you and your current project. The book also includes inspirational and encouraging quotes to keep you motivated.

The Daily Writer by Fred D. White
This book is essentially a writer’s devotional. Instead of providing religious texts or messages, though, the author provides meditations meant to deepen and enrich your creative side and grow your writing practice over the course of a full year (with an extra day for leap year).

Happy novel writing!

-Kelly, who is seriously behind on her word count

New in SF/F: Sisters, Storms, and Song

Everything’s coming up sci-fi and fantasy on my reading list these days. Whenever I get frustrated with the world as it is, it cheers me up to spend time in the company of authors dedicated to imagining the world as it could be…or, arguably, should be.

Here are a few of the many fantastic–in multiple senses of the word–reads I’ve picked up from the Library this week.

Sisters of the Revolution, Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, eds.

The VanderMeers have a long track record of publishing excellent SF/F anthologies, and Sisters is no exception. This crowdfunded collection describes itself as “feminist speculative fiction,” and as such will appeal to anyone who enjoyed Octavia’s Brood or The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women. You might also want to try these stories on for size if you’re not sure about sci-fi, but are definitely interested in race, class, gender, motherhood, or any of feminism’s other concerns, and want to see how the genre handles them.

The collection is a healthy mix of material from the 1970s/80s and today, and includes work by Nnedi Okorafor, Angela Carter, Hiromi Goto, and James Tiptree Jr. (a/k/a Alice B. Sheldon). At least one reviewer has described the collection’s older stories as “cringe-worthy” in terms of expressing outdated attitudes. While keeping that in mind, it’s also possible to read the stories critically, with an eye to where women’s SF/F has been, and where it’s going. Available in print only (which is kind of ironic, but that’s the future for you).

Loosed Upon the World, John Joseph Adams, ed.

With a title drawn from W.B. Yeats’s famous poem “The Second Coming,” you know this anthology is going to be literally earthshaking. Adams delivers a a solid collection in the relatively new subgenre of climate fiction (Cli-fi, for short) featuring tales of environmental woe from Margaret Atwood, Paolo Bacigalupi, Seanan McGuire, and other contemporary luminaries. Though the premise behind the stories is pretty clear-cut–we broke the planet and now we must pay–the variety in the execution makes this collection seem like a bouquet of poisoned flowers: gorgeous, but deadly.

Cli-fi makes no bones about having an agenda, and the stories in this volume–published by Simon & Schuster’s SAGA imprint–point the finger at excessive consumerism, ignorance, and flawed public policy (among other things) as the reason for environmental catastrophe. Long on cautionary tale and short on solutions, this is a great read for passionate environmentalists, their skeptical opponents, and anyone who enjoys a good disaster flick.  I’d suggest pacing yourself, though: you’re reading fiction here, not watching the news. At least, not yet.

Last Song Before Night, Ilana C. Myer

Lin is an incredibly gifted musician in a world where women are forbidden to sing or play. Once upon a time she had another name, but she fled her family and her fate to follow her musical destiny. Once upon a far more distant time, Lin’s world was filled with magic, and musicians and poets could work wonders far beyond simply entertaining the masses. A terrible plague, unleashed by the quest for dark magic, put an end to all that. But now somebody’s trying to work dark magic again, which means Lin must venture to the Otherworld to bring back their ancient musical powers and save their culture…if she can.

Myer delivers high fantasy at its best, creating a world in which artistic skill and political savvy are equally valued (and having both certainly doesn’t hurt). Lin is a dauntless heroine who is willing to suffer an awful lot for a world that doesn’t appreciate her properly in the first place, if only because dark magic loosed upon the world would be an even more unpleasant alternative. Lin isn’t even sure the object of her quest, a legendary silver branch, actually exists; all she has is her teacher’s word. That’s still enough to send her and some of her fellow poets (think “frenemies”)off to seek it. It’s sort of like the Orpheus myth in reverse, except Eurydice might be a myth. While we’re gender-swapping things, don’t think the menfolk won’t learn a lesson or two about denying women their musical, magical birthright. Good stuff for folks who like their fantasy fiction with both melody and conscience.

