New Century Reading

Five Days Gone

Author Laura Cumming wrote this book about her mother, who has an eerie and fascinating childhood. At the age of 3, she was kidnapped and turned up, 5 days later, in different clothes, but unharmed. Her mother didn't remember this later, but it came out, as family secrets tend to do. 

But that wasn't the only family secret, as it turned out. She'd been adopted, something that wasn't explained to her until she was in her early teens. Even then, most of that story wasn't revealed to her, and she ended up piecing it together over many years, eventually with the help of her daughter (the author). It's a heartbreaker of a story, with twists and turns and unexpected (at least to me) revelations. It's also about what constitutes a family, and how small communities often close ranks to help families keep their secrets. Sadly, it's also the story of an only child, adopted fairly late in life by people perhaps not best suited to raising children. 

The heart of the book is a fascinating exploration of what happened and who was involved, as well as the discussions of families and community. However, the book is longer than it needed to be; it might have been better as a long New Yorker piece. The author is an art critic, and both of her parents turned out to be artists, so she brings in repeated stories of different artworks that she uses to compare her mother's situation to. These become a digression from the main story, and end up feeling overwritten and unnecessary, when the main story itself was so compelling. It slows the book down in places in a way that's unfortunate.

Still, I finished the book and found myself thinking about the author's mother and her strange, often sad, life. I don't regret finishing it.

The Barefoot Woman

The Barefoot Woman is a short, spare memoir of the author's childhood in Rwanda, just prior to the devastating genocide in the 1990s. But even prior to that, her life as a Tutsi made her family and neighbors outcasts, refugees who were uprooted from their mountain home and forced to move to an area of the country that was inhospitable. Yet, thanks to the tenacity of her mother, Stefania, the family survived and rebuilt new lives while never forgetting both what they'd lost and the threat that still existed. 

This book doesn't go into the details of the actual genocide, other than brief references to it. The author left Rwanda in 1992, just two years before the killing began, and she ended up in France. But she lost 27 family members to that devastation. 

But what she does in this book is show us what life was like before the killing, in all its beauty, fear, and daily routines and beliefs. Some of her anecdotes are funny, some are moving, and on occasion, after telling us of some event, she notes who ended up dead. Instead of showing us all the killing, she shows us what was lost. And that gives the book its emotional depth. Why were these people killed? These people, who loved their children and wanted the best for them. People who cared for and watched out for their neighbors, and yes, gossiped about them behind their backs (let he who is without sin throw the first stone...). People who toiled at brutally hard labor to earn a living. People who brewed beer out of sorghum and celebrated when good things happened. People who took pride in their rituals and way of life. People who ended up dead.

I've read other books about the Rwandan genocide, and it's always hard to read about. But this book seemed even more devastating. In the nonprofit world, there's a train of thought that telling a story about specific people and places is far more effective than giving statistics that don't have a face on them. You can read that somewhere between half a million and a million Rwandans were slaughtered. Or you can read about Scholastique Mukasonga's mother, toiling in the fields to be able to send her children to school, carefully allotting bread to be sure all her children got a bit of that treat while eating none herself, acting as the village matchmaker, telling stories to her children by firelight each night, and then know that this tough, shrewd, loving mother died in the genocide. This book is her daughter's loving memorial to her mother. Which is the more moving story?

All the Lives We Ever Lived

What a lovely book this is. Katharine Smyth is an enormous fan (as am I) of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. But her love of the book took on a deeper meaning when her father is diagnosed with cancer and begins a long period of treatment and recovery, recurrence and more treatment, until it becomes clear he's not going to live. She loves her father to pieces, but he's far from perfect, and her parents' relationship has had more than its share of struggles.

So she returns to the Woolf novel, and begins to explore her parents' relationship as well as the nature of grieving, viewing it all through the lens of Woolf's artistic achievement in that slim book. It's not a stretch at all, and Smyth has done her homework, reading not only the novel, but biographical and critical material, which she shares. Yet the book is far from academic in feeling. It's an emotional exploration of a difficult subject, insightful and at times heartbreaking.

I don't know how well this would read if the reader hadn't already read To the Lighthouse. Smyth does explain a great deal of the book (and there are spoilers), but still, I think it'd be easier to read it, as I did, with sighs of remembrance and appreciation.

And now excuse me, for I want to go read Lighthouse again.

The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 2

I noted in my post about volume 1 of Sylvia Plath's letters that even at a very young age, she wrote letters geared on pleasing her mother, and lord almighty, that continues right down to the last week of Plath's life. Volume 2 is a different animal than volume 1; the first volume left off shortly after Plath had married Ted Hughes and while she was still a student at Cambridge. Volume 2 picks up from there and carries us through to a week before her suicide in February 1963. 

