This Is What Happens

May 9, 2013 at 7:47 am (Books, Links, Surprises, television, Weather)
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Umm, self simply cannot let go of this “Game of Thrones” Jamie Lannister/ Brienne of Tarth thing!  So, until self gets to a really interesting, quotable part of The Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James (she managed to breeze through Little Heathens, the remaining 150 pages, which were all about milking, walking to school in deep snow, etc)  –  which might, actually, already have happened, because in the very first paragraph of the Preface, James reveals that he wrote this novel over three months in Florence and several weeks in Venice!  And what self wants to know is:  How can anyone get any writing done in Italy?  That country is the buzz-kill of all buzz-kills!  In the future, she will only go if she wants to eat.  And eat.  And eat –

Back to “Game of Thrones” things.  And all the wee digressions leading there-to.

Self fell asleep right after The Man got home.  It’s like, everything inside her builds and builds, and then The Man gets home, and she is all normal again.

So, she was all normal ten minutes after The Man got home.  He decided to walk The Ancient One, because it was hot enough.  Seriously, what’s with this weather?  It was cold all the way until 3 p.m., and then it became scorching hot.  This is definitely not the kind of weather pattern self enjoys.

In fact, self was so normal, she fell asleep.  For six straight hours.  She vaguely remembers The Man asking her where the trash can in the bathroom was.  She vaguely remembers telling The Man that she made his dinner:  ravioli with every left-over in the fridge chopped up and sprinkled on top.  With minced oregano from the garden.

Then, self woke at midnight, feeling completely energized and ready to get started with her day.  So she naturally continued her internet explorations of Jamie Lannister and Brienne of Tarth (She has no intention of reading the books, mind you.  Which makes her a total Philistine.  Stop reading right now!)  And now she has stumbled on a site called winteriscoming.net.  And here is an excerpt from an interview that FaB and three other journalists conducted with the intrepid pair, March 21 of this year.  It’s very, very entertaining:

FaB:   You were very muddy through all of last season.

Nikolaj:   That doesn’t change though.

FaB:   Nothing?  No bathing?   No one’s thought to wash you down . . .  ?  Give you a bath . . .  ?

FEEL FREE TO MENTALLY INSERT THE SLY MICHAEL MYERS DR. EVIL RAISED PINKIE LOOK I WAS GIVING BOTH OF THEM.

Nikolaj (after a casual shrug):   Maybe we . . .  might have a bath.  At some time.

Terri catches on quickly, leaning forward, and asks, “May we say there could be bathing in season three?  Or . . .  is that in future seasons . . .  ?  This . . . POTENTIAL bath . . . ?”

Some polite coughing ensues.  But I cannot stress enough how each reporter is now . . .  slowly . . .  beginning . . .  to lean forward.  We’re so eager!

Gwendoline (casually):  I think everyone washes.  Don’t they?

Terri has the tail of a fish and refuses to let go, saying, “In the woods?  Do they?  I guess there are streams (innocently).  Maybe . . . “

Nikolaj (smiling casually):  I think Jaime would love a bath.

Everyone in the room pretty much agrees that yes, yes he would.  And yes, a bath would be a good thing.

And there’s more!  But for the rest of the interview, you will just have to go here.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

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A Post About Rabbits

May 8, 2013 at 5:11 pm (Books, Dearest Mum, Family, Food and Drink, Memoirs, Surprises, Weather, Women Writers)
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It is chilly inside the house.  But if the past few days are any indication, the clouds will eventually disperse and by late afternoon, the garden will be baking in heat.  It’s a miracle anything endures through late spring/ summer/ early fall in this place.

Self has Little Heathens:  Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression balanced on her lap  (Seriously, she’s getting sick of typing that title over and over and over, every time she posts about this book.  But since she isn’t even halfway — she started reading it last week in Trieste, and has so far made it to p. 136 — she must persevere).

P. 137 is about killing rabbits.

Sole Fruit of Her Loins’ first ambulatory pet was a rabbit named –  something or other.  Her cousin, a little ruffian named Niko, came over one day, got the rabbit out of its cage and, when no one was home (Dearest Mum was supposed to be baby-sitting but anyone who thinks Dearest Mum can baby-sit is probably living on the moon), strangled the poor little creature to death.

Since Son was absolutely distraught, we got him another rabbit.  This one was an enormous and aggressive creature whose pee spray arced for yards.

We finally gave it away and adopted Bella the Beagle, who is still alive today, still sniffing after morsels of food and still coloring our lives with joy.

