"Tamalpais Walking"

One of the joys of living in beautiful Marin County is seeing Mount Tamalpais from many different angles throughout the county, and in many different lights throughout the day. We live quite close to this lovely landmark, so I was happy to peruse "Tamalpais Walking: Poetry, History, and Prints" (Heyday Books, 2009), by Tom Killion and Gary Snyder. Killion grew up in the shadow of Mount Tam, as it is affectionately known, and has made a series of prints of and from the mountain, many of which are featured in this book; the prints are strongly influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts. Killion also contributes essays about the history of the mountain. The great poet Gary Snyder, who was affiliated with but also independent from the Beat movement, provides poems he has written over his years of walking Mount Tam. He took the tradition of "walking meditation" from his time in Japan, Nepal, and elsewhere, and began walking up and around Mount Tam in the same meditative fashion, and then writing about it. A few writings from others who often walked Mount Tam, such as Kenneth Rexroth and Jack Kerouac, are also included here. This large, beautifully produced volume is a wonderful weaving together of the prints, the essays, and the poetry. The prints are stunning and the poems are evocative. An added attraction for those of us who have treasured Gary Snyder's writing since the late 1960s is revisiting his poetry in this specific local context. Still another draw, for me, is the good memory of hearing Snyder read his poetry when I was in college. So this book resonates with me on a number of levels. But you don't have to live near Mount Tamalpais to appreciate this gorgeous volume, one that is clearly a labor of love on the part of Killion and Snyder.

"The Three Weissmanns of Westport"

"The Three Weissmanns of Westport" (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2010) is the latest novel by Cathleen Schine, known for her earlier novels "Alice in Bed," "The Love Letter," and "The New Yorkers," among others. Schine has a light, humorous style, while addressing real issues, difficulties, and sad situations (here, divorce, financial troubles, miscommunications among family members, and more). The novel is loosely based on Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility," but set in contemporary times, and with its own twists. A mother and two daughters -- here, middle-aged rather than young as in Sense and Sensibility -- are suffering genteel poverty and various setbacks, and move to a cottage provided by a generous, jovial cousin. Both daughters fall in love and are badly let down by their love interests. One daughter, Annie -- who represents Sense -- is responsible and keeps her sorrow inside, while the other daughter, Miranda -- representing Sensibility -- is sulky, dramatic, and self-centered in displaying her unhappiness. The two sisters and the mother love and support and even balance each other. And, as in the original novel, it turns out that each of the daughters actually shares some aspects of the other's character. There are some surprises at the end of the story, adding to the delight and enjoyability of this well-written confection of a novel.

"Something Is Out There: Stories"

Richard Bausch is a writer, like Charles Baxter (see my post of 3/22/10), of whom I have been peripherally aware, but whose writing I have read very little of. He has published eleven novels and eight short story collections, several of which have been well-reviewed, well-received, and in some cases have won awards. A recent positive review of his new collection of short stories, "Something Is Out There" (Knopf, 2010), nudged me to sample his work. On the whole,I enjoyed the stories, and admired Bausch's writing. The stories focus on love, friendship, marriage, family, and all the mix-ups and miscommunications that often accompany those topics. Bausch is able to inhabit the minds of his characters, including women characters, in a convincing way. What stood out for me, in reading these stories, was a sort of mildness that pervades his stories, lulling readers into feeling that not much is happening. I personally sometimes appreciate this lack of overt drama and intensity. The rewarding qualities of Bausch's writing are the subtle undercurrents, the silent questions, the unspoken or indirect interchanges he so skillfully delineates. The import of some of his stories takes a while to sneak up on readers. I don't mean to imply that there are no events or emotions to be found; these are certainly present, and make readers want to keep reading. But the understated style shows that the author trusts readers to fill in some blanks themselves. Although this book is not one that would make me buttonhole my friends and demand that they immediately read it, it is a thoughtful, rewarding collection of stories.

