Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry

I personally thought this book was a tour-de-force and I enjoyed it and would recommend it. I'm so glad this book was so heavily publicized; otherwise I might not have found it. This is a book for lovers of writing style. There's no chance Kevin Barry will run out of words and he uses them the way a jeweler uses gems.

"..She held things unsaid within--sly deposits--and it was her secrecies that enslaved him. They shared a telepathy..As they watched from their eyrie at St. Luke's, the winter crept in with greys and dense mists and the city fell to a drugged slumber. It was moving to watch the city lights burn through the riversmoke at dusk."

"She wanted to go to Maroc and live in one of the camps. She wanted a place that did not know the meaning of her grief.

"She wanted to travel to the far recesses of herself and see what she might find back there."

Two retired drug smugglers wait, and wait, and wait at the Port of Algeciras, waiting for the night boat from Tangier to land. To me, the story is kind of alchemy. (I thought: oh, this is Waiting for Godot .. not just the waiting but the metaphysical nature of Charlie and Moss's musings .. the way Charlie answers his own questions, the questions he poses to the informacionista in the ferry terminal). The patience of Charlie and Moss as they wait is a wearing combination of boredom and longing. By the end of the novel, Barry's "irradiated the dross of life," as my professor said, and granted Charlie and Moss a remarkable, unlikely resilience. I really like this book.

Ayesha At Last by Uzma Jalaluddin

I just finished Ayesha at Last a few days ago and I must say, I am a big fan. The conflict between an arranged marriage and a marriage made for love is explored, as is other aspects of the immigrant experience, giving the novel a needed ballast. On the one hand, I felt the book worked perfectly well as a novel of a young immigrant woman in the West, without the Austen connection; on the other hand, I must admit I was thrilled when the author set up situations that mirrored events in P & P and even included Austen dialogue verbatim (!!! thrilling !!!). Halfway through, I found I could not put it down -- I had to find out what happens! Even though I *knew* what happens!

No Holly for Miss Quinn by Miss Read

Miss Read was recommended to me years ago by a friend and I found this novel quite surprising.

As I began it, I thought, this is a rather twee but very well-written novel of village life. Easy to read but not exactly my cup of tea. I was quite surprised to arrive at the end and discover that it's really a book with a very feminist perspective. I feel a little abashed - I was so effectively fooled until the very end.

The Bensons, a retired couple, acquire Holly Lodge and build an in-law apartment for Mrs. Benson's elderly mother. Sadly, in a matter of months, Mrs. Benson loses first her husband and then her mother. She decides to rent the in-law apartment, and after a suggestion from a friend, rents it to Miss Quinn, personal private secretary to somebody named Barney.

The village is all a-twitter at the arrival of a new inhabitant, and first the vicar, and then others, imagine unmarried Miss Quinn is exactly the person they need to serve their various charitable endeavours:

          '"But what about that nice Miriam Quinn?" he asked of his friend. "We met her the other night at Joan Benson's."

          "But she must be very busy with her job," protested the vicar.

          "She's home by about six.  Why not ask her if she would like the job? She might be glad to meet people."

          The same kindly thought had occurred to other people in Fairacre, particularly those on committees needing secretaries, treasurers, and that vague amorphous quality called "new blood." Here was a clever woman, obligingly free of family ties, in good health and possibly lonely, who could prove a godsend to the various organizations in need of help.

         Henry Mawne was the first to approach Miriam on behalf of the short-staffed Church Fabric Committee.  She welcomed him to her shining house, gave him sherry, sparkled at his jokes, and declined the invitation in the most charming manner.  Henry retired, hardly realizing that he had been defeated.

        The Brownies needed a Brown Owl, the Cubs an Akela. The Women's Institute needed a bookkeeper, as the last one still worked in shillings and pence, and in any case had lost the account book. The Over-Sixties Club could do with a speaker on any subject at any time suitable to Miss Quinn.

        The Naturalists' Association, the Youth Club, the Play Group, the Welfare Clinic, St. Patrick's Choir, and the Sunday School were anxious to have Miss Quinn's presence and support, and Miriam soon realized, with amusement and resignation, that much more hummed beneath Fairacre's serene face than she had imagined.

        Her tact, her charm, and her intelligence, baked by her formidable resolve to keep her life exactly as she wanted it, enabled her to stay clear of any of these entanglements.

        Baffled, and slightly hurt, the villagers retired worsted.

        Mrs. Pringle summed up the general feeling about the newcomer.

        "No flies on Miss Quinn! She knows her own value, that one, but she ain't for sale!"

