"When You Dig Just The Tiniest Bit Beneath The Surface, Everyone's Love Life Is Original And Interesting And Nuanced And Defies Any Easy Explanation"

Boy do I love a good, quick summer read. And fortunately, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo fit that bill perfectly, cos I motored through her in 4 days while lounging in northern Michigan (ok, so I was technically still working too, but as soon as I could, I picked it up and enjoyed a nice summer breeze outside and read to my heart's content).

The book tells of Monique Grant, an underling writer at a magazine in New York who is suddenly given the opportunity to interview Evelyn Hugo, a legendary screen siren, now in her late 70s. Evelyn has been largely reclusive and out of the public eye, but from the 1960s through the 1980s, she was a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood, even winning an Oscar. But she seems to be most notorious for her 7 marriages (I know the immediate thought is to assume the character is based on Elizabeth Taylor, but it is definitely not). Evelyn ends up providing Monique with the full account of her life to be published as a posthumous biography, but Monique questions, why her? When it could have been any writer on earth to be the lucky recipient of one of Hollywood's most fascinating and sought after subjects, why did Evelyn select her? 

This does become an important element to the story late in the novel but the story really belongs to Evelyn. The book is divided into chapters/sections based on the story of each husband and while each husband is important to her life and each brings something different to her and her career, more importantly is the person who was the true love of Evelyn's life. And the reader discovers what Evelyn was willing to sacrifice to further her career. Evelyn was a complicated character for me...I both liked and disliked her. She was ruthless and prioritized her social climbing above all else, particularly when she was younger, but she was also so full of love and didn't take the people who she truly loved for granted. She was smug but devoted. Stubborn but persevered over adversity. Self-centered but loyal. 

The ending I did see coming (I may not have 100% put the exact piece together, but I sussed out the key "surprises"), but it was still satisfying nonetheless. I would say I would have liked the character of Monique to have been developed a bit more...she was given some basic characteristics (mother was white, father was black, was going through a separation/divorce) that I felt were intended to carry a lot about who she was as a person without developing those parts of her more. But as I mentioned, this was really Evelyn's story, so I can live with Monique not being as full of a portrait as Evelyn was. I'd definitely recommend this book for a quick, enjoyable read! 

And now I'm up to Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I think this is actually the first of a 3 part series, but it's the only one that appears on my book lists. I suspect by the time I get to the end (I'm already more than halfway through), I will probably feel like there is a lot more that needs to happen and/or be explained. Because right now, the novel feels a little like Out of Africa did...with many of the chapters providing short vignettes of one man's/family's tribal life in Africa. So I'm curious how it will eventually proceed...if there will be one distinct event that will occur that the rest of the book will center around or if it will continue in the same trend. We shall see! 

Happy reading! 

"I Have Heard Of People, Who, Upon Coming Suddenly Into Happiness, Have Died From Anxiety Lest They Should Not Live To Enjoy It"

For some reason I was expecting Return of the Native to be a complicated read as far as language. It had previously seemed to me that literature that I read from the 1800s was more difficult to make my way through, but I'm beginning to wonder if I just had a hard time getting engaged in the stories, because I've certainly quickly motored through some and not others. I think Return of the Native fell somewhere in the middle. The story was enough to keep me sufficiently roped into the narrative and I didn't particularly notice any complex, antiquated language. 

The story takes place in Egdon Heath, in the south of England and tells the story of a handful of characters whose lives and fates intertwine. Side note: the setting of the heath itself is as important to the story as the actual characters and events and actually impacts the story in many important ways. As a result, I had to Google what a heath was and pour over images to really get a full understanding of what the environment looked like - a very sparse, harsh, rural land. And hey, I learned what "furze" is, so there's that. 

Eustacia, a lovely young girl who is perceived by others on the heath as a dark and tempestuous, is in the midst of a love affair with Wildeve, who she discovers will be marrying another, Thomasin. Thomasin by contrast is a kind, fair and more angelic being, almost above reproach. And then returning from living in Paris is Thomasin's cousin, Clym, who instead of wanting to make a living in the exciting city is more interested in living simply on the heath and starting a school to provide insight and critical thinking to the simple folks and farmer's children. Eustacia falls madly in love with Clym, partly because he represents something new and exotic, partly to spite Wildeve, partly because she is certain she can use her feminine wiles to convince him to take her away to Paris to live, and partly because she truly does love him. And also thrown into the mix is Clym's mother, Mrs Yeobright, who has strong opinions about everything and feels that as a mother, she should be able to call the shots for her son and niece. 

Of course Eustacia and Mrs Yeobright don't get along. This quite annoyed the hell out of me, mostly on the side of Mrs Yeobright because she had never actually met Eustacia and formulated all of her very negative opinions of her just based on hearsay of the other heath residents. In fact, Mrs Yeobright bugged the crap out of me all the way around. She was very smug, selfish, and insistent about her way being how everyone else (her son in particular) should behave, and went about it in passive-aggressive way, always the victim. When Clym and Eustacia marry and Eustacia discovers his steadfast desire to remain at Edgon Heath, her feelings for Wildeve are rekindled and reciprocated. From here, things go south for just about everyone involved. 

I think what I enjoyed the most about the book was how well different, unfortunate situations were set up. There were so many ways in which all of the tragic events could have been avoided. Interventions from other side characters impacted the main characters in significant ways; interventions that were unintentional, happenstance, accidental, and just bad timing. The slightest modification in one person's behavior here and there could have changed the entire course of many lives. It felt quite Shakespearian, but I suppose those are elements of a good tragedy (is there such thing as a good tragedy?). And tragedy it is indeed. Good fortune does not smile down on anyone. 

The one thing I did struggle with, was the fact that none of the characters were very likeable. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that all of the characters were very complex and had redeeming and dislikable characteristics, and I while I liked them being multi-faceted and more human, I still had a hard time rooting for anyone. Even characters like Clym and Thomasin who seemed designed to be contrasts to Wildeve and Eustacia (more good-hearted than wicked) just annoyed me. Is it strange that I disliked the "nice" characters? Maybe that says more about me than them. 

Next up, I'm taking a brief break from the lists to pick up The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. It seems to be a popular read and I've gotten a few recommendations for it. 

Other random notes:

• There is a feature on Goodreads that allows you to set a goal for the number of books you want to read for the year. I have set mine at 25, even though I'm only at 10. But I've significantly picked up my reading since years past, so I'm hoping to get pretty close to that number if not reach it. 
• I discovered in my tracker of the number of books I have left to read that I was missing Return of the Native (grrr...). So as a result, I am still stuck on 203 books left to go. Boooo. 

Happy Saturday of reading!    

"And Before We Judge Of Them Too Harshly We Must Remember What Ruthless And Utter Destruction Our Own Species Has Wrought, Not Only Upon Animals, Such As The Vanished Bison And The Dodo, But Upon Its Own Inferior Races"

Well I guess it's fair to say I enjoy a book when I motor through it in 4 days. But man, did I just love War of the Worlds. Everything I knew about the book/story was only from the Tom Cruise movie and from the Orson Wells radio version that shared the bejeezus out of people (apparently, there have even been tv movies re-telling the panic that ordinary citizens experienced that night). So I didn't really know for sure what the real War of the Worlds story was and where artistic license for the other versions kicked in. 

I won't go into details about the plot because I'm sure most are at least somewhat familiar with the concept of aliens landing on earth and being bent only on complete annihilation of humans. But the book gives GOBS of details about what their "cylinders" look like, their activity once they arrive, what they look like, and a moment-by-moment description of what the townspeople are doing, and how things progress. The story is told through a narrator (whose name is not given) who lives in close proximity to the first cylinder that arrives, and chronicles his activities and movements to try to save his wife and his own life. 

First off, it's astonishing to me that this book was written in 1898. And there is unique benefit/insight to reading this book over 120 years later. Because there are so many very astute observations and predictions about the world and about humans that are achingly on point. For example, the quote making up the title of this post. In reading the Introduction that came with the book, I was fascinated to learn about the scientific and philosophical proclivities of H.G. Wells and how he would ascertain things from history to try to advise against repeating them in the future. One quote notes that "...Wells saw history as a 'race between education and catastrophe.'" Many of his works were warnings about the consequences of the actions of humans. And while at its core, the book is a simple story of "What If," it's hard not to let other themes creep in like, Why do humans feel that we are allowed to trounce all over other species/races? Or, We really are that foolish to think we're the greatest in the universe? I felt like these thoughts in the background, hinted at here and there, give the book a much weightier feel beyond just a scary alien attack. 

But don't get me wrong...alien attack there was! And every page is just chock full of suspense and devastation that to say it's a page turner doesn't do it justice. And really almost every alien anything in the last century is indebted to this book for inspiration...Independence Day, Cloverfield, A Quiet Place, etc etc. So way ahead of his time. There is also so much detail regarding the place to place activities, I was CONSTANTLY looking at a map of the London suburbs where the action was taking place to have a super accurate idea of what all of the movements were.

So yes, suffice it to say that I just loved this book. I do also have The Time Machine on my lists of books and that bad boy may have just creeped quite a bit higher up the list just because I enjoyed this one so much. I may even watch the movie again just to compare against the book (note: the narrator in the novel didn't have any kids so the addition of the obnoxiously screaming Dakota Fanning in the movie was an addition that I would have loved to have done without). 

Next up is The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy. I'm actually part way through the book already, and I'm sure I'll have a bunch to say about this one. 

One other thing that happened in the last couple weeks related to my reading is that I joined Goodreads. My sister has been bugging me to join for a while and I just never got around to it I already track my book lists painstakingly enough here that I wasn't all that eager to have yet another place to go to. HOWEVER, I am a big fan! In particular, I love the ability to have a place to track books I want to read (beyond my book lists of course); this was previously existing as a note on my phone that I would add to as books came up. I also love being able to set a yearly goal for yourself and track the progress. I've set my goal at 25 books, knowing that I'm currently at 9 books. Does that make me think I can't read 16 books in just over 5 months? Nope, it's just going to motivate me even more. I've had such a fire under my ass to read since my break between jobs, and this is just one additional motivator to keep going! 

203 to go!  

"The Grass Was Me, And The Air, The Distant Invisible Mountains Were Me, The Tired Oxen Were Me."

If I take away anything from reading Out of Africa, is how much I now want to go on a safari. I legit started looking at tours on the website of the travel company we've used before the moment that I finished reading the book. 

And I guess that's a testament to how much the book conveyed a feeling and how the descriptions gave the reader so much of a sense of place and environment. I feel like I could close my eyes and see the night air filled with stars on the grassy plains. Or that I could see the Ngong hills in the distance from the coffee plantation. 

But there's something interesting and a bit suspicious about the book. Isak Dinesen is the pen name used by Karen Blixen and her narrative in the book is largely a grouping of chapters of vignettes of situations that occurred during her time running a coffee plantation in Kenya, just outside of Nairobi. And while the vignettes are interesting and coupled with the lush, lovely descriptions of the people and landscapes, there is an impartiality of the way it is told and it felt like there was something that I wasn't understanding or something that was missing. When my boyfriend asked me if I had seen the movie and "if I knew what it was about," it made me even more suspicious. 

After doing some research about Karen Blixen, there sure was a lot that she tactfully omitted from the book. There is only mention of her husband once, briefly in passing, but no discussion of his role on the farm or the fact that he had many affairs and they ultimately got divorced. And she discusses often the character of Denys Finch Hatton as being a close friend who lived and guided safaris and who would often come stay with her at the farm, but she fails to mention that he was her love. She also doesn't mention any of the other salient details of these men in her life, like the fact that her husband gave her syphilis and that she travelled back to Europe for treatment (which sounds to be quite excruciating with long-term after-effects). 

So now thinking about the book, I don't quite know how to place it. I certainly get her desire to present the context of her life while living there in whatever way she wanted to, and if that included omitting some more scandalous details, then have at it sister. But it makes the rest of the book feel a little more contrived and makes me wonder what other kinds of liberties were taken to present herself and her experiences in the finest light possible. 

In spite of this, I did find the book to be so interesting - to have such a perspective of how life was in Africa in the early 1900s was delightful to read. Although I cannot help but read it with the disdain of colonization and how casually the "ownership" of the natives' land is treated. I know I have to acknowledge the time that this was written and hope that we have learned since then (but all it takes is to look around to see that white people certainly continue to think they're entitled to the land of natives throughout the world). 

I'm doing a complete shift in my next book choice, moving on to War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. I couldn't tell you the last time I read a science fiction book. And I'm hoping that any mention of children screaming doesn't evoke the feeling of wanting to punch Dakota Fanning in the face, because that's the main thing I can recall from the movie. 

204 to go!     

"Thus We Never See The True State Of Our Condition, Till It Is Illustrated To Us By Its Contraries; Nor Know How To Value What We Enjoy, But By The Want Of It"

Robinson Crusoe took me a minute to get into, but once rolling, I was sucked in. There was so much of it that was told in a very technical manner about how the character, after being shipwrecked on a deserted island, used what he could salvage from the ship to survive. But more accurately, thrive. I mean he farmed crops, tamed and raised livestock, built and created every manner of functional object (living dwellings, canoes, tables, baskets, pottery, etc). So the vast majority of the book was the nuts and bolts of how he came to live quite comfortably and happily. The last 80-100 pages however, switched focus to his interactions with those who were coming to the island (which was occurring for years without his knowledge). This part was much more action-packed (Cannibals! Shipwrecks! Capturing savages!) but was still written with a bit of impartiality to it, but given that the book was written as a memoir of remembrance long after the fact, it seemed appropriate. 

