I can’t remember how I found fat mum slim, a blogger from Australia, but she sponsors a monthly photo a day challenge where she lists photo ideas. Since I’m already doing photos for 365 project and could use some ideas, I figured I would sign on for March. Here’s my photo for March 1 with the theme of “up.” I started with a photo of my huge magnolia but then turned around and snapped this photo of the front of the house.
There are plenty of serious books on my TBR list but February has been all about good stories:
Pardonable Lies: A Maisie Dobbs Mystery: This is the third book in the series and was as good as the first two. I love the historical setting of England between the wars with a focus on the experience of World War I. The narrative is as important as the mystery.
The Last Kingdom: The first in Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Chronicles, set in the time of Alfred the Great. No chick lit here: this is manly historical fiction full of wenching and fighting. But Cornwell always has a strong woman character, too.
Evening Class: My second Binchy of 2012 and I enjoy her story telling. This book uses the frame of Italian classes to introduce a wide variety of characters, all lovingly drawn by Binchy as ordinary people looking for happiness.
Wishin’ and Hopin‘: Wally Lamb’s Christmas novel had me laughing out loud. The fifth grade narrator’s voice made the 1960s come alive.
I Still Dream About You: Fannie Flagg’s tale of a woman who decides to end it all only to be caught up in life is a bit predictable but funny and endearing.
I have been on something of a Mormon binge since I picked up The Night Journal late last year, and I’ve been trading off fiction and non-fiction since then. Crook’s story included a character who had been one of the surviving children of the ill-fated Baker-Fancher wagon train, which was mostly wiped out by paranoid Mormons and their Paiute Indian allies in the infamous Mountain Meadows Massacre. (Only children under 5 were spared.)
Looking for more information on this horrible bit of American history, I moved on to Sally Denton’s non-fiction American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857. Denton, who has family roots in the Mormon church, concludes that the order for the massacre came from Brigham Young himself. She also provides historical background on the Mormon experience in America, a story of persecution and struggle to survive. (Her book came out within two weeks of one by Will Bagley on the same topic. Bagley’s book is on the reading list along with an earlier one by Juanita Brooks.)
From there, I stumbled on The 19th Wife, a murder mystery by David Ebershoff, part of which takes place in a contemporary fundamentalist Mormon community where polygamy is expected and the prophet controls every thought, word and deed. The book moves from present to past with excerpts from Ann Eliza Young’s expose of life as Brigham Young’s 19th wife as well as newspaper articles from the period and Young’s prison diary.
Finally, I just finished Jon Krakauer’s investigative look at those same polygamists who believe that the church abandoned its conscience when it gave up polygamy in the late 19th century in order to be able to have Utah added as a state. Under the Banner of Heaven is a difficult read as we watch devout Mormons become fanatics who believe that God speaks to them, telling them to murder a young mother and her infant. It is also the story of the woman who are oppressed by these communities, and I found myself frustrated by their desire to preserve marriages even when it meant violence.
As I read it, however, the argument over whether the Catholic Church had to provide contraceptive coverage was playing out in the media. One of the arguments that these polygamists make is that they are being asked to give up their right to conscience. After all, their religion originally said polygamy was not only accepted but spiritual and was only given up for political reasons. Here’s just one example of this argument:
The Mormon leader insisted…that the marital customs of the Saints were a religious freedom protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The rest of the country, he thundered, had no right to require the residents of Deseret to abandon one of their most sacred religious doctrines: “If we introduce the practice of polygamy it is not their prerogative to meddle with it.” (p. 205)
This desire to practice their religion without interference has made them strange bedfellows with both the ACLU and gay rights’ activists, according to Krakauer:
Ever since the conviction of the Kingstons [a fundamentalist group]–even before Tom Green was first charged with bigamy–Mormon fundamentalists have received support from the American Civil Liberties Union and gay-rights activitsts in advancing their claims of religious persecution. It has been an especially curious, and uncomfortable, coalition: FDLS doctrine proclaims that sodomy and homosexuality are egregious crimes against God and nature, punishable by death,yet gays and polygamists have joined forces to keep the government out of the bedroom. This partnership is made even more incongruous by the fact that on the other side of the issue, radical feminists have allied themselves with the resolutely antifeminist LDS Church to lobby for aggressive prosecution of polygamists. (pp. 23-24)
This odd collection of allies shows why American culture and politics is so complicated. My path through Mormon history has been a bit crooked and will continue as I find it fascinating.
