"Widow: Stories," by Michelle Latiolais

Not only the title story but many of the other stories in Michelle Latiolais' "Widow: Stories" (Bellevue Literary Press, 2011) are about widowhood or some other type of loss. Some of the stories are desperately sad, describing the raw pain of losing someone who has been an essential part of one's life. The author -- and her narrators -- are not afraid to talk about their feelings, their experiences, their secrets, their shame, their sexuality, their fears, the ways they "get through," and more. The stories show the various ways that people -- in this case, usually women -- respond to or act out their pain. For example, one woman can't eat; another hoards provisions, especially food. The stories also include some very unusual topics, such as one called "Gut" about a woman who goes to Africa to help her scientist husband test out the diet of chimpanzees by living on such a diet herself. Dogs, teacups, gardens, oysters, and cakes are some of the other topics. A few stories -- especially the very short ones -- seem less involving and less good than the others. Overall, the stories are beautifully written and evocative, but very sad. I can't say I "enjoyed" them, and in fact some of them made me uncomfortable. But perhaps that is a wimpy response on my part. Two of the powerful stories in "Widow" -- "Caduceus" and "Place" -- were nominated for the Pushcart Prize; the one I liked best -- and one of the saddest -- was the title story, "Widow."

More on the Reading Group

One of the first topics I wrote about (1/26/10) when I started this blog was the Reading Group that I have been a part of for many, many (and I mean many!) years, and that has been so important to the six current members (we had a few more in the early years, but for many years now it has been the same six of us). I just came back from one of our meetings, and decided to write again about the group. We met at a café in Berkeley, sitting in the sun, eating, drinking, and talking. (We sometimes meet in each other’s homes and sometimes in cafes.) As sometimes happens, we didn’t focus so much on the chosen book as on other reading we have been doing; some books are hard to find, or not everyone reads the book; we are flexible about these things, because life is busy and because getting together is more important than the specific book. But M.J. brought another book that she suggested for next time: “Mending,” by Sallie Bingham; this book was already on my library request list, so I was pleased. M.L. said she was reading “The Marriage Plot” (which I recently -- 11/26/11 -- read and posted on), and we were all happy about the publication of P.D. James’ new book, “Death Comes to Pemberley,” which I also had posted on, on 12/28/11). M.L. also brought some pages from the New York Times Book Review for ideas. And after a while of discussing books, we of course also talked about politics, the news, our lives, our jobs, our families, our travels, our health and that of family members and friends. This regular getting together is a treasured thread throughout our lives, and our lives are richer for it.

"Would It Kill You to Stop Doing That? A Modern Guide to Manners"

For some reason, I am intrigued by and enjoy reading books on manners; I also love the Miss Manners column and other such columns. Henry Alford, in his new book “Would It Kill You to Stop Doing That? A Modern Guide to Manners” (Twelve, 2012), takes a humorous approach to explaining the importance of manners, his own research into manners, his interviews with various manners-related authorities (including Miss Manners herself, Judith Martin), his time as a sort of volunteer New York tour guide to visitors from around the world, and his experiments as a self-styled manners consultant, among other manners-related topics. At first I was a little put off by Alford’s rather flippant style, somewhat reminiscent of David Sedaris’ tone (I like Sedaris, but a little of his work goes a long way). But as I read more, I was somewhat won over by his apparent eagerness to please, his rather endearing approach, and his occasional self-deprecation. The book is enjoyable to read, and in a very painless way actually introduces some useful guidelines and some thought-provoking cultural, and cross-cultural, information. One place Alford went to gain some of the latter was Japan, and he writes both respectfully and entertainingly about what he learned there. Back in the U.S., he writes about such topics as cell phone use, email etiquette (such as over-use of the “reply all” function), the phrase “no problem,” avoiding delicate situations in drugstores (greeting a friend who is in the process of buying something embarrassing), damning with faint praise, dinner parties (What about vegetarians or the lactose-intolerant? Seating plans? Introductions?), RSVPing, talking with someone who has a serious illness, and many, many more topics. I don’t always agree with his advice or his own practices; in particular, his “touch the waiter” game, and his “cut in front of others to get a cab in New York” practices) but these exceptions aside, he seems to have a thoughtful, considerate, and reasonable approach to manners. This book feels a bit scattered, as Alford jumps from topic to topic seemingly rather arbitrarily, but it is brief, light, breezy, and fun to read.

