"The Empty Family: Stories"

Colm Toibin is becoming one of the greatest contemporary writers of fiction. I loved his novel based on Henry James' life, "The Master." I also loved, and wrote about here, coincidentally exactly a year ago on 1/28/11, his novel "Brooklyn." Now I have just finished reading his new short story collection, "The Empty Family" (Scribner, 2011). These beautiful, raw, touching, unique stories take place in Ireland, Spain, England, and the United States. I found something to admire and savor in every one of the stories. Many of them are about immigrants and temporary wayfarers in other countries than their own, and about the conflict between a person's being drawn to his roots in his home country, on the one hand, and on the other hand, his wanting or needing to live in other countries, either for work or out of a kind of desperate need to get away from home and explore new places. Toibin himself is Irish and now lives in both Dublin and New York. He is also one of the first and few leading mainstream literary writers to write about gay relationships and gay sex. He wrote in somewhat veiled terms in "The Master" about the possibility of Henry James' being gay but celibate; in this collection he writes much more explicitly about gay sex in a few of the stories. The longest story (68 pages), "The Street," is about two Pakistani men working in Barcelona, Malik and Abdul, who gradually become close and then lovers. The story is told with much sensitivity to the delicate position these men are in: they have to hide their relationship because their fellow countrymen would not understand and might ostracize them and even take away their livelihoods if they discover the affair. Malik and Abdul and their co-workers feel homesick for their country, and hardly ever go out of their Pakistani area of the city; they are under the thumb of the man who brought them over from Pakistan and who controls their jobs, housing, and freedom. So their love is a kind of beautiful if secret miracle that helps them endure everything else. This book is full of exact descriptions and piercing insights, as well as of tender understanding of the vulnerability of the characters.

The Pure Joy of Reading

Sometimes in the process of careful analysis, measured comment, and finding the right adjective to describe a novel or a character, I lose track of celebrating the pure JOY of reading. Of course analysis and comment are useful and important too. But what I want to celebrate today is the laugh-out-loud, smile-to-yourself, feeling-so-very-lucky aspect of reading. I feel so fortunate, so privileged, to have constant access to the best that literature has to offer: beautiful, sensitive, and creative use of language; compelling stories; characters that readers can relate to, care about, cheer on or boo, and learn something new from; profound insights into life and human nature; a connection with the past, present, and future of humankind; and that lovely sense of whole worlds opening up in front of one. What an abundance of joy!

Why Thomas Hardy?

For many years, starting in high school, I was very drawn to the harsh stories and stark landscapes found in the novels of Thomas Hardy. I read and re-read "Far From the Madding Crowd," "The Return of the Native," "Jude the Obscure," and, especially, "Tess of the D'Urbervilles." What was it about these gloomy novels that so appealed to me? Why would a reader like me with a basically sunny disposition be so attracted to these wonderfully plotted and written but -- let's face it -- depressing stories? Well, there is that Anglophile side of me. And the world of Wessex is a fascinating one. And Hardy's characters are unforgettable. There is also Hardy's deep understanding of the lives of country people, and his unusual (for the time) understanding of women's restricted lives. The attraction was also, probably most of all, a part of my adolescent need to be acquainted with the "dark side," the side I wrote about on 9/18/10 in my post "The Luxuriantly Dark and Moody Thoughts of Youth." Perhaps it feels safe to be drawn to that dark side when one is young and feels -- despite various adolescent troubles -- protected, and even -- with the imperviousness of youth -- invincible? (I realize that adolescence is not so protected for all youth, and know that I am fortunate to have had a secure, safe, and well-loved --albeit occasionally moody -- childhood and adolescence.) Of course accessing the "dark side" through classic literature is hardly walking on the wild side! But emotionally it fulfilled some need. I haven't read any Hardy for many years now, but there is a part of me that is still mysteriously connected to the worlds he created in his novels.

StephanieVandrickReads' One Year Anniversary

It has been one year today, January 24, 2011, since I started this blog, StephanieVandrickReads. I have very much appreciated and enjoyed having this place to write about what I have been reading, about favorite authors and books, and about reading-related topics. I also appreciate very much and thank everyone who has read the blog, and those who have responded, either by commenting on the blog site itself or by contacting me by email or otherwise.