It’s hard to keep up with the really avid SF/F fans and their serious reading addictions, but I’ll never stop trying. Where are my genre warriors and social justice mages? Sound off in the comments section if you’ve read any of these books, plan to read them, or have other suggestions you think the rest of the blog audience would enjoy.

–Leigh Anne

Omens, Visions, Deceptions

About a year and a half ago I picked up Omens, A Cainsville Novel by Kelley Armstrong and totally fell in love with the characters and the paranormal mystery plot. Olivia Taylor-Jones is a department store heiress with everything going for her; she is beautiful, intelligent and caring. Her fiancé is a brilliant attorney who is getting ready to run for office. In a short while Olivia will turn 25 and come into the inheritance left to her by her father.

Then, without warning, everything falls apart. Liv is suddenly thrust into the media spotlight when a story is leaked claiming that she is adopted and names her birth parents as infamous occult serial killers. To Liv’s horror her mother confirms the rumors before jetting off to Europe to evade the press and her fiancé abandons her as a form of damage control for his political campaign.

Looking for shelter Liv finds herself pulled to a small, remote suburb called Cainsville, a safe haven where she can hide while she sorts out the mess that has become her life. Soon enough she realizes that Cainsville is not all that is seems and Liv finds her self pulled deeper into the mystery of her birth-parents’ crimes while realizing that the omens she has seen all her life are real and not just part of a vivid imagination. An uncertain friendship with her birth-mother’s former lawyer, Gabriel Walsh, gives Liv the impetus to embark on solving the mystery of her identity.

What I really enjoyed about Omens was the mystery of Cainsville: Who is Olivia and how does she fit into the puzzle? Why does she see things that other people don’t? Who is Gabriel Walsh? Why is he helping Liv even though her birth-mother is no longer his client? Most importantly, are her parents all that they seem or is there something extraordinary laying beneath the surface?

When I finished Omens I immediately went back to page one and re-read it, and that is not something I do often. The interactions between the characters left you wanting more and the questions behind Cainsville and the inhabitants were entertaining and other-worldly. So when Visions, the second Cainsville novel, came out last year, I was thrilled. But as I read I became wary; Armstrong was taking the series in an all too familiar direction. She introduced Ricky, a “Sons of Anarchy” cast off and un-surprisingly Liv found herself in the middle of a love-triangle. We find some of the answers to our paranormal questions but the mystery of Cainsville promptly took a back seat to the blossoming romance between the characters and the (terrible, absolutely terrible) age old question: Who gets the girl?

Optimistically, because Visions ended with many unfinished plotlines, I (naively) assumed that book three would bring everything to a close while getting back to the intriguing mystery that made Cainsville enjoyable in the first place… I don’t think you need to read omens or have second vision to see where this is going…

Deceptions came out this August and the story of Cainsville is now entirely focused on the love triangle with Liv at the center. The titles really could be how I feel about the books: There were omens of what was to come, visions of the love triangle and finally the deception has been uncovered. Now before you get out the pitch forks (I know Armstrong is a popular author in the genre) the books are still well done, and the plot makes sense, but Armstrong’s focus is no longer about unmasking the truth of Cainsville. Even the questions surrounding Liv’s birth parents (while driving the plot) are secondary to the relationships between Liv, Gabriel and Ricky.

I will read the rest of the Cainsville novels, and maybe if I had stumbled on them after they were all released I would be more forgiving, but waiting a year in-between books that don’t answer any questions but are instead an epic “will she / won’t she” is frustrating to say the least. The last thing I wanted to do is get interested in a series that has the potential to turn into a paranormal version of Stephanie Plum, or even a more serious Sookie Stackhouse-esque love-triangle.  But no matter how much I may want to fight it, Armstrong’s writing has kept me interested and I do care about what happens to Liv and the inhabitants of Cainsville.

What do you think? Have you read the Cainsville novels? Do you agree with my frustrations over where the plot has gone or do you think the love-triangle has made the book?

-Natalie

Exploring the New Star Wars Canon

As a person who has spent a disproportionately large chunk of her childhood (and adulthood) reading Star Wars novels, guidebooks and comics, I was, let’s say, apprehensive when Disney announced they would reset the canon and relabel the “old” novels, comics, video games and other non-movie ephemera as “Legends.”

