How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen—1997 - 75 Pages

 

"Reading has always been my home, my sustenance, my great invincible companion. . . . Yet of all the many things in which we recognize universal comfort—God, sex, food, family, friends—reading seems to be the one in which the comfort is most undersung, at least publicly, although it was really all I thought of, or felt, when I was eating up book after book, running away from home while sitting in a chair, traveling around the world and yet never leaving the room. . . . I read because I loved it more than any activity on earth.”—from How Reading Changed My Life

I spent a very pleasant two hours with How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen.

Quindlen’s memoir sings the praises of being a book drunkard and is critical of the notion that we should be reading solely as “a tool for advancement.” 

Quindlen, too, reads for pleasure. She shares her memories of the first book that “seized [her] completely by the throat”, so much so that she read it and reread it, believing that it was “the best book ever written.” Of course, now she admits it’s probably – critically speaking, at least – not very good, but still finds it “a good read, but no longer a masterwork.” All readers have a book like this in their personal canon..

"Anna Quindlen is a novelist and journalist whose work has appeared on fiction, nonfiction, and self-help bestseller lists. She is the author of many novels: Object Lessons, One True Thing, Black and Blue, Blessings, Rise and Shine, Every Last One, Still Life with Bread Crumbs, and Miller’s Valley. Her memoir Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, published in 2012, was a #1 New York Times bestseller. Her book A Short Guide to a Happy Life has sold more than a million copies. While a columnist at The New York Times she won the Pulitzer Prize and published two collections, Living Out Loud and Thinking Out Loud. Her Newsweek columns were collected in Loud and Clear" from the author's website 

The Last Tsar : The Abdication of Nicholas II and The Fall of the Romanovs by Tsuyosh Hasegawa. 2024 - 467 Pages

 

The Last Tsar : The Abdication of Nicholas II and The Fall of the Romanovs by Tsuyosh HasegawaThe Last Tsar -2024 - 467 Pages

Anyone with a serious interest in late Romanov history,  the Russian Revolution or World War One should seriously consider readingThe Last Tsar : The Abdication of Nicholas II and The Fall of the Romanovs by Tsuyosh Hasegawa.   

When Tsar Nicholas II fell from power in 1917, Imperial Russia faced a series of overlapping crises, from war to social unrest. Though Nicholas’s life is often described as tragic, it was not fate that doomed the Romanovs—it was poor leadership and a blinkered faith in autocracy.   

 

Based on a trove of new archival discoveries, The Last Tsar narrates how Nicholas’s resistance to reform doomed the monarchy. Encompassing the captivating personalities of the era—the bumbling Nicholas, his spiteful wife Alexandra, the family’s faith healer Rasputin—it untangles the dramatic struggle by Russia’s aristocratic, military, and legislative elite to reform the monarchy. By rejecting compromise, Nicholas undermined his supporters at crucial moments. His blunders cleared the way for all-out civil war and the eventual rise of the Soviet Union.  

 

Definitive and engrossing, The Last Tsar uncovers how Nicholas II stumbled into revolution, taking his family, the Romanov dynasty, and the whole Russian Empire down with him.

Tsuyoshi Hasegawa is professor emeritus in history at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The award-winning author of many books on Russian history, World War II, and the Cold War, he lives in Santa Barbara, California.

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (La Charme Discret de la Bourgeoisie)- 1972 - Directed by Luis Bunuel - 1 Hour 29 Minutes

 

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (La Charme Discret de la Bourgeoisie)- 1972 - Directed by Luis Bunuel 

Available on Amazon Prime Video 

Buñuel’s 1929 short film Un Chien Andalou, which he co-wrote with Spanish artist Salvador Dalí, is perhaps his most famous work, notorious for its grotesque close-up shot of an eyeball. But The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, which was released in 1972 and won an Academy award for best foreign language film, is his most financially successful and among his most acclaimed. The film is less a story  than a scattered series of incidents involving a handful of hungry socialites including François (Paul Frankeur), Simone (Delphine Seyrig) and Rafael Acosta (Fernando Rey), an ambassador from a South American nation

Their dinner plans never come to fruition for a variety of reasons, spanning simple misunderstandings to out-of-this-world surprises. After arriving at the house of Alice and Henri Sénéchal (Stéphane Audran and Jean-Pierre Cassel) on the wrong day, a decision is made to relocate to a nearby inn. The group sit down and contemplate what to order – discussing the hare pâté and whether to drink red wine or martinis. But after hearing the sound of weeping coming from the next room where the proprietor is lying dead on a bed, they lose their appetite and call off dinner

Another attempt at a meal is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of a group of army men – led by a joint-smoking Colonel, because why not – who consume all the food. Later still (this one’s my favourite) they’re seated at a table, everything finally looking like it’s coming together, two roast chickens brought out on a tray. But they discover … the chickens are made of plastic! Then a red curtain rises and it’s revealed that the diners are situated on a stage in front of a large audience. They are, it seems, for some reason or maybe no reason at all, now performers in a theatre production.

Attempting to rationalise what exactly is going on incorrectly assumes a degree of logic and a pathway to clear meaning. Buñuel’s most famous films have a curious relation to realism, often sustaining the moment-by-moment rhythms we associate with reality, then ditching rational or anticipated outcomes, or simply refusing to explain something essential.

The Soun̈d of Music - Directed by Robert Wise- Starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer -175 Minutes- 5 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director

 

The Soun̈d of Music - Directed by Robert Wise- Starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer -175 Minutes- 5 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director - Available on Amazon Prime Video 

The Sound of Music  is based on the real life story of the Von Trapp Family singers, one of the world's best-known concert groups in the era immediately preceding World War II. Julie Andrews plays the role of Maria, the tomboyish postulant at an Austrian abbey who becomes a governess in the home of a widowed naval captain with seven children, and brings a new love of life and music into the home.

The Sound of Music reigned for five years as the highest-grossing film in history. Its breathtaking photography and its many memorable songs, among them “My Favorite Things” and the title song, helped it to become an enduring classic. The nearly three-hour-long movie was nominated for 10 Academy Awards and won five, including those for best picture and best director.