I find that there are many things to like about this book. It's short: 148 pages. It's funny. It has illustrations. And there are no flies on Miss Quinn!

I actually think this book would make an excellent Christmas present: light-hearted and easy to read. And while the library copy I read was printed in 1976, Miss Read's books are available in paperback.  There seem to be several with a Christmas theme. There's one called "Mrs. Pringle of Fairacre," and now that I know a little about Mrs. Pringle's probity and vocabulary, I'm truly interested in reading a little more about her.
        
I thought "Miss Read" was a very odd name for an author; the only authorial name I can think of that is at all similar is Mrs. Gaskell. So I looked up Miss Read on Wikipedia and learned that her true identity was Dora Jessie Saint, and that "Saint's novels are wry regional social comedies, laced with gentle humour and subtle social commentary. Saint was also a keen observer of nature and the changing seasons."

Life Drawing for Beginners by Roisin Meaney

Limerick, Ireland-based Roisin Meaney is a prolific author, and last week I finished her Life Drawing for Beginners.

When I started reading it, I suddenly realized that its "night class" theme reminded me of a Maeve Binchy favorite, Evening Class, and I looked forward to it with anticipation.

In the opening pages, I found several things I liked:

Audrey, the art teacher at the heart of the story, sets off on a walk because there is no bus in the direction she's going, with a sense of the promise of adventure; along the way, she sees a puppy in the window of a pet shop: this puppy will change her fate. Audrey falls in love with the puppy and takes her home, naming her "Dolly," for Dolly Mixtures, because Dolly is a mixed-breed dog.

Audrey's single and she's secretly hoping that teaching the night class might help her meet a possible partner. We get to know a little bit about her five students, all of whom, we learn, have problems they're working through as well.

By the end of the novel, two of Audrey's students have begun a relationship, another contemplates a move to France, Audrey herself meets someone she's interested in, and one of the students, Irene, leaves her husband.

Irene's story is the most interesting aspect of this novel for me. Irene is a beautiful woman who did not want to have children. When she became pregnant, her husband begged her to have the child, and against her own wishes, she did. When the novel opens, her daughter is a toddler and has an au pair to care for her. Irene is frustrated and lonely because her husband, whom she loves, has withdrawn from her. Irene believes he is punishing her for her lack of interest in her child. Irene fires her au pair, and her daughter starts to regard her with suspicion. This is the backdrop for Irene's decision to leave.

There are book club questions in the back of the book. Question 3: "What do you make of Irene? Is Irene a good person? Why or why not?" I would love to be in a book group meeting and hear what the readers would say.

The interlocking stories of this book remind me very much of Maeve Binchy's work, and I think fans of Binchy would enjoy these books, too. The publisher got blurbs from Barbara Delinsky and Debbie Macomber, but I think Binchy's a better fit.

Dead I May Well Be by Adrian McKinty

I had long wanted to read Adrian McKinty, undoubtedly because I've been reading publicity about Adrian McKinty for years. Lately, McKinty's been tweeting on Twitter, and this reminded me: "Oh, yes, I've been meaning to read McKinty for years; why don't I do that now?"

Although Dead I May Well Be is definitely a thriller, it doesn't have a red and black cover as so many do. Just a photo of a guy lying in bed beside a handgun.

If I'd known what Dead I May Well Be was about, ever, I'd forgotten it by the time I started the book. At first, I thought, "Oh, it's about the Troubles." A few pages later, I realized that this book was really going to be about living in New York as an immigrant, and a gangster, in the 1990s.  And the gangster part ensured that there would be a lot of violence, and my heart just sank. I didn't want to read a book about a man making a living as a gangster.

However, I talked myself into trying to read the book anyway. I was thinking about the fact that I've hated the first chapter of almost every book I've read over the last two or three years; I've come to think of my appraisal at the end of a first chapter as entirely unreliable, or unimportant. I suppose that I used to enjoy crime fiction more than I do today. I suppose, too, that having formed a plan I'm a little reluctant to deviate from it.

A seeming stroke of luck opens the novel. "Belfast confetti," surprisingly, pricdes a windfall for some. Mikey seems to be lucky: another bomb has exploded in Belfast, and he and several other young men hanging out on the street experience a windfall. They're hired to put up replacement glass. A news photographer takes a photograph of the men and Mikey loses his unemployment benefits.

With no prospects for any kind of employment on the horizon, and knowing that his grandmother cannot afford to keep them both on her benefits, he very reluctantly agrees to move to New York and work on the crew of a drug peddler in an Irish part of Harlem.

