Europa Editions - A Novel Bookstore

I've mentioned here in the past how often a book cover catches my eye and this one was no exception. I've read several books translated and printed for publication in the U.S. through Europa Editions and they are the loveliest books to look at, to hold, and to read. If you've read their edition of Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog then you'll know what I mean.

If you'll admit to being a book snob then this is the perfect novel for you! Author Laurence Cosse has accomplished something that isn't easy nowadays - she's come up with an imaginative plot and then slowly, lovingly, laid it out for readers to savor, admire and chuckle at. You've heard of the Slow Food Movement? Well I would call this a slow novel in the very best sense of the words.

Contemplate, if you can, a bookstore with nary a copy of Dan Brown or Danielle Steel. Put it in a big old brownstone with curved front windows and window seats, set on a quiet side street in any cosmopolitan city - in this case it's Paris. Ahhhh - now choose eight authors whose works you've admired for years, who never let you down, whose novels stand the test of time and your own high standards. Invite each of them to anonymously contribute a list of the best 600 books they've ever read, collate the results and begin ordering only the world's best novels for your exclusive bookstore.

Van and Francesca have lived this dream - she owns and he operates this Novel Bookstore. The eight authors continue to write novels as well as critique others' novels for inclusion. We learn all of this as they share their history with a police detective. Why? Because someone is trying to KILL the book snobs! How have their names been discovered? Their every move monitored? I've read some pretty nasty book reviews and have even alluded to them in this blog, but I wouldn't secretly wish for the reviewer to meet an untimely end. Who knows, one day it could be me!

A Novel Bookstore is a deep reader's delight. A hodgepodge of literature, character study, humor and mystery. Keep an open mind though, the ending may surprise you.

Musings

Apologies for having committed the cardinal sin of blogging. One mustn't go more than a week without a post or folks lose interest! We are an immediate gratification society after all. The problem is that I had nothing to say - believe it or not! I've been working and planting, walking and thinking, and, I'm in the middle of four books.

Almost finished with Christopher Hitchens' memoir and am marveling at the fact that it was much like a historical timeline of my life. The old adage, "may you live in  interesting times," certainly applies to those of us born in 1949. Think of the history involved in the last half of the 20th century!

Hitchens was in the middle of every major movement in Great Britain, from anti-apartheid, to anti-Vietnam, to the Northern Ireland terrorism. As a proud Socialist he wrote and debated all over the world, making a name for himself as an outspoken contrarian, all of which makes it difficult to follow his thinking that defended the invasion of Iraq. Toward the end of his book he does tell a poignant story that speaks to taking responsibility for our writings when he discovered that a young soldier killed in Iraq had many of Hitchens' writings in his possession and had expressed great admiration for, and a certain influence by, Hitchens' writings.

He talks at length about his correspondence with the young man's family, his trepidation at meeting them for the first time, his attendance at the funeral service. It's a very moving and responsible piece of writing and confirms once again for me that one need not be a person of faith to be a good person.

Speaking of contrarians, I was reading a review in this week's New York Times Book Review of V. S. Naipaul's latest The Masque of Africa. This is an author who has interested me for years and the fact that I haven't "gotten" to him yet makes me feel - well - not very well-read. This may be the book that I will get to. The Trinidadian Nobel Prize winner Naipaul has a reputation, particularly when it comes to his travel writing, of being less than sympathetic to the third world countries he tours, writing of Christianity vs. Islam and the plethora of tribal religions and customs.

The reviewer of this particular book, Eliza Griswold, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/books/review/Griswold-t.html
 notes that Naipaul may be relenting with age and softening his stance. At one point during a trip through Gabon, his legs give way and he has to concede to being propelled in a wheel barrow into a nearby town. There he meets and talks with an older woman in the community who, noting the chagrin with which Naipaul has had to cave in to the perceived indignity of his infirm body, confides that "in Gabon, when an old person dies, we say that a library has burned down."

This is my new favorite saying. I'm sharing it with you readers in hopes that you will pass it along. Andrea, thinking of you and the Storycorps project and how each person who shares their story is a treasure trove, a library if you will, of history and information. What a shame we don't honor our elders more.

Election Day in Southwest Florida

I'd love to write about books but the election is all I can think of. Naturally I'm not surprised at the outcomes so far, though I am surprised at how soon the major networks feel they can call the winners - an hour after the polls closed, at my own library as we are a polling place, they are already calling Rubio the new senator from Florida. How can this be? Have they counted the absentee ballots? How come, three days after I voted, I received a robo-call admonishing me for not having done so? Oh, this is so depressing. And right after I watched clips from Stewart/Colbert's rally for sanity had brought me a little hope - yes, it does spring eternal!