The following day the captain leaves on a trip to Vienna. Upon learning that he will return with Baroness Elsa Schraeder (Eleanor Parker), whom he intends to marry, Maria determines to teach the children a song with which to greet the baroness. The captain and baroness return with their friend Max Detweiler (Richard Haydn), catching Maria and the children in a rowboat on the lake behind the house, which they overturn when they see the captain. The captain, displeased, fires Maria, but, when he hears the children singing for the baroness, he changes his mind. Max suggests that he enter the children in the upcoming Salzburg Festival, but the captain refuses. He does agree to host a ball, however. At the ball the baroness sees the captain dancing with Maria and realizes that they have feelings for each other. She tells Maria that she thinks that Maria is in love with the captain. Horrified, Maria packs and returns to the abbey.

The children are miserable without Maria, and the captain tells them that he and the baroness are to be married. At the abbey, the Mother Abbess tells Maria that she cannot hide from her feelings and must return to the von Trapps. After her return, the baroness and the captain break off their engagement, and the captain and Maria admit their love for each other. They marry in the abbey church.

Austria is annexed by Nazi Germany (the Anschluss) while they are on their honeymoon. While Max is rehearsing the children for the Salzburg Festival, Rolfe gives Liesl a telegram to give to her father upon his return. The telegram informs the captain that he is to report for duty in the German navy the following day. The captain and Maria decide that the family must leave Austria that night. However, Nazi troops led by Herr Zeller (Ben Wright) catch them pushing their car away from the house. The captain tells them that they are on their way to perform in the Salzburg Festival, and the Nazis escort them there. After the family performs, they escape to the abbey. The Nazis follow them there, and they hide among the catacombs. Rolfe, who is with the Nazi troops, spots them. He allows them to escape but then calls out that he has seen them. The von Trapps flee in the caretaker’s car, which the Nazis are following.

Germany (the Anschluss) while they are on their honeymoon. While Max is rehearsing the children for the Salzburg Festival, Rolfe gives Liesl a telegram to give to her father upon his return. The telegram informs the captain that he is to report for duty in the German navy the following day. The captain and Maria decide that the family must leave Austria that night. However, Nazi troops led by Herr Zeller (Ben Wright) catch them pushing their car away from the house. The captain tells them that they are on their way to perform in the Salzburg Festival, and the Nazis escort them there. After the family performs, they escape to the abbey. The Nazis follow them there, and they hide among the catacombs. Rolfe, who is with the Nazi troops, spots them. He allows them to escape but then calls out that he has seen them. The von Trapps flee in the caretaker’s car, which the Nazis are unable to follow because two nuns have sabotaged their cars.

Although The Sound of Music met with mixed reviews, it was an immediate and lasting hit with audiences, largely on the strength of the performance of Andrews, who had won the Academy Award for best actress for her role as the title character of Mary Poppins (1964). The movie had its genesis in the memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers (1949), by Maria Augusta Trapp. The book’s first film treatment was the West German movie Die Trapp-Familie (1956; The Trapp Family). It was reworked as a stage musical, The Sound of Music, with songs by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, which opened on Broadway in 1959 and won six Tony Awards. Director Robert Wise won praise for his lush adaptation of the musical to the screen. Noted “ghost singer” Marni Nixon made her on-camera debut in the movie as Sister Sophia.

The Shop Around The Corner - !940 - Directed by Ernst Lubitsch- Starring Margaret Sullivan and Jimmy Stewart

 

The Shop Around The Corner - !940 - Directed by Ernst Lubitsch- Starring Margaret Sullivan and Jimmy Stewart 
 

Ernst Lubitsch 

Born: January 29, 1892, Berlin, Germany - produces 65 silent films before moving to America

1922 Moves to Hollywood- Warner Pictures Signed him to a three year six picture contract

Died: November 30, 1947, Los Angeles, California, United States

Lubitsch directed two of my favourite movies, Ninotchka and To Be or Not to Be

Alfred Kralik, played by Jimmy Stewart,is the top salesman at a leathergoods shop in Budapest owned by the high-strung Mr. Hugo Matuschek. Kralik's coworkers at Matuschek and Company include his friend, Pirovitch, a kindly family man; Ferencz Vadas, a two-faced womanizer; saleswoman Ilona Novotny; clerk Flora Kaczek; and Pepi Katona, an ambitious, precocious delivery boy. One morning, Kralik reveals to Pirovitch that he's been corresponding anonymously with an intelligent and cultured woman whose ad he came across in the newspaper.

Kralik is Mr. Matuschek's oldest and most trusted employee, but lately there has been tension between the two. They get into an argument over Mr. Matuschek's idea to sell a cigarette box that plays "Ochi Chërnye" when opened. After their exchange, Klara Novak, played by Margaret Sullivan,enters the gift shop looking for a job. Kralik tells her there are no openings, but when she is able to sell one of the cigarette boxes (as a candy box), Mr. Matuschek hires her. However, she and Kralik do not get along.

Mr. Matuschek begins to suspect his wife is having an affair as she stays out late and requests money from him.

As Christmas approaches, Kralik is preparing to meet his mystery correspondent for a dinner date. The meeting is stalled when Mr. Matuschek demands that everyone stay after work to decorate the shop. Later Kralik is called into Mr. Matuschek's office and is fired. No one in the shop understands Mr. Matuschek's actions are related to his suspicions that Kralik is having an affair with his wife. Later, Mr. Matuschek meets with a private investigator who informs him that his wife is having an affair with one of his employees—Ferencz Vadas. Pepi returns to the shop just in time to prevent Mr. Matuschek from committing suicide.

Meanwhile, Kralik arrives at the Cafe Nizza, where he discovers that his mystery woman is Novak. Despite his disappointment, Kralik goes in and talks with her, pretending he is there to meet Pirovitch. In his mind, Kralik tries to reconcile the cultured woman of his letters with his annoying coworker—secretly hoping that things might work out with her. Concerned that Kralik's presence will spoil her first meeting with her "far superior" mystery correspondent, she calls Kralik a "little insignificant clerk" and asks him to leave.

Later that night, Kralik goes to the hospital to visit Mr. Matuschek, who offers him a job as manager of Matuschek and Company.

 Grateful to Pepi for saving his life, Mr. Matuschek promotes him to clerk. The next day, Novak calls in sick after her mystery man failed to show. That night, Kralik visits her at her apartment. During his visit, she receives a letter from her correspondent and reads it in front of Kralik (who wrote the letter).

Two weeks later, on Christmas Eve, Matuschek and Company achieves record sales. Kralik and Miss Novak, alone in the shop, talk about their planned dates for the evening and Miss Novak reveals that she had a crush on Kralik when they first met. After pretending to have met Novak's mystery man, Kralik puts a red carnation in his lapel and reveals to her that he is her mystery correspondent and they kiss.

