Monthly Archives: February 2012

Levithan, The Lover’s Dictionary

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While this review is real and I wrote—it exists at goodreads—this post is primarily a test for John Miedema of the newest version of the OpenBook plugin.

I, too, have seen this in assorted places but once Sara brought it home from the library I chose to read it. Took about an hour and a quarter maybe.

Beginning with “aberrant, adj.” and ending with “zenith, n.,” it charts the course of a relationship through the alphabetic conceit of a dictionary.

My favorites were “punctuate, n.,” “rest, v. and n.,” and “sacrosanct, adj.”

I must admit, I was let down by the ending somewhat. I could see it coming but wanted it to end on the other cusp of the arc.

Anyway, quick read and if you are a ‘wordie,’ as many of us are, then you may enjoy it.

Wilkins, Ragged Point Road: Poems

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Main Street Rag’s Editor’s Choice Chapbook Series.

Joe gave a reading at Briar Cliff University on Wednesday, 8 February, where I picked up this and his newest book of poems, Killing the Murnion Dogs.

I enjoyed the reading but still I enjoyed these poems much more than I expected. They are poems of place, of family, of loss. They are, in fact, elegies to life; by this, I mean ‘elegy’ in the non-formal or technical sense. In response to a question, Joe stated that “Our lives are lessons in loss.” While they are, or can be, many things, our lives most certainly are lessons in loss. And in these poems the lessons are the stars even while, or though, the loss is poignant.

The places of the poems are primarily three: eastern Montana where Joe grew up; Sunflower, Mississippi where Joe taught high school for a couple of years; and Memphis. The ‘place’ that comes through from all of these locations is palpable and, often, haunting.

Relationships are primarily familial, but are also to places, to the land, and to bodies. That is, they are embodied poems. They are about living and about being, and about one’s (be it the author, the voice of a poem, or the reader’s) relationship to that living and being.

The book is divided into two sections: Old Highway 49 and Ragged Point Road. The Mississippi and Memphis poems are in the first; there are twelve. The Montana ones in Ragged Point Road; there are fourteen.

My favorite poem, on a first reading of the book, is “Moth,” from the first section. Joe read a couple poems included in this book on Wednesday, but, sadly, not “Moth.”

I am definitely looking forward to reading Killing the Murnion Dogs. I ought mention that Joe also has a memoir out, The Mountain and the Fathers: Growing up on the Big Dry, from which he also read. I did not buy it, as I do not currently read memoirs, but I truly did like what I heard and I may check it out at some point.

I highly recommended Ragged Point Road!

Dickens 2012 at Briar Cliff

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Tuesday of this week, February 7th, was the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birth, his bicentenary. Various events were held worldwide and we did a little bit here in Sioux City at the Bishop Mueller Library at Briar Cliff University.

Charles Dickens, sitting, with colorful birthday hat on his head

Late in January, thanks to having most of our Dickens’ texts around me due to a reclassification project, I decided to see if I could do an exhibit in the campus library. I had been aware of the (then upcoming) Dickens’ bicentenary for a good while based on seeing reviews of new biographies of Dickens, commentaries on his status as a literary icon, and so on.

I asked the director and she said, “Certainly,” and we found a spot. A few days went by and then I got busy and picked the books I wanted to use, found the illustrations within a few that I wanted to display, located the stands, and made a few info sheets with a mini-bio, some web sources for more information, sources for free ebooks and subscription ebooks via the library, and the call number range(s) for books by or about him and his works in our library [the reclass project is not done]. The display debuted on the 1st of February.

Display of works by and about Dickens

Charles Dickens Bicentenary display at BCU Mueller Library

A day or two after putting the display together, and no doubt prompted by gathering links about the bicentenary, I thought that it would nice to host a reading ourselves, a Read-a-Thon. I asked the library director if we could do it in the library and got a definite “Yes.” I then asked the president of WREN, our student Writing and English club, if they would co-sponsor the event, which for me simply meant telling the Writing/English students about it and letting me put their name along with the Library’s on the flyer I would make. Alex did a great job and even secured permission from the Dept. Chair for the students to get service credit for reading. [Juniors and seniors have to do so many hours of service to the department and/or university to graduate.] I then asked the prof who teaches Victorian Lit, Dr. Jeanne Emmons, if she would give us a short introduction to Dickens at the start to which she readily agreed, and also claimed the education portion of Hard Times.

From there I designed a flyer with the help of my lovely wife. I found a photograph of Dickens that I could legally use and had Sara place a birthday hat on it at a ‘jaunty angle.’ [See above. Original photo found at Flickr and supplied by the Penn State Special Collections, Darrah Collection, Image 61680. The photo is licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, so feel free to use this transformed work under the same license. Thanks for sharing, Penn State!]

I then hung these up around campus several days in advance. The library director sent out an all staff email advertising the event, too, as I wanted any interested party to be able to come and enjoy listening and to read, if they chose.

On the day of the event, I came in about an hour and a half early to push around some of the furniture to make a space and provide more seating. I also went to the stacks and grabbed a pretty much complete set of Dickens’ works and brought them down on a small cart. A big pot of coffee was brewed and the cake and cookies I bought that morning were put out.

The event was scheduled from 4-5 pm and people started showing up a half hour in advance. By 4 PM we had a good 20+ people with 6 pre-signed up to read.

I gave a brief welcome, introduced myself to those (few) who didn’t know me, and provided the ‘rules’ and encouraged people to sign up on the list of readers. Then I handed the stage to Jeanne who gave us a nice introduction to Dickens’ life, works, and enduring influence and then she read from Ch. 2, Bk. 1 of Hard Times, “Murdering the Innocents.” Next up was Great Expectations from another of our English and Writing profs. Several folks read from A Christmas Carol, one from David Copperfield, and Sara read excerpts from letters Dickens wrote to his friend and sometime collaborator, Wilkie Collins, which can be exceptionally funny.

We only got two additional takers who weren’t pre-signed up but all in all it worked out great as we went the whole hour. I, too, read from Hard Times, and as there is so much wonderful material there I had a hard time (ha ha) narrowing it down. I initially read from Ch. 15, Bk. 1, “Father and Daughter.” I read a fairly lengthy selection making sure to encompass Luisa’s all important ‘digression’ to her father while he is presenting Mr. Bounderby’s marriage proposal to her:

“There seems to be nothing there but languid and monotonous smoke. Yet when the night comes, Fire bursts out, father!” she answered, turning quickly.

I went near the middle of the pack and as we wound down and got no other takers but still had a few minutes left, I took the emcee’s prerogative and read a shorter section from Ch. 8, Bk. 1, “Never Wonder,” as I figured it would be good to end with the library scene and “these readers [who] persisted in wondering.”

Woman reading from her iPad

Dickens Read-a-Thon at Bishop Mueller Library, Briar Cliff University

More folks had shown up throughout the event, including the University President. All in all, I would say that it was a roaring success. More importantly, many others, including most of the English and Writing faculty, the president of WREN, and the librarians, thought so. They were still talking about it the next morning.

Success! And Happy 200th Mr. Dickens!

Two-Thirds Book Challenge Update 4

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This is the 3rd update to the Two-Thirds book Challenge.

E 

2/3 Book Challenge: A Visit from the Goon Squad

E read this for her book club back in November but didn’t get the review posted until early January. She has been having a legitimately busy life the last several months. Hopefully things will calm down for her soon.

“I can say definitively that [Jennifer] Egan is a master storyteller. A Visit from the Goon Squad weaves in and out of time, with a number of stories told in layers, folding and unfolding onto themselves.”

“I wish I’d written this review closer to finishing the book – or to my book club’s discussion – as there are aspects of it that we found problematic that I’ve since forgotten.”

“And in that exchange lies the weight of the book, the way we measure the passage of time, all of the things we want to say but can’t, all of the things we try to say but fail to communicate, all of the moments in time that slip through our fingers.”

Sounds intriguing; see her review for more details.

Jen

Eleven Minutes, Paulo Coelho

“I read his book The Alchemist sometime in the last year or two and liked it. His writing is simple in quite a beautiful way. I like simplicity. I get lost in lyricism and can’t uncover deeper meanings. Coelho is right up my alley, but I don’t think that I could tear through his books one after the other. … In Eleven Minutes Coelho delves into love and prostitution, through the eyes of the young and beautiful Maria. Ah, love.”

Jen says she is too jaded for the love story here but I wonder if it wasn’t perhaps the storytelling. There are many ways to tell of love, and only a very few approach the sublimity of being in love.

The Violets of March, Sarah Jio

“The Violets of March, …, is a delicious meal laid out stunningly on the table.”

“What a wonderful book. Romance and mystery (not a murder mystery–an historical mystery), beautifully woven together.”

“It’s the characters, not the romance, that will stick with me for a while. I’ll wonder about them and what they’re up to, the way I do with old friends I haven’t spoken with in a while.”

Jen references her comment in her previous review about being jaded, which has, perhaps, not been mitigated by this book but temporarily overcome.

Yes, Jen, some of us do use our amazon wish lists like that. By the way, you can put a comment, link, etc. in the notes for each item on your wish list to help keep track of just that issue. I try to do so when I read a review somewhere; it helps if I can go back 6 months or 2 years later and see why I once thought I wanted a title and to get some additional (original) input into whether it still speaks to me.

Mark

Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces

“This is the 4th book that I have finished in my Two-Thirds Book Challenge. I started it 6 October 2011 and finished it 15 January 2012. I had not intended to take so long but it is somewhat complex and, in all honesty, the rampant Freudianism/psychoanalysis is simply too much at times.”

But it is a classic text and I do believe it is worth reading.

Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return

“The gist is a comparison of how primitive or archaic humans viewed history versus how historical man views history. For archaic human, Eliade claims, everything that mattered—that had meaning—was a repeat of an archetype of some previous event or action in ‘primordial’ time, and that these things were endlessly repeated as the world was, in fact, repeatedly re-created anew.”

Modern, historical, humans have lost that which then leads us straight into the “terror of history,” a form of existential crisis.

I found this an excellent and engaging book, which, for me, generated as many questions as it may have answered. I like that.

Stay tuned for next month’s installment and good reading, whatever that may be for you!