I think it helps to have some familiarity with Plath's life before reading these, otherwise it's far too easy to take her letters to her mother, Aurelia (which make up the bulk of the work) at face value. Plath spends an enormous amount of time painting a beautiful picture for Aurelia: The perfect marriage, the perfect husband, the perfect writer's life, the perfect children, the perfect father of those children. However, in letters to others, Plath lets a few cracks show through, even though she still maintains a sense of idealism about their marriage and relationship. 

Once Plath learns about Hughes' infidelity (which couldn't have happened at a worse time--her mother was actually on a six-week visit with them then), she goes 180 degrees. Then Hughes is the most evil person in the world. Now, I'm not condoning infidelity. But Plath makes a number of incendiary statements in some of these letters that have not been validated by anyone who knew Hughes, including allegations that he told her he wished she'd kill herself, or that she'd had a miscarriage after he'd beaten her. She did have a miscarriage, but in letters from that time, she notes that shortly after the miscarriage, she had her appendix removed and wondered if the two were related. Was she covering up abuse when she wrote that? Or were the later allegations a way of getting back at him for her misery? In much earlier letters, she seemed to romanticize physical violence and mentioned fights with Hughes that turned physical, and she claimed she gave as good as she got. 

She also claims in one letter that she once spent a winter in a lighthouse. Um--no. She never did. How much of what she writes, especially during the last months of her life when she was under considerable mental duress, can readers take a face value? I don't know. I do know that as these letters were being published, there were many who held them up as prime evidence of Hughes' abuse. But I can't bring myself to completely buy into that. I'm also not saying it never happened. What we have here are letters that are incendiary from a tremendously talented writer, and the reality is that we'll never know the truth. 

In the end, the final letters are harrowing and gutting. A week before her death, she wrote letters to several people on the same day, many of which continue to paint a picture of hard times, but with faith in her ability to carry on. One of those letters, however, tells a different story. It's a letter she wrote to the psychotherapist who worked with her after her earlier suicide attempt. In that letter--the final letter of the book--she says she doesn't know if she can survive this. Doesn't know if she has the ability to carry on. And, of course, we know that she didn't.

Plath's and Hughes' daughter, Frieda, wrote an introduction to the volume and talks about learning about the existence of these letters to the psychotherapist late in the process of preparing the letters for publication. She wasn't sure (understandably) that she wanted them included, but sat down to read through them before making a decision. The earlier letters to the therapist are all of the "Ted is perfect" variety, and Frieda gives us almost a letter-by-letter response, right up to the devastating final letter. It's a heartfelt piece of writing from a woman whose entire life has been framed by her mother's suicide and the vilification her father received because of it. She doesn't take sides, except to say that she never saw a violent side to her father. I can't imagine what it took for her to read those letters, then give permission for them to be published. But I think their inclusion makes this volume even more significant than it already was. 

A hard, heartbreaking book.

Into the Raging Sea

Yowsa. I love a good disaster story--and let me just add that I do NOT love that people die in these. I'm in no way grateful for that. But I am grateful to writers like Rachel Slade who dig into a disaster and analyze it quite carefully. Even if--slight spoiler alert--the things she learns aren't taken to heart by the people who most need to (corporations) (does that surprise anyone?).

In late September 2015, the container ship El Faro was set to do a routine run of cargo to Puerto Rico. Far away, a tropical storm was building, but most weather forecasters gave it little chance of amounting to anything. But by October 1, Hurricane Joaquin was an enormous, deadly storm, and seemingly inexplicably, El Faro's captain headed his ship straight towards the hurricane's eye. 

All 33 on board died.

What caused the captain to do this? And, in this day and age, shouldn't the ship have been hardier? Did no one from the shipping company try to intervene when they could see the storm coming, and the direction the ship was going?

Author Slade goes to great effort to answer these questions. I'm not going to give spoilers, but I will say that her work was aided by the fact that the NTSB, against great odds, tracked down what the ship's equivalent of a black box is. In spite of being 3 miles below the ocean's surface for weeks, they found it, brought it up, and spent a lot of time going through the 26 hours of recording (more than they expected). So the author had actual dialogue to work with--recorded, on-the-record dialogue, that does help fill in some of the story and lay rest to some speculation.

But she didn't stop there, because those 26 hours of recordings aren't even close to the whole story. She attended the NTSB hearings, interviewed many, many people (family members of the lost crew, past and present employees of the shipping company, NTSB and other marine officials and experts), and also provides a thorough history of the shipping world, its politics, its business practices, employment practices and unwritten codes of honor onboard, the changing climate and how that affects shipping, etc. Structurally, the first part of the book is told in alternating chapters, first a chapter about the crisis on the ship, the next some aspect of shipping history, then back to the ship. This is effective in that you learn a lot, but she keeps the tension going. Even knowing from the outset that all 33 crew members will die, it's still a gripping read. Highly recommended. 