The Shop Around The Corner, set in the 1930s, is a charming film. The characters are all very well developed.

The Wizard of Oz -1939- Directed by Victor Fleming - Starring Judy Garland - Run Time 93 Minutes

 

The Wizard of Oz -1939- Directed by Victor Fleming - Starring Judy Garland - Run Time 93 Minutes - Available on Amazon Prime Video 

The Wizard of Oz is one of the most beloved of all films.  The highly successful release of Wicked will bring a new set of viewers to The Wizard of Oz.

Dorothy Gale,a Kansas farm girl who dreams of a land "somewhere over the rainbow." Dorothy's dream comes true when she, her dog, Toto, and her family's house are transported by a tornado to a bright and magical world unlike anything she has seen before.  The film while in Kansas is in black and white but upon arrival in Oz it is transformed into beautiful colors 

Unfortunately, she makes a mortal enemy of a wicked witch when the house falls on the hag's sister. Now, befriended by a scarecrow without a brain, a tin man with no heart and a cowardly lion—and protected by a pair of enchanted ruby slippers—Dorothy sets off along a yellow brick road for the Emerald City to beseech the all-powerful Wizard of Oz for his help to return home.

Winner of Academy Awards for the classic song, "Over The Rainbow" and for "Best Score," the family classic also received an Oscar nomination for "Best Picture." A special Oscar for "the best juvenile performer of the year" was awarded to Judy Garland.

Cast of The Wizard of Oz

Judy Garland ... Dorothy Gale

Frank Morgan.... Professor Marvel/ Doorman/ Cabbie/The Wizard of Oz

Ray Bolger ... Hunk/The Scarecrow

Jack Haley.... Hickory/The Tin Man

Bert Lahr.... Zeke/The Cowardly Lion

Billie Burke.... Glinda, the Good Witch of the North

Margaret Hamilton .... Miss Almira Gulch/ Wicked Witch of the West

Charley Grapewin.... Uncle Henry Gale

Clara Blandick.... Aunt Emily 'Auntie Em' Gale

Pat Walshe.... Nikko, the Wicked Witch's Head Winged Monkey

Charles Becker.... Mayor of Munchkin City

Mitchell Lewis.... Captain of the Winkie Guard

 Watch it alone or bring your family together to watch, The Wizard of Oz is a pure joy.

Blazing Saddles- Directed by Mel Brooks - 1974-Starring Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Harvey Korman, Madeline Kahn, Mel Brooks, and Slim Pickens

 

Blazing Saddles- Directed by Mel Brooks - 1974-Starring Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Harvey Korman, Madeline Kahn, Mel Brooks, and Slim Pickens 

Blazing Saddles is set in the American west in 1874.

 Slavery just ended a few years ago and railroad construction is opening the opportunity for new found wealth for those prepared to capitalize.

  The opening scene centers on a group of former slaves and imported Chinese workers laying track in 114 degrees Fahrenheit. When a Chinese worker collapses, the track forman says "Doc that Chink a days pay for napping on the job". Then he asks the black workers to "sing a good old nigger work song like when you were slaves"

When I first saw Blazing Saddles in the theatre 50 years ago I thought it was one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. Now streaming it on a tablet, I still think that. The racially abusive language is still a little shocking.

The plot centers on the efforts of Hedley Lammar, brilliantly played by Harvey Korman, to get control of the land where the railroad will go through, in the town of Rock Ridge and the efforts lead by Bart, Clevon Little is a complete success in the role, to stop him.

In the  American frontier  a new railroad under construction will have to be rerouted through the town of Rock Ridge to avoid quicksand. Realizing this will make Rock Ridge worth millions, territorial attorney general Hedley Lamarr plans to force Rock Ridge's residents out of the town and sends a gang of thugs, led by his flunky Taggart, to shoot the sheriff and trash the town.

The townspeople demand that Governor William J. Le Petomane, played by Mel Brooks,vappoint a new sheriff to protect them. Lamarr persuades dim-witted Le Petomane to appoint Bart, a black railroad worker about to be executed for assaulting Taggart. A black sheriff, Lamarr reasons, will offend the townspeople, create chaos and leave Rock Ridge at his mercy.

After an initial hostile reception in which he takes himself "hostage" to escape, Bart relies on his quick wits and the assistance of Jim, an alcoholic gunslinger known as the "Waco Kid", played by Gene Wilder, to overcome the townspeople's hostility. Bart subdues Mongo, an immensely strong and dim-witted, yet philosophical henchman sent to kill him, then outwits German seductress-for-hire Lili Von Shtupp at her own game, with Lili falling in love with him.

Upon release, Mongo vaguely informs Bart of Lamarr's connection to the railroad, so Bart and Jim visit the railroad worksite and discover from Bart's best friend Charlie that the railway is planned to go through Rock Ridge. Taggart and his men arrive to kill Bart, but Jim outshoots them and forces their retreat. Furious that his schemes have backfired, Lamarr recruits an army of thugs, including common criminals, motorcycle gangsters, Ku Klux Klansmen, Nazi soldiers, and Methodists.

East of Rock Ridge, Bart introduces the White townspeople to the black, Chinese, and Irish railroad workers who have all agreed to help them in exchange for acceptance by the community, and explains his plan to defeat Lamarr's army. They labor all night to build a perfect copy of the town as a diversion. When Bart realizes it will not be enough to fool the villains, the townsfolk construct copies of themselves.

Bart, Jim, and Mongo buy time by constructing the "Gov. William J. Le Petomane Thruway", forcing the raiding party to send for change to pay the toll. Once through the tollbooth, the raiders attack the fake town and its population of dummies, which have been booby trapped with dynamite. After Jim detonates the bombs with his sharpshooting, launching bad guys and horses skyward, the Rock Ridgers attack the villains with Lili singing with the Nazi soldiers.

The resulting brawl between townsfolk, railroad workers, and Lamarr's thugs literally breaks the fourth wall and bursts onto a neighboring movie set where director Buddy Bizarre is filming a Busby Berkeley-style top-hat-and-tails musical number. Then the brawl spreads into the studio commissary for a food fight and spills out of the Warner Bros. film lot onto the streets of Burbank.

Lamarr escapes the brawl and takes a taxi to hide at Mann's Chinese Theatre which is showing the premiere of Blazing Saddles.

