Large Print Blues

I have needed reading glasses for a while now. So recently I thought I would try large print editions of books, available at my local library. Strangely enough, reading the large print novels made me feel both old and childish at the same time. Old, because of all the associations with old eyes and old people, but childish because it reminded me of children's books, with their chunky, blocky print; somehow these editions even made the sentences seem shorter and simpler, absurd as that sounds. As much as I believe in the pure power of words, experiences like this remind me that the packaging and the media do make a difference in one's feelings about a book. Reading a mass market paperback with a gaudy cover feels a bit different than reading a sturdy, plain-covered hardback edition of the same book. Reading online is definitely different than reading print. Listening to books-on-tape is different from reading books. Even a book's size and the font used can make a difference. Somehow reading large print books has been a bit unsettling. I do want to acknowledge that they help a lot of people, so I am glad that they exist; in addition, I may well need them myself someday. In the meanwhile, I may have to get stronger reading glasses, but I think I will postpone the large print editions for a bit longer.

No, Thanks, Really!

I had seen a couple of reviews of Scottish writer A.L. Kennedy's new book, "What Becomes: Stories" (Knopf, 2010). I had heard she was an excellent writer, and this story collection sounded intriguing, but it also sounded very intense and depressing; I couldn't decide whether I wanted to read it or not. I kept thinking I would read one or two more reviews and then decide. Then today I read in the San Francisco Chronicle's review by Carmela Ciuraru that "One English critic has compared the experience of reading Kennedy to being 'being beaten in the groin with a hammer' - intended as a compliment - and it's an apt description. Her books are tough." Um, I think I will pass....

Another Great Day at the Literature Conference

I spent another wonderful day at the American Literature Association conference today (see also my post of 5/27/10), and heard talks on more of my favorite women writers: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Kate Chopin, Flannery O'Connor, Constance Fenimore Woolson, and Gertrude Stein. It was both intellectually stimulating and a joy to revel in hearing such interesting talks about such great writers! An added bonus was hearing Emily Toth speak, and meeting her after the session; she is a leading scholar on women's literature - especially Kate Chopin's work - and women's issues, as well as the author of the Ms. Mentor book and columns, in which she gives astute advice to women in academe. She was very funny and very friendly. Another thing I liked about the conference was the speakers' obvious dedication to, and even love for, the authors they spoke about. Yes, they are doing their scholarly work, but their sense of connection to "their" authors was palpable.

Bad Marriages, Limited Lives: "The Pumpkin Eater"

"Peter, Peter, Pumpkin eater/Had a wife and couldn't keep her./ He put her in a pumpkin shell/And there he kept her very well." I imagine you remember this nursery rhyme; Penelope Mortimer chooses to title her novel "The Pumpkin Eater" (McGraw-Hill, 1962) after it. And yes, it describes a very bad, very dysfunctional marriage. But it also illustrates the larger issue of dissatisfied women in constrictive marriages and limited lives. This novel was published in England about the same time that Evan S. Connell's "Mrs. Bridge" (which I posted about on 5/3/10) was published in the U.S., and both address these limitations on women's lives in the 1950s and 1960s. The main characters in the two novels are very different. One is English, one is American. One is urban, one is small town. One isn't very concerned with morality; the other is very proper. One is a careless housewife and mother; the other does everything correctly. But each is confused about why she doesn't feel fulfilled or happy, despite having material comforts, a husband, and several children. Both feel oddly lost; both at least briefly consult therapists (at their husbands' suggestions) who are completely useless and even harmful; both have husbands who can't or won't understand what their problems are (although in different ways: Mr. Bridge is clumsy and rigid, whereas Jake Armitage is self-centered and unfaithful). In other words, both women have the condition described by Betty Friedan in "The Feminine Mystique" -- lack of fulfillment and lack of opportunity for fulfillment.

