by Paula McLain
This book is by the author of The Paris Wife (which I think I liked) and Circling the Sun (which I hated).
It is the story of the life of Martha Gellhorn, an American woman who became a celebrated war correspodent and author. It takes place over the years that Gellhorn met Ernest Hemmingway, travelled in Spain with him during the Civil War, became his mistress and eventually his wife for five years.
It was a beautifully written, powerful story. She did a great job of depicting Gellhorn's experiences in wartime, how Hemmingway woed her, their few years of happiness together, before his ego and neediness seemed to doom the marriage.
It very skillfully portrayed the good times and the bad times, and did a superb job of showing how Hemmingway admired and then resented her independence. He liked here when she was succeeding but needed to be the centre of attention and the centre of her world. She also demonstrated the struggle Gellhorn had trying to live under the shadow of Hemmingway as an author. Hemmingway did help her and support her at times but he also seemed to drain her of her strength to write. The author does a wonderful job of portraying the wonderful life they built for themselves in Cuba and the affection Gellhorn felt for Hemmingway's sons.
The book portrays Hemmingway as very controlling, vindictive and moody.
I enjoyed this book very much and was sorry when it came to an end.
Monday, 2 July 2018
Sunday, 3 June 2018
Music Shop
by Rachel Joyce,
This is the story of a man who in 1980's England sets up a record shop and refuses to sell cassettes or CD's. He does seem to have the nack of finding the right music for people, even giving them stuff they might not normally like. He files his music by themes rather than genre, mixing classical with opera with Jazz at times.
A variety of people visit his shop but most visit and don't buy. He has a young man who becomes his helper. This young man seems to break things more than he helps. One day a German lady faints outside the store. The owner is intrigued by her and although he had abandoned romance in his life he is attracted to her. She disappears but shows up again later. She tells him she has a fiancee. He thinks he can still be friends with her and agrees to meet her once a week to discuss music.
While all this is going on the neighbourhood the store is in is in decline, many shops are closing and a developer is trying to buy people out. Eventually the man admits his love for the woman and she for him but they have a fight and she disappears. His store burns down and he too seems to disappear.
Twenty years later the woman is living in Germany teaching violin (it turns out she was a classical violinist who was force to retire because of arthritis in her hands). She realizes her life is empty and goes back to find the record store owner.
Eventually they are brought together at a mall in a crowd Mob singing the Hallelujah Chorus. They marry and rebuild a record store.
It was a "cute" story with lots of quirky characters but I really doubt the realism of the ending. Would anyone try to locate a former love after 20 years??
This is the story of a man who in 1980's England sets up a record shop and refuses to sell cassettes or CD's. He does seem to have the nack of finding the right music for people, even giving them stuff they might not normally like. He files his music by themes rather than genre, mixing classical with opera with Jazz at times.
A variety of people visit his shop but most visit and don't buy. He has a young man who becomes his helper. This young man seems to break things more than he helps. One day a German lady faints outside the store. The owner is intrigued by her and although he had abandoned romance in his life he is attracted to her. She disappears but shows up again later. She tells him she has a fiancee. He thinks he can still be friends with her and agrees to meet her once a week to discuss music.
While all this is going on the neighbourhood the store is in is in decline, many shops are closing and a developer is trying to buy people out. Eventually the man admits his love for the woman and she for him but they have a fight and she disappears. His store burns down and he too seems to disappear.
Twenty years later the woman is living in Germany teaching violin (it turns out she was a classical violinist who was force to retire because of arthritis in her hands). She realizes her life is empty and goes back to find the record store owner.
Eventually they are brought together at a mall in a crowd Mob singing the Hallelujah Chorus. They marry and rebuild a record store.
It was a "cute" story with lots of quirky characters but I really doubt the realism of the ending. Would anyone try to locate a former love after 20 years??
Wednesday, 9 May 2018
Ecstacy
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.
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.
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?
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
Outline
by Rachel Cusk
This book is nominated for the Giller and the GG award this year.
The Narrator is travelling to Greece to teach a writing course for a few days. She is staying at the apartment of another academic.
She has a long discussion on the plane with thrice divorced man who tells her about his life, his failed marriages and his mistake. He loved his first wife the best but she has made a life with a ski instructor, abandoning him and their son (schizophrenic).She meets another teacher who tells her about his life, his temptations, etc. She also meets other people, an old friend from Athens, an acquaintance of his has thrust herself upon him. She asks her students to talk about themselves and to tell a story about animals. One of the students walks out saying the course is crap. Very few ever ask her about herself. We learn very little about her other than that she is divorced and has left her children behind in England.
Notes from the book:
The narrator comments to a man she met on the plane "I said that on the contrary I had come to believe more and more in the virtues of passivity, and of living a life as unmarked by self-will as possible.... There was a great difference, I said between the things I wanted and the things that I could apparently have, and until I had finally made forever made my piece with the fact, I had decided to want nothing at all".
The end of the book, a playwright arrives as the narrator is preparing to return home. The playwright has been traumatized by a brutal assault and finds she cannot take any idea seriously enough to write about. She has weight but eats compulsively and ravenously. She mentions meeting a diplomat on the plane...