 

Available on Amazon Prime Video

 

To Be or Not to Be - Directed by Mel Brooks - Starring Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft - 1982 - inspired by Ernst Lubitsch's 1942 version of Two or Not to Be

 To Be or Not to Be is a 1983 American war comedy film directed by Alan Johnson, produced by Mel Brooks, and starring Brooks, Anne Bancroft, Tim Matheson, Charles Durning, Christopher Lloyd, and José Ferrer. The screenplay was written by Ronny Graham and Thomas Meehan, based on the original story by Melchior Lengyel, Ernst Lubitsch and Edwin Justus Mayer. The film is a remake of the 1942 film of the same name.

Fredrick Bronski runs a large ensemble show out of Warsaw. Despite the relative success the show receives, the majority of the cast are annoyed by the fact that Fredrick nitpicks who does what, in particular his wife Anna, whom he regularly tries to undermine despite her getting the lion's share of audience praise. This leads her to begin a flirtation with bomber pilot Andre Sobinski, who she invites to come to her dressing room when Fredrick's begins the "To be, or not to be" speech from Hamlet. Their fling is cut short by the Nazi invasion of Poland, forcing Sobinski to return to his squadron.

As the Bronski Theater struggles to remain open in spite of Gestapo censorship, Sobinski and the rest of the Royal Air Force's Polish squadron commiserate with Polish radio broadcaster Dr. Siletski, who tells them he is returning to Poland and talks them into giving him messages to family members and members of the Polish Underground. However, when Siletski fails to recognize Anna Bronski's name, despite having claimed to have lived in Warsaw, Sobinski becomes suspicious. He consults with British intelligence, who realize that Siletski is a Nazi sympathizer who intends to deliver the names to the Gestapo. Sobinski air drops into Warsaw and meets up with Anna and Fredrick, who have been forced to move in with Anna's dresser Sasha after their home was turned into Gestapo Headquarters.

After arriving in Warsaw, Siletski has Anna brought to his room at the former Europa Hotel (which was turned into German Military Headquarters) to ask her about Sobinski's personal message. Convinced that it has no military significance, he invites Anna to return for dinner. Returning home, Anna explains the situation to Fredrick and Sobinski, and realizing that Siletski and Gestapo leader Colonel Erhardt have never met, they decide that Frederick will pose as Erhardt. Actors dressed as Gestapo members interrupt Anna's date with Siletski and take him to "headquarters," the Bronski Theater. Frederick successfully retrieves the list from Siletski but unwittingly blows his cover when he reacts to news of Anna's liaisons with Sobinski. Siletski tries to escape through the theater, but Sobinski shoots him down. This forces Fredrick to pose as Siletski to retrieve a copy of the list and get Anna out of the hotel.

The ending is very exciting with a hilarious surprise at the conclusion 

Available on Amazon Prime video

To Be or Not to Be. DIrected by Ernst Lubitsch - Starring Carole Bard and Jack Benny - 1942

 To Be or Not to Be. DIrected by Ernst Lubitsch - Starring Carole Bard and Jack Benny - 1942 - set in Warsaw in 1939 with German invasion imminent has strong comedic elements, great lines but it is not the laugh a minute film that To Be or Not to Be, directed by Mel Brooks and following the plot of Lubitsch's earlier version is.

2002, the American Film Institute selected To Be or Not to Be as one of the 50 funniest American movies of all time. In March of 1942, when the film was initially released, most critics weren't laughing. A movie lampooning Adolf Hitler may have been acceptable a few years prior (see, for example, Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator [1940], though even then Chaplin began to regret his decision after learning more of the Nazis' "homicidal insanity"). But by 1942, Pearl Harbor had been attacked, America had entered World War II, and, to make matters even more dour, the star of To Be or Not to Be, the radiant Carole Lombard, had died in a plane crash less than two months before the premiere.

All told, those who saw To Be or Not to Be had their reasons not to be amused.

Now, however, with the benefit of time's remedial passing and decades worth of hindsight, Ernst Lubitsch's classic stands as an entertaining, surprisingly audacious, and powerfully poignant comic gem. One of the great filmmaker's final features (he would pass away just five years later), it is today most shocking not so much for the comedy itself, but rather the abrupt yet effortless shifts in tone, from screwball hysterics to genuinely austere observations.

Panama Fever: The Epic Story of the Building of the Panama Canal by Matthew Parker - 2007 - 442 Pages

 

Panama Fever: The Epic Story of the Building of the Panama Canal by Matthew Parker - 2007 - 442 Pages 

Seven years ago, in consultation with Max u, it was decided every December there should be a post in Observation of the Birth Anniversary of our father, born on December 2, 1918 in a small then very undeveloped tiny town in south Georgia, Cairo.

Our Father served four years in the United States Army during World War Two.  He was a junior officer serving under General Douglas MacArthur.  He was stationed in New Guinea and shortly after the war in the Philippines.  For the initial observation in December of 2018 I posted on a wonderful book, Rampage MacArthur, Yamashita and The Battle of Manila by James M. Scott .  Shortly after I posted, the author, a great speaker, did a book tour in Manila.  My wife and I attended one of his talks. Afterwards we had a lovely conversation with Mr. Scott.

In 2024 I came upon a perfect book for the annual birthday observation, War at the End of the World: Douglas MacArthur and the Forgotten Fight For New Guinea, 1942-1945 Book by James P Duffy.  

In 1937 our father was stationed in Panama. Panama Fever: The Epic Story of the Building of the Panama Canal by Matthew Parker is my selection for 2024

The Panama Canal was the costliest undertaking in history; its completion in 1914 marked the beginning of the “American Century.” Panama Fever draws on contemporary accounts, bringing the experience of those who built the canal vividly to life. Politicians engaged in high-stakes diplomacy in order to influence its construction. Meanwhile, engineers and workers from around the world rushed to take advantage of high wages and the chance to be a part of history. Filled with remarkable characters, Panama Fever is an epic history that shows how a small, fiercely contested strip of land made the world a smaller place and launched the era of American domination.

"Matthew was born in El Salvador in 1970 to an expatriate family and while growing up lived in Britain, Norway and Barbados. He read English at Balliol College Oxford, then worked in a number of roles in book publishing in London from salesman to commissioning editor.