Susan Glaspell

Today I went to the American Literature Association conference here in San Francisco, and attended wonderful sessions all day. I mostly chose talks about women writers, such as Willa Cather, Louisa May Alcott, Margaret Fuller, H.D., and Carson McCullers. One of the best sessions (a set of three talks) was on Susan Glaspell (1876-1948), which reminded me of how she is yet another author who was well known in her time, but then much less so, until feminist scholars in the 1970s brought attention back to her writing. Her powerful, very feminist one-act play, "Trifles," is now frequently anthologized. However, her longer plays and her novels are still neglected. It was encouraging to hear the talks this morning, and to find that there is a Susan Glaspell Society, a group of scholars who study, speak about, and write about her work. Long may her work live!

Thank You, Alice Walker

I stopped reading Alice Walker's work some years ago. I admit to sometimes being a bit dismissive of some of her seemingly "out there" ideas of recent years. But I recently heard a radio interview with her, and was - once again - so impressed with her commitment to important causes related to gender and racial equality, and to alleviating suffering around the world. I started thinking about how important and influential some of her work had been over the years. For example, the novel "The Color Purple," read by so many, spoke so passionately of the pain and destruction caused by prejudice and ignorance. And another novel, "Possessing the Secret of Joy," was one of the very first books to bring wide public attention to the issue of genital mutilation of girls and women in many places in the world, including the United States. These novels, and other works by Walker, remind us of the power of fiction to raise consciousness in a large audience in a way that editorial page essays, or publications of political and social organizations, may not be able to do so widely or effectively. So thank you, Alice Walker, for your tireless dedication to making the world a better and more equitable place.

"After the Workshop"

I have trouble resisting novels about writers' lives. "After the Workshop"(Counterpoint, 2010), by John McNally, goes one better: The novelist writes about a novelist who is writing about a novelist. Very "meta." The main novel's main character, Jack Hercules Sheahan, is - like John McNally, and like Sheahan's protagonist - a graduate of the famous Iowa Writers' Workshop. Twelve years later, he still lives in Iowa City, hasn't published anything since his big success - a story in The New Yorker - and now earns his living as a media escort for more famous writers visiting Iowa City on book tours. The book is satirical, funny, and sad. The workshop, writers, and aspiring writers are all skewered. Yet the tone of the novel is, on another level, affectionate as well, and the main character is oddly good-natured despite all his disappointments and the embarrassing things that happen to him. The world of writers and writing still seems the highest calling to McNally and to Sheahan both.

Two Novels about Tragic Loss

I recently read two novels that, coincidentally, centered around tragic losses to the main women characters. This is, of course, an ancient and universal literary theme, but it never loses its dreadful fascination. We all have either suffered such losses, or can imagine, with great fear, the occurrence of such losses. "February" (Black Cat, 2009), by the Canadian writer Lisa Moore, tells the story of Helen, a woman widowed young by the sinking of an oil rig on which her husband worked. The book is a novel, but the Ocean Ranger oil rig disaster off the coast of Newfoundland in 1982 actually happened, and is eerily timely in light of the oil rig catastrophe in the news now. The novel alternates chapters on the horrible disaster with chapters on the same character and her family in the present (2008), when she finally finds happiness again. The second novel is "Every Last One" (Random House, 2010), by Anna Quindlen. In this one, the main character, Mary Beth, lives a very comfortable and mainly happy life, although she has some family worries. But in the middle of the novel, a shocking event occurs that devastates the family and almost destroys Mary Beth. Only very slowly is she able to bring herself back to any semblance of a "normal" life, although she will be marked forever by the tragedy. Both of these novels are very well-written; neither uses the central event of her book just for shock value. Both main characters are very believable and sympathetic, but complex and very human. "Every Last One" has a whiff of the "popular" novel, but Quindlen's writing keeps getting better with each novel. Moore is a new author to me, but because I am impressed by "February," I plan to read her other works as well.

