Goodbye to All That

Finished August 9

Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves

I've had this book for a while and picked it up to meet a reading challenge. This memoir was first published in 1929 and was very controversial for its honest portrayal of the realities of World War I and of the author's personal life. My copy has an epilogue from 1957 that gives an brief overview of his life since then. The epilogue had an interesting Canadian connection as he mentions an officer he'd met during the war was now a Canadian politician. It was just after this was written that Pearson became leader of the Liberal party and later, our 14th prime minister. 

Graves work talks about his early life and growing up in Wales, with influences from his father's Irish side of the family and his mother's German side of the family. The main portion of the book covers his World War I experiences, and they are written almost dispassionately, telling of the horrors of being on the front lines, the violence and conditions of war, and of the friendships formed. Graves had many friends who were also writers and poets, and one of them that appears repeatedly is Siegfried Sassoon, another officer who had some German ancestry. The realities of the war are sometimes hard to read, and unfathomable for me to understand how anyone could have lived through it without psychological damage. 

He also talks about his marriage to Nancy Nicholson, who he first met in April 1916 at a friend's house he visited and who he corresponded with after that. She was just sixteen at the time, and they married when she was eighteen and he was twenty-two. Nancy was an artist and an ardent feminist who wanted a full life. I was surprised to see what an equal marriage it was, with them sharing the parenting of their four children, and him doing the cooking for the household. They struggled financially, with his writing providing their main income. They did go to Cairo for a year where he taught at a university, but he didn't enjoy it and they didn't fit into the expatriate society well. He had both a brother and sister in Cairo at the time, and while they were welcoming, particularly his sister, they didn't have the same outlook on life. 

The title of the book represents his feeling at the end of the time he was writing about. When his marriage to Nancy ended, he left England and lived in Majorca (except for the years of World War II, where he did return to England)

I am really glad I read this book as it offers a glimpse into personal experiences at the time.

A Chance Meeting

Finished February 23

A Chance Meeting: American Encounters by Rachel Cohen

I received this book as part of a subscription from the New York Review Books. It was an interesting read, and I think you could read the sections that interested you most, rather than the whole thing in order. The only issue with doing that would be the background she gives the first time you encounter one of the subjects of her writing. There are many people who appear more than once as they 'encounter' someone else, but the background is given more deeply during the first time they appear, which is actually great if you are reading in order, because you would end up being bored by the repetition otherwise. 

The forward by Vijay Seshadri is insightful and helps place this work in context. 

There are many interesting people covered in the thirty-six encounters here, and I learned a lot about even the ones that I was already familiar with. She includes writers, editors, photographers, artists, critics, and entertainers. Here is a list of the encounters:

1. Henry James and Mathew Brady

2. William Dean Howells and Annie Adams Fields and Walt Whitman

3. Mathew Brady and Ulysses S. Grant

4. William Dean Howells and Henry James

5. Walt Whitman and Mathew Brady

6. Mark Twain and William Dean Howells

7. Mark Twain and Ulysses S. Grant

8. W.E.B. Du Bois and William James

9. Gertrude Stein and William James

10. Henry James and Annie Adams Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett

11. Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz

12. Willa Cather and Mark Twain

13. Willa Cather and Annie Adams Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett

14. Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz and Gertrude Stein

15. Carl Van Vechten and Gertrude Stein

16. Marcel Duchamp and Alfred Stieglitz

17. Willa Cather and Edward Steichen and Katherine Anne Porter

18. Alfred Stieglitz and Hart Crane

19. Hart Crane and Charlie Chaplin

20. Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston

21. Beauford Delaney and W.E.B. Du Bois

22. Hart Crane and Katherine Anne Porter

23. Elizabeth Bishop and Marianne Moore

24. Zora Neale Hurston and Carl Van Vechten

25. Joseph Cornell and Marcel Duchamp

26. Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin

27. Joseph Cornell and Marianne Moore

28. James Baldwin and Norman Mailer

29. Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop

30. John Cage and Richard Avedon

31. W.E.B. Du Bois and Charlie Chaplin

32. Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten and Richard Avedon

33. Richard Avedon and James Baldwin

34. Marianne Moore and Norman Mailer

35. John Cage and Marcel Duchamp

36. Norman Mailer and Robert Lowell

The Summer without Men

Finished June 28

The Summer without Men by Siri Hustvedt.

This short novel is very engaging. Mia Fredrickson, the narrator and central character, had a breakdown after her husband of thirty years left her for another woman, a French woman that Mia refers to as 'The Pause'. She was hospitalized for a short time, diagnosed with a Brief Psychotic Disorder, and once she was well, decided to return for a few months to the small Minnesota town of her childhood. She rents a small house near the senior complex where her mother lives in a small apartment. She also gets a job teaching a group of teen girls poetry. 

Her mother has a group of friends that spend a lot of time together, and Mia thinks of them as the Five Swans. She regards them as women who "shared a mental toughness and autonomy that gave them a veneer of enviable freedom". We get to know these women. George is one hundred and two and has a great sense of humour. Regina is eighty-eight had married a diplomat and lived in several countries and had several relationships after her husband's death. Peg, at eighty-four spent her life in a smaller town nearby, and has six children and numerous grandchildren that she keeps detailed track of. Abigail, at ninety-four has osteoporosis and hearing issues, worked as a teacher, but is a textile artist with hidden depths that she gradually reveals to Mia. 

We also get to know the teenagers. Mia has taught graduate students for years, but she adjusts quickly to this younger group of students. Peyton, thin and tall, is still getting used to her longer limbs. Jessica is small but has a woman's body, and talks in a babyish voice. Ashley is self conscious, but confident of her developing body. Emma is shy. Nikki and Joan function in tandem and giggle a lot. Alice has moved recently from Chicago, and is interested in books and art. Mia teaches them three times a week for six weeks, giving them interesting exercises and prompts for their writing. 

Mia also starts getting anonymous emails that are nasty and critical. When she begins to engage with this unknown person, the conversation becomes very interesting. 

She also has emails with her husband Boris and her daughter Daisy. During the summer both Daisy and Mia's sister Bea visit her. 

She also engages with the family living next door to her house, Lola and Pete, and their children Flora, and Simon. Flora makes quite an impression with her stuffed animal menagerie and her Harpo wig. Lola makes and sells jewelry and is a calm and capable mother. Pete travels a lot for work and Mia seldom interacts with him. She hears the arguments between the couple and helps sometimes with the children when Lola gets overwhelmed. She describes Flora so well, I can see her in my head. 

Scattered throughout the novel are poems, some by other poets, some by the teen characters, but many of Mia's own, and this is part of the skill with language that Hustvedt has. She also has insights that touched me. One example is this:

Sitting across from her in the small apartment, I had the thought that my mother was a place for me as well as a person. ...But it was my mother herself whom I had come home to.

Her other insights about her mother were also interesting to reflect on. Mia cooks for her mother and visits, listening to her talk about earlier times in her life, and walks back to her rented house reflecting on her own life. She has weekly telephone sessions with her psychiatrist Dr. S. and spends time writing poetry. 

This is a novel that drew me in, that made me read slowly with attention, and that made me care about the characters. A gem. 

Executor

Finished May 24

Executor by Louise Carson

This novel is a mystery novel with a literary and social justice slant. Peter Forrest, a York University professor and poet, finds that one of his mentors, the poet Eleanor Brandon, has died, and named him her literary executor. Peter and Eleanor had a personal relationship at one point, after his failed first marriage, but it didn't last, and Peter is now happily married and plans to travel to China in the coming days to finalize the adoption of their third child from that country. 

Eleanor's death, despite her illness, was not a natural one, and there is some question about whether it is suicide or murder, and Peter is on the suspect list. 

As Peter goes through her papers, he finds that many of her more recent poems reflect her social activism on behalf of Chinese dissidents. On his trip to China to pick up young Annie, he finds several things suspicious. First, young Annie doesn't look like the photo they received of her. Then, he finds his visit to her orphanage raising questions about the staff there. On an outing with her, he is approached by a Chinese man who passes him some information. 

As he maneuvers the security of both Chinese and Canadian government workers, he keeps his eyes and ears open for more things that seem suspicious. 

Despite Peter's intention to stick to only the literary side of Eleanor's legacy, he finds it entangled with her social activism and impossible to separate from it. 

Now, his worry is who might be behind her death and whether he and his family are in danger. 

This was a book that drew in aspects of international diplomacy and several issues that have been raised around China with a more personal story. 

A quick and interesting read. 

The Summer Before the War

Finished July 10

The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson

This historical novel takes place mostly in the summer  of 1914 in the small coastal town of Rye in East Sussex. Agatha Kent is one of the women who makes things happen in the town. She is progressive to a degree and protective of her own. Often, her nephews, Hugh Grange and Daniel Bookham, spent their summers there. Agatha's husband John works in the government and gets down from London when he can. Hugh is studying to be a surgeon and Daniel is a poet, who aspires to larger literary pursuits with his friend Craigmore North.