To mark this one year anniversary, I am listing here my most treasured authors, the ones I go back to and re-read over and over, the ones who give me the most sustenance, pleasure, and food for thought. I do not claim that these are necessarily the "best" authors, although many of them would in fact be on most "all-time best" lists. And there are, of course, many, many more writers whose work I have liked very much. But those on this list form the core of my love for reading; these are the authors I personally feel most connected to, and most grateful for. My life would be far poorer without them.

In no particular order, here is the "short list" of my twenty most treasured authors:

-Jane Austen
-George Eliot
-Elizabeth Gaskell
-William Thackeray
-Charlotte Bronte
-Thomas Hardy
-Edith Wharton
-Willa Cather
-Virginia Woolf
-E. M. Forster
-Elizabeth Bowen
-Barbara Pym
-Alice Munro
-William Trevor
-Carolyn Heilbrun
-Penelope Lively
-Anne Tyler
-Carol Shields
-Mary Gordon
-Gail Godwin

I dedicate this one year anniversary post to my dear friend of almost forty years, C.

"A Room with a View"

I just finished listening to a CD version of E. M. Forster’s "A Room with a View" (originally published 1908; Books on Tape, 1993). Forster is one of my all-time favorite authors, so I have read and/or listened to all of his novels several times, especially “A Passage to India,” “Howard’s End,” and “A Room with a View.” As with any great fiction, I notice new aspects, new insights, every time I read this novel. This time I was more struck than ever by Forster’s portrayal of how claustrophobically constricting the social rules lingering on from the Victorian era were, at least for those of the upper middle and upper classes, especially for women. Lucy Honeychurch, the main character, was only allowed to go to Italy under the protection of her fussy, traditional, annoying older cousin Charlotte. There, a huge (in the eyes of Lucy and Charlotte, but especially Charlotte) crisis arose when a man Lucy met there suddenly kissed her on a hill full of violets near Florence. Charlotte and Lucy felt they had to leave Florence abruptly the next day and go to meet friends in Rome; then, and after they returned to England, they kept worrying that someone would find out about the kiss, and Lucy’s reputation would be ruined. The complicating factor was that although she soon after was engaged to another man, she couldn’t quite get the man who kissed her out of her mind. Lucy and other young women of the time had so little control over their own actions, movements, and fates, and although they were very privileged in other ways, the social rules could make them feel smothered and miserable. Of course Forster’s novels are not “about” just one thing; they are all, in some way, portrayals of people’s needs both for human connection and for something transcendent in their lives.

"Books as Bombs"

In the current (1/24/11) issue of The New Yorker, there is an article by Louis Menand about highly influential, even life-changing, nonfiction books published in the 1960s and 1970s; he particularly focuses on Betty Friedan's 1963 book, "The Feminine Mystique." Although the word "bomb" is a fraught one, Menand's use of the word in his title, "Books as Bombs," dramatically represents the way books in those days could make a huge difference, in a way that perhaps they no longer do in today's era of diffused media. Some of the other books discussed in this article are Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" (1962), an enormous factor in the beginning of the environmental movement, and Ralph Nader's "Unsafe at Any Speed" (1965), which kickstarted the consumer protection movement. I treasure the idea that books can have a powerful impact, changing people's lives, even saving lives. I am sorry if Menand is correct that they no longer do so in the same way today.

The Late, Lamented Laurie Colwin

Although Laurie Colwin died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1992, at the far too young age of 48, her books are still popular. She published five novels (one posthumously), three story collections, and two memoir/cookbooks. Her books focus on cooking, food, love, and family. Although Colwin was complicated, as were her characters, she had a gift for happiness, and it is fitting that two of her novels have the word "happy" or "happiness" in them ("Family Happiness" and "Happy All the Time"). She wrote about couples, families, and relationships, and frequently used food, cooking, and shared meals as signifiers of nourishment, connection and joy. I recently ran across one of her novels at my local library sale, and was reminded of how much pleasure her books have given me. I read all of her fiction in the 1980s and 1990s, but not her memoirs; I think I will look for those now.