When I started reading Memory Wall, by Anthony Doerr, I found myself recoiling a little. It was the content: the first story is about a woman with dementia who keeps notes to herself all over her wall. Too close to home perhaps; I hate it when I can't remember things. But I kept reading and I'm so glad I did! It took some surprising twists and was amazing and thought provoking. Every story in this collection of shorts is different and beautiful. I love the way memory or memories is dealt with in such different ways, often other-worldly.
From "Memory":
Page 2: Alma stands barefoot and wigless in the upstairs bedroom with a flashlight.
Page 42: "To say a person is a happy person or an unhappy person is ridiculous. We are a thousand different kinds of people every hour." (says Alma)
Page 70: What is memory anyway? How can it be such a frail, perishable thing?
From "Village 113":
Page 151: But perhaps, she thinks, there is no good and bad to it at all. Every memory everone has ever had will eventually be under water. Progress is a storm and the wings of everything are swept up in it.
From "The River Nemunas":
Page 175: I wonder about how the sky can be a huge, blue nothingness and at the same time it can also feel like a shelter.
From "Afterworld":
Page 192: She sits up too quickly and her eyesight flees in long streaks.
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Boy's Life
Another book I picked up from subbing high school English: Robert McCammon's Boy's Life. The story drew me in and carried me along; a quick read in over 600 pages. It's all about keeping the magic. I'm gonna make my kids read it - I don't think it will take much convincing.
Page 2: We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out and combed out.
Page 8: My blue jeans had patches on the knees, like badges of courage marking encounters with barbed wire and gravel.
Page 16-17: Underwater, he fought the lake's muscles. The car fell away beneath him, and as his legs thrashed for a hold in the liquid tomb, more bubbles rushed up and broke him loose and he climbed up their silver staircase toward the attic of air.
Page 23: If his nose had been any larger, he would've made a dandy weathervane.
Page 64: The place looked and felt like a hothouse where exotic hats had bloomed.
Page 177: I swallowed my rage like a bitter seed, not knowing that it would bear fruit.
Page 332: Everything seemed to be gleaming and glinting, and our feet were cushioned by gardens of Oriental weave.
Page 486: It seemed to me, as I walked in the presence of all those stilled voices that would never be heard again, that we were a wasteful breed. We had thrown away the past and our future was impoverished for it.
Ah, yes. You must read this book.
Page 2: We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out and combed out.
Page 8: My blue jeans had patches on the knees, like badges of courage marking encounters with barbed wire and gravel.
Page 16-17: Underwater, he fought the lake's muscles. The car fell away beneath him, and as his legs thrashed for a hold in the liquid tomb, more bubbles rushed up and broke him loose and he climbed up their silver staircase toward the attic of air.
Page 23: If his nose had been any larger, he would've made a dandy weathervane.
Page 64: The place looked and felt like a hothouse where exotic hats had bloomed.
Page 177: I swallowed my rage like a bitter seed, not knowing that it would bear fruit.
Page 332: Everything seemed to be gleaming and glinting, and our feet were cushioned by gardens of Oriental weave.
Page 486: It seemed to me, as I walked in the presence of all those stilled voices that would never be heard again, that we were a wasteful breed. We had thrown away the past and our future was impoverished for it.
Ah, yes. You must read this book.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
The Book Thief
A story so well wordsmithed, The Book Thief is delicious to read. Markus Zusak has crafted a masterpiece. I loved the personification of everything, even the narrator, Death. The words enter your soul and you feel the eternity of it.
Page 7: The abhorrence on his cheeks were growing thicker by the moment.
Page 9: The plane was still coughing. Smoke was leaking from both its lungs.
Page 10: I walked in, loosened his soul, and carried it gently away.
Page 12: The streets were ruptured veins. Blood streamed til it was dried on the road, and the bodies were stuck there, like driftwood after the flood.
Page 24: A final, soaking farewell was let go of, and they turned and left the cemetery, looking back several times.
Page 27: ... empty hat-stand trees ...
Page 42: A bathrobe answered the door.
Page 48: Insane or not, Rudy was always destined to be Liesel's best friend. A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.
Page 65: The soft-spoken words fell off the side of the bed, emptying to the floor like powder.
Page 84: Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.
Page 109: I guess humans like to watch a little destruction. Sand castles, houses of cards, that's where they begin. Their great skill is in their capacity to escalate.