Beatrice Nash has been living with her father's family since his death, but can't go on doing so. She was close to her father who was a writer, and she acted as his secretary and assistant for as long as she can remember, travelling widely with him. Agatha has arranged for her to take over as Latin teacher at their local school, and Beatrice is both thankful for the opportunity to make her own way, and a bit nervous at the prospect of teaching. 

Hugh has been tutoring three of the boys from the school in Latin, but is happy to hand them over to Beatrice for the summer. The boys: Jack, Richard (Snout), and Arty are to be tutored by Beatrice during that time. 

As Beatrice navigates the politics of the small town, and the responsibilities of her position, she also makes friends and tries for some small changes.

Another female in town who has pushed for Beatrice to be taken on as Latin teacher is Lady Emily Wheaton, who has two grown children, with her daughter married to a German duke. 

As the war begins, the men in town are drawn away to military pursuits and the women find themselves called in different directions. 

There are some scenes at the front with Hugh visiting Daniel and his unit there. 

This is a book that shows the ways of society before the this world-changing war, and gives a hint of the aims and dreams of the young generation that will end up giving the most in this war. We see the traditions of this rural community in the celebration of the hop harvest and the military parade of the local soldiers. 

The way the community welcomed some Belgian refugees was also interesting in many ways, and displayed prejudices and social commentary. 

This is a book that truly makes you care about several of the characters and brings them to life with their own personalities. From Snout to Agatha, and Beatrice to Hugh, we get a glimpse into their lives which will be changed forever. 

Letters to a Young Poet with the Letters to Rilke from the "Young Poet"

Finished June 28

Letters to a Young Poet with the Letters to Rilke from the "Young Poet" by Rainer Maria Rilke and Franz Xaver Kappus, translated by Damion Searls

This is a classic, paired with the other half of the correspondence that it was part of. The letters are written over several months and were an interlude in both the writer's lives, with no significant connection between them beyond this. One thing that struck me was the relative closeness in age between the two, although Rilke had already launched his career. Rilke's writing, even in this private correspondence (never published until after his death) was much superior to that of Kappus. Kappus definitely sounds like a fanboy, and his writing includes a lot of fawning and thanking. 

Rilke is patient, thoughtful, and diplomatic. His writing stands the test of time, and in some cases was ahead of its time. One selection from Letter Seven is a great example:

The girl, the woman, in this new manner of unfolding specific to her, will only transitionally imitate masculine ways of being, both good and bad, and follow the same male callings, do the same male jobs. After the uncertainty of these transitions has passed, it will be clear that women have passed through this multiplicity of (often ridiculous) disguises only to purify their own essential nature from the distorting influences of the other sex. Women, in whom life dwells and tarries more immediately, more intimately, more fruitfully, must surely have become fundamentally more mature, more human human beings, than the easygoing man, not pulled down beneath the surface of life by any difficult bodily fruit, who overhastily, arrogantly undervalues what he thinks he loves. This humanity of the woman, carried to term through pain and humiliation, will come to light once her outward position has changed and she has thrown off her conventional status as "only a woman'; the men today who don't see this coming will be baffled and shattered. Someday (and trustworthy portents of this are already speaking and shining, especially in the countries of the north) -- someday there will be a girl, a woman, who name no longer signifies merely the opposite of male but something in and of itself, existing, alive, implying no limit and requiring no complement--; the female human being.

As you can see from this passage, the letters convey not just advice particular to the recipient, but general life advice and commentary that will help any young person with their struggles, and put things in perspective for them. I can see why Rilke's letters are a classic.

Song of a Captive Bird

Finished October 19

Song of a Captive Bird by Jasmin Darznik

This novel is a fictionalized biography of Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad. The author had seen a poetry book of her mother's as a child and later became fascinated by not only the poetry of Forugh, but of the woman herself and her very unconventional life.

Forugh was born in Tehran, the third of seven children, and the daughter of a military officer. She pushed the boundaries on behaviour, trying to engage in the same activities as her brothers. She began writing poetry at a young age, partly to capture the attention and approval of her traditional father, poetry being a revered art in Iran. But as she grew into womanhood and her life became more circumscribed, she found a way out by marrying at the age of 16 to a cousin. But her urge to write continued and it led her to another life. 

Darznik explores this life, both the poet's inner life and drive to write poetry that broke the norms of her era and gender, and the outer life, as a divorcee, a woman who lived independently, and the mistress of a well-known film producer. 

Forugh comes to life here, with her passion and impetuousness, and her daring to follow her dreams. I enjoyed learning more about this poet and her legacy.