123. THIS is WHERE I LEAVE YOU

Jonathan Tropper 2009

The plot of this novel is simple enough, like a few others I have read to date: a recently separated man unsure of what to do next. However, none of them quite made me laugh like this book did. Although the humor and language is at times crude and explicit (some pushes the edge for me), it is still a book I enjoyed a lot. Soon after Judd Foxman catches his wife Jen ( he later finds out she is pregnant) sleeping with his boss (the funniest but raunchiest scene ever), his father dies with a request that the family sits shiva and stay for a whole week at their parents' house. The book is in essence his dysfunctional family's coming together over the next seven days, a roller-coaster ride of one-liners and emotions: sad, raw, hilarious, shocking, outrageous but also mostly tender, honest and moving.

"Dad's dead," Wendy says offhandedly, like it's happened before, like it happens every day. It can be grating, this act of hers, to be utterly unfazed at all times, even in the face of tragedy. "He died two hours ago."(opening lines)

'My marriage ended the way these things do: with paramedics and cheesecake.'(15)

'Mom is a shrink, obviously. But she's more than that. Twenty-five years ago she wrote a book called Cradle and all: A Mother's Guide to Enlightened Parenting. The book was a national phenomenon and turned my mother into something of a celebrity expert on parenting. Predictably, my siblings and I were screwed up beyond repair.'(35)

"Be quiet!" Paul hisses at us. Phillip winks at me. And here we stand at our father's grave, the three Foxman men, all roughed from the same template but put through different finishing process. We each have our father's dark curly hair and square, dimpled chin, but there would be no mistaking us for twins. Paul looks like me, only bigger, broader, and angrier; me on steroids. Phillip looks like me, only slimmer and much better-looking, his features rendered more gracefully, his smile wide and effortlessly seductive.'(37)

'If you've ever been in a failed marriage, and statistically speaking, it's a safe bet that you have, or if not, that you soon will be, then you'll know that the first thing you do at the end is reflect on the beginning. Maybe it's some form of reverse closure, or just the basic human impulse toward sentimentality, or masochism, but as you stand there shell-shocked in the charred ruins of your life, your mind will invariably go back to the time when it all started.'(51)

'I'm supposed to be decades away from this, supposed to be just starting my own family, but there's been a setback, a calamitous detour, and you wouldn't think you could get any more depressed while sitting shiva for your father, but you'd be wrong. Suddenly, I can't stop seeing the footprints of time on everyone in the room. The liver spots, the multiple chins, the sagging neck, the jowls, the flaps of skin over eyes, the spotted scalps, the frown lines etched into permanence, the stooped shoulders, the sagging man breasts, the bowed legs. When does it all happen? In increments, so you can't watch out for it, you can't fix it. One day you just wake up and discover that you got old while you were sleeping.'(66)

'I am going to be a father, just when I've lost my own. There are some who would see a certain divine balance in that, one soul departing to make room for another, but I'm not that guy. I don't believe in God when I'm in trouble, the way so many people do. But at times like this, when the irony seems too cruel and well crafted to be a coincidence, I can see God in the details. Due to some mental hiccup I can't explain, when I think of God, I picture Hugh Hefner: a thin, angular man with a prominent chin in a maroon smoking jacket.'(141)

'You never know when it will be the last time you'll see your father, or kiss your wife, or play with your little brother, but there's always a last time. If you could remember every last time, you'd never stop grieving.'(156)

'... the only thing you can ever really know about anyone is that you don't know anything about them at all.'(188)

'It's a sad moment when you come to understand how truly replaceable you are.'(215)

'There are tricks to paying a shiva call. You don't want to come during off-peak hours, or you risk being the only one there, face-to-face with five surly mourners who, but for your presence, would be off their low chairs, stretching their legs and their compressed spines, taking a bathroom break, or having a snack. Evenings are your safest bet, after seven, when everyone's eaten and the room is full. Weekday afternoons are a dead zone. Sunday is a crapshoot. Do a drive-by and count the park cars before you stop. If you're lucky, there will always be a conversation going on when you come in, so you won't have to sit there trying to start one of your own. It's hard to talk to the bereft. You never know what's off limits.'(234)

'Sometimes, contentment is a matter of will. You have to look at what you have right in front of you, at what it could be, and stop measuring it against what you've lost. I know this to be wise and true, just as I know that pretty much no one can do it.'(255)

'You can do everything right and still end up alone, watching time run off the clock.'(301)

___________________

Dutton First Edition

339 pages

Book owned

___________________

Personal Note: I read this book while waiting to be called for jury duty, trying not to laugh too loud in the waiting room of the court house. This book reminded me of Larry David's (creator of Seinfeld) sense of humor. If you are familiar with his show 'Curb your Enthusiasm' and you like it, you will probably enjoy this book!!