His first book, published in 2000, was about the Battle of Britain. Then followed Monte Cassino, Panama Fever (Hell’s Gorge in UK paperback), The Sugar Barons, Goldeneye and Willoughbyland. His most recent book, published on 28 September, tells the story of 29 September 1923, a hundred years ago, when the British Empire reached its maximum territorial extent.

When not writing/staring out of the window, he loves making sushi, pubs, growing stuff and visiting remote places.

He is a member of the Authors Cricket Club, and wrote a chapter of A Season of English Cricket from Hackney to Hambledon. He is also a contributor to the  Oxford Companion to Sweets.

He has been elected a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and lives in East London with his wife, three children and an annoying dog." From the author's website

The Reading Life Review- December 2024

 The Reading Life Review- December 2024

Works Featured in November 

Nonfiction 

The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902: Immigrant Housewives and the Riots That Shook New York City by Scott D. Seligman - 2020- 277 Pages

Novels 

1,  Castle Gripsholm - 1931- by Kurt Tucholsky- 244 Pages- translated from the German by Michael Hofmann -2019

2.  The Most Precious of Cargoes by Jean-Claude Grumberg - 2019 - Translated from French by Fred Wynne - 2020 - 60 pages

3. Green Witch by Alice Hoffman- 2021 - 70 Pages

4.  Legacy by Sybille Bedford- 1956 -385 Pages  - Introduction 2015 by Brenda Wineapple

Short Stories 

1,  "CHRISTMAS NOT JUST ONCE A YEAR" - A Short Story by Heinrich Böll - 1952 (Nicht nur zur Weihnachtszeit") - 7 Pages - included in the anthology A Very German Christmas-

2. "A Man Becomes a Nazi" 10

 Pages-A Short Story by Anna Seghers - 1943 - translated from the German by Margot Bettauer Dembo - 2021

Movies 

1.  Young Frankenstein- Directed by Mel Brooks - 1974 - Starring Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle, Cloris Leachman and Teri Garr 

Birth Countries of Authors 

1. Germany- 4

2. USA- 2

3. France - 1

Four featured writers are deceased, all but one we're featured for the first time, 4 writers are men, three women.

Blog Stats 

There are currently 4,627 posts on line

In November our posts were Viewed 39,967 times

Since in inception our posts have been viewed 8,204,099 times

Originating Countries of visitors

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4. Brazil 

5. USA 

6. India 

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The posts most viewed were on stories by South Asian authors

The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902: Immigrant Housewives and the Riots That Shook New York City by Scott D. Seligman - 2020- 277 Pages

 The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902: Immigrant Housewives and the Riots That Shook New York City by Scott D. Seligman - 2020- 277 Pages

2020 National Jewish Book Award Finalist

The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902 tells the twin stories of mostly uneducated women immigrants who discovered their collective consumer power and of the Beef Trust, the midwestern cartel that conspired to keep meat prices high despite efforts by the U.S. government to curtail its nefarious practices. 

With few resources and little experience but steely determination, this group of women organized themselves into a potent fighting force and, in their first foray into the political arena in their adopted country, successfully challenged powerful, vested corporate interests.

Keeping a Kosher household was a prime duty of Jewish housewives in New York City.  Most were immigrants from Russia or Poland but some were born in America.  The custom was the husband supported the family and the wife ran the household.  

Seligman goes into very welcome details about the women.  They were tough , smart and not afraid of the police and hired thugs

In the early  hours of May 15, 1902, three thousand Jewish women quietly took up positions on the streets of Manhattan's Lower East Side. Convinced by the latest jump in the price of kosher meat that they were being gouged, they assembled in squads of five, intent on shutting down every kosher butcher shop in New York's Jewish quarter.

What was conceived as a nonviolent effort did not remain so for long. Customers who crossed the picket lines were heckled and assaulted and their parcels of meat hurled into the gutters. Butchers who remained open were attacked, their windows smashed, stock ruined, equipment destroyed. Brutal blows from police nightsticks sent women to local hospitals and to court. But soon Jewish housewives throughout the area took to the streets in solidarity, while the butchers either shut their doors or had their doors shut for them. The newspapers called it a modern Jewish Boston Tea .

Seligman throughly explains the processes by which Beef can be certified as Kosher.  I knew nothing about the way midwestern raised cattle passed through Chicago on the way to New York City, The process was controlled by six companies know as The Beef Trust.  The secretly set prices and demanded kick backs in collusion with the railroads,  Butchers, Kosher and Gentile, had to pay their price.  Butchers depended on short term credit, they would buy on credit then repay after making sales. If they resisted the Beef Trust their credit needs were denied.

Scott D. Seligman is a writer and historian. He is the national award-winning author of several books, including A Second Reckoning: Race, Injustice, and the Last Hanging in Annapolis (Potomac, 2021) and Murder in Manchuria: The True Story of a Jewish Virtuoso, Russian Fascists, a French Diplomat and a Japanese Spy in Occupied China (Potomac, 2023).

The Most Precious of Cargoes by Jean-Claude Grumberg - 2019 - Translated from French by Fred Wynne - 2020 - 60 pages

 The Most Precious of Cargoes by Jean-Claude Grumberg - 2019 - Translated from French by Fred Wynne - 2020 - 60 pages

Told in the manner of a fairy tale, Jean-Claude Grumberg's The Most Precious of Cargoes tells the story of a woman who wanted a child, and a child who needed a home. It is a tale that teaches us that even in the darkest, most violent times, there is reason to believe in people's capacity for kindness.

Once upon a time in an enormous forest lived a woodcutter and his wife. The woodcutter is very poor and a war rages around them, making it difficult for them to put food on the table. Yet every night, his wife prays for a child.

A Jewish father rides on a train holding twin babies. His wife no longer has enough milk to feed both children. In hopes of saving them both, he wraps his daughter in a shawl and throws her into the forest.

While foraging for food, the woodcutter’s wife finds a bundle, a baby girl wrapped in a shawl. Although she knows harbouring this baby could lead to her death, she takes the child home.

Set against the horrors of the Holocaust and told with a fairy tale-like lyricism, The Most Precious of Cargoes is a fable about family and redemption which reminds us that humanity can be found in the most inhumane of places.

I found work deeply captivating. The epilogue is just so wonderful.