"The Sense of an Ending," by Julian Barnes

I like fiction about characters of any age, but I do sometimes especially appreciate novels about “grown-ups” in middle age or later, particularly since such novels seem to be much less common than those about youngish characters. Of course this has something to do with my own Baby Boomer generation status. The acclaimed English author Julian Barnes’ new novel, “The Sense of An Ending” (Knopf, 2011), for example, is narrated by Tony Webster, a man in his early sixties. In the first half of the book, Tony looks back on his youth (high school, college, marriage, divorce) and thinks about the meaning of his life and what he has learned. In the second half of the book, he finds that his past is not completely in the past when he is surprised by a call from a lawyer bringing his past into his present. He reconnects with an important romantic partner (although the romance ended badly) from his college days, Veronica, and with a legacy related to one of his long-gone best friends from school. There is upheaval, mystery, misunderstanding, and at the end, a new understanding that finally makes sense of several relationships and entanglements from the past. Although this disentanglement produces a small shock, what I really like about this novel is less the plot than Tony’s meditations on being at this point in his life, and on how the past does and doesn’t affect the present. He goes from his teenaged beliefs that “we knew that we grasped life -- and truth, and morality, and art -- far more clearly than our compromised elders” (p. 12) (and isn’t this what we all thought when we were young?), and “I shall go there, do this, discover that, love her…I shall live as people in novels live…passion and danger, ecstasy and despair (but then more ecstasy) would be in attendance” (p. 102) to his adult statements that “There was a moment in my late twenties when I admitted that my adventurousness had long since petered out. I would never do those things adolescence had dreamt about. Instead, I mowed my lawn, I took holidays, I had my life” (p. 103) and later, “I have achieved a state of peaceableness, even peacefulness” (p. 75). But, as noted earlier -- and this is the part I like -- life has a way of surprising us. Tony in his sixties is surprised by his renewed interest in, and fantasies about, a possible renewed romance and, by extension, a new life. His peace is disturbed, his senses are awakened, he is engaged in a new way. Some version of this happens to most of us, if we are fortunate: we achieve a certain calm as we get older, but we are still surprised by new experiences, new opportunities, new dreams, new relationships. I wrote earlier (e.g., 5/21/11 and 6/20/11) here about some of Barnes’ other excellent books, and this novel confirms my appreciation of this author. Barnes, by the way, won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for “The Sense of an Ending,” and I believe it is well deserved.

"True Confessions: Feminist Professors Tell Stories Out of School"

Those who know me, and/or have read this blog at all regularly, know that I am a feminist from way back, and that feminism, women's lives, and women's issues are all extremely important to me. I am also an academic. So a book titled "True Confessions: Feminist Professors Tell Stories Out of School" (W.W. Norton, 2011) was bound to catch my eye and intrigue me. The fact that the book is edited by a leading feminist literary scholar, Susan Gubar (coauthor of "The Madwoman in the Attic" and coeditor of "The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women"), whose work I have admired (and in the case of the Norton Anthology, taught) for years, was another incentive to read the book. And the fact that it is dedicated to the memory of the late scholar and author Carolyn Heilbrun, whose work I have so greatly esteemed and enjoyed so much (and wrote about here on 7/14/10), was yet another incentive. This book is a collection of essays by leading and pioneering feminist academics in various fields such as literature, history, and education. The essays are divided into two sections; one focuses on "Personal Views" and the other on "Professional Vistas." Of course the two areas -- personal and professional -- often overlap. Because these women were pioneers, they have seen the sweep of changes that have occurred over the years in women's studies and in society. They have both suffered for being pioneers and experienced the excitement of being part of the changes in scholarship and women's lives over the past 40-plus years. Most of the writers are quite candid, even when vividly recalling very painful and even humiliating experiences of being belittled and ignored in academe and elsewhere; remember that many academics (mostly males) for most of history did not see the point of studying women's lives, women's literature, women's history, or women's issues. But these strong women academics persevered. In the course of their stories, we learn not only about feminism in the academy, but also about how it intersects with race, class, religion and other identities. Following the old feminist saying that "The personal is political," we see how these scholars' experiences with their families, their colleagues, and their institutions are all formative and influential. The essays are compelling and mostly very well written. I couldn't get enough of them, and wished the book had been longer. The authors include Nancy K. Miller, Jane Marcus, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim, Jane Tompkins, Sandra M. Gilbert, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Martha Nussbaum, Lillian Faderman, Hazel Carby, Annette Kolodny, and Nancy Chodorow, and more, all giants in academe and in the fight for equality. I admire them so much, and can't thank them enough for their courage, leadership, scholarship, advocacy, and example.