122. EXIT the ACTRESS

Priya Parmar 2011

In this captivating debut historical fiction set in 17th century England, we find King Charles II with his hands full as he tries to win a war, deal with court politics, rebuild a London ravaged by the plague and the great fire, whilst he fails to start a family with his Queen, has children with his mistress Castlemaine and gets deeply smitten with Nell (Ellen) Gwyn, an orange vendor turned actress. The novel is a tapestry of letters, news, official notations, announcements, and household tips on top of the fabric that is Nell's diary. Her poignant and witty journal entries let us privy to her family and theatre life, inner thoughts and heart's desires and her blossoming royal romance. As delightful, and adorable Nell's character is, the manner in which this novel was written is even more so. I wanted the story to go on as I marveled at the regalia, almost cried with Nell, chuckled at hers and friends Tom and Teddy's commotions, and secretly enjoyed the giddiness of falling in love with a King.

'Hurry home. Fast and faster. Pull your curtains. Bolt your door. Close your eyes and wish some more. Love your neighbor. Sweep your floor. Beware. Luck can turn in a mouse's breath; before you notice, it is gone. So wish and wish for all your life to be kissed by bounty and freed of strife, and always, always for you and yours, joy upon joy upon joy-- after all, it is all there is.'(6)

'Isn't it pretty? I guess I should say "you" rather than "it". Isn't that what one does in a journal, address it personally, like a friend, like a confidante? I am not sure of the etiquette, but I do know that "you" sounds precious and forced and not for me. Grumble.'(11)

'I breathe in and begin. Clear-eyed. Low and lilting, soft and strong. A woman singing in the night. a woman singing for her lover. Her lover, lost at sea. A woman calling. A woman waiting. I sing, light and full. I sing, strong and sweet. I sing. Lulling them. Coaxing them. I sing. Charming them into captivity. I am more than myself. My voice is rich and clean, my fingers are sure on the strings, my hips sway gently, my head tilts with pleasure. (71)

'He was the fixed centre of the melee-- the substance anchoring the chaos. Nothing about him was quite right: his face was too long, his eyes too deeply set, his lids are too heavy, his moustache too lank and his mouth too wide, yet he fit together perfectly. and he was the king: a king waiting to speak to me.'(95)

'She stands out. No question. Small and bold and neat as you like. With her fiery hair and pert little figure, she will make a brilliant foil to the current rash of dark, sloe-eyed favourites. She is fearless and quick, and she will thrive in this realm. We musn't waste her on nonsense roles. She must star, but it must be the right part.'(99)

'Dr. Bangs has proclaimed me healed. How can I be healed when I feel so unwhole? I am in such small pieces I cannot imagine how to fit them together again. The doctor tells me, as long as I maintain a light diet (now I can eat all the herrings I wish) and get plenty of rest, I can get up, move about and return to the theatre, if I choose. If I choose? I choose to hide away in my little blue study in this great grey house.'(125)

'Listen: Can you hear them?

They call me Nell.

They gave me a new name.

They call me to come and take an extra bow when the curtain comes down.

They send me flowers and trinkets and letter and cards.

They write as if they know me.

They want to know where I buy my shoes, my gowns, my creams, my soaps.

They like my small feet and forgive my red hair.

They wait outside the theatre.

They call me Nell.

But I am Ellen, I think.'(135)

'I sat strangely dumb, watching the rich lace of his cuffs as he lifted the bottle to his lips. He took a swallow and returned the bottle to Becka, his lived-in face relaxed in easy comfort. This is the king, the king, I kept telling myself, and yet he has a way of putting one at ease. As in our first meeting, a curious feeling of giddy warmth came over me. Why he is just a man, I discovered, surprised. How funny and how right.(143)

'It is certainly my own, whatever it is, but is it grace? Do other women worry incessantly over making mistakes, as I do? I am sure not. The washed-out, dainty woman of the court flap and flutter and follow a set of unseen rules: who takes precedence over whom, when to sit, when to stand, how low to curtsey-- endless. I try to keep to the background, but my noisy laugh has already drawn much attention, and although men and women alike profess to love it, I cannot help but feel like a wild girl who has stumbled into an unfamiliar land.'(172)