Red Flag Words in Book Reviews

I make many of my decisions about what to read or not to read based on book reviews. Certain words and phrases are consistently red flags for me; when I see these in reviews, I almost automatically decide that a book is not something I want to read. Of course this is very individual; everyone's tastes are different and therefore everyone's red flag list would be different. A few such off-putting words and phrases from my personal list are as follows:
-science fiction
-fantasy
-thriller
-fast-paced
-hard-boiled
-action-packed
-noirish
-ominous
-nightmarish
-magical realism
-postmodern
-experimental

On the other hand, words and phrases that pique my interest include the following:
-character-driven
-well-developed characters
-women's lives
-marriage
-urban
-sophisticated
-witty
-funny
-social comedy
-drawing room comedy
-British
-Manhattan
-San Francisco

Cold, Creepy, and Claustrophobic

Brrrr! I thought I would go back to Iris Murdoch, after many years away from her, and see if I still had a slightly uneasy feeling about her novels. The answer is: Emphatically, Yes! I just finished "The Time of the Angels" (Viking, 1966) and found it cold, creepy, and claustrophobic. The characters are cold, even when they are ostensibly passionate, and to emphasize the cold, the weather in London is constantly freezing throughout the novel. The atmosphere in the house where most of the story takes place is creepy and claustrophobic, as are the main characters, especially the horrible - even evil - Carel, who controls all around him from his dark room. There are glimpses of human warmth in two characters, the Russian refugee Leo and the sad, orphaned housekeeper Pattie, but even they are so damaged by life and by Carel that they can't keep up that warmth for long. I have to say that I kept reading to the end, although I now often don't continue reading a book I don't like, so there was some psychological fascination that kept my attention. I was relieved, however, when it was over and I was released from the cold and the creepiness.

Birthday Wishes for a Great Reading Friend

My friend B. has a "big" birthday today -- Happy, happy birthday, dear B.! On 2/16/10, I wrote about my friend C., with whom I have been having book conversations for the longest. B. is a friend I have been discussing books with for almost as long: 35 years! B's and my typical get-together is a long lunch or afternoon tea, at which we discuss many things, always including books: what books we are currently reading, what we think about them, what we saw reviewed in The New York Times or The San Francisco Chronicle or elsewhere, which books other friends have recommended, which favorite novels we have returned to (yet again!), which books have been made into movies, whether the movies did justice to the books, and more. We often give or lend each other books, feeling happy when one has found "the perfect book" for the other. Our mutual love of literature is deeply woven into our long and close friendship. Again, dear B., have a wonderful birthday and a wonderful year!

"Mr. Bridge" - Trapped in His Time and Gender

On 5/3/10 I wrote about the book "Mrs. Bridge." Today I write about the companion book, "Mr. Bridge" (North Point Press, 1981; originally published 1969), by Evan S. Connell. The couple's story is now told from the husband's perspective. Mr. Bridge is the quintessential man of his time, the mid-19th century. He knows his duty as a man: to work hard and to support his wife and children. He takes pride in doing so, but he almost never expresses understanding or love to his wife, leaving her feeling lonely. He is austere, rigid, upright, or to use the 1960s term, uptight. He has a great deal of integrity, and tries to treat people well, yet he seemingly cannot help his somewhat racist and anti-Semitic attitudes, common at the time. He lacks imagination, but has occasional flashes of self-examination and self-knowledge. In "Mrs. Bridge," Connell showed us the way women were (are?) trapped in their roles; here he demonstrates that men were (are?) also trapped. Mr. Bridge sees no honorable way out: "Early tomorrow, I must get up again to do what I have done today. I will get up early tomorrow to do this, and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, and there is nothing to discuss" (p. 106). The novel ends rather heartbreakingly, as Mr. Bridge tells himself that "If he had once known joy, it must have been a long time ago"(p. 367). Connell's style in both novels is flat, almost matter of fact, and all the more devastating for it.

Serendipitous Literary Connections

One of the serendipitous pleasures of wide reading is the unexpected connections that I so often come across as I read. For example, on 5/11/10 I posted about the author Fanny Burney, and a couple of days later on a standardized test my students were taking, there was -- to my surprise -- a paragraph about Fanny Burney's novel "Evelina." Another example: Yesterday I was reading in Vanity Fair an excerpt from Christopher Hitchens' new memoir, in which he mentioned how much he and his writer friends were influenced by the poet Philip Larkin, and today I started reading Anna Quindlen's new book, "Every Last One," and found it began with a poem by Larkin. I also have a special place in my heart for Larkin because he was the one whose praise of Barbara Pym's work brought her books back into print; I hate to think of not having known Pym's wonderful, wry, and very English novels.