Well, I may not fit in here in Southwest Florida but I have to tell you I got a huge, marvelous surprise on Saturday when Don and I attended a showing at the Bonita Springs Art Center. Women Call for Peace was the name of the exhibit and it was astounding. http://www.naplesnews.com/events/2010/oct/01/35575/
One rarely finds this kind of quality exhibit here in the Naples/Ft. Myers area. I've seen very little advertising so I'll tell you about it here. If it hadn't been for one of my more informed, wonderful volunteers and book group attendees extraordinaire, I wouldn't have known about it either.

One of the featured artists was Faith Ringgold whose name I only knew because of being a librarian and having seen her gorgeous work in the children's room. She writes and illustrates and has a beautiful book about Rosa Parks that I was happy to see we had three copies of in our branch. http://faithringgold.blogspot.com/

Another artist whose work was simply extraordinary was Emma Amos http://www.flomenhaftgallery.com/flomenhaft_gallery_artists_biographies/emma_amos_artist_bio.php

The depth of the emotion and heart that goes into the work of these artists just fills the heart. Never having had a talented bone in my body when it comes to anything remotely artistic or creative, I feel such envy at the way these women express themselves. Much of the work involved quilts, a form of expression that goes back centuries when women used messages sewn into quilts in order to communicate, often a cry for help. Much of the work is, of course, against war - the idea being that women are less likely to wage it if they have to send their babies off to die in it - but then some involves calls for peace closer to home. Works express strong feminist trends, indicating the pain and agony of abuse in all of its forms.

Tiny DVD players scattered throughout the exhibit can be employed to view video interviews with the artists in which they express their views of the world and how they've attempted to come to terms with it. One especially interesting video involved a mother/daughter sculpting duo who employ chain saws to begin the process of pulling a work of art out of nothing but a dead stump.

OK, this exhibit runs through the end of November so, if you get a chance to check it out, you'll be very pleased. Meanwhile, it's back to the tv to see if I can bear the rest of today's story. If Scott beats out Sink, I'll know that there's truly something wrong with me fellow Floridians that common sense can't cure.

As to books: I'm only a few chapters away from finishing Freedom. Well worth the investment in time. I've begun the debut novel Juliet by Anne Fortier and am about halfway through my favorite atheist's autobiography Hitch-22. Christopher Hitchens reads his own book and naturally that gives it an effete air but heck, it's the Queen's English after all and I love his honesty. He also mentions that he was at Oxford when Clinton and all his cohorts were attending (including Robert Reich) and agrees with me that Clinton actually did NOT inhale. Some of us just can't swallow smoke into our lungs. He imbibed his cannabis through brownies! Book I absolutely couldn't spend time on? Stiltsville.

Franzen's Freedom

I'm two thirds of the way through Jonathan Franzen's newest epic, Freedom. It's everything I expected and more. Discussion has been going on here at work for a few weeks between those of us who loved The Corrections and the other who couldn't take it. I'll admit that the families in his earlier book held few redeeming qualities - though some of the scenes came right out of my childhood - (which I thought was fairly idyllic). You've got to have a sense of humor, right?

Someone who seems to be lacking that humor is author Jodie Picoult. I'm not sure I understand her ire at the publicity and honors that Franzen is receiving but it certainly seems overblown. I'm all for exhibiting a healthy dose of self confidence but for her to put herself in the same literary category as Franzen is just simply unrealistic. To say that women are consistently left out of literary awards and acknowledgement seems inaccurate as well. What about Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel?
Perhaps, after looking over her recent interview on the Huffington Post, her gripe is more about publicity rather then respect. However, if I had her bank account I don't think I'd be whining. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-pinter/jodi-picoult-jennifer-weiner-franzen_b_693143.html

Anyway, back to Freedom which I find myself unable to put down. Ironically, I've been fighting off a major autumn cold for the past ten days and have been sleepless and hacking half the night away. This incident has afforded me the opportunity to read during the wee hours so I may actually have the book back to the library relatively close to deadline!
The Berglund family, around whom the action swirls, is a kinder, gentler, version of the family in The Corrections. Their issues seem to be less black and white; a much more nuanced portrayal of the day in/day out intricacies of holding together a related unit of wildly divergent personalities brought together by the accident of birth and the choice of marriage, made like so many of them, at an age when the protagonists are just too darn young and unformed.

Franzen can be downright hilarious, not in the laugh out loud funny way, but in the wincing "ouch" kind of way, as he skewers the left, the right, and all the inbetweens. This is a very political novel in which people with the best of intentions  turn absolutely Machiavellian in their aim to achieve their goals. Take, for instance, Walter Berglund's burning desire to save a blue warbler at the risk of getting into bed with the Bush/Cheney crew that will scrape raw the West Virginia mountaintops to achieve a 100 year gain. It's all end justifies means and he's encouraged in his quest by a young, dewy-eyed assistant who takes advantage of the rift between the long-married Walter and Patty to insert herself while Walter is at his weakest.

