Anyone who's ever met me probably knows that I believe that I should have been (or was in another life) Italian. If I could choose anywhere in the world to live in my retirement it would likely be a hilltown in Umbria or the Chianti region. The language sings to me, the people call to me, the food, the wine....need I say more? Anne Fortier - who is NOT Italian - must feel the same way because her debut (doesn't seem possible) novel feels, smells and tastes like Siena.
Juliet is the happiest book I've read this year. Sure, we could find some holes in the plot, be cynical about romance, or just slough it all off as light fare, but we'd be making a mistake to do that. Ms. Fortier's imaginative novel is so damn much fun! And, with the world in such tragic disarray, we sure could use some of that right now.
Sisters Julie and Janice Jacobs are as different as night and day. Orphans since their parents died in an auto accident in Italy, raised by flighty Aunt Rose in the states, Julie is a giver (currently teaching Shakespeare camp to school kids), while Janice is a taker, always on the lookout for whatever's in it for her. So, when Rose's will is read and Janice is the sole recipient of the estate both girls are stunned. Janice doesn't look back. Julie discovers that she has been given a passport and a key which may unlock the mystery of her past.
Toggling back and forth in time from 14th century Siena to present day, Fortier keeps the suspense going as Julie Jacobs finds out that she is actually Giulietta Tolomei, a descendant of the original Juliet of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet saga. Adding to the fun, she discovers letters, diaries, and papers that indicate that Romeo and Juliet lived in Siena, not Verona.
Enter a handsome, imperious stranger, Alessandro, who takes a keen interest in watching over Julie/Giulietta as she pokes around Siena's libraries and museums, and the stage is set for a match made in? Hmmmm - perhaps not heaven, but here on earth several centuries ago?
Having vacationed for way too short a time in Siena several years ago, staying in an old convent converted to a B and B, I can tell you that Fortier's description of the city is right on. You can truly visualize every little side street, vegetable stand, cathedral and hotel.
Her history of the contradas, or old tribal divisions that make up the city, and the glory of the pallio, the horse race through Siena that still goes on today are just perfect, giving background to the story of the family feuds that fuel that action in this simply delightful novel.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Conversations With Myself
Yes, it's true, I often feel as though I'm conversing with myself out here in cyberworld until I get a wonderful repsonse out of the blue as I did from P. J. Grath at http://www.dogearsbooks.net/ It's so gratifying to realize that one has made a connection and that feeling, coupled with my thoughts on listening to Nelson Mandela's musings in his latest book, aptly titled Conversations With Myself, has brought me to mulling over this idea of being heard and understood by another person.
No matter how much we may love someone there are always times where words and intentions are misconstrued, feelings are hurt and the sooner fixed the better. But imagine if you possibly can what it must have been like for Mandela, confined as a political prisoner for nearly thirty years, feared by his captors for the damage (to them) that his powerful words could do, yet scorned as a man who expected too much - fair and equal treatment while detained.
Imagine the anguish of trying to communicate with your family, hearing of your wife's imprisonment through a grapevine, of your mother's death from an emissary, or of your first born son's demise in an automobile accident through a smuggled in newspaper. Imagine knowing that each word of anguish you put to paper will be read by strangers, blacked out, reworded, redacted, until it barely makes any sense IF it ever reaches its intended audience.
Mandela, writing in secret from Robben Island - the prison off the coast of Cape Town that I hope to visit in the Fall - came to the slow realization and acceptance of the fact that over the years of his incarceration he was becoming the symbol for the anti-apartheid movement and though he gracefully accepted that mantle, he railed and angrily chafed at the smaller indignities that came with never knowing if he was being heard, by family or friends in the outside world.
I thought I would enjoy listening to this book as the reader, John Kani, has that delightful, lilting voice reminiscent of Mandela's own. The initial format is a bit confusing but one adjusts after a disc or two. Mr. Mandela's thoughts on his mission to end apartheid, his words of love through letters to his family, and interview transcripts can seem disjointed, but they are arranged chronologically so if you listen, do stay with it. This book is one of many tributes to the unbelievable resilience of the human spirit.