'I still cannot get used to the sight of the king, and my soul dissolves into a million bumble-bees at his approach. I sometimes wonder if he can hear me buzzing.'(173)

'I am treating this is a game of make believe that need never come true. In my deepest heart I think the entire enterprise is absurd and could never come true. Last year, I was an orange girl... how could I ever hope to interest the king? But my friends seem to believe it is possible. Do I do this for them? No. I do this for myself. It is a daydream that will not fade. My fascination with this man has a thrumming pulse of its own, and in truth, I cannot pass up this chance, however slim, however unlikely-- my glass-slipper heart will not allow it. And so, I am resolved. I will make him notice me. For better or for worse I will play my hand.'(284-285)

'Note-- The audience numbers have greatly improved for Tyrannick Love, but they are coming for the prologue, leaving to dine during the play itself, and then returning for the epilogue. Heigh-ho. I am not built for serious theatre.'(401)

"Your sparkle came from your secret, Ellen. When we are young, very young, if we are lucky, we believe that we are guaranteed a special place in the world, all our own. It is only when we find out that there is no such place unless we scratch it out with our own hands that our lights begin to dim."

"My secret?" I asked, not following.

"You were yourself by your own right. However much it may have looked like you were in someone's possession. That was your great secret. That is why you sparkled beyond all others. You were free."(427-428)

___________________________________

a Touchstone trade paperback, first edition, February 2011

464 pages

Book graciously provided by the Publishing company.

___________________________________

THE GIVEAWAY:

A special thanks to the publicist for graciously providing THREE books for this giveaway.

All you need to do is comment with your e-mail address. Please leave a comment for extra entries: (maximum of 4 entries/person)

+2 entries if you blog or tweet the giveaway.

+1 entry if you are a follower.

The publicist requested only US address (no P.O. Box please).

Entry participation will close on November 27, 2010, 9 PM, eastern.

The THREE winners will be chosen through Random.org and announced on Monday November 29, 2010.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING !!!

121. ROCK ISLAND LINE

David Rhodes 1975

The perseverance of July Montgomery, the main protagonist of this marvelous novel is utterly amazing. After a car accident kills his parents John and Sharon, he runs away from his once protected life in a small town in Iowa via the Rock Island Line to find a new life alone in Philadelphia. Barely ten years old, he finds his first home underneath a train station and his first job selling newspapers. But life is not to be smooth for him, and after a series of failed associations, and in spite of meeting and falling in love with Mal, he decides to go back to his old house in Iowa to build a new life together. July's surprisingly uplifting insightful view of life in spite of all his tragic experiences is truly astounding.

'The old people remember Della and Wilson Montgomery as clearly as if just last Sunday after the church pot-luck dinner they had climbed into their gray Chevrolet and driven back out to their country home, Della waiving from the window and Wilson leaning over the wheel, steering with both hands.'(opening line)

'After all, how odd is it really to have a momentary temper flare, where all the petty grievances of several months come together in a perfect pinnacle of outrage, actualize, exorcise, and afterward leave no trace? How odd is that? Not so very. Indeed, what would married life be without just such instantaneous outbursts, where a few spoken words become a symbol for absolute, incorrigible evil?'(9)

'As John grew older, he learned more about himself. From the very beginning he must have been aware of frightening inconsistency in the way experiences came to him. He must have felt (especially in moments of remorse) that his life was insubstantial because he could have two completely unrelated ways of viewing it-- two attitudes, neither of which could be said to be less valid or real. A feeling of disintegration-- drowning, with nothing to grab hold of that could float.'(35)

'Quickly, Sarah came over and sat beside him on the floor with his truck, and in her silent-fighter voice talked to him, and explained quite clearly and exactly how oldness, old age-- that time at the end of a person's long happy life-- that time just before they became dead-- made them act in ways different from people who were not at the end of their lives-- and that the whole thing, most importantly, the complete overall picture, was good and rejoiceful.'(108)

"You're both chicken," said Earl. "You're yellow."