The description of his barren apartment is a metaphor for how starved of spirit his life is in New York. But it gradually emerges that he, and his acquaintances on the crew, are all graduates of the Troubles. That is, they learned about violence as members of paramilitaries. Early on Mikey comments that the stakes were higher in New York: death instead of kneecapping.  If that knowledge doesn't provide enough dramatic tension, Mikey is having a secret affair with the barely legal, very beautiful, and distant Bridget, girlfriend of his boss's boss. As utterly tragically stupid as this is, the poverty of his inner life, symbolized by the sparseness of his furnishings, makes this more plausible.

That's another thing about this book. It defied my expectations by presenting Mikey's gangster life as a wild veering between colossal stupidity and creative problem-solving.

Mikey commutes on the elevated train to meet up with his crew at the Four Provinces. He reads on the train. One one of his journeys, early in the novel, he reports that he's reading a book about a guy who won't get out of bed. Suddenly, it hit me: he's talking about Oblomov! I couldn't believe it.

He's winking at the reader. Oh my god, I'm the reader! He's winking at me! This is so exciting, I'm beside myself. 

I'm ashamed to respond to pandering, but I couldn't help starting to really like Mikey at that moment.

Later in the book, Mikey offers another cryptic clue to the book he's then reading: "rich people in Long Island, a death." He's reading The Great Gatsby. Mikey's ex-military and sets up observation posts two or three times in the novel. For one, he listens to an audiobook of War and Peace. He opines that later in the novel, he's grateful when a few characters die as the high number of characters was confusing him.

     "The train again. This time it was full of commuters and slightly more cosmopolitan. Harder getting a seat, but I managed in the corner. I got out my paperback. Rich people, Long Island, days gone by. A death.

     "The crowd thinned as we edged out of Manhattan. I put bookshop bookmark in and as I did so I noticed that a note had been written on the back of it. 'Too much reading, not enough f*****.' Bridget's ornamental handwriting. It ticked me off. Bloody dangerous. What if someone in the Four P. says, 'What's that you're reading there, Mike?' grabs the book, the bookmark falls out, sees the scrawl, recognizes it? Jesus. I ripped up the bookmark and dropped it on the floor."

As I read it, I thought, this really reminds me of Dennis Lehane. Cities feature in both writers' work. Like Lehane, McKinty writes wonderful dialogue and uses it to reveal character. There's quite a bit of attitude, for lack of a better word, and real feeling. These writers have something to say. And, it also reminds me a little bit of Ian Rankin. After finishing the novel, I looked back on the shape of the plot and couldn't help feeling that the emotionally cool Bridget owes a little something to Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby.

There's something epic about this action-filled thriller. I find myself thinking it's an epic poem, wrapped in an account of the immigrant experience, wrapped in a thriller. I think that makes this book a literary thriller. This book is witty, clever, sarcastic. When McGinty talks about setting up an observaton post, it makes sense and whether he knows or did the research, it's a success.  feels like a giant statement of bravado. Is it pretentious that McGinty draws your attention to his knowledge and his skill? Perhaps it is, but I think it's also a promise of commitment to literary culture. And I have to admit, I really like this novel.

The Longbourn Letters by Rose Servitova

I've finished The Longbourn Letters by Rose Servitova, and I enjoyed it hugely. What I liked about it most was its consistency in language. Servitova imitates Jane Austen's style in Pride and Prejudice, (and even quotes Austen at points) and her mimicry is inspired and consistent, her style beautiful and engaging. I found her fidelity to the original deeply satisfying. It's a real domestic comedy in which family members, including Mr. Collins, are quite often ridiculous, but one is which the importance of family is emphasized.

It's an epistolary novel, a form I really enjoy, and it's short (150 pages), recording an imagined correspondence between Mr. Bennet, the witty, sarcastic, judgmental and impatient father of the five Bennet girls, and Mr. Collins, his cousin and a socially inept clergyman with a comically pretentious manner.

In the novel, Pride and Prejudice, at a family dinner, Mr. Bennett mocks Mr. Collins' obsequious manner by offering a seemingly innocent question: does Mr. Collins offer "delicate compliments" to Lady Catherine de Bourgh spontaneously or does he practice? Mr. Collins answers the question frankly, by offering that that he does practice in his spare time. Mr. Bennet never betrays through his expression his mockery; the family struggles to hide their mirth.

This gentle mockery is continued in the correspondence of Mr. Collins and Mr. Bennet, and the tone is perfectly maintained throughout. What surprises me is the gradual evolution of a sincere friendship of the two men, despite their great differences (and despite a brief dust-up between the two when Mr. Bennet, urged by Mr. Collins to oppose a match between Kitty and Colonel Fitzwilliam, does absolutely nothing; here, again, Mr. Bennet's talent for doing absolutely nothing seems to benefit his family).

The portrait of Mr. Bennet is entirely consistent with that of Pride and Prejudice, but here is fleshed out so that we learn Mr. Bennet loves a joke, especially those of a practical nature, loves science, and while occasionally sharply satirical in his comments about his wife and daughters, generally accepts them. In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Bennet is often wry, witty and playful, but is obviously impatient with his wife and daughters. Servitova's exploration of Mr. Bennet's character presents him as a man who enjoys science, etc., softening some of Mr. Bennet's hard edges. The Longbourn Letters suggests the being the only male in a family with six women has the potential to be quite lonely.

Fans of Pride and Prejudice will, I think, enjoy learning the eventual fate of the entire family and I imagine that must have been fun for Servitova to imagine these stories and share them.This is my favorite "Jane Austen spin-off" novel that I've ever read. For fans of Pride and Prejudice, I imagine that it will be pure entertainment.

Roadfood by Jane and Michael Stern

Jane and Michael Stern are a (formerly) married couple who've become famous for their guide to roadside dining throughout the U.S.

Roadside attractions are such a popular topic in the media that you often see them featured on Facebook and Twitter, and on TV shows, and over the years (40),  Jane and Michael Stern have gotten a lot of publicity. Something reminded of this book which I had always meant to read. I knew the library would have it, and they did.

I was surprised to see that I have not been to even one of the restaurants listed in the book in my part of the world.

First of all, I don't know what my expectation of this book was exactly: I supposed I thought that there'd be roadside places, on major highways, sometimes in rural areas, and that the food would be cheap, delicious, and served in restaurants and roadside diners that would be kitschy in their name or appearance.

In the introduction to this edition, the Sterns explain that they coined the term "roadfood" to describe local eats around America. Their goal was to "get people to pay attention to what we considered a neglected national treasure: regional food." I haven't thought about this concept before. As I scan the "Roadfood Honor Roll: The 100" (the Sterns' top 100 picks from around the country) I see a lot of hot dogs, pizza, seafood and BBQ. I am the only person I know uninterested in BBQ but I love the other items. The Sterns' Illinois list surprised me. I hadn't visited any of their selections, even though I was familiar with a couple.

The guide lists Hot Doug's, a famous hot dog spot that was for several years an institution and which won awards. Sadly, it is closed. Its owner, the eponymous Doug, took orders personally and was a beacon for customer service.

Other mentions must include the famous Superdawg which does offer kitsch in the form of tall hot dog statues on the roof (can't miss it), and the Wedron Office, in Ottawa, Illinois (near Starved Rock State Park) and which offers whitefish. I plan to check it out.

Al's, which claims the crown for having invented Italian beef sandwiches, also makes their list. Italian beef really is a regional food in that I've had it many times but never at Al's. Here's a little article on Al's: https://www.eater.com/2014/7/8/6198993/the-italian-beef-sandwich-at-als-in-chicago

Under the Sun (1998) /Sharp Objects (2018)

Under the Sun

This is a Swedish film, and the plot is familiar: a lonely farmer advertises for a housekeeper. What complicates things is that the farmer, played by Rolf Lassgard, has a friend. Perhaps predictably, the friend just doesn't fit into the new arrangements. But he's fascinating. What's so great about this film are the performances. They're all great and compelling to watch. I really enjoyed this.

Sharp Objects

Loved this. I thought it was so well done. The latter half of the miniseries had me on the edge of my seat at all times. It all seemed to so terribly, horribly, impossibly creepy and I found that I was completely frightened and confused by the twist ending even though I should have anticipated it. I found it quite dark, and found that it lingered in the back of my mind for days after watching it, so I really think it's not for everyone. Although I would not describe this as horror, I would say that if you don't like horror, or if you're a sensitive viewer, you should perhaps skip this.

Woman Chased by Crows by Marc Strange

Picked up this entertaining mystery as a used book sale in a library. Sadly, I learned after I finished it that the author, Canadian Marc Strange, a former actor, screenwriter and director, known for Beachcombers, died in May 2012.

He was the author of two mystery series, the Orwell Brennan series, and the Joe Grundy series.

Woman Chased by Crows is the second in the Orwell Brennan series. set in small-town Ontario. What I liked best about this police procedural was the presence of several strong female characters. Brennan has three daughters, and the upcoming nuptials of one is one element of the plot.

Detective Adele Moen ("Del") from Metro Homicide is just as cool as you would expect someone named after a beer to be, and her temporary partner is local Detective Stacy Crean ("rhymes with brain") who together are the two women assigned to a string of mysterious murders that afflict small Ontario town Dockerty. They're both really good detectives, and they're attracted to very interesting cases.

Another thing I really liked about this book is the author's evident interest in ballet. Ballet dancers, and their travels across the globe, are at the heart of this mystery.

At the heart of the mystery is a teacher and former almost-prima-ballerina, Anya Daniel. She's a survivor, but that's not what's most interesting about her, nor her former career as a dancer. It's her raw determination. (After you recover from your sense of shock, you might feel some admiration for her - and the two detectives who save her life.) If you're interested in this novel, you might want to read the first book in the series, Follow Me Down, first.

The Guards by Ken Bruen

(This image is from John Hinde postcard collection.)

I found this crime fiction novel delightful. Funny in a wry way, with lots of slang (not all of which I understood), plenty of drinking, plenty of action, and an interesting assortment of characters besides Jack Taylor, the ex-Garda.

Jack's a drunk - no doubt about it. But that's not all he is. After getting the boot from the Garda, he becomes an unofficial private detective. He views himself as a "finder" rather than a detective, and he holds court in his unofficial office, Grogan's, a public house in the old style. (Decorations limited to a blotchy mirror and crossed hurling sticks.)

Jack really loved his father, a peaceful man who gave Jack his love of reading, and who's recently passed away. Jack knows he needs a change, and he's dreaming of finding a flat in Battersea, and, as he says, "waiting." In the meantime, a woman approaches him in Grogan's and asks him to investigate the death of her daughter, ruled a suicide. Jack's adrift and this new case brings with it a number of complications.

What's so great about this novel is that it's funny and lively all the way through, and very easy to read. Its tone reminds me of that of Get Shorty, the film made of the Elmore Leonard novel. This novel's chapters often open with an epigram: three of them are from Elmore Leonard, T. Jefferson Parker and George Pelecanos, and Bruen name checks John Sandford for good measure. If you're a fan of these authors, I think you'll like Ken Bruen, too.

There are quite a few twists in the plot, right up to the end. Most, not all, of this twists have to do with unanticipated deaths. Yes, by the end of the book you could joke that Galway is the murder capital of the world but I will say these deaths seem organic; these deaths seem like a natural outcome of the surrounding circumstances and characters.

MY TBR list

Well, I was quite excited when my copy of The Longbourn Letters by Rose Servitova arrived in the mail the other day.

I'd read an excerpt on Twitter and that excerpt reminded me of Laurence Sterne. I felt that was reason enough to read it.

It's only 147 pages long. Just the sort of thing I like.

I felt I couldn't quite get started reading it, though, because I still had a book checked out from the library: The Guards by Ken Bruen. I've just begun it, and I must say, it sure starts with a bang:

"It's almost impossible to get kicked out of the Garda Siochana. You have to really put your mind to it. Unless you become a public disgrace, they'll tolerate most anything.

"I'd been to the wire. Numerous

    Cautions
    Warnings
    Last Chances
    Reprieves

"And still I didn't shape up.

"Or rather, sober up. Don't get me wrong. The Gardai and drink have a long, almost loving relationship. Indeed, a tee-total Garda is viewed with suspicion, if not downright derision, inside and outside the force."

I love the word derision.

And the first chapter is only four pages long.

I know I'm going to enjoy this book.

I've also lately been reading The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things. I'm loving it. Each chapter has a theme: an object from Jane Austen's life. On this framework, Byrne rests a great deal of biographical information. It's a clever structure: it's roughly chronological but allows her to move back and forth in time, offering themed biographical chunks without having to apologize for the things that are not known about Austen's life.

I went to a library book sale in October and picked up three Commissario Montalbano novels, safely stowed on the stairs; two culinary mysteries, a gift for a neighbor, Woman Chasing Crows by Marc Strange, and a book that got lost and was just rediscovered: Black Star Nairobi, by Mukoma Wa Ngugi. Also, have recently rediscovered my copy of the Wright 3 by Blue Balliett.

1/18/19

I also started reading Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know: The Fathers of Wilde, Joyce and Yeats, by Colm Toibin. I didn't start at the beginning (oh, yes, I did - I forgot), read all the way to the end, all while exercising care not to overlook anything salacious. But, I did read a good chunk of the chapter that interested me most, the chapter on John Butler Yeats. I suppose that was partly because I have the most nagging curiosity about the life of William Butler Yeats (if only I would apply myself), and naggingest little corner of that curiosity is Yeats' mother. She seems to have been an invisible woman. And John Butler seems to have been a biographer's dream: cantankerous, inconveniently, insistently independent, unembarrassed.

Sadly, did not get far before learning that my book club has selected Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life, by Jane Sherron De Hart. Very long: more than 700 pages. Clearly written, but slow reading for me: took me hours to read the first 100 pages. But very, very interesting.

Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin

This novel is the first in the Inspector Rebus series, by Ian Rankin. I saw Ian Rankin interviewed on a book talk show. Rankin said that he enjoyed using crime fiction to talk about social issues. That made me want to read his work. He's also a bestselling author.

In Knots and Crosses, Rebus is part of a task force working on the murders of two girls. The investigation is not going well; the police believe that there must be some common link between the girls, some way that they are coming into contact with the serial killer. But despite hundreds of hours of interviews of neighbors and people who knew the girls, they can't discover the how the killer is picking his victims.

Rebus is having a tough time in his life; he's divorced from his wife and his daughter, now 12, is living with his ex-wife and he when he does spend time with his daughter he finds it hard to connect with her. The police are stymied; they continue to interview neighbors and people who knew the victims but they can't discover the how the killer is picking his victims.

Rebus is having a tough time in his life; he's divorced from his wife and his daughter, now 12, is living with his ex-wife and he finds it hard to connect with her.


His father has recently died, and he's not close to his brother, Michael, a stage hypnotist. He barely knows Michael as an adult; when he drops in without calling to visit his brother,

He's ex-Army, but he never talks about his Army years. His career in the police has not been easy; the Army got him his job and the other cops know this and resent this.

He doesn't want to be assigned to the task force, partly because he has other cases on his plate, but also because he understands that he's likely to be assigned to go door-to-door to interview neighbors, looking for any kind of clue, and that's he likely to be assigned to review old case files on individuals who have been suspected on crimes in the past. Sure enough, he's assigned to file review duty and just hates it.

Rebus is trying to form a new relationship with a colleague, Gill, someone he knows from work but connects with at a party.

This mix of loneliness, frustration, and stasis mark the first half of the novel. In the second half of the novel, the action picks up quickly and becomes very exciting. The trauma that Rebus suffers from the Army is explained, and as the action resolves it's easy to see the point that Rankin wanted to make.

The "missing connection" the police finally discover is rather moving, in its way. Surprisingly, I found this novel cheering and impressive. Rebus often ruminates on the history of crime in Edinburgh (and notes with contempt the tourists photographing the statue of Greyfriars Bobby). Edinburgh is a city known for the flowering of the Englightenment that took place there in the 18th century (so amazing in that even today, Edinburgh has only 500,000 people living there, and Scotland's status as an independent nation had been under attack since James VI became James I, and certainly by the time of the Act of Union in 1707); in a way, I see this novel as an assertion of the value of those ideals.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

"Ships at a distance have every man's wishes on board." That's the wonderful first sentence of  Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. LOVED this book. It moved me when I didn't expect it to. I cried at the end. I wasn't expecting that I would feel so emotional about it, but I did. It's a psychologically acute novel that has a very uplifting ending. I think I was a little surprised to discover that this novel is about romantic love and its importance in the life of protagonist.

It did remind me of The Color Purple, which I read years ago, before the movie was made - and which I also loved, and which I also found uplifting.

One difficulty that I had reading the book is that there is a lot of regional dialect and slang. The dialogue is rendered phonetically and I found that I sometimes had to sound it out to understand exactly what the characters were saying. I found that I did want to know exactly what the characters were saying. There were a few times that I ran across words that I did not recognize and did not understand the meaning of simply from context, but it didn't prevent me from making a good guess based on the context. I understand that some readers would find this very challenging. I think that curiosity drove me, and the instinctive sense of identification I felt with Janie, the protagonist.

I've always wondered what the meaning of the phrase, "Their Eyes Were Watching God," was. I found out when I read the book, of course. Late in the book, the characters are caught in a hurricane - a bad one, like Hurricane Florence. As the people who've chosen to remain behind hear the wind howl they begin to understand how cataclysmic the storm is that's coming. They're waiting to see just how bad it is going to be, and they're terrified: their eyes were watching God.