"Jean-Claude Grumberg was born in 1939. He started out as an actor before writing his first play in 1968. Since then he has written more than forty scripts for the stage and film. He currently lives and works in his native France. He was inspired by the loss of his own father in a Nazi concentration camps to write The Most Precious of Cargoes. He lives in France." From Harper Row

Young Frankenstein- Directed by Mel Brooks - 1974 - Starring Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle, Cloris Leachman and Teri Garr

 

Young Frankenstein- Directed by Mel Brooks - 1974 - Starring Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle, Cloris Leachman and Teri Garr 

Fifty years ago Mel Brooks, with an incredibly talented cast, gave the world one of the funniest most brilliant comedies ever done, Young Frankenstein.

Inspired by Mary Shelly's novel, the movie begins with the grandson of Victor Frankenstein, played by Gene Wilder,giving a lecture at an American medical college in New York.  A student asks him about his feelings on his grandfather's work focusing on bringing corpses back to life. He is so against his work that he insists his name be pronounced differently.  He tells the class his grandfather's work was total nonsense.  In the class room is a man has come five thousand miles, from Transylvania to bring him the will of his great grandfather, Baron Von Frankenstein.  He has inherited the castle where his grandfather worked,

After a bizarrely repressed goodbye at the train station with his finance, played perfectly by Madeline Kahn, he sets out  for Transylvania. In nezrly every seen in the movie there are marvellous comic moments (" pardon me boy is this the Transylvania station")

At the Transylvania Station he is picked up by Igor, played by Marty Feldman and accompanied by Terri Garr playing his lab assistant. 

I do not wish to reveal more of the plot to first time viewers of the movie.

I love this movie.  In these darking times I needed this movie.

Green Witch by Alice Hoffman- 2010 - 70 Pages

 The Green Witch by Alice Hoffman- 70 Pages

Alice Hoffman works I have so far read:

The Marriage of Opposites- 2015

"Everything My Mother Taught Me" - 2016

"The Book Store Sisters" -2022

The Foretelling - 2006

"Conjure" - 2014

Aquamarine- 2001

The Ice Queen - 2006

Property Of -1977

Skylight- 2007

The Invisible Hour 2023

Rules of Magic- 2017

Practical Magic - 1997

Faithful- 2016

When We Flew Away' A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary - 2024

My goal is to read all of her overe.

Green Witch was a delightful enchanting way to spend a part of my day, an excellent bromide against sad times.

"What is loss?

The echo that surrounds the word gone.

What is love?

The deepest of your heart’s desires.

Green lives every day with feelings of loss. Her family is gone, the boy she loves is missing, and the world she once knew is transformed by tragedy. In order to rediscover the truth about love, hope, and magic, she must venture away from her home, collecting the stories of a group of women who have been branded as witches because of their mysterious powers. Only through their stories will Green find her heart’s desire.

Alice Hoffman’s readers asked for the character of Green to return. Written after the events of 9/11 Green Angel began this story of renewal. Now Green Witch takes us farther into the achingly beautiful, ruined and redeemed world.

For the many readers who cherished Green Angel, Alice Hoffman’s miraculous story of a world destroyed and reborn, this new novel marks the return of an extraordinary character – one whose story was not complete in a single book. For new readers, it presents a beautiful exploration of how we must confront what we fear most, and how we can find love that is everlasting." From the publisher 

Legacy by Sybille Bedford- 1956 -385 Pages - Introduction 2015 by Brenda Wineapple

Legacy by Sybille Bedford- 1956 -385 Pages  - Introduction 2015 by Brenda Wineapple

Sybille Bedford 

 March 16, Berlin, Germany 

February 17, 2006 - London, England 

"The Merzes are longstanding members of Berlin’s haute bourgeoisie who count a friend of Goethe among their distinguished ancestors.

Not that this proud legacy means much of anything to them anymore. Secure in their huge town house, they devote themselves to little more than enjoying their comforts and ensuring their wealth. The Feldens are landed aristocracy, well off but not rich, from Germany’s Catholic south. After Julius von Felden marries Melanie Merz the fortunes of the two families will be strangely, indeed fatally, entwined. 

Set during the run-up to World War I, a time of weirdly mingled complacency and angst, A Legacy is captivating, magnificently funny, and profound, an unforgettable image of a doomed way of life." From the Publisher 

Considered her finest novel, Legacy has to me a deeply cultured old world feel.

A Legacy, her finest novel, and superb by any standard, is partly about memory, both personal and cultural. “We are said to re-invent our memories; we often re-arrange them,” comments its narrator, a woman born shortly before the advent of World War I who pieces together her peculiar inheritance from the rumors, innuendoes, and snatches of conversation she heard as a child: the tale of a long-ago family scandal that once almost toppled the government. “In a sense this is my story,” she reflects. “I do not know a time when I was not imprinted with the experiences of others.” Her peculiar inheritance, then, is also the story of Prussian pride, political scandal, anti-Semitism, and moral negligence, which is the legacy, in a word, of the twentieth century.

"CHRISTMAS NOT JUST ONCE A YEAR" - A Short Story by Heinrich Böll - 1952 (Nicht nur zur Weihnachtszeit" )

 "

CHRISTMAS NOT JUST ONCE A YEAR" - A Short Story by Heinrich Böll - 1952 (Nicht nur zur Weihnachtszeit") - 7 Pages - included in the anthology A Very German Christmas-

Heinrich Böll 

Born: December 21, 1917, Cologne, Germany

Died: July 16, 1985 (age 67 years), Kreuzau, Germany

1972 - Wins Nobel Prize for Literature 

Christmas Not Just Once a Year" takes place in the years immediately following World War II. Böll himself participated in the war as a Nazi soldier. In the course of the war, he wrote hundreds of letters home to his wife, many of which explicitly criticized Germany's role in the war.

Christmas Not Just Once a Year" ("Nicht nur zur Wiehnachtszeit") was written in 1951 and was first "published" in a German radio broadcast that year. Considered to be one of Heinrich Böll's finest satires, the story was included in German in his 1952 book, Nicht nur zur Weihnachtszeit, a collection that was expanded in 1966 and renamed Nicht nur zur Wiehnachtszeit: Satiren. In the United States, the story appeared most recently in Böll's collected stories, The Stories of Heinrich Böll, published by Knopf in 1986. In addition, "Christmas Not Just Once a Year" is one of Böll's most widely anthologized stories.

"Christmas Not Just Once a Year" tells the simple story of Aunt Milla's hysterical reaction to the taking down of the family Christmas tree in 1946 and her family's subsequent reaction to her hysteria. Told through the eyes of one of the family's first cousins, the story describes the complete moral and psychological disintegration of a family that refuses to acknowledge Milla's profound psychological problems. Instead of addressing the issue of Milla's breakdown clinically or directly, the family decides to continue with the ruse that every day is Christmas. For two years they go to great lengths and expense to host a nightly ritual of Christmas tree decorations and carol singing in order to keep Aunt Milla from screaming hysterically.