'This taunt, which by itself has probably been responsible for more misdeeds among young people than any other, cut them to the quick. It's a wicked threat, one which almost anyone can wield with the same weight, one which is secretly used against oneself with terrible consequences. Its seriousness can never be overlooked-- the weapon of self-destruction, yet the foundation of noble action.'(158)

'I was deceived, he thought. Somehow, though the blame is mostly mine, I was deceived into believing nothing terrible would ever happen to me. Everyone else knew... that all it takes is one bit of bad luck-- the tiniest quirk of fate, and zip, bring in two caskets, if the little fool was running, we'd hear 'im. '(128)

'After spending a day with her parents, who generally didn't let her talk at all, this attention was welcome and it made her feel important; but better were the times when they laughed together, and best were the fleeting glimpses she had when he seemed a caricature of himself: because that was when she knew she had loved him from the first moment, as though his soul showed through him like a trapped, cloudy light wanting to come out, wishing for more air, always wanting only a couple of mouthfuls of clean air. It seemed he had somewhere inside him, bottled and smoldering though it might be, more life than in twenty of all other people she had known.' (277)

'With all these revolutionary things going on, it might be imagined that July found little time to think back on his previous life: that he would be completely occupied with the present. But such was not the case (nor was it likely to ever be). Each new emotion that he encountered seemed to let loose from his past, and the more expansive he became on the one hand, the more groundless he felt on the other, as in flying a kite, the brisker the wind, the easier to get up, but the harder to get down and the more likely to break a stick. Or so it seemed to him.'(281)

'Mal carried the necklace to the mirror in the kitchen and put it on. Looking into her own eyes and admiring the reflection, she thought: Now I must decide to stay or leave. She thought very hard, trying to be fair as possible, realizing that staying had to mean more than waiting, and leaving meant forever.'(319)

"We should take more time to notice things," he continued. "We should look and be open to more-- because the better feelings aren't the ones that come naturally. They have to be worked for. They come when everything else is shut out."(323)

'The last was the large, weightless package for July, and with the help of the puppy July tore into it, only to find it empty but for a small piece of paper on which she'd written in crayon with large, clumsy letters, making it look as though a second-grader had made it at school, Will you marry me?'(331)

'If you ever could know how much I love you, you'd be frightened.'(338)

"All I mean is that I feel sometimes that there should be more-- something that we would always be working towards. What we're doing now, is that what everybody else does, and is it the same thing for them, so on blah blah? Doesn't it seem that somehow there must be more? Because this can't be really living. Really living must be something else entirely. But maybe there isn't such a thing-- oh, I hope you're understanding all this in the right way. Maybe there isn't such a thing as really living at all, only just being alive."(344)

'The ability to be with oneself, he decided, was something that reached further back than anything else. Each person must have his own way, for better or worse, but the ease with which it can be tolerated can only depreciate from lack of practice, and never improve beyond what it was originally meant to be.'(355)

'As the days wore on, he had felt the possibilities contracting. Coming to an intersection, he could see that one and sometimes two of the four channels were slowly being sealed up, like doorways being cemented over, and it wasn't easy to get into them any more. Before long it would be impossible. He knew very clearly the substance that was sealing these avenues, knew how it was getting there but had no idea how to stop it. Invariably, it was the channels containing the good feeling which were being closed. He had seen also that the beginning work on the bad had started, and that the future held almost exclusively nonfeeling channels, when his thoughts would roll straight through his mind like a bowling ball down a narrow alley and , deviating just the slightest bit, would fall into the gutter, slide all the way to the end and drop into the machine to be returned.'(398)

"Keep yourself headed forward. There's nothing easy in this world-- and to give up is to lose everything. Do what you feel you have to, but do it in order to improve yourself. No running. Learn how to suffer and nothing will ever be able to hurt you. Reach as far as you possibly can with pride. Be more than you are able."(408)

A Milkweed Edition 2008

408 pages

Book Owned

A great review @ Bibliophiliac's blog can be found here.

120. ANNA KARENINA

Leo Tolstoy 1877

Translated by Constance Garnett

An absorbing unforgettable saga! I so thoroughly enjoyed this hefty novel, set in 19th century Russia, as much a story of Konstantin Levin as the story of Anna Karenina. Levin is the rock of virtues, a landowner living in the country, always aiming to better himself through hard work, spirituality and consistency, albeit unsettled with every choice he makes including marrying Kitty and starting a family. Anna is the parallel flawed heroine, living in the city, at once simple and seemingly content, but always restless and unsatisfied. When Anna, then married to Alexy meets Vronsky at a train station, and despite an ominous start, they fall in love and defy the social expectations of their time. "Why, what is the meaning of such desperate passions?" is the passage that sums up their love story for me.

'Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.'(opening line)

'Stephan Arkadyevitch was not merely liked by all who knew him for his good-humor, but for his bright disposition, and his unquestionable honesty. In him, in his handsome, radiant figure, his sparkling eyes, black hair and eyebrows, and the white and red of his face, there was something which produced a physical effect of kindliness and good-humor on the people who met him.'(17)

'He knew she was there by the rapture and the terror that seized on his heart. She was standing talking to a lady at the opposite end of the ground. There was apparently nothing striking either in her dress or her attitude. But for Levin she was as easy to find in that crowd as a rose among nettles. Everything was made bright by her. She was the smile that shed light on all round her.'(29)

'Kitty had been seeing Anna everyday; she adored her, and had pictured her invariable in lilac. But now seeing her in black, she felt that she had not fully seen her charm. She saw her now as some one quite new and surprising to her. Now she understood that Anna could not have been in lilac, and that her charm was just that she always stood out against her attire, that her dress could never be noticeable on her. And her black dress, and all that was seen was she-- simple, natural, elegant, and at the same time gay and eager.'(75)

'As he saw all this, there came over him for an instant a doubt of the possibility of arranging the new life, of which he had been dreaming on the road. All these traces of his life, seemed to clutch him, and to say to him: 'No, you're not going to get away from us, and you're not going to be different, but you're going to be the same as you've always been; with doubts, everlasting dissatisfaction with yourself, vain efforts to amend, and falls, and everlasting expectation, of a happiness which you won't get, and which isn't possible for you.'(87)

'Wasted and flushed, with a peculiar glitter in her eyes, left there by the agony of shame she had been put through, Kitty stood in the middle of the room. When the doctor came in she flushed crimson, and her eyes filled with tears. All her illness and treatment stuck her as a thing so stupid, ludicrous even! Doctoring her seemed to her as absurd as putting together the pieces of a broken vase. Her heart was broken.'(113)

'Alexy Alexandrovitch was not jealous. Jealousy according to his notions was an insult to one's wife, and one ought to have confidence in one's wife... Alexey Alexandrovitch was standing face to face with life, with the possibility of his wife's loving some one or other than himself, and this seemed to him very irrational and incomprehensible because it was life itself.'(134)

'This child's presence called up both in Vronsky and in Anna a feeling akin to the feeling of a sailor who sees by the compass that the direction in which he is swiftly moving is far from the right one, but that to arrest his motion is not in his power, that every instant is carrying him farther and farther away, and that to admit to himself his deviation from the right direction is the same as admitting his certain ruin. This child, with his innocent outlook upon life, was the compass that showed them the point to which they departed from what they knew, but they did not want to know.'(173)

'The chief problem of the philosophy of all ages consists just in finding the indispensable connection which exists between individual and social interests. But that's not to the point; what is to the point is a correction I must make in your comparison. The birches are not simply stuck in, but some are sown and some are planted, and one must deal carefully with them. It's only those peoples that have an intuitive sense of what's of importance and significance in their institutions, and know how to value them, that have a future before them-- it's only those peoples that one can truly call historical.'(231)

'The longer Levin mowed, the oftener he felt the moments of unconsciousness in which it seemed not his hands that swung the scythe, but the scythe mowing of itself, a body full of life and consciousness of its own, and as though by magic, without thinking of it, the work turned out regular and well-finished of itself. These were the most blissful moments.'(237)

"Yes, I understand it all now," said Darya Alexandrovna. "You can't understand it; for you men, who are free and make your own choice, it's always clear whom you love. But a girl's in a position of suspense, with all a woman's or maiden's modesty, a girl who sees you men from afar, who takes everything on trust, -- a girl may have, and often has, such a feeling that she cannot tell what to say."(253)

'Every man who knows to the minutest details all the complexity of the conditions surrounding him, cannot help imagining that the complexity of these conditions, and the difficulty of making them clear, is something exceptional and personal, peculiar to himself, and never supposes that others are surrounded by just as complicated an array of personal affairs as he is. So indeed it seemed to Vronsky.'(282)

'Every one took part in the conversation except Kitty and Levin... She and Levin had a conversation of their own, yet not a conversation, but some sort of mysterious communication, which brought them every moment nearer, and stirred in both a sense of glad terror before the unknown into which they were entering.'(363)