Janie and Tea Cake are attempting to wait out the storm in their home:

    "The wind came back with triple fury, and put out the light for the last time.
     They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining
     against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their
     puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark,
     but their eyes were watching God."

The description of the hurricane feels very realistic, and it reminded me of the news reports we've heard lately about hurricanes striking the U.S. coast. In fact, Hurston's account was inspired by the 1928 Lake Okeechobee hurricane, which you can read about it on Wikipedia if you're interested.

Their Eyes is an affirming novel. Janie is raised by her grandmother, a former slave. When, at 16, Janie becomes interested in boys, her grandmother is afraid for her. In response, her grandmother, Nanny, marries Janie off to an older farmer. To Janie's grandmother, formal marriage to a land-owning farmer who can offer Janie financial security is the best way to protect Janie. Janie, on the other hand, is unhappy. She has ideas about love her farmer husband does not fulfill.

She meets a man, Jody, who has money and is ready to buy property and settle down. He wants Janie to run away with him. She is impressed by his self-confidence and leaves her husband. Her husband's parting words to her are an admonition that her life with him was safe and she'll regret abandoning the security he provided her.

Her marriage to Jody lasts twenty years. She soon finds that Jody is proud of his position in town (he becomes a property owner and mayor) and Jody insists that Janie cover her hair, and not participate in the conversation and gossip that takes place on the porch of Jody's store, where Janie works. Janie sees that Jody has very fixed ideas about how she should behave, and she finds them constricting. To her, Jody's ideas about his social status and her behavior prevent her from feeling loved or free.

Towards the end of their marriage, Jody and Janie have a fight in which she laughs at him. This is so hurtful to Jody that he withdraws from her. He sickens and dies, while trying to exclude Janie from his care.

When Janie attends Jody's funeral, she's honest with herself about the fact that she did not love her husband and certainly did not feel loved by him but puts on the social face that her community expects of her.

After her husband's death, she is wealthy and independent, having inherited her husband's property. Many men come courting her, telling her how sad it is for a woman to be alone and how necessary it is for a widow to remarry. Janie's not interested in any of this men. One day a man called Tea Cake visits her at the store. He begins to court her. He is younger than she is, and she finds his interest in her intriguing although she tries to talk herself out of having feelings for him. The neighbors are alarmed. Her best friend, Pheoby, tells her a cautionary tale about another widow who was exploited for her money and abandoned when her love had spent it all. Janie feels apprehensive about Tea Cake.

Tea Cake is a laborer and a gambler who takes Janie fishing and to social events. Janie begins to fall in love with him. Eventually, they go together to the Everglades, where they are the social center of a seasonal community of migrant workers. Janie sometimes takes care of the house, and sometimes works in the fields with Tea Cake. Janie feels that Tea Cake really loves her, and that this relationship is the one that she dreamed of as a girl.

After two years, a hurricane hits their community. As their home is flooded, they flee. A gust of wind blows Janie off the dyke they are traveling along and into the rising, swift-moving water as they try to get to Palm Beach. Tea Cake manages to save her but is bit by a rabid dog in the process. They reach Palm Beach and the storm ends. They think that they are safe but Tea Cake is dying. As he sickens, he becomes volatile and violent. Finally, Janie is forced to shoot him in a violent confrontation.

Janie believes she was really happy with Tea Cake. When Janie and Tea Cake are trapped in the hurricane, Tea Cake turns to Janie and asks her if she regrets staying with him when many of their neighbors left in advance of the storm. She replies:

       Naw. We been tuhgether for round two years. If you kin see de light
       at daybreak, you don't keer if you die at dusk.  It's so many people
       never seen de light at all.  Ah wuz fumblin' round and God opened the door."

She mourns Tea Cake but is comforted by knowing that they really loved each other. Tea Cake has made her feel deeply satisfied, and she feels validated, in a way that she never had in her two marriages. She returns to the town where she lived with Jody, and tells Pheoby the whole story.

Janie tells Pheoby:

     "Love is lak de sea. It's uh movin' thing, but still and all, it takes
     its shape from de shore it meets, and it's different with every shore." 

In her bedroom that night, Janie thinks about Tea Cake:

     "The day of the gun, and the bloody body, and the courthouse came
     and commenced to sing a sobbing sigh out of every corner in the room;
     out of each and every chair and thing.  Commenced to sing,
     commenced to sob and sigh, singing and sobbing. Then Tea Cake came
     prancing around her where she was and the song of the sigh
     flew out of the window and lit in the top of the pine trees,
     Tea Cake, with the sun for a shawl.  Of course he wasn't dead.
     He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking.
     The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall.
     Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a fish-net. Pulled it from
     around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder.
     So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul
     to come and see."