StephanieVandrickReads Slows Down

Dear Readers, I have been posting daily (with a couple of exceptions) on this blog for three and a half months, and have thoroughly enjoyed doing so. However, for reasons of time and other commitments, I have decided to post less frequently now. I will aim for approximately two to four times a week. I hope you will keep checking in regularly. Also, please tell your reading friends about the blog; one way to do that is to click the little envelope after a post, and forward the post by email to your friends; it's easy! And do comment, or if you prefer not to sign up to comment, please just email me directly (vandricks@usfca.edu) with any responses you have; I am always happy to hear your views on particular posts, or in general on books and reading. Thanks again for reading my blog! -- Stephanie

Am I Old-Fashioned?

I am somewhat conservative, even old-fashioned, about which novels I like to read. I generally don't read "experimental" fiction. I don't like genre fiction, except for the occasional mystery; I especially don't like science fiction, fantasy, spy fiction or thrillers. I don't generally read historical fiction, especially if the history involved is more than a hundred years old. I don't mean that I do not respect novels in these genres or of these types; I know that there are excellent examples of each of these types. I simply do not prefer them, or generally choose to read them myself; after all, our choices of what to read are very personal, very individual. What I like best are good old-fashioned story-driven, character-driven, idea-driven novels, in the tradition of the great nineteenth-century British novels by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Thomas Hardy, as well as of early twentieth-century authors such as Henry James, Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, and E. M. Forster. I do love Virginia Woolf's novels; although at the time they were published they were considered experimental, they still contain strong stories and characters, as well as incredibly beautiful use of poetic language. The mid- and late twentieth-century and current novels I choose to read embody these same basic characteristics.

Fanny Burney and Maria Edgeworth

Although many may think of Jane Austen as the first major woman novelist in English, there were some others even earlier who were very popular in their time. Then they fell into obscurity, until scholars rediscovered them in the last 40 years. Two of these who wrote just before Austen were Frances (Fanny) Burney (1752-1840) and Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849). Both cared about and wrote about women's lives and women's rights. Burney's fiction often dealt with the constrictions of women's lives; she also bravely wrote about her own unanesthesized mastectomy. Her best novels are "Evelina" (1778), "Cecilia" (1782), and "Camilla" (1796). Edgeworth was Irish, and wrote about the need for better education for girls and women; she was a businesswoman, serving as property manager for her father's extensive holdings. Her best novel is "Belinda" (1801). I was very happy to find these novels some years ago, and enjoyed them thoroughly. They are gripping stories, deeply steeped in women's lives.

Los Angeles fiction

I was just in Los Angeles for a few days, and its gorgeous weather, abundant green foliage, vivid bougainvillea, and stretches of stunning beaches were all so appealing, and so evocative of all the Los Angeles novels and movies we have all read and seen. (We won't talk about the terrible traffic and the smog....) Even the street names are so familiar, so intensely L.A.: Sunset Boulevard, Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Mulholland Drive.... And the different parts of L.A. have such magical names: Venice, Santa Monica, Hollywood.... When I was there this past weekend, for some reason I started thinking about Nathanael West's novel "The Day of the Locust," which portrays the best and worst about L.A. I also thought of Joan Didion's novel "Play It As It Lays," and her essay collection "The White Album"; both of these evoke a sort of part-dreamy, part-alien, part-scorched, part-fertile Los Angeles - all the stereotypes, all the contradictions we all know, but so beautifully expressed as only Didion can. I also remembered living in Glendale for a few months as a child, near the famed Forest Lawn Cemetery, and so thought too of Evelyn Waugh's "The Loved One," the satirical novel about the funeral industry set in L.A. and featuring a very Forest Lawn-reminiscent cemetery. Although it has been many years since I read any of these books, each of them sticks with me - not the details or even characters or plots, but the feelings, the atmospheres, the tones. Although as a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, I occasionally criticize Los Angeles, there is something seductive about it, something mythic, something that draws you in.