'Vronsky, meanwhile, in spite of the complete realization of what he had so long desired, was not perfectly happy. He soon felt that the realization of his desires gave him no more than a grain of sand out of their desires... He was soon aware that there was springing up in his heart a desire of desires-- ennui. Without conscious intention he began to clutch at every passing caprice, taking it for a desire and an object.'(431)

'She tried to please him, not by her words, but in her whole person. For his sake it was that she now lavished more care on her dress than before. She caught herself in reveries on what might have been, if she had not been married and he had been free.'(474)

"... and if one loves any one, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be..."(566)

'And she remembered that Anna drooped her eyelids just when the deeper questions of life were touched upon. "Just as though she half-shut her eyes to her own life, so as not to see everything," thought Dolly.'(580)

"It is only those two creatures that I love, and one excludes the other. I can't have them together, and that's the only thing I want. And since I can't have that, I don't care about the rest. I don't care about anything, anything. And it will end one way or another, and so I can't, I don't like to talk of it. So don't blame me, don't judge me for anything. You can't with your pure heart understand all that I'm suffering."(591)

'And though she felt sure that a coldness was beginning, there was nothing she could do, she could not in any way alter her relations to him. Just as before, only by love, and by charm could she keep him. And so, just as before, only by occupation in the day, by morphine at night, could she strife the fearful thought of what would be if he ceased to love her.'(613)

'He wants to show me that his love for me is not to interfere with his freedom. But I need no proofs, I need love. He ought to understand all the bitterness of this life for me here in Moscow. Is this life? I am not living, but waiting for an event, which is continually put off and put off.'(649)

'And suddenly, from the mysterious and awful far-away world in which he had been living for the last twenty-two hours, Levin felt himself all in an instant borne back to the old every-day world, glorified though now, by such a radiance of happiness that he could not bear it. The strained chords snapped, sobs and tears of joy which he had never foreseen rose up with such violence that his whole body shook, that for long they prevented him from speaking.'(659)

'In order to carry through any understanding in family life, there must necessarily be either complete division between husband and wife, or loving agreement. When the relations of a couple are vacillating and neither one thing nor the other, no sort of enterprise can be undertaken.'(681)

'All the most cruel words that a brutal man could say, he said to her in her imagination, and she could not forgive him for them, as though he had actually said them.'(691)

'But he had not done either, but had gone on living, thinking, and feeling, and had even at that very time married, and he had many joys and had been happy, when he was not thinking of the meaning of his life. What did this mean? It meant that he had been living rightly, but thinking wrongly.'(736)

"I shall still be as unable to understand with my reason why I pray, and I shall still go on praying; but my life now, my whole life apart from anything that can happen to me, every minute of it is no more meaningless, as it was before, but it has the positive meaning of goodness, which I have the power to put into it."(754)

a Barnes and Noble Edition, 2003

754 pages

Book owned

The complete Wiki discussion of this novel is found here.

23 ALREADY?

Today is my daughter's birthday. She is 23 years old. How time flies!

Soon after she walked at 10 months old, during a trip to Toys-r-Us, I realized she was a reader when she walked past all the dolls and toys towards the back station where the books were. She preferred books to toys.

It worried me a little that she didn't talk until she was 3 years old. However, when she finally started, she talked in full sentences. And around 4 years old, she started reading chapter books.

From early infancy, I read to her every night. Curious George Learns the Alphabet became her favorite book. Shortly after she started talking, she 'read' the entire book to me. A year later, at age 4, when she could really read, I stopped reading to her, she read books to me instead.

Even as young as 5, when I had to take her to work with me, she would stay at my office for 8 hours, just reading away. In an atmosphere full of noise she would quietly read and none of my coworkers knew she had been there all along.

It was a hard task for her to clean her room. Her books distracted her. I have seen her stop in the middle of putting her shoes or her clothes on, pick up a book and read away.

Sometimes, on very rare occasions, when she has irked me so, and I wanted to punish her or take things away, I have thought: maybe I should 'ground' her from reading. But of course, I couldn't and I didn't ever.

When she was 7 and she asked me about menstruation (her actual words), I realized I had to put our encyclopedia up the higher shelf where she couldn't reach. She was reading some inappropriate-for-her-age, albeit scientific and factual information I wasn't ready to discuss with her.

