by Mary Sharratt
This is the fictionalized story of the wife of Gustav Mahler. Alma who becomes his wife was an aspiring composer however her family scoffed at her desires and insisted she should marry. She falls in love with her piano tutor but her family sends him packing. When Mahler shows up and falls for her they urge her to marry him. She is in love with him or at least his presence and brilliance. They marry and she is very upset that he is so demanding including telling her she should not compose or even play the piano, that her job is to support him. She gets pregnat and eventually has two children but she remains unfulfilled and unhappy. Several times she is sent to spas or instituions to recover her health, mental state. Sometimes it is after miscarriages.
She struggles with her unhappiness. One of their children dies of diptheria, both she and Mahler are devastated and their relationship deteriorates, he seems to blame her when she has another miscarriage accusing her of wanting it to happen.
Mahler's popularity in Vienna wanes and he takes a job in New York as a conductor. She tries to give him advice about how to be more approachable re: the requests of his patrons but he is so self obsessed he chastises her for trying to tell him what to do.
They return to Europe for the summers and one year Alma is again at sanitorium. She meets Walter Gropius, the architect, and they fall in love and have an affair. Gropius wants her to run away with him but Alma Mahler needs her and she should stay with him. Alma's mother, who had a child out of an affair does what she can to allow Alma and Gropious to spend some time together. Gropius is furious that Alma will not leave Mahler for him and sends a letter by which Mahler discovers the truth. In a strange twist it seems that this knowledge brings Mahler and Alma closer together. He starts to realize how he may have harmed her and encourages her to compose again, even getting some of her pieces published. She stays with him until his death but finally feels really free once he has died.
The author did a great job of presenting the atmosphere at the time, the powerful emotions of Alma and Mahler. It was an interesting read focussing on how women's dreams are surrendered to the needs of the men in their lives. But not all women are subservient, Alma knows some women who are successful professional artists. She is surprised about the power and influence women of rich men have in America.
Wednesday, 9 May 2018
Summer Hours at the Robbers LIbrary
by Sue Halpern
The story is about a woman who so wants to leave her past life that she changes her name. She takes a job as a Reference Librarian in Riverton, NJ because she thinks no one will know her there. She buys an old house and pays to get it fixed up but she does little to furnish it.
A teenage girl is sent to court because she tried to steal a dictionary from a bookstore. As her punishment she is sentenced to do volunteer work at the library for the entire summer. The Reference Librarian is not happy to have the delinquent assigned to her. The punishment isn't all that bad for the young girl as she loves book and she is so useful she soon starts to run the kids program at the library. The Librarian is reluctant to share information about herself despite the prying of the young girl. She finds out that the young girl has been home schooled and her parents are living a somewhat hippie lifestyle.
The library has many strange characters who visit, there is a group of four old men who hang out in the library every morning. The Librarian becomes quite fond of them. There is a well dressed young man who comes in and uses the computer every day. They eventually find out he was a stock broker or investment banker in New York and lost his job and all his wordly possessions except his wardrobe and his car in the market crash. He is trying to track down an old bank account of his mother as this will give him some cash.
The old guys eventually welcome the young man into their gang, the Librarian becomes friendly to the young thief even having her stay over at her place. She feels really sorry for the girl when the young girl suspects the man she thinks is her fathe is a fugitive from the law-- having attacked a lab.
The librarian and the young man become friends. We eventually learn that the Librarian sacrificed her life for her husband who became a doctor. They did not have a happy marriage and eventually the husband has an affair with an unattractive teenage nanny who later turns up dead. At her husband's trial the woman's seems to be on trial as the cause for her husband's behaviour. That is why she wants to get away and start a new life.
It was an entertaining story, the librarian's life story at the end was an interesting bit of added drama in the story.
The story is about a woman who so wants to leave her past life that she changes her name. She takes a job as a Reference Librarian in Riverton, NJ because she thinks no one will know her there. She buys an old house and pays to get it fixed up but she does little to furnish it.