The Great American Read PBS show recently finished; it was seeing Their Eyes Were Watching God that reminded I've been meaning for a long while to read this book, and inspired me to finally undertake this work. At the end, the results of a months-long voting for the most popular novel was revealed. Their Eyes Were Watching God came in at #51. I wonder if it would have even been that high on the list had Dr. Gates not encouraged viewed to read this book. I can think of tons of reasons why it's not higher on the list, but I can of one really great reason for it to be on the list: I'm nothing like Janie Crawford. I think I loved this book because, perhaps because Jody takes Janie to live in a community that is entirely African-American, or perhaps for some other reason, Hurston seems to me convey an appreciation for community that is reflected in her storytelling. Perhaps it's also reflected in the Janie's wish to socialize on the front porch, and in the "sass" she has to share with her neighbors and her husband. She's telling a woman-centered story. Janie's  journey to self-actualization moved me greatly and gave me joy.

Note: The 2000 edition of this novel that I checked out from the library has a forward by Edwidge Danticat, the Haitian-American novelist, and a note on publication history by Richard Wentworth, a former director of the University of Illinois Press.

Danticat details her personal history with the novel: Danticat attended Barnard College, where she studied the novel for the second time, and which Hurston herself had attended. Danticat notes with pride that Hurston wrote the novel while in Haiti, and somehow found time for it amid her work as an anthropologist. Danticat points out that one of the strengths of the novel is its communal quality. I sense this, without being able to point out exactly how this is so (perhaps in part because the town Jody brings her to live in is an all African-American community). Danticat reports that students in her class debated whether Their Eyes should be regarded as a story of adventure, and I agree that it should My very favorite part of Danticat's account of her own personal relationship with the novel is that she reports that she first read the novel in high school, in an elective black history class at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn, in a class taught by a teacher during his lunch hour. It reminds me of how moved I was when I bought a compilation of Anita O'Day's albums issued by a couple in Bristol using their garage as as their office. I think a lot of people think that culture is for other people. To me, it's for all of us and the work that we do to preserve and celebrate culture may go unnoticed but is heroic and important.

In the "Note on publication history," Wentworth writes: "The story of how the University of Illinois Press became the publisher of Their Eyes Were Watching God is one of the most interesting publishing stories of recent decades. In the 1970s, the University of Illinois Press published the African-American poet Michael S. Harper, who passed the word that a friend of his named Robert E. Hemenway was working on a major biography of a neglected African-American writer, Zora Neale Hurston. Professor Hemenway's book was indeed major and compelling, so the University of Illinois signed him up and published Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography in 1977. Professor Hemenway also advised his editor that it would be a good idea to acquire the rights, if possible, to Hurston's most important book, Their Eyes Were Watching God." The Press did acquire the rights, and published Their Eyes, and in ten years sold 350,000 copies, a big success for an academic press. Wentworth goes on to explain that the foundation for this success was Hurston's rediscovery by African-American writers in the '60s and '70s and especially by Alice Walker who wrote an important essay about Hurston's work for Ms. Magazine, "In Search of Zora Neale Hurston." A petition to reissue the book was also circulated at the Modern Language Association  Convention in 1975. I want to share this story because it makes me feel hopeful, and because it shows the important role that cultural institutions have in our shared life.

A friend suggested that I read "Looking for Zora," Alice Walker's 1975 essay (published in Ms. Magazine) about visiting Zora Neale Hurston's home town. If you have any interest in this novel or its author, I recommend you read it: it's available as a .pdf Google document on the internet. It's a great essay: it's a road trip story, very entertainingly told. For me, it explains so much about Their Eyes Were Watching God. I see that Janie's community was based on large part on the all-African-American town that Hurston grew up in, and that Janie's husband was based on the real-life mayor, and that Janie herself was likely based on part on a woman Hurston knew and who Alice talks to on her trip. This essay was instrumental in reigniting interest in Hurston's life and work.

The edition I read has a introduction by Edwidge Danticat, and in her introduction, Danticat mentions that some are skeptical about Hurston's claim that she wrote Their Eyes in six weeks while visiting Haiti. Gosh, I do not feel skeptical about that claim. It seems to me that Their Eyes tells the story of the people Hurston grew up with and is a kind of literary foundation myth. I imagine that being in a country like Haiti, where everyone is descended from the African disapora would have reminded Hurston of her own home town. With that inspiration, I think it might have been very easy to think up the story and fill it with fictional portraits.