Eons ago, when self had an artists residency in Mojacar, her favorite thing to do on weekends was to visit the markets in outlying towns.  There, she saw rabbits.  Many, many rabbits.  All in cages.  Self did not actually think about the strange importance of rabbits to the villages of southern Spain.  Not until the fateful day when dinner was served and it was –  eeeek! –  rabbit.

Self has seen Winter’s Bone.  Although she believes that was a squirrel Jennifer Lawrence was cooking for her siblings, not rabbit, the sight of skinned squirrel must be very similar to skinned rabbit.  In fact, you could probably skin them the same way.

And then:  Did you know that it takes “at least two rabbits to make a meal” for a family of seven “because there are only three good pieces to each one:  the saddle of the back and the two hind legs,” and “rabbits have almost no fat”?

In addition, self realizes that she has the same coping mechanism to stress as a rabbit.  Ms Kalish:  “We all knew that when a rabbit senses approaching danger, it will frequently freeze rather than run.  We also knew that a rabbit will leap forward when it does try to escape.”  So, the best strategy is to wait for a rabbit to lunge “forward from its hiding place,” grasp it firmly by the head, then swing it by its hind legs and deliver a sharp whack to the back of its head.  Ms. Kalish again:  “Rabbits have weak necks.  Everyone knew that . . . “

A heartwarming description of how to skin a rabbit follows.

And then a heartwarming description of how to boil a hog’s head.

What is really interesting is that this redoubtable farm woman has her current residence listed as Atherton, California.  And has apparently lived to a great old age (92) in spite of apparently daily ingestions of bacon, hog, and other high-cholesterol food.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

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Heavy Philosophical Question of the Day

May 4, 2013 at 1:00 pm (Books, Links, Memoirs, Recommended, Women Writers)
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Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs from thistles?

That question (which may well be a quote from the Bible) can be found on p. 68 of Mildred Armstrong Kalish’s beguiling memoir Little Heathens:  Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm, which self began reading a few days ago.

Self has arrived home safe and sound, dear blog readers, minus one piece of luggage, which had all her dirty laundry and a few purchases.  Perhaps some enterprising Venetian is, at this very moment, sharing her clothing with his family.  By an extreme stroke of luck, the thief took the bag which did not have self’s passport or laptop or the glass dolphin she was going to give to son.  Self is glad none of the clothing was particularly fine or new.  She did lose one library book, which she learns will be $14 to replace.  And she lost her moisturizer.  As well as three pairs of jeans.

Re-entry into America was grueling:  the line for U.S. citizens was at least 500 people long at the time self joined it.  Then she got treated to extra screening, in a small room where an immigration officer went carefully through every single page of her passport (Her passport has visa stamps from, among other places, Berlin, Tel Aviv, Bangkok, Cambodia, Hong Kong, the Philippines of course, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom.  Her next 10 years will not be anywhere nearly as exciting, self knows)

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

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Going

April 17, 2013 at 5:40 am (Books, Links, Lists, Recommended, Traveling, Venice)
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There are things she has to decide:

  • Should she bring a pound of Peet’s coffee, because Margarita said it would be nice to be able to make coffee in the apartment and her supply is getting low?
  • Should she forget toting along a few of her favorite magazines:  One Story and The New Yorker?
  • Should she bring along Traveler’s Tales:  Italy?

Here are the books she is definitely bringing with her:

  • Alexei J. Cohen’s Moon Handbook of Italy
  • DK Eyewitness Guide to Venice
  • Per Petterson’s Out Stealing Horses (She began it last night:  yes, she did indeed read to the very last page of Don Quijote)
  • Little Heathens:  Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm in the Great Depression, by Mildred Armstrong Kalish (The book title is almost as long as the book!)

She’s also bringing a print-out of all the movie locations used in the Nicolas Roeg movie Don’t Look Now (Just to show you the difference in approach:  Margarita’s all-important print-out is of the walks taken by Donna Leon’s Inspector Bruni!)

There are the directions to the apartment where Margarita will be waiting:  Vaporetto to San Toma, Stop # 2.  At end of calle, make a right.  Continue towards Campiello S. Toma.  Pass a bar (Ciak Uno).  Pass a little bridge.  Pass Casa Goldoni. Pass Nomboli Café.  Follow calle all the way down to the water, then make a right.  Look for apartment.  (Margarita’s directions read, verbatim:  “There is a right turn that needs to be made after the Casa Goldoni, but no street appears on the map, so the line running through the map just ends on the street Goldoni is on –  but there’s a right turn there somewhere!”)