Louisa May Alcott

As a child, I loved, and reread many times, Louisa May Alcott's books: Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys, Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, An Old-Fashioned Girl, Under the Lilacs, and Jack and Jill. Of course Little Women and its two sequels were my favorites. I loved the strength of the girls, especially Jo; the warmth of the family scenes; the relationships among the girls; Jo's writing; the innocent but fraught romances; the pathos of Beth's illness and death; and so much more. I couldn't get enough of these books. However, when I reread some of them with my daughter, and again when I taught Little Women in a Women's Literature class, I noticed what I had mainly missed or perhaps overlooked as a child: the heavily didactic aspect of Alcott's novels. Almost every chapter in Little Women has some kind of explicit, spelled-out lesson about life: be good to those who are poor, don't hold a grudge, control your temper, don't be vain... I think Alcott felt that a book during that time period -- especially a book that was, very subtly, a bit subversive about female roles -- had to prove its moral worth through these lessons; she was probably right. Still, despite the heavyhanded didactic aspect, I will always love these books, especially Little Women.

"The Lake Shore Limited"

It is hard to judge the place of Sue Miller's novels. They have elements of the popular, of the middlebrow, and of the literary. They are well written, but seem to be aimed at a popular audience. In any case, they are always enjoyable to read, and often thought-provoking as well. I just listened to her latest novel, "The Lake Shore Limited" (Knopf, 2010) on CD (Books on Tape, 2010); the author reads the novel herself, which adds to listeners' enjoyment. The foundation of the story, which takes place mostly in Boston and New Hampshire, is the death of Gus - a young teacher - on one of the doomed planes on September 11, 2001. Gus' sister Leslie, who has been almost like a mother to him, mourns him deeply, and becomes even closer than she had been before to Gus' girlfriend, the playwright Billy, assuming they share the same sorrow. But Billy's feelings had secretly been more ambivalent before the tragedy, which makes her uncomfortable with Leslie now. She feels trapped into pretending to something she doesn't feel. Billy's true feelings are indirectly revealed in her latest play, which is attended by Leslie, her husband Pierce, and their friend Sam, whom Leslie hopes will develop a relationship with Billy; Leslie feels it is time for both Sam (who is divorced) and Billy to find love again. After the play is over, we are taken backward in time to various histories of each character, and forward in time to see what happens after the night of the play. The characters are engaging, and we become involved with their stories, feeling pity, dismay, and hope. Some of the characters are less likable than others: Leslie is the one everyone likes, while Billy is more reserved and prickly, perhaps understandably so, but is ultimately sympathetic. I recommend this novel.

Possible Brief Pause

Dear readers, I will be very involved in a (happy) family event over the next three days, so may or may not post on Friday and Saturday; if not before, I will definitely be back with a post on Sunday. Thanks, as always, for reading this blog (and do please tell your reading friends about it!). -- Stephanie

Browsing in Libraries

I have praised libraries and librarians here before; today I write specifically about the pleasures of browsing in libraries. I like browsing in bookstores as well, especially when I want to see what is new. But browsing in libraries has its own particular joys. A few days ago, for example, after what had been a while, I was in our university library with a little time to spare. I started by looking for books by and about Sarah Orne Jewett, about whom I posted on May 2, 2010; I thought I would enjoy rereading some of her work. After I found what I wanted, I remembered that I had been thinking lately about a trio of British women writers who have some similarities, whom I hadn't read for many years, and whom I had been idly considering revisiting: Muriel Spark, Ivy Compton-Burnett, and Iris Murdoch. But I had just read a review of a new, rather unflattering biography of Spark; I also remembered that when I reread Spark's "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" a few years ago, I liked it much less than when I originally read it in my twenties. So I made the perhaps shallow decision to skip rereading Spark for the time being. I then found, browsed through, and picked up a couple of novels each by the other two writers. (These may well appear in future posts here.) Then I happened to see on the shelf, very near to the Murdoch books, several titles by Penelope Mortimer. I had read novels by her years ago, and had a vague memory of enjoying them, so decided to choose two novels by her as well. As I passed by various shelves, I stopped for a minute or two here and there to look at various other books, but since I had a mini-tower of books in hand already, I decided I had better stop adding to the tower, and went downstairs to check out my chosen books. It is hard to explain how much pleasure I got from my leisurely roaming through the stacks, stopping here and there, making pleasant decisions about WHICH Murdoch, WHICH Mortimer, to choose, holding various books - some quite old, each with its own history of former readers - in my hands as I skimmed through their pages, reading tantalizing passages here and there, even smelling whiffs of the particular scent of books, and knowing that there were so many more possibilities, so many more books yet to read. What a delicious hour that was!