She loves to read cookbooks and she reads them like she reads novels. She starts from page one and bookmarks where she stops.

She made me read the Harry Potter series, the Time Traveler's Wife, Middlesex, A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, The Outsiders, I Capture the Castle, and so many more books on my list.

When I visit her now in Manhattan, we splurge on books at the Strand, her idea of heaven.

And of course, she made me join goodreads, and from there, this blog.

Happy Birthday to my daughter. I love her so. She makes me proud.

119. OF MICE and MEN

John Steinbeck 1937

This short novel about the unique friendship between Lennie Small and George Milton is simply riveting. As tranquil as the setting seems to be, I somehow could not let go of an overlying sense of gloom. Lennie Small who is mentally impaired, unaware of his own physical strength and obsessed with soft furry things, sits down with George Milton, his protector and constant friend by the river to discuss among other things, their need to find a more stable job so they can fulfill their dream of owning a farm they can call their own, and where Lennie can raise rabbits. They find the job in a ranch, but they also meet a new set of people with their own insecurities, and in a flash, tragic events soon unfold.

'A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green. The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sand in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool.'(opening lines)

'Evening of a hot day started the little wind to moving among the leaves. The shade climbed up the hills toward the top. On the sand banks the rabbits sat as quietly as little gray, sculptured stones. And then from the direction of the state highway came the sound of footsteps on crisp sycamore leaves. The rabbits hurried noiselessly for cover. A stilted heron labored up into the air and pounded down river. For a moment the place was lifeless, and then two men emerged from the path and came into the opening of the green pool.(2)

"Well, how the hell did she know you jus' wanted to feel her dress? She jerks back and you hold on like it was a mouse. She yells and got to hide in an irrigation ditch all day with guys lookin' for us, and we got to sneak out in the dark and get outta the country. All the time somethin' like that-- all the time. I wisht I could put you in a cage with about a million mice an' let you have fun.'(11)

'Lennie broke in. "But not us! An' why? Because... because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why." He laughed delightedly.'(14)

"An' live off the fatta the lan'," Lennie shouted. "An' have rabbits. Go on, George! Tell about what we're gonna have in the garden and about the rabbits in the cages and about the rain in the winter and the stove, and how thick the cream is on the milk like you can hardly cut it. Tell about that George."(14)

"Sure," said George. "We kinda look after each other." He indicated Lennie with his thumb. "He ain't bright. Hell of a good worker, though. Hell of a nice fella, but he ain't bright. I've knew him for a long time."(34)

'Dumb bastard like he is, he wants to touch ever'thing he likes. Just wants to feel it.'(41)

George said, "She's gonna make a mess. They's gonna be a bad mess about her. She's a jail bait all set on the trigger. That Curley got his work cut out for him. Ranch with a bunch of guys on it ain't no place for a girl, 'specially like her."(51)

"A guy needs somebody-- to be near him." He whined, "A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya," he cried, "I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick."(72)

'As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment.'(93)

"Jesus Christ, Lennie! You can't remember nothing that happens, but you remember ever' word I say."(103)

'"An' I got you. We got each other, that's what, that gives a hoot in hell about us," Lennie cried in triumph.'(104)

a Penguin Book edition

107 pages

Book borrowed from the Library

118. DOWN the NILE

Rosemary Mahoney 2007

I read this book while cruising down the Nile, a five day adventure in between our land exploration of Cairo. This memoir was as vivid and mesmerizing as the river before me. It is an amazing travel book born from the author's love of rowing and her fascination for the Nile. It renders a captivating account of her quest to row a boat, an American female alone, 120 miles down the Nile from Aswan to Qena, two years after her initial visit as an ordinary tourist. It also provides a historical glimpse of the old Egypt through excerpts from Florence Nightingale and Gustave Flaubert's own travel memoirs, as well as a general view of today's modern Egypt.