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

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The List

April 15, 2013 at 5:08 am (Books, Links, Lists, Recommended, Traveling, Venice)
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Old Navy pea coat (red).  Three pairs of jeans.  1 black cardigan.  1 black turtleneck.  1 very old elastic-waist skirt (mid-calf length, old lady-ish).  Favorite (loose) top:  green plaid with pintucks.  2 favorite sweaters (black and blush pink).  3 pairs of thick socks.  Thermal leggings.  Journal.  Diary.  2 Rolling Ball V5 black pens.  2 boxes of Thermacare Shoulder Wraps.  Toothbrush.  Dental Floss.  Toothpaste.  L’Fisher Chalet complimentary bar of soap.  Passport.  Grey sweatpants.  Nikon Coolpix.  MacBook Air.  1 library copy of Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady.  1 library copy of Little Heathens:  Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression (Self knows not how she can focus on a book about Iowa while in La Serenissima, but she never, ever reads the books on her reading list out of order).  Moon Handbooks: Italy, by Alexei J. Cohen.  DK Eyewitness Guide to Venice.  1 pair of REALLY OLD sneakers.  Print-out of directions to the apartment in Calle Whatever off Campo Where?  Reservation for Tour of the Doge’s Palace.  1 Scarf.  Benadryl.  Maybe a couple of New Yorkers.  Print-out of film locations used in the movie Don’t Look Now.  Shades.

Thank you.  Stay tuned.

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Camila, Anselmo, Lothario and the Bold Servant-Girl Leonela (A Fable from DON QUIJOTE, by Miguel Cervantes)

March 30, 2013 at 8:56 pm (Books)
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Self is currently on Volume 1, Chapter 34 of Don Quijote (the translation by Burton Raffel):

It so happened that a very stupid man named Anselmo wanted to test his wife Camila’s modesty and virtue by asking his friend (Lothario) to woo her and see if she would submit to temptation.

So Lothario did woo Camila, and she did fall in love with him, and then she had second thoughts, wondering if perhaps she hadn’t submitted too quickly, but her maid Leonela hastens to assure Her Ladyship:

” . . .  don’t let all these misgivings and finicky notions trouble your mind, but be confident that Lothario values you as you value him, and be happy and well satisfied that, having been caught in love’s noose, it’s one distinctly worthy of having snared you.  Not only do you have the four S’s that all good lovers are supposed to have (solo, solicito, sabio, secreto:  “unattached, attentive, sensible, secret”), but you have a whole alphabet:  just listen, and you’ll see how I can recite it by heart.  Your lover –  as far as I can tell — is

Grateful (Agadecido)
Good (Bueno)
A Gentleman (Caballero)
Generous (Dadivoso)
In Love (Enamorado)
Steadfast (Firme)
Gallant (Gallardo)
Honest (Honrado)
Distinguished (Ilustre)
Loyal (Leal)
Young (Mozo)
Noble (Noble)
Modest (Onesto)
Renowned (Principal)
Solid (Quantioso)
Rich (Rico)
– and all the S’s I’ve said already — and then
Close-mouthed (Tacito)
True (Verdadero)
– and X isn’t right for him, because it’s a harsh letter –
– and we’ve already said Y (that is, I)
and Z, Zealous for your honor (Zelador)

What a very astute servant girl Leonela is! Knows just the right words to calm her Mistress’s fears. And so learned: look how quickly she came up with that Abecedario (ABC)!

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

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Still Lost in ANNA KARENINA

March 18, 2013 at 11:54 pm (Books)
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Self is resisting the ending so much that she’s continuously re-reading.

A few nights ago, she was within 100 pages of the end (p. 850), but now she’s back on p. 504.

Anna Karenina is probably self’s favorite novel in years (One can always tell which books are her favorites because they take self aaaages to finish).  Lately, her favorite reads have tended to be history –  like Adrian Goldsworthy’s Caesar:  Life of a Colossus.  That book took her three weeks to finish, last year.

Ian McEwan’s Atonement took up most of March 2012 (She was in Bacolod.  Reading, there, is like heaven.  Or, anyway, was like heaven.  Now self thinks that is purely an “outsider” experience.  If one truly belonged to Bacolod, one would be too busy to read anything except the newspapers.  Or e-mail)

One of self’s favorite characters in Anna Karenina is Levin.  She loves his farming musings, his tussles with his laborers, his anguish over his unrequited love(s).  On p. 504, Levin has been married to Kitty for three months.  Tolstoy is so sly a writer that he can’t leave Levin alone.  No!  Now Levin must understand something he didn’t know before:

At every step he found his former dreams disappointed, and new, unexpected surprises of happiness.  He was happy; but upon entering upon family life, he saw at every step that it was utterly different from what he had imagined.  At every step he experienced what a man would experience who, after admiring the smooth, happy course of a little boat on a lake, should get himself into that little boat.  He saw that it was not all sitting still, floating smoothly; that one had to think too, not for an instant to forget where one was floating; and that there was water under one, and that one must row; and that his unaccustomed hands would be sore; and that it was only to look at it that was easy; but that doing it, though very delightful, was very difficult.