The purpose of doing this, Disney says, is to ensure that all Star Wars content from here on out will be consistent.

The first novel in this new canon, Star Wars: A New Dawn, came out in the beginning of September. I bought it, like I’ve bought every other Star Wars novel that’s come out since forever, with few exceptions (example: I wasn’t alive in the 1970s when the first Expanded Universe novel, Alan Dean Foster’s Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, came out, and I was only six in the early 1990s when the Expanded Universe began in earnest with the release of Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire).

A New Dawn sat on my nightstand for weeks while I looked at it, picked it up, flipped through it and read the jacket copy. I could not bring myself to read it for fear of being horribly disappointed.

When I finally did force myself to begin, I didn’t find some strange and unfamiliar new world, but the same worn-in universe in which I’ve been letting my imagination roam free for, well, most of my life.

As a tie-in to the new animated show Star Wars Rebels, A New Dawn tells the story of how TV show characters Kanan Jarrus, a former Jedi apprentice now wandering from one dangerous job to another, and Hera, an agitator for rebellion, meet and deal a significant blow against the Empire.

Written by frequent Star Wars novel and comic author John Jackson Miller, a majority of the tale takes place on a newly-introduced planet named Gorse, which has a moon rich in a substance essential to star ship manufacturing. The Emperor’s efficiency expert Count Vidian is sent to increase production of the substance.

Hera has come to Gorse to learn more about how the Empire is spying on its citizens and to get a closer look at Count Vidian. Kanan is flying mining explosives from Gorse to the moon every day. They meet when a disaffected Clone Wars veteran, Skelly, tries to demonstrate that the moon will be destroyed utterly if mining continues, to disastrous results.

While I wouldn’t call this, or any Star Wars novel, high literature, it is an excellent Star Wars novel and an excellent adventure novel. Its short chapters always end in cliffhangers, pulling you along. The characters feel like real people instead of the caricatures (the hero, the sidekick, the romantic interest, etc.) that sometimes appear in franchise writing.

We learn more of Kanan’s background than Hera’s, but I imagine this will be addressed in either future Rebels tie-in novels or, more likely, the show itself. The novel’s cast is also evenly divided between women and men, with one of the prominent characters even being a woman of color (this kind of equality has been more present in Star Wars novels and comics than Star Wars movies, but I’m still glad to see it continued here).

The era between episodes three and four has rarely been touched upon by the Expanded Universe, so Miller’s job in writing this book must have been relatively easy canon-wise. While my opinion of the new canon is rosy so far, none of my favorite “Legends” characters have been written over yet. The next test will be Star Wars: Tarkin, which came out last week. The biggest test, of course, will be Episode VII, the title of which was recently revealed to be Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

So with cautious optimism, I await the next chapter in this new, but strangely familiar, Star Wars universe.

-Kelly

What’s New in Austenland 2013

“No man is offended by another man’s admiration of the woman he loves; it is the woman only who can make it a torment.”  Henry Tilney to Catherine Morland, Northanger Abbey

Jane Austen, watercolor by her older sister, Cassandra

Guess what? It’s that time once again when I highlight some of the newest titles in Jane Austen scholarship. As I’ve happily written about for the last two years, Austen continues to be an endless inspiration for writers to discover new and different topics of discussion about the celebrated early nineteenth-century author. Nearly 200 years after her death in 1817, how many authors can you say that about?

 Jane Austen’s Cults and Cultures by Claudia L. Johnson. Just how popular is Jane Austen? Well, there are two JASNA* chapters in the state of Pennsylvania; Pittsburgh is one of them and I’m proud to say that I am a member. Austen scholar Claudia Johnson traces Austen’s fame throughout history, from soon after the author’s death through the Victorian period, and into the middle of the twentieth century when landmarks began to be set aside and preserved for their historical affiliation with the novelist.

Everybody’s Jane: Austen in the Popular Imagination by Juliette Wells. Similar to the above, however, Wells’s focus is on the present day amateur madness for all things Austen, from book spin-offs–into diversities as graphic novels, zombies, vampires, mysteries, and even (gasp!) erotica–to the tourism industry of Jane Austen’s England tours, and  individual collectors and their impressive collections.

Image source: austenprose.com

Emma: An Annotated Edition edited by Bharat Tandon. Harvard University Press has produced yet another gorgeous coffee-table edition of annotated Austen novels. These are truly gift editions for the Austen aficionado. Reproductions of period fashions, maps, advertisements, and artists‘ portraits provide an understanding of not only Austen’s arguable masterpiece, but also early 19th century England.

The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things by Paula Byrne. Paying attention to the smallest details of Austen’s brief life, such as her topaz cross (a gift from a beloved brother), a shawl, a hat, and other personal artifacts, Byrne attempts to go beyond the published literature and delve deeper into the novelist’s personal life.

What Matters in Jane Austen: Twenty Crucial Problems Solved by John Mullan. In this elegantly written and fascinating book, many interesting facets of Austen’s novels  are discussed with intriguing chapter titles such as: “Is There Any Sex in Jane Austen?”–yes, there is–, “What Do Characters Say When the Heroine Isn’t There?,” “How Much Money is Enough?,” and “Why Do Her Plots Rely on Blunders?”

Same time next year!

~Maria

*The Jane Austen Society of North America

Belle of the Ball or Wallflower?*

‘wallflower’

2. a. a person who from shyness or unpopularity remains on the sidelines of a social activity (as a dance) Merriam Webster dictionary

I was a wallflower. You know, one of those women who go unnoticed (deliberately or not) in a room for whatever silly reason. Perhaps she’s bookish, doesn’t like (or know) how to dance, or is simply shy.

The theme of the wallflower is a popular trope in fiction, especially in historical romance. And there are several unique twists to that trope. But, oh, how I love that moment when the wallflower shines and is appreciated for just who she is by the handsomest gentleman in the room.

One Good Earl Deserves a Lover by Sarah MacLean

Lady Philippa (Pippa) Marbury is a bluestocking–”I’m odd” she  declares–from a well-heeled family who wants to learn more about exactly what happens on a wedding night before her actual wedding night in two weeks. She approaches her brother-in-law’s notoriously scandalous friend, Cross, an earl in hiding from his past to aid in her “scientific research experiment.” What follows is a battle of wills, witty dialogue, and an unforgettable heroine. Funny and poignant, I found myself rooting for Pippa’s happy ending all the way. This is the second in MacLean’s very entertaining and engaging Rules of Scoundrels series about four owners of a successful Regency England gambling hell.

The Charm School by Susan Wiggs

Isadora (Dora) Peabody is a misfit, an ugly duckling overshadowed by her talented and attractive aristocratic Boston family. She longs to escape her life and herself, so she maneuvers her way into a high seas adventure much to the dismay of the arrogant Captain Ryan Calhoun, a man who prefers to run away from his problems rather than face them. Along the way, Dora’s charm and  power are revealed and she befriends everyone she meets, effectively coming out of her shell. Calhoun comes to realize and appreciate her strength of character as well as her courage in the face of hardship. Note: Wiggs has said that Dora is “modeled after yrs truly.” Book one in a series.

Mistress by Midnight by Nicola Cornick

Lady Merryn Fenner is only interested in academics and has long given up girlish dreams of love and marriage after watching her dearest brother destroyed by it. And she’s determined to bring down the man she believes is responsible: Garrick, the Duke of Farne. When a freak accident traps them alone together forcing their marriage, they discover the truth about the past as well as their conflicting feelings for one another. I especially enjoy how Cornick’s stories are inspired by real life historical events. Book three in her provocative Scandalous Women of the Ton series.

The Reasons for Marriage by Stephanie Laurens

This is an early Laurens’ novel and I think it’s one of her best. Jason, the Duke of Eversleigh, needs to marry after the death of his eldest brother, the heir, and he sets his sights on his friend’s sister, Lenore Lester. Miss Lester is perfectly content to be mistress of her brother’s large household in the country, with her books and her gardens, and has no reason to marry; in fact, she adopts a dowdy exterior just to discourage suitors. But the Duke sees through her ruse and is determined to win her and show her the real reasons for marriage. Book one in the Lester family series.

Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean

“On-the-shelf” spinster, Lady Calpurnia Hartwell, has had enough of her dull life. So she creates a list of things she wishes to accomplish: learn fencing, gamble at a gentlemen’s club, and fire a pistol to name a few. She also needs the help of someone not afraid to break the rules: the scandalous–and handsome– Gabriel St. John, the Marquess of Ralston. First in MacLean’s Love by Numbers series.

A Week to Be Wicked by Tessa Dare

Geologist Minerva Highwood is on a mission. Well, make that two missions. She is determined to present her research to an academic society in Scotland and also to prevent a certain roguish lord from marrying her beloved and fragile sister. She approaches the wicked Colin Sandhurst, Lord Payne, and proposes he escort her, thus avoiding marrying her sister, for which she will pay him handsomely. And so begins their hilarious road trip in a tiny carriage where they will confront their fears, their secrets, and their passion. This is the second book in Tessa Dare’s delightful Spindle Cove series, about a militia that comes to a seaside English village where mostly spinsters reside. Note: Dare (a librarian) has said that her inspiration for this series was Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, when the militia came to Meryton, thus causing the youngest Bennet girls to go crazy for the handsome officers.

~Maria

*This post is the first in a series highlighting my favorite historical romance novels, my new favorite genre, because it is filled with only happy endings,  history, wonderful stories, enchanting characters, and amazing writing. Many thanks to Eleventh Stack bloggers Jess and Sheila, for inspiring me to try them, and to the authors themselves for writing stories I love to read.

What’s New in Austenland 2012

“It is only a novel… or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.” Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

It continues to be a delightful fortune to live in an age where so much is (still) being written, researched, and explored about English novelist Jane Austen, her times, her works, and her life, almost 200 years after her death. We Janeites take our study very seriously and never tire in reading, writing, and talking about her.

Last year, I wrote a blog post highlighting new publications in Austen scholarship; this year, I do the same once again (and, most likely, will continue to do so annually just for the sheer fun of it).  As before, these selections are either biographical or critical analyses and do not include fictional continuations or spin-offs of Austen’s novels (although see below for an exciting event coming later this month).

 Persuasion: An Annotated Edition, edited by Robert Morrison. This gorgeous coffee table-sized book is filled with illustrations and maps printed on beautiful paper. It goes into great detail and description–there is no such thing as too much information for the Austen student–on settings, themes, unfamiliar words (and contexts), etiquette and customs, fashion, geography, and much more.

The Annotated Emma by David M. Shapard. Professor Shapard is annotating his way through all of  Austen’s novels–the library owns his annotations of Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice. Like the previous title, Shapard explores all aspects of Austen’s acknowledged masterpiece in its historical context in minute detail with elegant insight; a real treat.

Pride and Prejudice edited by Laurence W. Mazzeno. A deliciously large book of essays published by Salem Press (part of their Critical Insights series) on what is considered Austen’s most popular novel, though she herself thought it “too light and bright and sparkling.”*

Jane Austen’s Letters (4th edition) edited by Deirdre Le Faye. The Austen scholar updates her earlier edition of the painfully few letters Austen left behind (or, should we say, her sister Cassandra didn’t destroy?). This edition updates notes to the letters reflecting more information discovered since the 1995 edition, expands the biographical and topical indexes, and adds a new subject index. The letters reveal Austen’s often sarcastic wit and intelligent discourse on events of her day, books she was reading, daily errands and tasks, and people that she knew. Sample: “Mrs. Hall, of Sherborne, was brought to bed yesterday of a dead child, some weeks before she expected, owing to a fright. I suppose she happened unawares to look at her husband.” [ouch!]

May, Lou and Cass: Jane Austen’s Nieces in Ireland by Sophia Hillan. Austen’s older brother, Edward, was adopted by the Austens’ well-to-do friends (the Knights); thus, he inherited great estates as well as wealth. This is the story of three of his daughters who settled in Ireland, far from their English country home.

Jane Austen & Company: Essays edited by Bruce Stovel. The late Canadian English professor admired Austen above all other authors he studied and taught. This collection of essays features four analyzing themes of ambivalence, pleasure, structure, and conversation in the novels.