A teenage girl is sent to court because she tried to steal a dictionary from a bookstore. As her punishment she is sentenced to do volunteer work at the library for the entire summer. The Reference Librarian is not happy to have the delinquent assigned to her. The punishment isn't all that bad for the young girl as she loves book and she is so useful she soon starts to run the kids program at the library. The Librarian is reluctant to share information about herself despite the prying of the young girl. She finds out that the young girl has been home schooled and her parents are living a somewhat hippie lifestyle.
The library has many strange characters who visit, there is a group of four old men who hang out in the library every morning. The Librarian becomes quite fond of them. There is a well dressed young man who comes in and uses the computer every day. They eventually find out he was a stock broker or investment banker in New York and lost his job and all his wordly possessions except his wardrobe and his car in the market crash. He is trying to track down an old bank account of his mother as this will give him some cash.
The old guys eventually welcome the young man into their gang, the Librarian becomes friendly to the young thief even having her stay over at her place. She feels really sorry for the girl when the young girl suspects the man she thinks is her fathe is a fugitive from the law-- having attacked a lab.
The librarian and the young man become friends. We eventually learn that the Librarian sacrificed her life for her husband who became a doctor. They did not have a happy marriage and eventually the husband has an affair with an unattractive teenage nanny who later turns up dead. At her husband's trial the woman's seems to be on trial as the cause for her husband's behaviour. That is why she wants to get away and start a new life.
It was an entertaining story, the librarian's life story at the end was an interesting bit of added drama in the story.
Transit
by Rachel Cusk
This is the second of three books. In this book we learn more about the protaganist from the first book. She has moved to London with her two children to try to get away from the memories of her bad marriage. She buys a rundown house in a nice neighbourhood and starts fixing it up. The neighbours who live below her constantly complaining about them walking on the floor and other noise. The construction noise makes them even angrier. The neighbour even complains to the other neighbours about the woman.
The chaos in the house seems to reflect the woman's mental state. She tries to write part of the day and teaches writing the other part of the day. She seems to be fighting to not feel or care about things so she won't get hurt again.
"For a long time I said that I believed that it was only through absolute passivity that you could learn to see what was really there. But my decision to make a disturbance by renovating my house had woken a different reality, as though I had disturbed a sleeping beast in its lair. I had started in effect to become angry. I had decided to desire power becuase what I realized was that other people had it all along. that what I called fate was merely a reverbation of their will...by people who would elude justice for as long as their actions were met with resignation rather than outrage". Is she saying that people will do whatever they can get away with as others will be resigned to it rather than challenge them?
Again a lot of the book involves the protaganist listen to other people as they tell her about their lives and disappointments. I found the book hard to read, everyone she encounters seems to be unhappy in their marriages, don't care about their children. Does what she sees switch her from ennui to outrage?
This is the second of three books. In this book we learn more about the protaganist from the first book. She has moved to London with her two children to try to get away from the memories of her bad marriage. She buys a rundown house in a nice neighbourhood and starts fixing it up. The neighbours who live below her constantly complaining about them walking on the floor and other noise. The construction noise makes them even angrier. The neighbour even complains to the other neighbours about the woman.
The chaos in the house seems to reflect the woman's mental state. She tries to write part of the day and teaches writing the other part of the day. She seems to be fighting to not feel or care about things so she won't get hurt again.
"For a long time I said that I believed that it was only through absolute passivity that you could learn to see what was really there. But my decision to make a disturbance by renovating my house had woken a different reality, as though I had disturbed a sleeping beast in its lair. I had started in effect to become angry. I had decided to desire power becuase what I realized was that other people had it all along. that what I called fate was merely a reverbation of their will...by people who would elude justice for as long as their actions were met with resignation rather than outrage". Is she saying that people will do whatever they can get away with as others will be resigned to it rather than challenge them?
Again a lot of the book involves the protaganist listen to other people as they tell her about their lives and disappointments. I found the book hard to read, everyone she encounters seems to be unhappy in their marriages, don't care about their children. Does what she sees switch her from ennui to outrage?
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