Sunday Sentence: Flight Behavior

Sunday Sentence highlights the best sentence(s) I've read this past week, out of context and without commentary.

"He'd said good night as if they were friends parting ways, then rolled to his side and slept the sleep of a mountain range while she stared at the black air, dividing the river of her desperation into rivulets until some of them seemed navigable." 

Flight Behavior
by Barbara Kinssolver
Loc 6538 (85%)

The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

The Woman Upstairs

by Claire Messud

Knopf, 2013

272 pages

Character likability is getting a lot of buzz these days, but it never factors into my reading. I think a truly good writer can make the reader (at least this reader) care about characters they don't particularly like. A character like Nora Eldridge, for example. She is the woman upstairs.

We're not the madwomen in the attic - they get lots of play, one way or another. We're the quiet woman at the end of the third-floor hallway, whose trash is always tidy, who smiles brightly in the stairwell with cheerful greeting, and who, from behind closed doors, never makes a sound. In our lives of quiet desperation, the woman upstairs is who we are, with or without a goddam tabby or a pesky lolloping Labrador, and not a soul registers that we are furious. We're completely invisible. I thought it wasn't true, or not true of me, but I've learned I am no different at all. The question now is how to work it, how to use that invisibility, to make it burn.  

As we learn in the novel's opening paragraph, she is angry.

I'm a good girl, I'm a nice girl, I'm a straight-A, strait-laced, good daughter, good career girl, and I never stole anybody's boyfriend and I never ran out on a girlfriend, and I put up with my parent's shit and my brother's shit, and I'm not a girl anyhow, I'm over forty fu**ing years old, and I'm good at my job and I'm great with kids and I held my mother's hand when she died, after four years of holding her hand while she was dying, and I speak to my father every day on the telephone - every day mind you, and what kind of weather do you have on your side of the river, because here it's pretty gray and a bit muggy too? It was supposed to say "Great Artist" on my tombstone, but if I died right now it would say "such a good teacher/daughter/friend" instead; and what I really want to shout, and want in big letters on that grave, too, is FU@K YOU ALL.

In a nutshell, this novel is about Nora, who has come to understand her position as "the woman upstairs", falling in love with an entire family (each member individually and the three of them as a group), and the eventual consequences. I loved it.

Messud's novel satisfies on many levels and was truly an extraordinary reading experience. Every character is fascinating and, Nora especially, is quite deep. My book club could spend hours discussing her. As the plot slowly unfolds, it becomes obvious that this is a novel of substance. It's both intelligent and insightful. The writing is superb. In fact, I'll stop right here and leave you with a few more quotes.

"I thought I could get to greatness, to my greatness, cleaning up each mess as it came, the way you're taught to eat your greens before you have dessert. But it turns out that's a rule for girls and sissies, because the mountain of greens is of Everest proportions, and the bowl of ice cream at the far end of the table is melting a little more with each passing second. There will be ants on it soon." 

"It doesn't ever occur to you, as you fashion your mask so carefully, that it will grow into your skin and graft itself, come to seem irremovable."

"It's the strangest thing about being human: to know so much, to communicate so much, and yet always to fall so drastically short of clarity, to be, in the end, so isolate and inadequate. Even when people try to say things, they say them poorly, or obliquely, or they outright lie, sometimes because they're lying to you, but as often because they're lying to themselves."

"Above all, in my anger, I was sad. Isn't that always the way, that at the heart of the fire is a frozen kernel of sorrow that the fire is trying - valiantly, fruitlessly - to eradicate." 

My rating:

source: borrowed from the library

Tuesday Intro: TransAtlantic by Colum McCann

2012  

The cottage sat at the edge of the lough. She could hear the wind and rain whipping across the expanse of open water: it hit the trees and muscled its way into the grass. 

She began to wake early in the morning, even before the children. It was a house worth listening to. Odd sounds from the roof. She thought, at first, that it might be rats scuttling across the slate, but she soon discovered that it was the gulls flying overhead, dropping oysters on the roof to break the shells open. It happened mostly in the morning, sometimes at dusk.

TransAtlantic
by Colum McCann

TransAtlantic by Colum McCann is my current audiobook, but I've also requested a print copy from the library. After the first thirty minutes, I'm enjoying both the writing and the narration in this Mann Booker nominee. It will be interesting to see how McCann will tie the various story lines together.

What do you think of the opening? Would you keep reading this novel?

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening. Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

A Most Embarrassing Morning

The scene: Monday morning, sipping the all-important first cup of coffee, reading blogs, and catching up with goodreads

The idea: Isn't "Blogger X" already my friend on goodreads?

The action: I'll send a friend request

The reality: friend request mistakenly sent to every  twitter follower with a goodreads account

The effect: instant mortification

The benefit: lots of  new goodreads friends (though I thought I was already friends with most of you)

Note to twitter followers: My feelings won't be hurt if you ignore the request.

Note to self: Always  consume at least one cup of coffee before logging into any social media

The Sunday Salon: August Reading

Good Morning and Happy August! July passed in a flash, but it was actually a very good reading month for me. Assuming this summer reading frenzy will spill into August, I've gathered an optimistic stack of books for the coming weeks.

From the top:

TransAtlantic by Colum McCann (audio on my iPhone) - I loved the audio version of Let the Great World Spin and am hoping his latest, a Mann Booker nominee, is just as good. I'm also on the library hold list for a print edition.

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver (on my kindle) is for book club. I'm really enjoying this book and think it's Kingsolver's best since Prodigal Summer.