 And now for the exciting event! Please join us on June 30 at 3pm at Main Library in the Quiet Reading Room on the First Floor to hear author (and entrepreneur) Sandy Lerner (AKA Ava Farmer, author of the new novel, Second Impressions) speak about her novel and her founding of the Chawton House Library in England.**

~Maria

*Letter to her sister, Cassandra, February 4, 1813.
**Chawton Cottage was Austen’s last home before her death in 1817.

Hope: A Tragedy

Funny thing about humor – so very often on the page it falls, well, flat.

A great, or even good, funny novel is a rare thing, indeed. For those handsful of good or great funny novels that have stood the test of time, by far the most prevalent are dark comedies.  Books that trade in gallows humor, taboo topics, or the meaninglessness of it all pretty much own the corner.  A biting, even bitter, satirist is no one to go toe-to-toe with if you know what’s bad for you.

With Hope: a Tragedy, Shalom Auslander manages to muscle his way into some pretty esteemed company: Jonathan Swift (if you think the premise behind A Modest Proposal could never be matched on the outrageous scale, think again), Voltaire (who makes more than one appearance here in a virtual catalogue of allusions to great authors), Franz Kafka (didn’t think he was funny – think again), Kurt Vonnegut (Auslander’s pacing comes as close to KV as anyone has, ever), and Fay Weldon (for a sheer modern over-the-top premise and acerbic point of view).  Think Samuel Beckett, think of poor, hapless Job, deftly blended with Woody Allen and Rodney Dangerfield.

The immediate literary godfather here though is Philip Roth: Auslander is Roth without the misogyny, though the misanthropy is decidedly intact.

What’s the premise, you ask?  Solomon Kugel, our hero, flees the city for rural upstate New York, purchasing a 19th-century farmhouse for his family and himself. As soon as they move in, a mysterious arsonist targets farmhouses throughout the area. Hope opens with Kugel lying in bed, listening to all the sounds a 100-plus-year-old home can make, believing the arsonist has broken in with each and every sound he hears, and meditating on all the possible ways one may die and all the possible last things he might say with his last breath.

In addition, he thinks of the last words of many a famous person.  Who knew that the last thing Allen Ginsberg said was “Toodle-loo”?

Kugel finally convinces himself that he needs to go to the attic to investigate if the arsonist has broken in or, as he is hoping, to discover that it is “probably just mice.”

SPOILER AHEAD! SPOILER AHEAD! SPOILER AHEAD!

What he discovers, or, rather, whom he discovers, sets off a catastrophic chain of events that propels the novel:

Anne Frank.

That’s right, he discovers an aged, decrepit, slightly profane Anne Frank.  Hiding. In his attic.

I really don’t know what to say after that and that is probably a very good thing. The book is at once sacrilegious, hysterically funny, surprisingly moving,  and very good, indeed. How this event takes over his life (he thinks, I’ll call the police, then he imagines a NY Post-type headline: “Jew Drops Dime on Holocaust Survivor”), and impacts his mother, his wife, and his young son, Jonah, but most particularly himself, is the substance of the novel. A number of leitmotifs appear again and again throughout the novel, signaled by little catch phrases (a la Vonnegut’s “so it goes”).  The last words of famous people (Jean-Paul Sartre: “I failed”) appear again and again (Gary Gilmore: “Let’s do it”), unexpectedly, delightfully (“Toodle-loo”) even.

Kugel’s mother is over-the-top completely, disturbingly so, as in many a Jewish-American novel, and though the book is very funny, it has potential to offend. Humor and the Holocaust, catch phrases and concentration camps, are definitely not for everyone.

Then again books replete with anecdotes about Spinoza and his mother’s bed, Alan Dershowitz as cultural hero, matzoh, borscht, and wheat allergies, and a protaganist whose thoughts both outrage and endear do have a potential audience and Hope: a Tragedy is no exception. One thing I know for certain: this is a book that will be showing up on many end of the year best lists in 2012 and I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t walk away with a major prize or two.

If it is your kind of book, and you know who you are, don’t hesitate.  It doesn’t matter what your background or religion.