Page 112: Burning words were torn from their sentences.
Page 250: Standing above him at all moments of awakeness was the hand of time, and it didn't hesitate to wring him out, it smiled and squeezed and let him live. What great malice there could be in allowing something to live.
Page 367: Her nerves licked her palms.
Page 392: Stars of David were plastered to their shirts, and misery was attached to them as if assigned. "Don't forget your misery..." In some cases, it grew on them like vines.
Page 7: The abhorrence on his cheeks were growing thicker by the moment.
Page 9: The plane was still coughing. Smoke was leaking from both its lungs.
Page 10: I walked in, loosened his soul, and carried it gently away.
Page 12: The streets were ruptured veins. Blood streamed til it was dried on the road, and the bodies were stuck there, like driftwood after the flood.
Page 24: A final, soaking farewell was let go of, and they turned and left the cemetery, looking back several times.
Page 27: ... empty hat-stand trees ...
Page 42: A bathrobe answered the door.
Page 48: Insane or not, Rudy was always destined to be Liesel's best friend. A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.
Page 65: The soft-spoken words fell off the side of the bed, emptying to the floor like powder.
Page 84: Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.
Page 109: I guess humans like to watch a little destruction. Sand castles, houses of cards, that's where they begin. Their great skill is in their capacity to escalate.
Page 112: Burning words were torn from their sentences.
Page 250: Standing above him at all moments of awakeness was the hand of time, and it didn't hesitate to wring him out, it smiled and squeezed and let him live. What great malice there could be in allowing something to live.
Page 367: Her nerves licked her palms.
Page 392: Stars of David were plastered to their shirts, and misery was attached to them as if assigned. "Don't forget your misery..." In some cases, it grew on them like vines.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
The Forest Laird and also The Devil and Tom Walker
Just shy of 500 pages, The Forest Laird by Jack Whyte is a tome. I did enjoy the story and all the details of life in the late 1200s, even though, having seen the movie Braveheart years ago, I knew how tragic William Wallace's life was. The vernacular and old-speak in the story was great, like using "ken" instead of the word "know", but I didn't glean any quotes from it.
I subbed for an English teacher today and one of my classes read Irving Washington's The Devil and Tom Walker (out of the Adventures in American Literature textbook.) Written in early the 1800's, this cautionary tale is set in 1727.
Vivid descriptions of the warring couple:
He had a wife as miserly as himself: they were so miserly that they even conspired to cheat each other.
This quote is less about a lovely turn of phrase and more about its interesting attitude toward slavery, given the era it was written in:
He [the devil] insisted that the money found through his means should be employed in his service. He proposed, therefore, that Tom should employ it in the black traffic; that is to say that he should fit out a slave ship. This, however, Tom resolutely refused: he was bad enough in all conscience; but the devil himself could not tempt him to turn slave trader.
And who hasn't met a self-righteous s.o.b. like this:
Tom was as rigid in religious as money matters; he was a stern supervisor and censurer of his neighbor, and seemed to think every sin entered up to their account became a credit on his own side of the page.
Ah, me. Fun in a high school English Lit class.
I started the book that another of my classes from today is reading. By page 18 I was hooked.
Here's a quote from the preface: We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out and combed out.
Can you guess what this novel is that I am reading now?
I subbed for an English teacher today and one of my classes read Irving Washington's The Devil and Tom Walker (out of the Adventures in American Literature textbook.) Written in early the 1800's, this cautionary tale is set in 1727.
Vivid descriptions of the warring couple:
He had a wife as miserly as himself: they were so miserly that they even conspired to cheat each other.
This quote is less about a lovely turn of phrase and more about its interesting attitude toward slavery, given the era it was written in:
He [the devil] insisted that the money found through his means should be employed in his service. He proposed, therefore, that Tom should employ it in the black traffic; that is to say that he should fit out a slave ship. This, however, Tom resolutely refused: he was bad enough in all conscience; but the devil himself could not tempt him to turn slave trader.
And who hasn't met a self-righteous s.o.b. like this:
Tom was as rigid in religious as money matters; he was a stern supervisor and censurer of his neighbor, and seemed to think every sin entered up to their account became a credit on his own side of the page.
Ah, me. Fun in a high school English Lit class.
I started the book that another of my classes from today is reading. By page 18 I was hooked.
Here's a quote from the preface: We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out and combed out.
Can you guess what this novel is that I am reading now?
Friday, December 20, 2013
Dreamers of the Day
I did not expect to like Dreamers of the Day; from the sleeve it sounded too historical and political for me. But what a talented writer. Mary Doria Russell made this story so alive, I could hardly put it down. Agnes' personal story laid over the cultural portrait of the early 1900s was completely engaging and it kept getting better through the events of the decades. It was thorough and intelligent. I love this book!
Page 21: Well, I cannot make poetry of our great trial, as Mr. Owen did of combat, but permit me to act the school teacher and explain to you the workings of the lungs.
Page 48: There we discovered that some confidence trick of climate and current had delivered us into a full and bracing spring.
Page 55: In contrast to the mute and shrouded hordes of Cairo's women, the city's men yelled constantly.
Page 125: Of them, I recall only the passage from sun glare to near blindness in the shadowed stony chill inside and the disorientation I felt until my eyes adjusted enough to discern exotic artwork in sputtering candlelight.
Page 165: The Israelites fleeing Pharaoh required forty years for that which our train accomplished in a matter of hours.
Page 176: And there at last was the Mount of Olives, glorified by the lingering brilliance of a golden sunset, its own purple shadows veiling hills that rose and retreated, height upon blue height.
Page 211: Add water, and the soil is so fertile that you could plant a pencil and harvest a book.
Page 244: Observing human history has turned out to be a terrible exercise in monotony.
Love it. Merry Christmas!
Page 21: Well, I cannot make poetry of our great trial, as Mr. Owen did of combat, but permit me to act the school teacher and explain to you the workings of the lungs.
Page 48: There we discovered that some confidence trick of climate and current had delivered us into a full and bracing spring.
Page 55: In contrast to the mute and shrouded hordes of Cairo's women, the city's men yelled constantly.
Page 125: Of them, I recall only the passage from sun glare to near blindness in the shadowed stony chill inside and the disorientation I felt until my eyes adjusted enough to discern exotic artwork in sputtering candlelight.
Page 165: The Israelites fleeing Pharaoh required forty years for that which our train accomplished in a matter of hours.
Page 176: And there at last was the Mount of Olives, glorified by the lingering brilliance of a golden sunset, its own purple shadows veiling hills that rose and retreated, height upon blue height.
Page 211: Add water, and the soil is so fertile that you could plant a pencil and harvest a book.
Page 244: Observing human history has turned out to be a terrible exercise in monotony.
Love it. Merry Christmas!
Friday, November 29, 2013
Seating Arrangements
Maggie Shipstead is a smooth and artful writer. Her entertaining debut novel, Seating Arrangements, had me transfixed. It begins in the father-of-the bride's voice and ends in his voice, but throughout the weekend of the wedding we get to be inside most of the characters' heads.
page 12: Makeup pencils and brushes were everywhere, abandoned helter-skelter as though by the fleeing beauticians of Pompeii.
page 38: The few times both sets of parents came together for dinners in Cambridge they had all bravely skated the hours away on a thin crust of chitchat.
page 93: Silence over stockings -- the first regret of his marriage.
page 113: Love was just one more thing that would make it difficult to die.
page 183: Female friendship was one-tenth prevention and nine-tenths cleanup. Livia would do what she wanted. The sad-girl hormones would bind her to another man who didn't want her, and when Sterling sloughed her off, Dominique would be called upon to indulge her defense mechanisms, tell her that of course there was some complilcated reason he would not allow himself to open up to her, of course he knew she was too good for him (no man ever thought that -- it went against natural selection), of course he was afraid of getting hurt.
page 12: Makeup pencils and brushes were everywhere, abandoned helter-skelter as though by the fleeing beauticians of Pompeii.
page 38: The few times both sets of parents came together for dinners in Cambridge they had all bravely skated the hours away on a thin crust of chitchat.
page 93: Silence over stockings -- the first regret of his marriage.
page 113: Love was just one more thing that would make it difficult to die.
page 183: Female friendship was one-tenth prevention and nine-tenths cleanup. Livia would do what she wanted. The sad-girl hormones would bind her to another man who didn't want her, and when Sterling sloughed her off, Dominique would be called upon to indulge her defense mechanisms, tell her that of course there was some complilcated reason he would not allow himself to open up to her, of course he knew she was too good for him (no man ever thought that -- it went against natural selection), of course he was afraid of getting hurt.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Although I've not been subbing much this month - too busy painting the new addition and doing remodel errands - I did manage to finish Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Wonderful story, wonderfully told. It's told in two different voices, which I make note of with my font, just as Barbery does in the book. And then there were the whole chapters that I wanted to include here, beautiful. Several had tears rolling down my face.
Page 90: We have never had our tea together in the morning, and this break with our usual protocol imbues the ritual with a strange flavor.
Page 91: At moments like this the web of life is revealed by the power of ritual, and each time we renew our ceremony, the pleasure will be all the greater for our having violated one of its principles.
Page 106: Ah, sweet, impromptu moment, lifting the veil of melancholy... In a split second of eternity, everything is changed, transfigured.
Page 108: The death of Pierre Arthens has been wilting my camellias.
Page 119: We live each day as if it were merely a rehearsal for the next.
Page 128: We have to live with the certainty that we'll get old and that it won't look nice or be good or feel happy. And tell ourselves that it's now that matters, to build something, now, at any price, using all our strength. Always remember that there's a retirement home waiting somewhere and we have to surpass ourselves every day, make every day undying.
Page 143: Madame Michel has the elegance of a hedgehog: on the outside, she's covered in quills, a real fortress, but my gut feeling is that on the inside, she has the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary - and terribly elegant.
Page 162: There is one chocolate Florentine left, which I nibble out of greediness, with my front teeth, like a mouse. If you change the way you crunch into something, it is like trying something new.
Page 247: I have always been fascinated by the abnegation with which we human beings are capable of devoting a great deal of energy to the quest for nothing and to rehashing of useless and absurd ideas.
Page 250: Eternity: for all its invisibility, we gaze at it.
Page 279: Melancholy overwhelms me, at supersonic speed.
I also read Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal, by J.K. Rowling. Just keeping my Spanish up.
There was one quote I kept.
Page 21: -- Sí, sí es todo muy triste, pero domínate, Hagrid, o van a descubrirnos -- susurró la profesora McGonagall... (my translation: "Yes, yes it's all very sad, but control yourself, Hagrid, or they will discover us," whispered Professor McGonagall.)
It's the domínate that I like, which means control yourself. Dominate yourself? Made me smile.
Page 90: We have never had our tea together in the morning, and this break with our usual protocol imbues the ritual with a strange flavor.
Page 91: At moments like this the web of life is revealed by the power of ritual, and each time we renew our ceremony, the pleasure will be all the greater for our having violated one of its principles.
Page 106: Ah, sweet, impromptu moment, lifting the veil of melancholy... In a split second of eternity, everything is changed, transfigured.
Page 108: The death of Pierre Arthens has been wilting my camellias.
Page 119: We live each day as if it were merely a rehearsal for the next.
Page 128: We have to live with the certainty that we'll get old and that it won't look nice or be good or feel happy. And tell ourselves that it's now that matters, to build something, now, at any price, using all our strength. Always remember that there's a retirement home waiting somewhere and we have to surpass ourselves every day, make every day undying.
Page 143: Madame Michel has the elegance of a hedgehog: on the outside, she's covered in quills, a real fortress, but my gut feeling is that on the inside, she has the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary - and terribly elegant.
Page 162: There is one chocolate Florentine left, which I nibble out of greediness, with my front teeth, like a mouse. If you change the way you crunch into something, it is like trying something new.
Page 247: I have always been fascinated by the abnegation with which we human beings are capable of devoting a great deal of energy to the quest for nothing and to rehashing of useless and absurd ideas.
Page 250: Eternity: for all its invisibility, we gaze at it.
Page 279: Melancholy overwhelms me, at supersonic speed.
I also read Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal, by J.K. Rowling. Just keeping my Spanish up.
There was one quote I kept.
Page 21: -- Sí, sí es todo muy triste, pero domínate, Hagrid, o van a descubrirnos -- susurró la profesora McGonagall... (my translation: "Yes, yes it's all very sad, but control yourself, Hagrid, or they will discover us," whispered Professor McGonagall.)
It's the domínate that I like, which means control yourself. Dominate yourself? Made me smile.
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