'On the day that I hoped to buy a rowboat in Luxor, Egypt, I was awakened, as I had been every morning in Luxor, by a Koranic antiphony drifting from the Islamic boys' school next door to my hotel.'(Opening line)

'Rowing was a peaceful, meditative activity, and the constant movement- the inherent mobility- of the water was enthralling. Land was stationary and always belonged to somebody. Water, on the other hand, was free. It moved and shifted and traveled. It was volatile, and when aroused it could be unforgiving. I found it frightening and a little bit thrilling to think that the water that throws itself against the coast of Kennebunkport in July might feasibly be the same particular water that lays at the crab-covered rocks in Bombay Harbor the following March. And it pleased me to realize that I could sit in a small boat and propel myself across all this hugely moving water with an engine no more powerful than my own two arms.'(9)

'On that first trip to Egypt, whenever I mentioned my Nile rowing idea to Egyptian people they had all said with real disbelief, Impossible! You are a woman! The river is big! Not mentioning any crocodile! And dangerous ships! And the fisherman who can become crazy seeing a woman alone!'(11)

'My search for a boat began in Aswan, the southern-most Egyptian city, the starting point of my rowing trip, and technically the beginning of the Egyptian Nile. I wanted a simple fisherman's rowboat, long and narrow, with room enough to lie down in at night.'(21)

"Egyptians in Aswan sometimes try to be felucca captain to get money, but they has not enough experiences and sometimes is not clever. They don't watching the wind." He waved his arm at the steep dunes on the west bank. "Wind can be changing and changing all the time. Sometime it can come"- he snapped his fingers- "very fast from the desert, and is full of sand and if you don't seeing it, it can put the boat over in three seconds."(86)

'Not Nubian, not Muslim, not Egyptian- these facts conspired to disqualify me entirely from the female category. What mattered for a Muslim woman could never really matter for me. In Egypt, a Western woman would never truly be a woman, nor did she quite approach the status of a man; instead, her identity was like that of a pleasant but irrelevant animal, like say, a peahem or a manatee.'(114)

'The sight of an ancient Egyptian monument from a distance is always at first slightly surreal, like a mirage or a photographic image that has strayed out of a book and superimposed itself on real life. On seeing it, you feel at first a little flustered and confused and think not so much of the object itself but of the reproductions you've seen of it and of the thoughts and emotions those reproductions once inspired in your imagination, then gradually you grasp that what you're looking at is real, an object before you that you can walk up to and touch. When Napoleon's soldiers, who had never seen a photograph of any kind, rounded a bend and caught sight of the Temple of Karnak for the first time, they were so moved by the marvelous sight that they burst into spontaneous applause.'(131)

'Across the span of a hundred and fifty years, only one thing has truly remained the same: moonlight still makes the Egyptian sand look like snow.'(159)

'Whenever you were on the Nile, whatever you saw along the banks, the ever-present ridge of the desert loomed beyond the greenery, walling the floodplain on either side, a long chain of hills both east and west, often with pale chutes of sand spilling down them, blown in from the desert beyond.'(161)

'Abu Simbel's night sky was a metropolis of its own, an enormous velvety parabola embracing the earth. Venus shown long on the water in a way that mimicked the moon, and the Big Dipper sat very low on the horizon. The whole place was a deeply swirling mass of stars. I felt short of breath and utterly insignificant looking at its hugeness and depth. This was a night sky you didn't have to raise your eyes to.'(173)

'I rowed with a little bit of fear and a great deal of joy. I was alone, finally, with no one to protect me. I wanted to sing for happiness- a rare, raw, immediate sort of happiness that was directly related to my physical stimulation, to my surroundings, to independence, and to solitude... That was always the best part of rowing- the repetition, the simplicity of the physical task, the slowly and constantly shifting surrounding that inspired free thought. My happiness was a feeling of physical lightness, of weightlessness, like drifting on air.'(218)

'The water, or some small part of it at least, that was passing beneath my boat had traveled slightly downhill for approximately one hundred and fifty days from its source near the equator. It had traveled more than four thousand miles and had been running its modern-day course for over twenty-five thousand years. How many eyes had looked at the same water I was looking at? How many people had drunk from this water, rowed on it, or drowned in it?'(226)

'Anything, really, was possible if you cared enough and had the right tools. I have always resented imposed constraints, hated all the things people said one should and should not do. A woman shouldn't... A man couldn't... People were always conjuring up a wall and telling you to stay on your side of it. More often than not, the wall was false, a cliche, an inherited and unexamined stock response to the world.'(239)
______________________________________

First Back Bay paperback edition, September 2008
268 pages
Book owned
______________________________________

Personal Note: Thanks to all the thoughtful bloggers who bade me good wishes. Although the trip was amazing, I am so glad to be back home! Here are two of my favorite pictures of the River Nile.

An incredible sunset taken aboard a felucca

A glorious morning view from our hotel balcony