One of the main struggles of the characters throughout the book and the main thing that I disliked about the book was his coming into God and his faith during his time on the island. I surely get that he would question God for why he should have befallen such a terrible fate, and I surely get his sudden devotion to God to deem his survival as Providence and being divined for some particular reason. But what bothered me about it, was that the character, with nothing in the world but time and his thoughts, still only landed at the Christian god being the correct god (and not even other sects of Christianity but the one he was raised as, as at the end of the book, he opts not to go live in Brazil because everyone there is Catholic). All he had was a bible, but somehow he was able to determine the right teachings of God. 

There were maybe one or two moments when reflecting on the cannibals who came to the island where he almost opened his mind to the idea that there are cultures/tribes/peoples elsewhere in the world who had their own way of life and their own religions (or no religion). And instead of just accepting this, he determines that these people are without his Christian God because they have done something wrong and are doomed to suffer without God. And so feels it is his duty to save everyone and make them see what they're missing out on. This aspect of God-complex of white men in the 1600s/1700s (hell, even today) to colonize and insist on conversion of every people they encountered (often with penalty of death if not compliant) infuriates me. It's all done with the guise of "everyone should know God's love" which is a load of horse shit. It's all done as manipulation. Christ-driven, white man, colonization/patriarchy at its finest. 

This is also reflected in the casual inclusion of slavery in the novel as well. It's just a given in the book that English settlers buy slaves as a means to getting them what they want and making them rich. I get that this was written in the early 1700s when there was little question about whether any of this was ok. But it just infuriates me at the hypocrisy of this character (and the author really) who is so all about Jesus being everyone's savior, questioning the meaning of his life, and the reasons for his deliverance, but not even having a flicker of recognition of the injustice of inflicting pain on others. There is no self-awareness about whether any of that was ok under his own God when he, as a white man, was the one imposing that suffering on others. So yeah, the white man superiority which is presented as a natural given in this book made me angry enough to tarnish most of my other opinions about it. 

So moving on. Next up is Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen. I have some lovely time off coming up with family so I should be able to relax and spend some time reading. Or it's likely that, since we haven't seen each other in close to two years, that all we're going to do for a week is talk nonstop. It's a likely possibility. 

205 to go.       

"This Will Be One Defeat; More Will Follow. Victories Will Follow Too. You Are Not In This Life To Count Up Victories And Defeats. You Are In It To Love And Be Loved. You Are Loved With Your Head Down. You Will Be Loved Whether You Finish Or Not."

So a couple weeks ago, I had gone up north to my cottage for a few days to get a few things done before beginning my new job. And sadly, I drove three hours home and accidentally left one bag behind which contained my book (fortunately, it didn't contain any perishables). So knowing that I wouldn't be reunited with Robinson Crusoe for ~two to three weeks, I decided to pick one of the non-list books on my shelf and motor through it before I would get back up north to retrieve the left-behind book. Normally, I hate doing this, reading more than one book at a time. For some reason I need to focus on one book, one story, one style of writing. And because I'm so fond of checking things off lists, I need to feel as though I accomplished one task before moving on to the next. But I had the free time and didn't want to squander it watching some dumb shit on tv when I could be happily reading away. 

So the book I grabbed was We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas. This book was a random selection at the bookstore a couple years ago and it has been languishing on my shelf. Why I thought it was wise to choose a 620 page novel, I'll never know, but it just felt like the right choice to move on to one that had been staring me in the face for years. And apparently, I can read 620 pages in 2 weeks. Go figure. 

We Are Not Ourselves is the six-decade spanning story of Eileen Leary (nee Tumulty) who grew up in Queens in the 1950s and 60s with Irish parents and an alcoholic mother. The book almost felt like there were two different halves to it - the story of her childhood and then shifting to the perspective of not just her, but her, her husband Ed, and their son Connell in the second half (some chapters would be told from their perspective instead of hers starting partway through the book). Her husband is a college science professor who certainly could have been slated for much greater things in his life but who feels a duty to stick to the small college he's at and positively impact the students he feels need it the most. And while Eileen rises through the ranks as a nurse and hospital administrator, all she wants in life is to move out of Jackson Heights into a sprawling mansion in the suburbs that will convey her status in life to others (in fact, she feels this way about many things in her life, not just the house...she wants fancier cars, she goes out and buys a mink coat because she hears another woman at the salon talking about it, etc). And while she manages to carve out the life she wants (against the strong protests of her husband), nothing is ever that simple, as Ed develops early-onset dementia. 