Over at Should Be Reading, the Wednesday meme is to answer three simple questions. I should write a longer entry but my battery is in the red zone and it’s time for dinner. So, here goes:
What are you currently reading? I am listening to Alan Bradley’s fourth Flavia de Luce mystery, I Am Half-Sick of Shadows.
What did you recently finish reading? Just about an hour ago, I finished Bernard Cornwell’s The Last Kingdom.
What are you going to read next? From the library, Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven
Dominick Birdsey, the narrator and main character of Wally Lamb’s sprawling novel, is a man struggling to come to terms with a life marred by tragedy. The novel moves through a year of that life, seemingly the worst, but also in some ways, the best, as Birdsey fights for both his brother and himself. And while an 800-page novel may seem daunting and perhaps overindulgent, each page reveals both the depth and width of human experience.
As in She’s Come Undone, Lamb focuses on the ravages of mental illness, this time from the perspective of the caregiver. As a twin, Dominick can’t help but wonder why the disease that took his brother seems not to have claimed him. Yet, he also harbors jealousy at the close relationship his twin enjoyed with their mother. The theme of twins, especially the lost twin, is powerfully interwoven throughout the novel.
And, while the narrative focuses on a year in Dominick’s life, it sprawls across place and time as Dominick reads his grandfather’s memoir, the story of an Italian immigrant whose material success was marred by his spiritual failing. With Dominick, we are alternatively fascinated and disgusted by his grandfather whose story reveals much about the human ability to justify even the most brutal of actions.
There is much sadness in this story. Yet, there is also magic and mystery as Dominick follows the strands of his own story and that of his family to discover the past and forge a stronger future for himself and those he loves. While 800 pages may seem overwhelming and even a bit self-indulgent, my interest never flagged as the complex, sympathetic characters revealed much of the way we all live.
So far, I have stuck with my resolution not to buy books. The local library is tiny but has a great fiction selection. I could have easily walked away with three or four when I visited earlier this week. I limited myself to just two: The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff, a tale of Mormons and polygamy set in the time of Brigham Young, and A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear, which is part of her Maisie Dobbs mystery series. It was the latter that caused the most temptation I’ve faced so far.
I have read the first two books in the series–Maisie Dobbs and Birds of a Feather. But this one is the eighth book in the series and as I read the cover blurb, I realized I wanted to continue to read them in order since besides being great mysteries, they tell the story of Maisie’s life. All the books are available on the Kindle; there is even a bundled set of the 3rd and 4th books for a mere $15. And Kindle books don’t take up any shelf space at all. But a resolution is a resolution so I headed to the library website and put in my request to have it brought from another branch. Now, I wait patiently to get the email indicating it has arrived. In the mean time, I am immersed in I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb, which came form my own collection.
I also kept my resolution at the library itself which is selling a bag of books for just $2! Truth be told, there wasn’t much of interest on the carts but that hasn’t ever stopped me before.
NB: I made it through a visit to Books A Million where I drank a latte, surfed the web and only browsed. But they gave me a $5 coupon for online and I ended up with the second volume of Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Chronicles, The Pale Horseman. The first book in the series–The Last Kingdom–is already on the shelf and the sixth volume–The Death of Kings–just came out. LOTS more reading to look forward.
Since my photos from flickr seem to have issues with the aggregator, I’ll post my photo assignment here, too. I don’t think this is really extreme enough but it’s the most extreme my camera will do.
Another powerful piece of historical fiction from Geraldine Brooks, Caleb’s Crossing is the story of Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, the first Native American to graduate from Harvard in 1665. The narrator is Bethia Mayfield, resident of Great Harbor on Martha’s Vineyard, who has some basis in the original settlers of the island, the Mayhews. But, as with her novel March, much of the story is imaginative as Brooks describes the friendship of Bethia and Caleb.