Father-Daughter Reading

I recently read a New York Times article titled "A Father-Daughter Bond, Page by Page" (March 21, 2010; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/fashion/21GenB.html), which described a father and daughter who often read together, and decided when she was in fourth grade to read together for 100 straight bedtimes. When they finished those 100 evenings of reading, they decided to keep going to 1,000, and finally kept going for 3,218 nights (over nine years), until the daughter's first day of college. Even when the father, Jim Brozina, was traveling, he would read to his daughter Kristen on the phone. They called their extended nightly reading "The Streak." Jim is a single father, so reading together was a special bond that helped keep him and Kristen going through the sad times of the leaving of Kristen's mother, the death of her grandparents, and her seven-year-older sister's going off to college. Kristen says, "The Streak was stability when everything else was unstable." Kristen and her father began The Streak with "The Tin Woodman of Oz," progressed through other children's books to Harry Potter, Agatha Christie, Dickens, and Shakespeare, ending by circling back to "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" on Kristen's first day at college. Jim has built a collection of over 700 of the books he and Kristen read together, and will pass them down to her to read to her own children. I love this story, as it embodies the wonderful experience, connection, continuity, and comfort that parents reading with their children can provide. As I am sure many of you do, I have fond memories of my parents' reading to me, and equally fond memories of my reading to my own daughter. And there is no better way to launch a child on a lifetime of reading. Here's to Jim and Kristen Brozina for their inspiring and touching story!

Book Flashes

Sometimes as I am walking or driving, flashes of characters, bits of dialogue, and traces of elusive scenes dart unbidden through my mind. Here I do not mean whole, coherent scenes and thoughts (which I also have on other occasions!), but jumbled, inchoate, dreamlike images and sensations that don't stay long enough to analyze. On the one hand, this is slightly bothersome in a tantalizing way, as I can seldom remember or figure out which specific novels these visiting "excerpts" come from. On the other hand, it is strangely comforting, as it reminds me of all the company I carry in my head, the throng of wonderful characters, scenes, events, and knowledge...knowledge of the immense variety of human life and experience...knowledge of a wider and more complex world than I could ever experience in one lifetime without the multiple windows into multiple lives provided by wide reading.

Novels on Women on their own

There are many novels on women alone, women on their own. The works of three twentieth century British women novelists stand out in this regard. They all often focus on lone women, their complicated and often sad entanglements that never seem to last, and their efforts to manage living and making their way alone. Each of the three novelists has a different approach, and employs a different tone. The novels of Jean Rhys (1890-1979), such as "Good Morning, Midnight," "After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie," and "Voyage in the Dark," have a desperate, tragic, hopeless, depressing tone; the main characters are often too dependent on alcohol to help them cope with their loneliness and sometimes poverty. The single women characters of Barbara Pym (1913-1980) take a more humorous, "chin-up" attitude toward life. They are often unhappy, but they believe in making the best of a situation, and keeping up a good front. They are often involved with the arts in a sort of peripheral way, and/or volunteer at their churches (Church of England, of course!); their attitudes are very "British," but often with a slightly satirical edge. Pym's wonderful novels include "Excellent Women," "A Glass of Blessings," "Less than Angels," and "Some Tame Gazelle." The third novelist, Anita Brookner (born in 1928 and still living), also frequently writes about women alone. Her characters are often sad as well, but feel it is their duty to appear calm, cool, collected, somewhat stoic. Brookner's characters don't often have financial problems, and are sometimes well-connected, but they are very reserved and have trouble opening up to anyone about their feelings. Brookner's novels include "Hotel du Lac," "The Rules of Engagement," "Leaving Home," and "The Misalliance." I have read and very much liked most or all of each of these writers' novels, but the author I keep going back to over the years is Barbara Pym. A ridiculous number and variety of authors are -- with no basis or justification -- compared to Jane Austen, but in Pym's case, the comparison is actually apt; although of course NO author can live up to Austen's level of writing, Pym's writing is squarely in the same tradition and style, and Pym is a worthy follower.

Ellen Gilchrist

Although during one time period I read most or maybe all of Ellen Gilchrist's novels, I hadn't read any for many years, until a couple of weeks ago, just before my trip to Boston, when I picked up a paperback copy of "Sarah Conley" (Little, Brown, 1997). As I read it on the airplane, my mental image of an Ellen Gilchrist typical main character came rushing back to me. The character of Sarah Conley embodies the quintessential Gilchrist woman: headstrong, bold, quirky, insecure, alternating in almost whiplash fashion between fearlessness and crippling fear. She is rooted in the South but has sometimes escaped to the North, is deeply connected to but often rebels against her family and its demands, gets involved in multiple messy relationships, and is predictable in her unpredictability. I enjoy reading about her and at the same time sometimes get immensely annoyed at her. I am never sure whether I am meant to admire her, pity her, identify with her, or dislike her. However, she is always intriguing to read about, and the novels she "stars" in (Gilchrist novels are mostly one-women shows) are never boring. And after all, most of us are as full of contradictions as Gilchrist's women are.