"The Bradshaw Variations": Switching Roles

I had read and liked novels by British writer Rachel Cusk before, most recently and most notably "Arlington Park" (2007), so when I heard she had published a new novel, "The Bradshaw Variations" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), I sought it out. It tells the story of a married couple, Thomas Bradshaw and Tonie Swann, and their year of switching traditional gender roles. Tonie accepts a demanding full-time administrative position at her university, and Thomas stays home to take care of their eight-year-old daughter and to spend time on his music. On the surface, everyone is agreeable and all is well, but certain cracks in the marriage begin to appear, as difficult adjustments are made. Family members are more or less supportive, yet some - subtly or not so subtly - cast doubts on and undermine the arrangement. These family members are almost as central to the story as Thomas and Tonie: Thomas' brothers and their wives, Thomas' quirky parents, and Tonie's awful mother and father. These are all vividly portrayed, each with his or her own backstory. There is much talk among them, much analysis, much taking of emotional temperatures. Despite this, for some reason the characters seem a bit bloodless; although the book focuses on a topic that is of great interest to me (gender roles), I found it hard to care very much about the characters. However, Cusk writes very well, the story is mildly enjoyable, and I never considered stopping reading the novel. It does make readers think about issues of family, marriage, and gender.

Charlotte or Emily?

Whose novels do you like better - Charlotte Bronte's or Emily Bronte's? I was swept up by Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" when I was in college; the extreme romance (in both senses of the word - the "love" sense and the literary sense) and drama were appealing to me as they are to so many young people. Those moors...that howling wind...that love that even death couldn't end.... But as the years went by, the appeal of the novel wore thin, and the appeal of the cruel, overbearing "hero," Heathcliff (understandable as his behavior was, given the way he had been treated as a child), turned sour. Ever since, I have liked and appreciated Charlotte Bronte's work more. "Jane Eyre" is, of course, also romantic, gothic, and unrealistic in some ways, and its hero is also sometimes quite overbearing and even unlikable. But there is somehow more reality in "Jane" than in "Wuthering." And the character of Jane is so well drawn, so appealing. The story and main character in Charlotte Bronte's "Villette" are also very believable and compelling. Charlotte's writing conveys a kind of hard-won wisdom about life. I have re-read and enjoyed her novels several times. But when I tried to re-read "Wuthering Heights" a few years ago, I just couldn't do it.