Böll's narrative becomes increasingly absurd as the story develops. Written while Germany was in the early stages of its postwar reconstruction, and during a time when it had yet to fully acknowledge its role in World War II or in the Holocaust. "Christmas Not Just Once a Year" addresses the theme of historical amnesia. Just as the family refuses to accept the fact that things are no longer "like the good old days" of prewar Germany and that Aunt Milla could not become healthy until the family acknowledges this basic fact, Böll believed that Germany would remain stunted if it did not directly address its Nazi past and come to terms with its role in the war.

Castle Gripsholm - 1931- by Kurt Tucholsky- 244 Pages- translated from the German by Michael Hofmann -2019

 

Castle Gripsholm - 1931- by Kurt Tucholsky- 244 Pages- translated from the German by Michael Hofmann -2019

KURT TUCHOLSKY (1890–1935) was born in Berlin to a middle-class Jewish family. He received a law degree from the University of Jena in 1915 and was conscripted to fight in World War I not long after

. A notably poor soldier, his aphorism likening soldiers to murderers became a pacifist rallying cry. Tucholsky began his journalism career while still a student, and he found success writing in a range of forms, including the feuilleton, criticism, satire, poetry, and lyrics for cabarets. Under both his name and various pseudonyms, his work frequently appeared in the leftist intellectual organ Die Weltbühne Tucholsky’s collected writings amount to thousands of pages and include a play, Christopher Columbus (1932); an illustrated book, Deutschland, Deutschland über alles (1929); and two works of fiction, Rheinsberg (1912) and Castle Gripsholm (1931). He was married twice, to Else Weil from 1920 to 1924 and to Mary Gerold in 1924. In 1933, his last piece for Die Weltbühne appeared in January; by August his German citizenship had been annulled and his books burned en masse. The Nazis had denounced him as “one of the most wicked of literary pornographers.”

 He divorced Mary to distance her from Nazi persecution and lived in exile in Sweden on short-term visas under threat of deportation, where he died from an overdose of sleeping pills. There are two annual literary awards given in his name: the Swedish PEN Tucholsky Prize and Germany’s Kurt Tucholsky Prize.

Castle Gripsholm is Tucholsky’s only novel, his longest single piece of work of any kind. As a critic, he had a very high regard for the form, and so, despite his modesty in not claiming the tag for himself, tribute should be paid to the skill of this one (which has sold three-quarters of a million copies). More than anything else, it is a beautifully plausible version of what it pretends to be: ‘a summer story’ – the plainest and clearest and liveliest of first-person writing – full of fresh air, sunshine, trees, companionableness and friendly bickering – sweet oblivion. But, in the light of its author’s other preoccupations, commitments and achievements, and of the date itself – two years later he would be stripped of his citizenship and his books would be burned – can this withdrawal, this holiday, this compliance with his ‘publisher’s’ wishes, can it be real? It is real, though the reality is wishful. That the sales of his books really did matter more than what he was trying to achieve in writing them. That it would be possible to turn away from politics, and to forget what was happening, in some serene privacy. That the struggle in Germany and for Germany could take place on some manageably small and symbolic level, like the struggle for Ada. That his privacy would indeed be serene . . . Castle Gripsholm is a book by a man who was never a father himself, and in whose life there were many women.

Available in The New York City Public Library 

"A Man Becomes a Nazi" - 10 Pages-A Short Story by Anna Seghers - 1943 - translated from the German by Margot Bettauer Dembo - 2021

 "A Man Becomes a Nazi" - A Short Story by Anna Seghers -  - - 1943 - 

translated from the German and edited by Margot Bettauer Dembo.- 2021

This will be my 12th year as a participant in Germans Literature Month, held every November.  Through the event I have discovered many new to me authors.

Born: November 19, 1900, Mainz, Germany

Died: June 1, 1983 (age 82 years), East Berlin

Born Netty Reiling in Mainz in 1900 of partly Jewish descent, she married Laszlo Radvanyi, a Hungarian Communist in 1925.

In Cologne and Heidelberg she studied history, the history of art and Chinese. She joined the Communist Party of Germany in 1928, at the height of its struggle against the burgeoning National Socialist German Workers Party. Her 1932 novel, Die Gefährten was a prophetic warning of the dangers of Fascism, which led to her being arrested by the gestapo.

 After German troops invaded the French Third Republic in 1940, she fled to Marseilles and one year later to Mexico, where she founded the anti-fascist 'Heinrich-Heine-Klub', named after the German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, and founded Freies Deutschland (Free Germany), an academic journal. During this time, she wrote The Seventh Cross, for which she received the Büchner-Prize in 1947. The novel is set in 1936 and describes the escape of seven prisoners from a concentration camp. It was published in the United States in 1942 and produced as a movie in 1944 by MGM starring Spencer Tracy. The Seventh Cross was one of the very few depictions of Nazi concentration camps, in either literature or the cinema, during World War 

In 1947, Anna Seghers returned to Germany, moved to West Berlin, and became a member of the SED in the zone occupied by the Soviets. In 1950, she moved to East Berlin and became a co-founder of the freedom movement of the GDR. In 1951, she received the first Nationalpreis der DDR and the "Ehrendoktorwürde der Universität Jena" in 1959. In 1981, she became "Ehrenbürgerin" of her native town Mainz.

During prior German Literature Months I have posted upon two of her novels, Transit and The Seventh Cross.

“A Man Becomes a Nazi,” written in 1942 and 1943 in Mexico, explores the question: How does a person become a torturer and murderer? Within a tightly controlled narrative frame, the story ventures out into unstable terrain. Fritz Mueller’s life unrolls in front of a Red Army tribunal: “He was charged with shootings, hangings, and a series of acts of cruelty committed against women and children.

  This German, the fourth son of a soldier and unemployed metalworker, is born into a continuum of war and hardship. It is impossible to say what plays the greatest role in making him a Nazi—his circumstances, his education, his predispositions?. He becomes a cold blooded killer in a war against people he thought were enemies of Germany.

There are 15 other stories in the collection. I hope to post this month upon a few of them.