Shalom Auslander is an equal opportunity offender.

– Don

The Sense of an Ending: The 2011 Booker Prize

Self-delusion has been a major theme in literature almost since its inception: think Oedipus and you get the idea.  There is also Macbeth and Don Quixote.   In a slightly more modern vein, think of Jane Eyre (in the novel of the same name), Madame Bovary (ditto), Harry Haller in Steppenwolf, Willie Loman in The Death of a Salesman, Jane Austen’s Emma, Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire – the list goes on and on.

The Sense of an Ending, the 2011 Booker Award winning novel by Julian Barnes, is an excellent example of self-delusion, so finely parsed, in fact, that the reader needs to pay close attention to realize the extent and depth of that delusion.  The novel opens with a recounting of four school-age friends, delineating who they were, what happened to them at school, and their lives immediately after.   This section of the book, Part One, ends around page 60 with a couple of brief paragraphs which abruptly summarize the life of one the friends, Tony Webster, our narrator, and transports him all the way up to retirement, which is where Part Two begins.

A span of some 40 years is glossed over and now Webster is looking back on the events in Part One, the stuff of his life, and trying to piece together all that happened and what its significance might be.  There will be no spoilers here; the book is a brief 160 plus pages and may be read easily in one sitting.  I suggest readers not do this, unless they are prepared to immediately begin it again, for this is a novel that warrants an immediate second read, especially if read quickly.

The Sense of an Ending has some touchstones of the coming of age novel: a new, slightly different boy joins an established clique, there is first love and loss, betrayal, and the full gamut of resultant emotional turmoil.  There is self-delusion in abundance and the reader sees, or more precisely doesn’t quite see, all this through the narrator’s eyes.  Ironically, this introduces an element of mystery; the reader can’t quite fathom the import of events because she feels that there is something not quite right, some particular something that seems to be missing.

Back in my own college days, I had a professor who offered the following maxim for reading a good book: once for the intelligent and aware, twice for the intelligent and unaware, and three times for the unintelligent and unaware.    On first reading The Sense of an Ending, I felt that, as a reader, I was somewhere between the second and third categories.  What makes the novel so fascinating, particularly for a someone who falls in the later two categories, is that the reader is essentially in the same position as the self-deluded narrator and so, when the revelation comes (again, no spoilers), it packs a bit of a wallop, perhaps more than it should have (see category one), yet all the more effective for that.

This may be the long way round to saying that Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending is that rare modern award-winning book; it is at once engaging and important, slightly mysterious and impeccably written, a book whose import will resonate far, far longer than the time it takes to read.

And that, for me, is the definition of an excellent novel, indeed.

— Don

PS.  The one downside to recommending a novel that recently won a prestigious award is that there can be a lengthy wait.  Though the book is short and there are a number of copies in the system, I thought it might do to recommend a few other outstanding, highly-acclaimed titles by Mr. Barnes that you might like to peruse while you wait:

Flaubert’s Parrot.  “Barnes’s contemporary classic follows loosely in the footsteps of acclaimed 19th-century French novelist Gustave Flaubert, serving as capsule biography, work of critical art, record of cross-generational authorial jealousy, and a portrait of obsession.”  Publisher’s Weekly

Arthur and George.  “Chronicles the lives of two boys–one who is forgotten by history, and one who becomes the creator of the world’s most famous detective–as they pursue their separate destinies until they meet in a remarkable alliance.”  Novelist

Pulse: Stories.  “In (Barnes’) third (short story) collection, his gift for deft, acerbic dialogue is finely honed, most enjoyably in a quartet of dinner-party stories. Friends dissect the Euro question, the 2008 U.S. presidential election, global warming, and the British passion for marmalade. Gender divides figure prominently throughout the book … Barnes’ tales are shrewd, piquant, and moving.”  Booklist

A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters.  “Noah’s Ark, Gericault’s The Raft of the Medusa and “an offbeat vision of the Hereafter” are some of the ingredients of this pyrotechnical work.  Admirers of Barnes are accustomed to thoroughly unorthodox approaches to the novel”   Publisher’s Weekly

—Don