A new book showed up yesterday from Library Journal so I'll be incommunicado for a few days while I try to determine, dear readers, whether or not you would enjoy a debut novel by Carolyn Cooke.
No matter how much we may love someone there are always times where words and intentions are misconstrued, feelings are hurt and the sooner fixed the better. But imagine if you possibly can what it must have been like for Mandela, confined as a political prisoner for nearly thirty years, feared by his captors for the damage (to them) that his powerful words could do, yet scorned as a man who expected too much - fair and equal treatment while detained.
Imagine the anguish of trying to communicate with your family, hearing of your wife's imprisonment through a grapevine, of your mother's death from an emissary, or of your first born son's demise in an automobile accident through a smuggled in newspaper. Imagine knowing that each word of anguish you put to paper will be read by strangers, blacked out, reworded, redacted, until it barely makes any sense IF it ever reaches its intended audience.
Mandela, writing in secret from Robben Island - the prison off the coast of Cape Town that I hope to visit in the Fall - came to the slow realization and acceptance of the fact that over the years of his incarceration he was becoming the symbol for the anti-apartheid movement and though he gracefully accepted that mantle, he railed and angrily chafed at the smaller indignities that came with never knowing if he was being heard, by family or friends in the outside world.
I thought I would enjoy listening to this book as the reader, John Kani, has that delightful, lilting voice reminiscent of Mandela's own. The initial format is a bit confusing but one adjusts after a disc or two. Mr. Mandela's thoughts on his mission to end apartheid, his words of love through letters to his family, and interview transcripts can seem disjointed, but they are arranged chronologically so if you listen, do stay with it. This book is one of many tributes to the unbelievable resilience of the human spirit.
A new book showed up yesterday from Library Journal so I'll be incommunicado for a few days while I try to determine, dear readers, whether or not you would enjoy a debut novel by Carolyn Cooke.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
The Blind Contessa's New Machine
Call me morbid but I always used to dwell on subjects like this: if I had to be blind, would it be easier to have never seen at all (blind from birth), or to lose your sight slowly but at least nurture a memory of what the world used to look like? At least one would have that concept of color and spacial distances ingrained, something to tap into as one adjusted to the darkness.
This question is dealt with in a thoroughly original way in a sweet little debut novel that I picked up off the new book shelf a couple of weeks ago. Author Carey Wallace doesn't even look old enough to have written a book, let alone to come up with such a great opening sentence: "On the day Contessa Carolina Fantoni was married, only one other living person knew that she was going blind, and he was not her groom."
According to her website, Ms.Wallace is, among several other notable attributes, a photographer and perhaps that explains the nature of this imaginative book. http://www.careywallace.com/
Set in some gorgeously rural part of Italy where various villas grace the countryside, boasting lakes and lemon groves, a young Carolina grows up with a tremendous amount of freedom due to a careless mother and a doting father.
Her love of the earth and intellectual curiosity set her apart from other young women, keeping her outdoors exploring plants, trees, and bugs from morning til night. Turri, the neighborhood eccentric, finds in Carolina a kinship that he doesn't share with his wife. An inventor, Turri bounces his ideas off Carolina and an intense friendship flourishes.
When she begins to realize that her eyes are dimming, her parents dismiss her "folly" and her fiance, the sexy but dimwitted Pietro, only laughs. Turri, on the other hand, gets to work and builds a writing machine that becomes the talk of the town, allowing the blind contessa to communicate with the outside world as her family would prefer to diminish her involvement with life.
Ms. Wallace has created a tough minded, passionate character in Carolina, a woman who uses her brains and wit to adjust to her circumscribed condition. She also cleverly points out the duality of human relationships in that it takes two male characters of varying strengths and weakness to satisfy one woman, and even then, not completely. What a delightfully subversive idea!
This question is dealt with in a thoroughly original way in a sweet little debut novel that I picked up off the new book shelf a couple of weeks ago. Author Carey Wallace doesn't even look old enough to have written a book, let alone to come up with such a great opening sentence: "On the day Contessa Carolina Fantoni was married, only one other living person knew that she was going blind, and he was not her groom."