"Mrs. Bridge" and Betty Friedan

I have long heard about the twin novels, "Mrs. Bridge" and "Mr. Bridge," by Evan S. Connell, but somehow never got around to reading them. I have now just finished reading "Mrs. Bridge" (North Point Press, 1981, but originally published in 1959). It is the story of a traditional wife and mother in the mid-20th century, living in the American Midwest (Kansas City) and married to a busy, ambitious lawyer. Her story is told through a series of brief episodes ranging over her adult lifetime. The tone is straightforward, flattened, matter of fact, undramatic. Mrs. Bridge attempts to be a good, correct wife, mother and citizen of her city and country. Her interests and intellectual pursuits are limited, and her few attempts to branch out in that regard - such as trying to learn Spanish, or considering voting Democratic in one election - usually fizzle. Her relationship with her husband and children seems loving but - despite her efforts - somehow distant. She often wonders - but discusses only with one or two close friends, one of whom commits suicide - why her life seems to rush by with so little sense of meaning or fulfillment. "She could not get over the feeling that something was drawing steadily away from her"(p. 63), and as her servant Harriet does all the housework, she feels useless and "so often dismally bored" (p. 64). "She spent a great deal of time staring into space, oppressed by the sense that she was waiting. But waiting for what? She did not know" (p. 94). Mrs. Bridge seems the classic case that Betty Friedan was writing about in her groundbreaking feminist book, "The Feminine Mystique" (1963). Friedan wrote about all the women who were isolated in their homes, from which their husbands left early every morning and to which they returned late every night. These women had little opportunity to have meaningful work outside of their homes; they knew they were supposed to be happy with their lives as wives and mothers, and were ashamed to admit to others that they often felt unfulfilled and lonely. Each woman thought her discontent must be her own burden and even her own fault, so kept quiet about her sense of desperation. The ending of "Mrs. Bridge," which I won't give away here, is a perfect (although perhaps too literal) metaphor for Mrs. Bridge's feeling of being trapped in her own life, and a vivid illustration of Friedan's thesis.

Sarah Orne Jewett

Posting on 4/25/10 about Willa Cather reminded me of Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909), a pioneer who influenced Cather by her example of writing about women's lives and concerns, and writing vividly and lovingly about rural and small town life and about nature. Jewett lived in various places in New England, especially Maine, and her novels and stories are set in New England as well. Unfortunately some have used this fact to label her as "merely" a sort of quaint "regional" writer; she was in fact much more than that. (Who labels William Faulkner, for example, whose work is mostly set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, as merely a regional writer?) Jewett's most well-known novel is "The Country of the Pointed Firs" (1896), more a collection of sketches than a traditional novel, but carefully constructed for all that (despite later insertions of related short stories by various editors). The main character and narrator is an unnamed woman writer who goes to the small village of Dunnet Landing to work on her writing, and soon gets involved with the lives and stories of the local people, especially the women. In some ways this book reminds me of the English writer Elizabeth Gaskell's "Cranford," which I wrote about here on 4/20/10; both take place in very small towns, and tell the stories of their various inhabitants, mostly women, especially older women, in a low-key way that soon draws readers in. Both novels could be labeled "gentle," but that adjective should not be allowed to minimize the way that both - in their understated ways - include some dramatic events and compelling characters, and should not allow us to dismiss the emotions and relationships of those characters. Jewett's writing is not for everyone, as some may find it old-fashioned. But I find "The Country of the Pointed Firs" a lovely book full of human interest as well as beautifully descriptive observations of New England landscapes.

Joyce Carol Oates and Raymond Smith

Yesterday I wrote about the special fiction issue of The Atlantic (May 2010) that is available now. One of the pieces in that issue, as I mentioned in my post, is an essay by Joyce Carol Oates about the painful time following the 2008 death of her husband of 48 years, Raymond Smith. I found this essay heartbreaking and fascinating. Oates describes how she mourned her husband with a kind of stunned grief, and found that the only thing that saved her was her teaching and her efforts to put out what she decided would be the last issue of the Ontario Review, the literary journal she and Smith had produced and edited together for 34 years as a shared labor of love. She did not feel she could continue the Ontario Review without Smith, but she knew he would want her to finish and send the last issue, which he had been working on even in the hospital in the days before his death. This Atlantic essay is a preview of a book on Oates' loss, titled "The Siege: A Widow's Story," to appear in February 2011. I can't help but be reminded of Joan Didion's compelling 2005 book, "The Year of Magical Thinking," written on the death of her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne. Oates and Didion are both such great writers, each in her own way so emblematic of her time and so influential; it is of note that they both suffered their great losses within a few years of each other, and that both have written so openly and so wrenchingly about their bereavement. An interesting postscript is that Oates has very recently remarried, to a scientist also teaching at Princeton, and thus is starting a new phase in her life. One more note: For Oates' readers, I recommend a website written and administered by a librarian at the university where I teach, Randall Souther, called "Celestial Timepiece: A Joyce Carol Oates Home Page" (http://jco.usfca.edu/).