Mel u

The Reading Life

The Reading Life Review October 2024 -

 

The Reading Life Review October 2024 

Nonfiction Featured in October 

1. Sybille Bedford An Appetite for Life by Selina Hastings  - 2020 - 432 Pages 

2. The Snakehead : An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream by Patrick Radden Keefe —2009 - 252 Pages

3.Empire of Pain : The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe - 2021- 633 Pages 

4.The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio- 2020 - 

5. Wine and War: the French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France’s Greatest Treasure by Don and Petie Kladstrup.- 2002 - 334 Pages 

6. Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future by Jason Stanley - 2024 - 233 Pages

7. Everyone Who is Gone is Here : the United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis by Jonathan Blitzer.-2024 -544 Pages

October Novels

1.The Book Lovers Library by Madeline Martin - 2024 - 396 Pages

2. When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary - by Alice Hoffman- 2024 - 192 Pages

3.The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain- 2015 - 244 Pages

4. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver- 2022- 720 Pages

October Short Stories - all by Carol Shields - included in the Stories of Carol Shields - 2004

1. "Good Manners"

2. "Collision" 

Birth County of October Authors 

1, USA- 7

2. Canada - 1

3, China - 1

4. England - 1

Four October authors are men, 7 were featured for the first time and only one is no longer living.

Blog Stats

As of today our posts have been viewed 8,164,356 times. In October there was 79,212 page views.

Per Google Stats the origin countries in October were 

1. Singapore

2. USA

3. India

4. Philippines 

5. Canada

6. United kingdom 

7. Hong Kong 

8. Brazil 

9. France

10. Russia

Of the ten post viewed posts 9 were on stories by South East Asian and Indian authors, one on an Irish story.

"Good Manors" - A Short Story by Carol Shields -5 Pages - Included with The Short Stories of Carol Shields- 2004

This year, Buried in Print, a marvelous blog I have followed for over ten years,is doing a read through of the short stories of Carol Shields. I hope to participate fully in this event.

The more I read in the stories of Carol Shields the more grateful I am to Buried in Print for turning me on to her work. There are sixty some stories in the collection, it is my hope to read and post on them all.

"In all of her fiction, Carol Shields excels at character creation. She conjures up a character in a few lines of dialogue, in a pungent authorial aside." Penelopy Lively from her introduction to Stone Diaries by Carol Shields 

"Good Manors" is the 32nd Short Story by Carol Shields upon which I have posted.  I found it to be a disturbingly haunting work that in five pages tracks a ten year old child, almost molested by an older neighbour up to her sixties. She never marries and never forms an enduring relationship though she has brief encounters in which she is used for sex.

"THE STERN, PEREMPTORY SOCIAL ARBITER, Georgia Willow, has been overseeing Canadian manners for thirty-five years. She did it in Montreal during the tricky fifties and she did it in Toronto in the unsettled sixties. In the seventies she operated underground, so to speak, from a converted Rosedale garage, tutoring the shy wives of Japanese executives and diplomats. In the eighties she came into her own; manners were rediscovered, particularly in the West, where Mrs. Willow has relocated. Promptly at three-thirty each Tuesday and Thursday, neatly dressed in a well-pressed navy Evan-Picone slub silk suit, cream blouse and muted scarf, Georgia Willow meets her small class in the reception area of the MacDonald Hotel and ushers them into the long, airy tearoom—called, for some reason, Gophers—where a ceremonial spread has been ordered. Food and drink almost always accompany Mrs. Willow’s lectures. It is purely a matter of simulation since, wherever half a dozen people gather, there is sure to be a tray of sandwiches to trip them up. According to Mrs. Willow, food and food implements are responsible for fifty percent of social unease. The classic olive pit question. The persisting problem of forks, cocktail picks and coffee spoons."

To me the enduring questions are whatever are good manors really meant to do, what purpose do they serve and why did Gloria Willow make teaching good manors her life work.

"Collision" - A Short Story by Carol Shields- 16 Pages- Included with The Short Stories of Carol Shields- 2004

 

"Collision" - A Short Story by Carol Shields- 16 Pages- Included with The Short Stories of Carol Shields- 2004

Buriedinprint.com 

This year, Buried in Print, a marvelous blog I have followed for over ten years,is doing a read through of the short stories of Carol Shields. I hope to participate fully in this event.

The more I read in the stories of Carol Shields the more grateful I am to Buried in Print for turning me on to her work. There are sixty some stories in the collection, it is my hope to read and post on them all.

"In all of her fiction, Carol Shields excels at character creation. She conjures up a character in a few lines of dialogue, in a pungent authorial aside." Penelopy Lively from her introduction to Stone Diaries by Carol Shields 

"Collision" is the 31st story by Carol Shields upon which I have posted, it perfectly exemplifies Penelopy Lively's description.

"Collision" is an amazing story, not just two lives created in 15 pages but the history of how movements of continents create biographies.

I wish to quote enough from the story to give a sense of her wonderful prose.

""TODAY THE SKY IS SOLID BLUE. It smacks the eye. A powerful tempered ceiling stretched across mountain ranges and glittering river systems: the Saône, the Rhine, the Danube, the Drina. This unimpaired blueness sharpens the edges of the tile-roofed apartment block where Martä Gjatä lives and hardens the wing tips of the little Swiss plane that carries Malcolm Brownstone to her side. What a dense, dumb, depthless blue it is, this blue; but continually widening out and softening like a magically reversed lake without a top or bottom or a trace of habitation or a thought of what its blueness is made of or what it’s for. But take another look. The washed clarity is deceiving, the yawning transparency is fake. What we observe belies the real nature of the earth’s atmosphere, which is adrift, today as any day, with biographical debris. It’s everywhere, a thick swimmy blizzard of it, more ubiquitous by far than earthly salt or sand or humming electrons. Radio waves are routinely pelted by biography’s mad static, as Martä Gjatä, trying to tune in the Vienna Symphony, knows only too well. And small aircraft, such as the one carrying Malcolm Brownstone eastward across Europe, occasionally fall into its sudden atmospheric pockets. The continents and oceans are engulfed. We are, to speak figuratively...

Where else in this closed lonely system can our creaturely dust go but up there on top of the storied slag heap? The only law of biography is that everything, every particle, must be saved. The earth is alight with it, awash with it, scoured by it, made clumsy and burnished by its steady accretion. Biography is a thrifty housewife, it’s an old miser. Martä Gjatä’s first toddling steps are preserved, and her first word"

"