Patty, meanwhile, is sunk in apathy and depression as she dwells on the road not taken. Back in college, while she was under the spell of Walter's roommate, rocker Richard Katz, Walter worshipped her from a distance. Rather than take the chance on the womanizer Katz, she convinced herself that the good, stolid Walter would be the right choice for a husband (an ideology that usually proves true). Only problem with this is that Walter and Patty continue to see Richard throughout their marriage and the itch between Patty and Richard cries out to be scratched.

Helicopter parenting has a particularly bad outcome in terms of the Berglund's son Joey who rebels against his liberal family's intense love and scrutiny by moving next door into the home of his girlfriend and her right-wing, beer-swilling step dad (a rather stereotypical example to be sure) whose pick-up trucks and rusty construction equipment are the bane of Patty's existence. After Joey moves East to attend college he's torn between the complete sexual satisfaction - and isn't that what it's all about for a 19 year old? - from Connie and the possibility of hooking up with his roommate's sister and the chance to get upwardly mobile. He rather callously calls upon his newly discovered Jewish roots to ingratiate himself with his roommate's dad and lands himself a summer job that will serve him well.

No, this isn't a feel-good novel, nor is it intended to be. It is however, a sadly realistic look at life as we know it. It's peopled with hypocrites, slackers, those without good judgment and those who judge too much, those who'll stomp on someone else's rights so that they can get theirs and those who fight for what they believe is right as the expense of someone else. These same characters forgive, forget and love in their own inimitable ways. They are, probably, most all of us!

The Glass Rainbow

Such a lovely title for such a dark novel! But then I suppose that a glass rainbow indicates the fragility of beauty, how easily it can be broken, an apropos metaphor for the tragic, violent deaths of the young women that haunt Dave Robicheaux in this latest entry in Burke's long-running, powerful series set in the mysterious, treacherous bayous outside New Orleans.

I usually listen to my Robicheaux novels because Will Patton does such an outstanding job in the narration. His vocal renditions range from world-weary to downright sinister with a guttural timbre that ratchets up my blood pressure and has me looking behind me when I exit the car. As Clete Purcell, Dave's longtime friend and polar opposite, Patton can bring the reader to tears describing the emptiness and desolation of his life. As Dave, Patton takes us into the heart of a man whose ferocious, protective love for his wife and adopted daughter Alafair, conflict with the deep anger of the Vietnam veteran and cop who sees an injustice and just has to right it.

One often wonders how much of these novels - and those of many, many writers - are based in at least some fact. Because of my work on the Southwest Florida Reading Festival ( http://www.readfest.org/ )and the years of writing to Alafair Burke in an attempt to lure her and her dad to Ft. Myers for a head to head presentation, I know that she is a law professor in New York and a well-known mystery writer in her own right. In The Glass Rainbow, Alafair is still in law school but is taking a semester back home to complete her first novel. She is dating a man from an old Louisiana family with a dark history that dates back to slavery. The Abelards have made their wealth on the backs of others for generations.

Dad doesn't like it and, to add to his discomfort, he is investigating the murders of two teenage girls, one of whom had crossed paths with Kermit Abelard and the ex-con turned novelist with whom he shares his home. The con, Robert Weingart, is about as slimy a character as you'll meet in literature but then Burke always fills his books with them. I guess it's so that we, the readers, won't feel quite so guilty at the jubilation we feel when Clete and Dave turn their violence outward.

I really thought that Burke could not get better than he was with Tin Roof Blow Down which I blogged about here a year or two ago, but The Glass Rainbow is right up there when it comes to unveiling a story that reveals his depressingly low opinion of human nature. Readers sense that James Lee Burke, or at least Dave Robicheax, has lived through the depths of despair and come out the other side a deeply damaged man trying to make sense of a deeply damaged world.

If this sounds too despairing to read, ignore me! Like my other favorites in this genre, George Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane, or Richard Price, Burke has an exquisite ear for what's real, balanced with a joy in the natural beauty of his surroundings, the smells, sounds and tastes of the bayou, that will just knock your socks off.

If I had any critique at all it would be that his female characters, while ostensibly strong (chief of police Helen Swallow), always seem to have a weakness pulling at them subconsciously. I would love to see him flesh out Dave's wife Molly, the former nun whose love is barely holding him together. Other than that, I can always count on James Lee Burke for a great ride.

Almost finished with my LJ book, a quick read by a South African named Damon Galgut. The book was a finalist for the Booker Prize - pressure!