Clarissa Group Read Begins Today!

Letter 1: MISS ANNA HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA  HARLOWE
January 10 

I am extremely concerned, my dearest friend, for the disturbances that have happened in your family. I know how it must hurt you to become the subject of the public talk; and yet upon an ocassion so generally known it is impossible but that whatever relates to a young lady, whose distinguished merits have made her the public care, should engage everybody's attention. I long to have the particulars from yourself, and of the usage I am told you receive upon an accident you could not help and in which, as far as I can learn, the sufferer was the aggressor.

Clarissa
by Samuel Richardson

Our year-long project now underway. Many brave readers have decided to join in as Terri and I  read all 537 letters (1500 pages) around the dates they were written. Full details can be found here and here. Would you like to read along?

Tuesday Intros is hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea.

On vacation...

see you next week.

Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck (audio)

Listening to Travels with Charley reminded me not only of how much I love John Steinbeck's writing, but how much I enjoy travel writing in general. In 1960, Steinbeck was living on the Long Island Sound, approaching his sixtieth birthday, and feeling out of touch with a country he'd been writing about for decades. That fall, he set out with his beloved dog, Charley, in a specially designed pickup truck/camper (named Rocinante after Don Quixote's horse) on a journey across the country. His goal was to rediscover America and reconnect with her people.

Steinbeck's journey took him along the back roads of New England, across the New York State Thruway and into the Midwest. He drove through the Badlands, basked  in the majesty of the giant redwoods, and traversed the desert southwest. After a short break in Texas, Steinbeck was back on the road again and found himself in the midst of a civil rights demonstration in Mississippi. Figuring he'd seen enough, he turned Rocinante north and headed home.

Rocinante, fully restored, at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas

I have read many Steinbeck novels over the years, but in Travels with Charley, it felt like I was meeting 'the man' for the first time, instead of 'the writer'. While listening, it is easy to imagine Steinbeck speaking directly to you. I laughed at his subpar sense of direction and imagined how he would marvel at cars now equipped with built-in GPS systems. I enjoyed his musings on the sense of community among truckers, the 'mobile home' developments springing up across the country, and the impact of super-highway construction.

"When we get these thruways across the whole country, as we will and must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing." (p.90)

The other star in this book is, of course, Charley. You'll have to take my word on this, but Charley is no ordinary dog. He's a black standard poodle, from France, with a personality as distinct and developed as your or mine. The relationship between man and dog takes center stage in several parts of the narrative. I fell in love with Charley, and think any man who forms such a strong bond with his dog can't be all bad either.

Now I'd like to read more of Steinbeck's nonfiction and a good biography, too. Do you have any recommendations?

Travels with Charley in Search of America
by John Steinbeck
Narrated by Gary Sinise
Penguin Audiobooks, 2011
7 hours and 58 minutes

My rating:

Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Kathy at BermudaOnion's Weblog where we share new or unfamiliar words encountered in our reading.  If you've come across some interesting words this week, feel free to join in the fun.




My words are all from The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, and definitions come from dictionary.com.

susurrus: a soft murmuring or rustling sound; whisper.

Over a susurrus of awed mutterings, he told us that Robson had been cut down in the flower of youth, that his demise was a loss to the whole school, and that we would all be symbolically present at the funeral. (p.13-14)

nonpareil: having no equal; peerless.
(it's always meant small sugar pellets used for decorating cookies, etc. to me - definition number 3)

Also between Veronica and Brother Jack, whose life and deportment she clearly regarded as nonpareil: he was the appointed judge when she asked publicly of me - and the question gets more condescending with each repetition - "He'll do, won't he?" (p.47)

solipsistic: of or characterized by solipsism,  or the theory that only the self exists, or can be proved to exist.

My first reaction was, I admit, solipsistic. (p. 150)

Tuesday Intro: Arthur & George

A child wants to see.  It always begins like this, and it began like this then.  A child wanted to see. 

He was able to walk, and could reach up to a door handle.  He did this with nothing that could be called purpose, merely the instinctive tourism of infancy.  A door was there to be pushed; he walked in, stopped, looked.  There was nobody to observe him; he turned and walked away, carefully shutting the door behind him.

What he saw there became his first memory.  A small boy, a room, a bed, closed curtains leaking afternoon light.  By the time he came to describe it publicly, sixty years had passed.  How many internal retellings had smoothed and adjusted the plain words he finally used?  Doubtless it still seemed as clear as on the day itself.  The door, the room, the light, the bed, and what was on the bed: a “white, waxen thing.”

Arthur & George
by Julian Barnes

I enjoyed The Sense of an Ending so much that my first instinct upon finishing was to turn back to page one and begin again. While that reread is still a possibility, I decided to explore more of Barnes work instead. Arthur & George was the only other novel available at my library.

But... We're off to Florida in a few days and I hate traveling with library books, especially hardcovers. And the TBR Double Dare is now underway, too. The first thirty pages convinced me to return to Arthur & George in a few months. In the meantime, I will begin our next book club selection (Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow) and choose a couple books from my shelf for the trip.

Tuesday Intros is hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea.

"An English New Year" by Henry James

"It will hardly be pretended this year that the English Christmas has been a merry one, or that the New Year has the promise of being particularly happy. The winter is proving very cold and vicious - as if Nature herself were loath to be left out  of the general conspiracy against the comfort and self-complacency of man."

More of a letter or essay, Henry James wrote "An English New Year" during the economically unstable 1870's. He was 35 years old, living in England, and the piece was published in The Nation on January 12, 1879. It later appeared in his Collected Travel Writings: Great Britain and America.

James talks of the general gloom prevalent throughout the country. As London is mired in fog and snow (described in in prose reminiscent of  Dickens), he hopes to recover his 'nervous balance' with a brief escape to the country.

"Of all the great things that the English have invented and made part of the credit of the national character, the most perfect, the most characteristic, the one they have mastered most completely in all its details, so that it has become a compendious illustration of their social genius and their manners, is the well-appointed, well-administered, well-filled country-house."

James is invited to accompany the lady of the house on a charitable holiday visit to a workhouse where she is to distribute toys to the children. The dispatch ends abruptly as he is reminded of Oliver Twist.

"An English New Year" is this week's Library of America Story of the Week and includes drawings by Joseph Pennell. You may read it here.

Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.

The Sunday Salon: A Look Ahead

*image credit

Happy New Year 2012!

And so we begin another year. While mulling over resolutions for 2012, I realized that slight changes made in 2011 have added to my overall enjoyment of reading and blogging, so I will continue on this path for another year.

My top goal for 2012 is to keep pressure and stress out of blogging. I will not necessarily review every book I read. If I don't have much to say, a one paragraph book note with a few basic thoughts will suffice. I will participate in events and group reads, and continue to limit challenges and commitments. 

Co-host a 2012 Group read. Interest in our Clarissa read-along project has been overwhelming! Terri and I will begin the year-long effort to read the 537 letters (1500 pages) roughly on the dates written. Our 'real time' read will last into December. My invitation post is here, but the page is still under construction.

I will return to my stacks in 2012. I loved the TBR Dare last year and plan to do it all again with the TBR Double Dare. Although it ends in April, reading my own books will continue to be a priority throughout the year.

Go back for seconds. Many of my 2011 favorites were written by known and trusted authors. I will read their work more deeply.

Resume the short story habit. Sometime over the summer, short stories vanished from this blog. I will try to participate in Short Story Monday at least semi-regularly.

Finally, thank you to all who read and comment here. I appreciate your feedback and friendship, and look forward to another year of book talk.