"Curry, Corduroy and the Call," by Gwendolyn Hiebert Schroth

I have written here (7/28/11 and 9/18/11) about three of the “missionary kid” memoirs I have read, both for their connection to my own “missionary kid” background and for my research; I have just finished reading one such memoir that is probably the closest to my own experience of any I have read, although still of course with important differences. “Curry, Corduroy and the Call” (Outskirts Press, 2011) was written by Gwendolyn Hiebert Schroth, who is the older sister of L., one of my friends and roommates at Kodaikanal (Kodai) School in South India. The author’s family lived nearby where my family lived our second term in India, and she and her sisters attended the same boarding school as my brothers and I did. Although the author was there a bit earlier than I was, many of the names (e.g., of teachers and of places), events, and experiences in her book are very familiar to me. These include descriptions of ayahs, bazaars, the Telegu language, the system of getting water and bathing, snakes and scorpions, parcels from churches back in the U.S., parents’ visits to Kodaikanal for their vacations and their children’s consequent temporary moving out of boarding school, the tiffins in which lunch was then brought to the children at noon for eating on the lawn, driving overloaded cars through streams, the “compounds” we lived on, sleeping porches, trips to Hyderabad, the long train trip to and from Kodai (with a day’s break in Chennai, then called Madras, in the train station waiting room, with side trips to see sights and to eat at what seemed like very “fancy” restaurants to us), and the many hikes we took in Kodai and the surrounding hills, just to name a few. There is a special thrill of recognition when one reads a book -- memoir or fiction -- that gets many of the details of the author’s -- and one’s own -- life right. This is how Schroth’s memoir affected me. And let me add that the book is well written and flows beautifully.

"Foreign Affairs," by Alison Lurie

I have read several of Alison Lurie's novels over the years, and have enjoyed them. She is a very good writer, very erudite, and she writes with a sort of satirical but mostly good-natured humor and a light touch. She often writes about women's lives, and she often writes about academics, both of which characteristics add to her novels' appeal to my taste in fiction. Her books are frequently set on a fictional campus called Corinth, which is clearly modeled on Cornell, where she taught for many years. I have just re-read, after some years, "Foreign Affairs" (Random House, 1984), which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a National Book Award. I thoroughly enjoyed it, not only because of the aforementioned focus on women and academics, but also because it takes place in London, one of my favorite cities. But mostly I enjoyed it because of its compelling plot and characters. Professor Vinnie Miner loves London and feels she is actually an Englishwoman at heart; thus she is thrilled to be beginning a six month research leave there. Vinnie is small and plain, but she feels happy with her group of friends in London, has an active social and cultural life there, and enjoys and is very efficient at doing her research on children's rhymes and folklore. Coincidentally, her young colleague in the Corinth English Department, Professor Fred Turner, is also on a research leave in London. She is not at all close to him, but she makes an effort to be nice to him, and introduces him to some of her friends, including the glamorous film and TV star, Rosemary Radley; soon Fred and Rosemary begin an affair. Meanwhile, to her own surprise, Vinnie becomes involved with a somewhat loud and unrefined but enthusiastic and kind fellow American from Oklahoma whom she met on the plane, Chuck Mumpson. Much intrigue and many twists and turns take place in these two relationships, all set in various interesting London locales. By the time Fred and Vinnie need to return to the United States, both have learned much about themselves and about others.