"It had made something clear to her by a reverse kind of exposition; while he talked she began to see herself as a shape, an outline, with all detail filled in around it while the shape itself remained blank. Yet this shape, even while its content remained unknown, gave her for the first time since the incident a sense of who she now was".
The main character seems to be a person people want to download their life and experiences on. In her writing class she encourages her students to be observant but she herself doesn't seem to be doing that. All the people in he books seem to have had bad relationships.
The language in the books is lovely. The author has a very eloquent way of describing and commenting on things. She has a gentle way of portraying people.
This book is nominated for the Giller and the GG award this year.
The Narrator is travelling to Greece to teach a writing course for a few days. She is staying at the apartment of another academic.
She has a long discussion on the plane with thrice divorced man who tells her about his life, his failed marriages and his mistake. He loved his first wife the best but she has made a life with a ski instructor, abandoning him and their son (schizophrenic).She meets another teacher who tells her about his life, his temptations, etc. She also meets other people, an old friend from Athens, an acquaintance of his has thrust herself upon him. She asks her students to talk about themselves and to tell a story about animals. One of the students walks out saying the course is crap. Very few ever ask her about herself. We learn very little about her other than that she is divorced and has left her children behind in England.
Notes from the book:
The narrator comments to a man she met on the plane "I said that on the contrary I had come to believe more and more in the virtues of passivity, and of living a life as unmarked by self-will as possible.... There was a great difference, I said between the things I wanted and the things that I could apparently have, and until I had finally made forever made my piece with the fact, I had decided to want nothing at all".
The end of the book, a playwright arrives as the narrator is preparing to return home. The playwright has been traumatized by a brutal assault and finds she cannot take any idea seriously enough to write about. She has weight but eats compulsively and ravenously. She mentions meeting a diplomat on the plane...
"It had made something clear to her by a reverse kind of exposition; while he talked she began to see herself as a shape, an outline, with all detail filled in around it while the shape itself remained blank. Yet this shape, even while its content remained unknown, gave her for the first time since the incident a sense of who she now was".
The main character seems to be a person people want to download their life and experiences on. In her writing class she encourages her students to be observant but she herself doesn't seem to be doing that. All the people in he books seem to have had bad relationships.
The language in the books is lovely. The author has a very eloquent way of describing and commenting on things. She has a gentle way of portraying people.
Wednesday, 18 April 2018
Every Note Played
by Lisa Genova
This book is about a self-absorbed concert pianist who gets ALS. It documents his denial and then decline. It is a very difficult book to read as you learn of how is body stops working. He is divorced. His wife left him after he had numerous affairs and because she basically sacrificed her career as a jazz pianist to support him and look after their daughter. Their daughter does not have a good relationship with the father, she sympathizes with the Mother.
His ex-wife agrees to let him come live with her so she can look after him. It is exhausting and she resents him because he still can be thoughtless and demanding. The husband realizes he was not a good husband and father but cannot bring himself to apologize to his wife and daughter. Eventually he loses his voice and cannot say he is sorry.
As time goes by his wife realizes that she is partly responsible for her own fate. At the end the husband decides to let himself slowly die as his systems are shutting down. It would be incredibly expensive to try to keep him alive, about $400, 000/year which he cannot afford.
After he dies his wife receives a tape from a Doctor who was recording his voice. It is what he calls a legacy message. In it the husband apologizes to his wife. Too bad he didn't do it when he was alive.
I am afraid I did not have much sympathy for the husband. The book was a powerful story but I think it would have been more satisfying if he had apologized to his wife and daughter before he died. The man kept hoping he would reconcile with his father, the father thought his athletic sons were valuable and disparaged him. However, the man's father dies so they are never able to settle with each other. You would think he would have learned something from that considering his own death was imminent.
This book is about a self-absorbed concert pianist who gets ALS. It documents his denial and then decline. It is a very difficult book to read as you learn of how is body stops working. He is divorced. His wife left him after he had numerous affairs and because she basically sacrificed her career as a jazz pianist to support him and look after their daughter. Their daughter does not have a good relationship with the father, she sympathizes with the Mother.
His ex-wife agrees to let him come live with her so she can look after him. It is exhausting and she resents him because he still can be thoughtless and demanding. The husband realizes he was not a good husband and father but cannot bring himself to apologize to his wife and daughter. Eventually he loses his voice and cannot say he is sorry.
As time goes by his wife realizes that she is partly responsible for her own fate. At the end the husband decides to let himself slowly die as his systems are shutting down. It would be incredibly expensive to try to keep him alive, about $400, 000/year which he cannot afford.
After he dies his wife receives a tape from a Doctor who was recording his voice. It is what he calls a legacy message. In it the husband apologizes to his wife. Too bad he didn't do it when he was alive.
I am afraid I did not have much sympathy for the husband. The book was a powerful story but I think it would have been more satisfying if he had apologized to his wife and daughter before he died. The man kept hoping he would reconcile with his father, the father thought his athletic sons were valuable and disparaged him. However, the man's father dies so they are never able to settle with each other. You would think he would have learned something from that considering his own death was imminent.
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