While that relationship is fictional, Brooks uses her significant skills to depict Colonial America with its focus on sinners in the hands of an angry God. Bethia’s natural curiosity and desire to live a full life leads her to blame herself for any number of ills that beset her family and friends. Yet, she revels in the natural wonders of the island and the descriptions of the natural world bring that island to life.
The story has one tragedy after another, most of which are historically accurate. Caleb dies just after his graduation while the other Native American student is killed in a ship wreck prior to his own graduation. Death is very much a character in this novel. Yet, despite all, there is an uplifting message.
Pulitzer Prize winner Gilead has a quiet strength that arises from the character of its narrator, John Ames, a minister in a small Iowa town who is writing a letter to his young son. Ames, whose only son was born in his old age, wishes to speak of his life, both temporal and spiritual, to a boy who will have little memory of his father. It is a rambling narrative that goes back at least two generations to Ames’ grandfather, a radical abolitionist minister who worked with John Brown, and then his father, a pacifist minister, who struggled with his own faith, eventually leaving the church and the town. Ames also discusses his relationship with his best friend’s son, a young ne’er do well who returns to Gilead seemingly to make his peace with Ames and his own father.
All these complicated father and son relationships are seen through the lens of Ames’ spiritual reflections. It is not a novel to be read quickly and I found myself going back to immerse myself in his lessons about why and how to believe. His ideas are fresh and new even as they grow from his long life as a small town minister. He is a man comfortable with his own doubt and that of those around him and he offers pragmatic advice for how to live a religious life in a complex world:
So my advice is this–don’t look for proofs. Don’t bother with them at all. They are never sufficient to the question, and they’re always a little impertinent, I think, because they claim for God a place within our conceptual grasp. And they will likely sound wrong to you even if you convince someone else with them. That is very unsettling over the long term. “Let your works so shine before men,” etc. It was Coleridge who said Christianity is a life, not a doctrine, words to the effect. I’m not saying never doubt or question. The Lord gave you a mind so that you would make honest use of it. I’m saying you must be sure that the doubts and questions are not your own, not, so to speak, the mustache and walking stick that happen to be the fashion of any particular moment.
The natural world plays a role in this novel as well from a moment of epiphany with his own father from his moments in the dark sanctuary of the old church as he prays and dozes and wakes to the light of dawn streaming through the windows.
This is a novel to put on the shelf until you find yourself in a spiritual mood, ready for contemplative prose and a story of struggle, love and forgiveness.
Despite having a wonderful library in Williamsburg, I rarely darkened the door in the past decade. I am a book buyer rather than a borrower. It hasn’t always been that way. I’ve been a library volunteer, and in my commuting days–pre-Audible and ipod–I often stopped by the library to check out audio books, but once I worked from home, it just seemed like a chore to drive downtown. And, frankly, I was something of a snob: I was not interested in being on a waiting list for a book when I could just order it from Amazon or download it from Audible.
But the local library in our small town has great appeal. It is within biking and even walking distance of the house. It is small with somewhat odd hours. It has taken me some 10 months to finally stop by. But today, I pulled into the parking lot and headed in for my card. I left with Geraldine Brooks’ Caleb’s Crossing, Norah Jones’ Seems Like Home CD and an indy film called Lebanon, Pa. (My parents live about 10 minutes from Lebanon so it seemed like kismet.)
It is a small shop but they are part of a regional network so books can be ordered online and delivered to my branch. There are comfortable sofas, racks of magazines, free wifi, and Internet connected computers. I’m imagining pedaling over to drop off books and browse the shelves…once better weather arrives, of course, since it hardly made it above freezing today. Meanwhile, I am looking forward to settling in with another Brooks novel, this one based on the life of a 17th century Wampanoag Indian.
There were a few folks there, using the computers, looking for new books, and it felt good to be part of the community in this way. My only regret is that they don’t have a reading group. There is a book group at another branch in the larger town with a good grocery store. They are reading State of Wonder by Ann Patchett for January. Patchett’s been in the news recently with the opening of her book store in Nashville. Maybe it’s a sign?