During the month following Levin and Kitty’s wedding, the two experienced “a peculiarly vivid sense of tension, as it were, a tugging in opposite directions of the chain by which they were bound.  Altogether . . .  the month after their wedding –  from which by tradition Levin expected so much, was not merely a time of sweetness, but remained in the memories of both as the bitterest and most humiliating period of their lives.”

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

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Reading ANNA KARENINA: 20 Days In

March 14, 2013 at 5:16 am (Books, Recommended)
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This book, thus far, has set a record for “longest time self has spent reading one book,” at least in 2013.

The only other book that’s held her attention for more than a week was Bicycle Diaries, David Byrne’s account of biking in far-flung corners of the world (including Manila), which took her two weeks to finish, in January.  But it’s been 20 days now, and self is still a long way from the end of Anna Karenina.  She just can’t get enough of Tolstoy’s characters, and reads and re-reads and parses his sentences and laughs and cries and –  let’s just say, the book still holds her firmly in its thrall.

Here she is on p. 538 (538!  How could Tolstoy come up with such massive tomes?  When he had so many children and was such a pro-active landowner?  Methinks Mrs. Tolstoy must have been a saint!) of the Modern Library edition:

Countess Lydia Ivanovna had long ceased being in love with her husband, but from that time she had never ceased being in love with someone.  She was in love with several people at once, both men and women;  she had been in love with almost everyone who had been particularly distinguished in any way.  She was in love with all the new princes and princesses who married into the Imperial family; she had been in love with a metropolitan, a vicar, and a priest; she had been in love with a journalist, three Slavs, with Komisarov, a minister, a doctor, an English missionary, and Karenin.  All these passions, constantly waning or growing more ardent, did not prevent her from keeping up the most extended and complicated relations with the court high society.  But from the time after Karenin’s trouble she took him under her special protection, from the time she set to work on Karenin’s household looking after his welfare, she felt that all her other attachments were not the real thing, and that she was more generally in love, and with no one but Karenin.  The feeling she now experienced for him seemed to her stronger than any of her former feelings.  Analyzing her feeling, and comparing it with former passions, she distinctly perceived that she would not have been in love with Komisarov if he had not saved the life of the Tsar,* that she would not have been in love with Ristich-Kudzhitsky if there had been no Slav Question, but that she loved Karenin for himself, for his lofty, misunderstood soul, for the –  to her — high-pitched sound of his voice, for his drawling inflections which she thought charming, his weary eyes, his character, and his soft white hands with their swollen veins.  She was not simply overjoyed at meeting him, but she sought in his face signs of the impression she was making on him.  She tried to please him, not only by her words, but in her whole person.

(And the Countess is a minor character.  One of a whole host of minor characters who Tolstoy brings to life in a mere paragraph or two)

*  Komisarov saved Aleksandr II from being shot by knocking the pistol from the hand of a would-be assassin.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

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Reading Still Further in ANNA KARENINA

March 7, 2013 at 4:32 am (Books, television)
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(Dear blog readers, if you have not read the book, and want to save some suspense for when you actually do get around to reading it, read no further.  On the other hand, if you are a student who has just been assigned this heavy novel to read, and have no desire to read it, one could actually pick up a thing or two from reading the rest of this post, though you will be damned to that special hell reserved for students who willingly give up intellectual stimulation for temporal expediency)

Anna gets so ill everyone thinks she is going to die.

Her husband forgives her, so moved is he to pity by her tragic fate. He even allows Anna’s lover, Vronsky, to mourn at his dying wife’s bedside. And when Anna has Vronsky’s baby, Karenin loves it and plays with it as if the child were his own.

What a stellar, absolutely moral and upright man (sort of like Christopher Tietjens in Parade’s End, which self will blog about further, when she’s done with Anna Karenina.  The Man is completely hooked by the story and has already watched all the episodes.  Self staunchly refuses to watch with him because she loves taking it slow.  That way, she gets to parse every twitch of Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall’s stiff upper lips.  She did watch the previews for Episode 3, and there is a scene in which Christopher Tietjens says to Blonde Suffragette:  “When I get back from the war, will you be my mistress?”  And what do you think the Blonde Suffragette says in response?  Just imagine how you would respond if  Cumberbatch/Tietjens were to pose such a question to you, female readers!)