The way that Ed's dementia was presented was well done. There were gradual behavioral changes that may not have been obviously related to dementia, but as someone who has had a loved one with Alzheimer's, I knew the symptoms immediately and waited patiently for many more pages for the truth to be revealed to the characters themselves. The second half/last third of the book details Eileen and Connell's struggles with managing Ed's declining health and increasingly aberrant and difficult behavior. And while I've read at least one other novel about Alzheimer's since my grandfather passed away, it never gets easier to read situations that feel strikingly familiar. And reading this made me think really long and hard about the personal battles that my grandmother faced while caring for him. She shouldered that burden without asking for help and without complaint, but we as a family will never truly know the difficulties she faced every moment for years. And while I could have assumed what she was dealing with, I felt like reading this book pulled back the curtain on what the experience was most likely was for her. 

I enjoyed the book very much and was glad it was the one I chose. It's kind of astonishing that this was Matthew Thomas' debut novel. 

Last weekend, I was in fact reunited with Robinson Crusoe, so back to deserted island living for me. I'm going to have a full week (and then some) back up at the cottage in two weeks, so maybe I can use the same strategy and plan to finish this one by then so I can pick up something new. But damn, have I been enjoying reading this year. I don't know what fire got lit underneath me, but I read four and half books in the nine weeks that I was off from work and it really has me all sucked in. I keep staring longingly at the stack of books to read on my bookshelf just wanting to read them all! Devour all the books!!

"Under Cosmopolitanism, If It Comes, We Shall Receive No Help From The Earth. Trees And Meadows And Mountains Will Only Be A Spectacle, And The Binding Force That They Once Exercised On Character Must Be Entrusted To Love Alone. May Love Be Equal To The Task!"

I bought Howard's End from a used book store here in Detroit (John King Books, which I've discussed previously) and the previous owner actually had the passage marked that makes up the title of today's post. I would have saved the page anyway because those words did strike me as a central theme/conflict of the book, but it was good to see that another reader of the same text however long ago had the same feeling about the words as I did, enough to mark them down.

I was absolutely not expecting to like Howard's End as much as I did, but I could not put it down. I know I've mentioned before that I have a love of books that take place in mansions so maybe that was part of the draw (although, while the title of the book is taken from the estate owned by the Wilcox family, very little of the novel actually takes place there). And I do have a strong fondness for Downton Abbey, which takes place in the same time period, in the same place, with many of the same themes, which also was likely a big draw. But even then, I guess through the process of reading the books on this list, I'm discovering that I seem to like period pieces set in England that tell stories of family histories, with maybe a little bit of romance thrown in there too. Go figure. 

Howard's End tells the story of the two Schlegel sisters, making their way through early 1900s London society. Both of their parents are deceased, but the girls (along with their brother) have still created remarkable lives for themselves filled with art, literature, intellect, and a fondness for reaching out to those less fortunate than themselves, making them somewhat unique amongst other women of their own set. They encounter the Wilcox family while travelling abroad and are invited to visit at Howard's End, which the one sister Helen, takes them up on. 

From there Helen has a thing for their son Paul which does not result in a good situation for either party (or for either family). After Paul disavows any feelings for Helen and ships off to his military posting, the families generally go their separate ways, but seem to constantly cross paths over the next few years. After becoming a widower, the patriarch of the family, Henry, proposes marriage to the other Schlegel sister, Margaret, much to the dismay of his children. Conflicts ensue, as Henry and Margaret have such very different views of and approaches to the world and even more scandal ensnares the families when it comes to money, property, and infidelity. 

The biggest theme that this book seemed to present was the changing tide of England at the turn of the century and reading the book now, over 100 years later, it's interesting to see how things have panned out in regards to things posited in the novel (for example, discussing whether the country would fully shift away from provincial living to cities, if impermanence/rebuilding would continue to occur, the increased use of automobiles, etc). All of the things that Forster seemed to not be a fan of have certainly come to fruition (and then some!), but I always find it fascinating when writers are keenly observant of societal  changes and build their novels around them (see Main Street by Sinclair Lewis as another example that I recently read). Who's to say whether it is good or bad, but either way, progress has moved on and obviously, things are not the same at all (there are even a couple passages arguing against giving women the right to vote, indicating that women should be skilled enough to convince their husbands who they should vote for <<insert eye roll emoji here>>). 

As mentioned, I quite enjoyed the book and I cannot WAIT to watch the movie...maybe sometime this week. I have 3 other EM Forster novels on my lists and I just got a lot more excited to read them if they're anything like Howard's End. 

Shifting gears, up next is Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. I know this probably seems like a book that I should have read many many moons ago in school (middle school? When do kids actually read this?) but somehow it slipped my curriculum. I'm hoping it will be a quick, adventuresome read! 206 to go!