According to her website, Ms.Wallace is, among several other notable attributes, a photographer and perhaps that explains the nature of this imaginative book. http://www.careywallace.com/
Set in some gorgeously rural part of Italy where various villas grace the countryside, boasting lakes and lemon groves, a young Carolina grows up with a tremendous amount of freedom due to a careless mother and a doting father.
Her love of the earth and intellectual curiosity set her apart from other young women, keeping her outdoors exploring plants, trees, and bugs from morning til night. Turri, the neighborhood eccentric, finds in Carolina a kinship that he doesn't share with his wife. An inventor, Turri bounces his ideas off Carolina and an intense friendship flourishes.
When she begins to realize that her eyes are dimming, her parents dismiss her "folly" and her fiance, the sexy but dimwitted Pietro, only laughs. Turri, on the other hand, gets to work and builds a writing machine that becomes the talk of the town, allowing the blind contessa to communicate with the outside world as her family would prefer to diminish her involvement with life.
Ms. Wallace has created a tough minded, passionate character in Carolina, a woman who uses her brains and wit to adjust to her circumscribed condition. She also cleverly points out the duality of human relationships in that it takes two male characters of varying strengths and weakness to satisfy one woman, and even then, not completely. What a delightfully subversive idea!
Thursday, March 24, 2011
On The Fleeting Nature of Fame
It's possible that many of my readers are not in the library profession - possible but not probable. For those who aren't, I need to preface this post with an explanation of "weeding." It's one of my favorite and most difficult of job duties. Libraries pride themselves on keeping an up-to-date, relevant collection. They are also notoriously lacking in space!
The neat freak in me really loves cleaning up the shelves, getting rid of dog-eared, outdated paperbacks and odoriferous (smokers, you have no idea the damage you do), food stained hardcovers, but the book lover in me sobs to see so many beautiful tomes that have rarely been opened. Naturally, the ones that haven't been checked out in years are the ones I would want to read: the Booker finalists, the Pen/Faulkner award nominees, novels written by authors no longer on our radar screens, who once stood before adoring fans reading passages from literature they hoped would stand the test of time.
So why doesn't it? Are readers too lazy? Do they want to stick with the same old/same old and never venture into something new and wonderful? Where are the readers like my mother who spent hours, after school or on Saturdays, three noisy little readers in tow, perusing the shelves at the Mason Library looking for that little gem?
If I could, I'd take every single one of these "gems" home and create my "retirement library" where I'll one day sit and read for hours playing catch up. If there is any kind of existence after this one, I hope all these unloved books will join me as I read and blog into eternity. In the meantime, perhaps they will reach an unexpected, grateful, audience somewhere out there.
The neat freak in me really loves cleaning up the shelves, getting rid of dog-eared, outdated paperbacks and odoriferous (smokers, you have no idea the damage you do), food stained hardcovers, but the book lover in me sobs to see so many beautiful tomes that have rarely been opened. Naturally, the ones that haven't been checked out in years are the ones I would want to read: the Booker finalists, the Pen/Faulkner award nominees, novels written by authors no longer on our radar screens, who once stood before adoring fans reading passages from literature they hoped would stand the test of time.
So why doesn't it? Are readers too lazy? Do they want to stick with the same old/same old and never venture into something new and wonderful? Where are the readers like my mother who spent hours, after school or on Saturdays, three noisy little readers in tow, perusing the shelves at the Mason Library looking for that little gem?
If I could, I'd take every single one of these "gems" home and create my "retirement library" where I'll one day sit and read for hours playing catch up. If there is any kind of existence after this one, I hope all these unloved books will join me as I read and blog into eternity. In the meantime, perhaps they will reach an unexpected, grateful, audience somewhere out there.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Evening with the Authors
Heather Graham, Susan Elizabeth Philips and Ted Bell were among the many who attended the Evening with the Authors at the Royal Palm Yacht Club. So much fun and so down to earth, I'm not sure why I expect authors to walk on water! Guess what? They think we do to!
Oh, and my wish was granted. Yes, I got to meet and introduce the beautiful Alice Hoffman. No, Blackwell is not Becket but a figment of her imagination!
Oh, and my wish was granted. Yes, I got to meet and introduce the beautiful Alice Hoffman. No, Blackwell is not Becket but a figment of her imagination!
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