And now, back to Anna Karenina!

That old master, Tolstoy, does not permit Anna K to die.  No, that would be far too simple.  Anna recovers!  And then it’s back to the same-old, same-old.

On pp. 446- 447 of the Modern Library edition, Anna’s husband, Karenin, reflects on his decision not to divorce her:

Never had the impossibility of his situation in the world’s eyes, and his wife’s hatred of him, and altogether the power of that mysterious, brutal force that guided his life contrary to his inner mood, and exacted conformity with its decrees and change in his attitude towards his wife, been presented to him with such distinctness as that day.  He saw clearly that the world as a whole, and his wife, demanded –  but what exactly, he could not make out.  He felt that this was rousing in his soul a feeling of anger destructive of his peace of mind and achievement of any value.  He believed that for Anna herself it would be better to break off all relations with Vronsky; but if they all thought this out of the question, he was even ready to allow these relations to be renewed, so long as the children were not disgraced and he was not deprived of them or forced to change his position.  Bad as this might be, it was better than a complete break, which would put her in a hopeless and shameful position and deprive him of everything he cared for.  But he felt helpless;  he knew beforehand that everyone was against him, and that he would not be allowed to do what seemed to him now so natural and good, but would be forced to do what was wrong, though it seemed the proper thing to them.

This book is not just about Anna K, dear blog readers.  It’s equally about the compromises Anna’s husband feels he is being forced to make, in order to retain some of society’s respect.  Tolstoy, you’re such a sly one:  you’re a true master at showing the unpredictability of human emotions.

That coward, Vronsky, tried to kill himself but missed his heart (if in fact he was ever in possession of one) and survived, even though it was an hour before help came.  Imagine that!

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

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Self’s Reading Life (February 2013 Edition)

February 16, 2013 at 5:24 am (Books, Lists, Recommended, Women Writers)
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Self finished Graham Greene’s The Human Factor last night.

BTW, the words “the human factor” never occur at all in the book.  But they so aptly sum up the story.

Every word of this novel is absolutely necessary.  Not a bit of flab anywhere.  It is as hard and tight as a drum.

Before this, the best mystery self read was Morag Joss’s Half-Broken Things (which, strangely, Blackwells didn’t carry.  Self was so confused:  she kept telling the salespeople at Blackwells how much she loved Morag Joss, who is Scottish though she teaches in England).  She read Half-Broke Things several years ago, and never read a “genre” book that came close (though Ruth Rendell has been closing).

Gad, did Graham Greene ever nail it, though.  He nailed it!  Self forgot everything while she was reading the closing pages, and when she read the last sentence, it caught her heart in a vice.

Then, self began reading the next book on her shelf, which was The Black Count, by Tom Reiss, about the general who fathered the writer Alexandre Dumas, and who was the model for the Count of Monte Cristo.  Of course, it was so fascinating to read the opening pages and to realize that the author of such swashbuckling tales as The Three Musketeers was a mulatto (His father, a general who fought alongside Bonaparte, was the son of a French marquis and a slave.)  But she kept itching to put the book aside in favor of Anna Karenina (which self has never read –  no, never)

This evening, self took a quick peek at Anna Karenina (the Modern Library version).  She skipped the Intro and the Preface, as she doesn’t want anything to spoil her response to the work itself.  She went to Chapter 1 and read:

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Everything was in confusion in the Oblonsky household.  The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an affair with their former French governess, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him.

Tolstoy is such a card.  Though the events described above are supposedly tragic, there is such wry humor in the way he phrases “she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him.”  As if, duty demanded no less of the wife, though it seems all for show.  For if no one else had noticed, the wife probably wouldn’t have been able to muster such a definitive break.

Reading this, self determines to return to The Black Count, for she wants to put off the pleasure of beginning Anna Karenina, for as long as possible.  Self is a devoted practitioner of the Art of Delayed Gratification.

Other classics self hopes to tackle in 2013:

  • War and Peace (She read this aaaages ago.  When she was expecting)
  • Don Quixote (She made several half-hearted attempts to begin this book while growing up in Manila.  Maybe now that three decades in America have cleared her head, maybe now she can actually finish it)
  • The Portrait of a Lady (She read this after she got to the States.  But would like to refresh her memory)

Self hardly reads novels anymore; last year, she read only 20, and most of them happened to be mysteries (except for Ian McEwan, Nicholson Baker, and F. Scott F).  But this year’s gotten off to a tremendous start, for The Human Factor positively slayed her.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

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