Wild Strawberries by Angela Thirkell  - High Rising was SO good and I've been searching, with no success, for the second book in the Barsetshire series for months. This arrived a few days ago from Lisa at TBR 313 (the highlight of an otherwise stressful week) and I can't wait to read it.

Tigers in Red Weather by Lisa Klaussemann seems like a perfect summer read. It's been on my wish list for a couple of years and I couldn't resist an impulse purchase at the wholesale club this week. Besides, it was the only copy!

Half a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the August pick at the Backlist Book Club. It's been on my shelf for years and this kind of feels like a now or never situation...

The Whole Fromage by Kath Lisson - a review book I really meant to read in July.

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen - As part of Adam's Austen in August event, Melissa is hosting a Mansfield Park Readalong.  It's not my favorite Austen, but I'm thinking it deserves a reread and sure hope I can fit it in this month.

I'm not an especially fast reader and a book a week is all I can realistically expect to finish. Obviously, I won't make it thought the entire stack, but it sure will be fun trying. What books are you looking forward to this month?

The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier (audio)

The Last Runaway
by Tracy Chevalier
Narrated by Kate Reading
Penguin Audio, 2013
9 hours and 51 minutes
source: review copy provided by publisher

Publisher's Summary:

In New York Times best-selling author Tracy Chevalier’s newest historical saga, she introduces Honor Bright, a modest English Quaker who moves to Ohio in 1850, only to find herself alienated and alone in a strange land. Sick from the moment she leaves England, and fleeing personal disappointment, she is forced by family tragedy to rely on strangers in a harsh, unfamiliar landscape.

Nineteenth-century America is practical, precarious, and unsentimental, and scarred by the continuing injustice of slavery. In her new home Honor discovers that principles count for little, even within a religious community meant to be committed to human equality.

However, drawn into the clandestine activities of the Underground Railroad, a network helping runaway slaves escape to freedom, Honor befriends two surprising women who embody the remarkable power of defiance. Eventually she must decide if she too can act on what she believes in, whatever the personal costs.

A powerful journey brimming with color and drama, The Last Runaway is Tracy Chevalier’s vivid engagement with an iconic part of American history.


My thoughts:

The Last Runaway  offers its reader a glimpse into 1850's Quaker life, the workings of the Underground Railroad, and one young English woman's perspective on the strangeness of life in America. The story is told with no-frills language in a very straight-forward manner, and the inclusion of Honor's letters to family and friends back home in England provides a better understanding of her character.

"I feel very confused now. I am in a part of the country where there is much movement, and yet I do not know where to move myself. And America is such a peculiar country. It is young and untested, its foundations uncertain." 

Quilting is also prominently featured in the narrative. There is a good deal of discussion about patterns, styles, and technique which may seem tedious to the reader with no prior knowledge or interest in the subject. However, it was a plus for me.

Finally, after a string of books with ambiguous endings, the tidy resolution of this story proved very satisfying.

A note on the audio production:

Kate Reading's list of audio credits is extensive, but this was my first experience with her narration.  Her adopted tone and manner were perfectly suited to Quaker speech and enhanced my overall enjoyment of the book. 

Read or listen?

Listen, definitely.

My rating:

Bottom line : 
Not quite as strong as Chevalier's previous novels, The Last Runaway is still a good read. Recommended.

A (Virtual) Moveable Blogger Pub Crawl: Bread

Leopold Bloom, possibly anticipating a Dublin pub crawl

(from the Ulysses Seen graphic novel)

It all started with Jill's Bloomsday post. Several of us commented that Ulysses  would never figure into our reading plans, but the idea of a pub crawl certainly sounded appealing. So this week, four bloggers join forces to take you on a tour of beer, wine, cheese, and bread...our own virtual moveable pub crawl. The tour started Tuesday with a post on beer by Kathy of BermudaOnion. Yesterday Jill at Rhapsody in Books tempted us with cheese, and today I'm baking bread. Tomorrow it's all about wine with Sandy at You've GOTTA Read This!

So, bread...

It's a fact, I love bread. Any grain, any flavor, any shape, any texture. I also love to bake, and our recent cooler temperatures inspired me to pull out  my "baking bible" and turn on the oven. For our pub crawl, my focus quickly narrowed to flatbreads, crispbreads, and crackers. There were easily dozens of recipes that would pair well with cheese and a nice glass of wine or a cold craft beer. Eventually I settled on Lavash, an easy-to-make unleavened crispbread.

LAVASH
from King Arthur Flour

3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3/4 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup shortening
1 large egg
1 cup milk (I used whole milk)
1/2 cup sesame seeds, toasted, or a combination of other small seeds (I used chia seeds)

Method:
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and sugar. Cut in shortening. Beat the egg and milk together and stir into flour mixture, mixing well.The dough will be firm. Cover and let it rest for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Divide dough into four pieces and roll each to 1/16 inch thickness on the back of a lightly greased sheet pan or on a piece of parchment paper. Brush the lavash with water and sprinkle the tops with seeds. Go over the dough once more, lightly, to press the seeds into the surface.

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until browned and crisp. Break into pieces and serve with butter or your favorite spread.

The recipe was simple, but it seemed weird rolling out the dough and baking it on the wrong side of a cookie sheet.

It came out of the oven browned and crisp. 

I served the lavash with a Caprese Salad and chilled chardonnay. I wonder what kind of wine Sandy will be serving tomorrow...

This post will be linked to this Saturday’s Weekend Cooking, hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has a food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend.