Originally written in Dutch, The Twins by Tessa De Loo weaves a uniquely complex view of World War II. Estranged elderly twin sisters arbitrarily find each other at a spa. They were separated after being orphaned as young children, one to relatives in Holland and the other to relatives in Germany, before the war. They recount their experiences from opposite sides of the war with such intimate poignancy, trying to explain, trying to understand. The author succeeds in showing the humanity of regular people, no matter how history portrays them after the fact - no matter how we want to cast players in black-and-white simplicity. Here are some lines I collected:
Page 8: They wave and he waves back with a large white hand that passes back and forth in front of his face as though he wants to wipe himself out.
Page 50: The layers of time were grating over each. Before the war, after the war, the Depression years, a century ago...diverse landscapes that Anna hurtled through tipsily, as though in a runaway train.
Page 152: She had read enough to know that crying for a soldier who was departing for the front joined her to the company of millions of women throughout the ages. It had been written and sung about over and over again, but even so her grief was the only one, the worst one of all.
Page 223: Watch out for me! I am even worse than these who openly make war. I am friend and foe in one. I? There is no I, only an ambivalent treacherous we, who deceives itself in itself....
Page 290: Their whole meeting was a film she had failed to walk out of in time; now she wanted to know how it ended.
Page 351: Her powerlessness flowed down her cheeks -- too late, too late.
Friday, February 19, 2016
Monday, October 26, 2015
The Girl With No Shadow
The Girl With No Shadow is Joanne Harris' sequel to her novel Chocolat. I had found the movie Chocolat much better than the book version, probably because I saw the movie first and it was so wonderfully told and so different from the book, that I found the book less satisfying. But The Girl With No Shadow delivered fabulously.
Joanne Harris knits a creepy world of maybe-magic and power-responsibility. I loved it, but it did scare me to death. The insidious way evil pulls the daughter away from the mother spoke too closely to my heart. My own daughter is seventeen and nearly leaving home. She's not being collected by a black-hearted witch named the Queen of Hearts, but kids pull away to be independent. It's a good thing, a healthy thing, but the process is at times painful. Especially knowing the way the world can manipulate.
Here are some quotes to feast on:
Page 120: "There's no such thing as magic," I said.
"Then call it something else." She shrugged. "Call it attitude, if you like. Call it charisma, or chutzpah, or glamour, or charm. Because basically it's just about standing straight, looking people in the eye, shooting them a killer smile, and saying, fuck off, I'm fabulous."
Page 185: The moment he walked into the shop, I knew he was going to be my kind of trouble.
Page 265: He seemed a calm and kindly man, but too like so many of his kind, with his well-worn words of comfort and his eyes that saw all of the next world, but none of this one.
Page 281: But before I could call out his name, he was gone, slipping away among the tombs, quick as a cat and quiet as a ghost.
Page 360-1: Outside the wind is riding high. A killer wind, charged with snow. Sleepers in doorways will die tonight. Dogs will howl; doors slam. Young lovers will look into each other's eyes and for the first time will silently question their vows. Eternity is such a long time -- and here, at the dead end of the year, Death seems suddenly very close.
Page 386: Outside, the snow has settled thickly, and although the light has begun to fade, the ground is weirdly luminous, as if the street and sky had exchanged places.
Joanne Harris knits a creepy world of maybe-magic and power-responsibility. I loved it, but it did scare me to death. The insidious way evil pulls the daughter away from the mother spoke too closely to my heart. My own daughter is seventeen and nearly leaving home. She's not being collected by a black-hearted witch named the Queen of Hearts, but kids pull away to be independent. It's a good thing, a healthy thing, but the process is at times painful. Especially knowing the way the world can manipulate.
Here are some quotes to feast on:
Page 120: "There's no such thing as magic," I said.
"Then call it something else." She shrugged. "Call it attitude, if you like. Call it charisma, or chutzpah, or glamour, or charm. Because basically it's just about standing straight, looking people in the eye, shooting them a killer smile, and saying, fuck off, I'm fabulous."
Page 185: The moment he walked into the shop, I knew he was going to be my kind of trouble.
Page 265: He seemed a calm and kindly man, but too like so many of his kind, with his well-worn words of comfort and his eyes that saw all of the next world, but none of this one.
Page 281: But before I could call out his name, he was gone, slipping away among the tombs, quick as a cat and quiet as a ghost.
Page 360-1: Outside the wind is riding high. A killer wind, charged with snow. Sleepers in doorways will die tonight. Dogs will howl; doors slam. Young lovers will look into each other's eyes and for the first time will silently question their vows. Eternity is such a long time -- and here, at the dead end of the year, Death seems suddenly very close.
Page 386: Outside, the snow has settled thickly, and although the light has begun to fade, the ground is weirdly luminous, as if the street and sky had exchanged places.
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
The Magician King
Here's the second of the Magician trilogy by Lev Grossman. The Magician King entertains and although it has more than its share of Narnian undertones, it is definitely not predictable.
Page 97-98: That was the thing about the world: it wasn't that things were harder than you thought they were going to be, it was that they were hard in ways that you didn't expect.
Page 115: The students watched the three of them pass, propped up on their elbows, full of lofty pity for those who had been stupid enough to graduate and get older.
Page 165-166: Everybody wanted to be the hero of their own story. Nobody wanted to be comic relief.
Page 248: These waves came sloping in smoothly, building up heads of boiling cream foam on top, reared up for a moment, mint green and paper-thin in the sunlight, then broke in a long line with a sound like fabric tearing.
Page 97-98: That was the thing about the world: it wasn't that things were harder than you thought they were going to be, it was that they were hard in ways that you didn't expect.
Page 115: The students watched the three of them pass, propped up on their elbows, full of lofty pity for those who had been stupid enough to graduate and get older.
Page 165-166: Everybody wanted to be the hero of their own story. Nobody wanted to be comic relief.
Page 248: These waves came sloping in smoothly, building up heads of boiling cream foam on top, reared up for a moment, mint green and paper-thin in the sunlight, then broke in a long line with a sound like fabric tearing.
Sunday, August 16, 2015
A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety
My cousin and I stood in line to meet President Jimmy Carter. It was Monday afternoon, July 27th, at Powell's Bookstore in Portland Oregon. I was told I couldn't see the President unless I had a book for him to sign. I bought his book, A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety, so that I could see him.
As the line slowly wound around outside and then inside the building, I texted my son the math problem: If a man signs 1500 books in two hours, how much time does each book get? Answer: 4.8 seconds. I'm not sure I got my full 4.8 seconds with President Carter, but I did snap a very blurry photo of my cousin with him. Well, he's in the background at a table busily signing books. Sill, it was a thrill!
I've always been a fan of Jimmy Carter, but reading his autobiography was interesting. Fun to hear about his childhood experiences and about his career as a nuclear engineer. But interesting to read his account of what he accomplished and tried to accomplish while in office, and have so many of those issues come up in recent news, such as comprehensive health care and renewed relationships with Cuba. I was sad to hear of his cancer diagnosis announced just last week, especially after reading about his family history of pancreatic cancer in his book.
He certainly has lead a full life.
As the line slowly wound around outside and then inside the building, I texted my son the math problem: If a man signs 1500 books in two hours, how much time does each book get? Answer: 4.8 seconds. I'm not sure I got my full 4.8 seconds with President Carter, but I did snap a very blurry photo of my cousin with him. Well, he's in the background at a table busily signing books. Sill, it was a thrill!
I've always been a fan of Jimmy Carter, but reading his autobiography was interesting. Fun to hear about his childhood experiences and about his career as a nuclear engineer. But interesting to read his account of what he accomplished and tried to accomplish while in office, and have so many of those issues come up in recent news, such as comprehensive health care and renewed relationships with Cuba. I was sad to hear of his cancer diagnosis announced just last week, especially after reading about his family history of pancreatic cancer in his book.
He certainly has lead a full life.
Friday, August 7, 2015
Slaughterhouse - Five
A classic I had never read, I borrowed Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse - Five from an English teacher at my daughter's high school. Summer reading.
Not what I expected.
This easy read was all over the place, time and otherwise. It was less a war story than a human-trying-to-deal-with-living-and-dying story. I liked it.
Page 23: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.
Page 34: The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of the zipper on the fly of God Almighty.
Page 164: One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.
Page 169: He did not think of himself as a writer for the simple reason that the world had never allowed him to think of himself in this way.
Sunday, August 2, 2015
The Magicians
Not sure where I found this series by Lev Grossman. I read most of this on a road trip through Idaho. At first I thought I was reading a Harry Potter knockoff, but The Magicians quickly became its own unique ride. For a fantasy story of the world of magic, I found it very human. Very real-life and current.
Page 94: Standing there at the entrance to the passageway, looking around for stray vergers who might charge him with trespassing -- or worse, offer him spiritual guidance -- cars whooshing by in the street behind him, he had never felt so absolutely sure that he was delusional, that Brooklyn was the only reality there was, and that everything which had happened to him last year was just a fanboy hallucination, proof that the boredom of the real world had finally driven him totally and irreversibly out of his mind.
Page 147: "You know what I liked about being a goose?" Josh said. "Being able to crap wherever I wanted."
Page 210: No one would come right out and say it, but the worldwide magical ecology was suffering from a serious imbalance: too many magicians, not enough monsters.
Page 216: "... If there's a single lesson that life teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so. ..." (Fogg)
Page 220: I got my heart's desire, he thought, and there my troubles began.
Page 228: Night after night Quentin would return home toward dawn, alone, deposited in front of his building by a solemn solitary cab like a hearse painted yellow, the street awash with blue light -- the delicate ultrasound radiance of the embryonic day.
Page 331: He'd started his little speech speaking normally and he had ended it shouting. In a way fighting like this was just like using magic. You said the words, and they altered the universe. By merely speaking you could create damage and pain, cause tears to fall, drive people away, make yourself feel better, make your life worse.
Page 94: Standing there at the entrance to the passageway, looking around for stray vergers who might charge him with trespassing -- or worse, offer him spiritual guidance -- cars whooshing by in the street behind him, he had never felt so absolutely sure that he was delusional, that Brooklyn was the only reality there was, and that everything which had happened to him last year was just a fanboy hallucination, proof that the boredom of the real world had finally driven him totally and irreversibly out of his mind.
Page 147: "You know what I liked about being a goose?" Josh said. "Being able to crap wherever I wanted."
Page 210: No one would come right out and say it, but the worldwide magical ecology was suffering from a serious imbalance: too many magicians, not enough monsters.
Page 216: "... If there's a single lesson that life teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so. ..." (Fogg)
Page 220: I got my heart's desire, he thought, and there my troubles began.
Page 228: Night after night Quentin would return home toward dawn, alone, deposited in front of his building by a solemn solitary cab like a hearse painted yellow, the street awash with blue light -- the delicate ultrasound radiance of the embryonic day.
Page 331: He'd started his little speech speaking normally and he had ended it shouting. In a way fighting like this was just like using magic. You said the words, and they altered the universe. By merely speaking you could create damage and pain, cause tears to fall, drive people away, make yourself feel better, make your life worse.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
A Dance With Dragons
George R. R. Martin's A Dance with Dragons is the fifth of the series A Song of Ice and Fire.
Still enthralled. Looking forward to the next one.
Page 90: Sleep opened beneath him like a well, and he threw himself into it with a will and let the darkness eat him up.
Page 260: The Bridge of Dream, Griff had called it, but this dream was smashed and broken. Pale stone arches marched off into the fog, reaching from the Palace of Sorrow to the river's western bank. Half of them had collapsed, pulled down by the weight of the grey moss that draped them and the thick black vines that snaked upward from the water.
Page 519: Despite his bastard birth, or perhaps because of it, Jon Snow had dreamed of leading men to glory just as King Daeron had, of growing up to be a conqueror. Now he was a man grown and the Wall was his, yet all he had were doubts. He could not even seem to conquer those.
Page 581: All skulls grinned, but this one seemed happier than most.
Page 843: Every choice had its risks, every choice its consequences. He would play the game to its conclusion.
Page 935: "Whore!" someone cried out. A woman's voice. Women were always the cruelest where other women were concerned.
Still enthralled. Looking forward to the next one.
Page 90: Sleep opened beneath him like a well, and he threw himself into it with a will and let the darkness eat him up.
Page 260: The Bridge of Dream, Griff had called it, but this dream was smashed and broken. Pale stone arches marched off into the fog, reaching from the Palace of Sorrow to the river's western bank. Half of them had collapsed, pulled down by the weight of the grey moss that draped them and the thick black vines that snaked upward from the water.
Page 519: Despite his bastard birth, or perhaps because of it, Jon Snow had dreamed of leading men to glory just as King Daeron had, of growing up to be a conqueror. Now he was a man grown and the Wall was his, yet all he had were doubts. He could not even seem to conquer those.
Page 581: All skulls grinned, but this one seemed happier than most.
Page 843: Every choice had its risks, every choice its consequences. He would play the game to its conclusion.
Page 935: "Whore!" someone cried out. A woman's voice. Women were always the cruelest where other women were concerned.
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