 

 

The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 1

For decades, those of us fascinated by Sylvia Plath had to make do with a slim volume of letters called Letters Home, edited by her mother, Aurelia Plath. To say that Aurelia had a vested interest in keeping lots of details out of the public eye would be an understatement. But finally, we now have a collection of letters that are published in full, in two volumes (with volume 1 at an astounding 1330 pages). Apparently there are still a few other letters out there that the editors are aware of, but are privately owned and the owners weren't willing to have them published. Regardless, there's plenty to savor in the letters that are available.

To some degree, these are probably best for the people who are really interested in Plath. The first few years are primarily letters she wrote to her mother from sleep-away camp and to pen pals. But even those provide a striking contrast; Plath often wrote letters to her mother that seem tailored, even at a very young age, to please, whereas the pen pal letters show a more independent train of thought.

Having 20/20 hindsight about Plath's lives makes many of these letters even more touching. The brave, happy face she put on letters to her mother while at Smith College, as she began an inexorable dive towards her first suicide attempt. Or, especially, when she meets Ted Hughes and marries him in a very short period of time. The love letters to Ted are beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time.

Volume 1 ends at her 24th birthday, as she's married to Ted but living apart due to fear that her scholarship to Cambridge would be taken away if authorities knew she was married (ah, 1956, what a year for women). But she's finding life without Ted intolerable and is planning to ask Cambridge and the Fulbright folks to let her keep her scholarship while a married woman. It's brave, and optimistic, and the world seems bright and amazing. 

And now I go to volume 2.

Literary Witches

Well, this is a charmer. Author Taisia Kitaiskaia and illustrator Katy Horan created what they call a celebration of magical women writers. Each writer gets a witchly description ("Enchantress of bitter love, treachery, and jewels"), followed by a brief tale that's essentially a magical bio, then a short real bio and suggestions of works to read. Each is accompanied by an illustration of the real woman, but rooted in something akin to fairy tales or, in some cases, an almost Frida Kahlo-esque interpretation.

The range of chosen writers is pleasingly wide and diverse. There are well-known writers, like Flannery O'Connor and Virginia Woolf; ancient writers like Sappho; many women who are not white Americans; new-to-me writers like Yumiko Kurahashi, a Japanese experimental writer described as producing works that include ghosts, flying heads, witch masks, incest, and bestiality. Why, yes, I'd like to check her out. International writers are well represented and introduced me to other names I wasn't familiar with, but do plan to check out.

That said, there are some factual inaccuracies in the areas that are supposed to be literal. A friend noticed that Mary Wollstonecraft is reported in this book to have died during childbirth, when she actually died several weeks later. I noticed that in Virginia Woolf's bio, she's listed as childfree and sexually liberated, both presented as her being a feminist and ahead of her time. However, I'm in the midst of reading her journals (so wonderful) and it's clear that while she's childfree, and it's by choice, it's not a choice she's altogether happy about; her doctors and husband both demanded that she not undergo motherhood because of her mental health issues. In her diaries, she notes several times how wistful visiting her nieces and nephews makes her and occasionally ponders what life would have been like with children. Would she have been able to produce her masterpieces? Who knows? But to simply present her as a feminist who was childfree by choice is losing the context that's a bit melancholy and not as celebratory.

However, these are nitpicks. Read the book with a grain of salt and more for the witchly parts and wonderful illustrations rather than hard-core facts. Then seek out the writers you're not familiar with and be thankful someone introduced you to them.

I Am, I Am, I Am

"On the path ahead, stepping out from behind a boulder, a man appears."

Pretty much every woman I know would read this opening sentence to Maggie O'Farrell's memoir, I Am, I Am, I Am, with a sickening jolt. It's the worst nightmare for all of us: We're out doing something benign, like taking a walk on a nice day, but we're alone, and suddenly...

This book is an examination of O'Farrell's brushes with death throughout her life, and not always her own. From the incredibly opening memory of being approached by an unknown, menacing man while out walking in the hills, to dealing with a string of miscarriages, to having fought off a deadly disease as a child herself, to having been a willful child who's mother probably was not sure would make it to adulthood, she looks at living, and dying, and what constitutes living. 

It's at times horrifyingly vivid. But that shows what a good writer can do with this kind of material.

It also made me reflect on some of my own weaknesses and short-sighted moments. While reading of a third near-loss while swimming, I found myself impatiently thinking, Didn't you learn anything the first two times??

But then I reminded myself of how, as I've gotten older, I've gotten increasingly terrified of heights. I know this about myself. I know that even a taller-than-normal down escalator gives me vertigo. So why, when my husband I recently went to Las Vegas, did I propose the idea of going to the observation deck of the replica Eiffel Tower? What made me think that would be the exception? 

It wasn't the exception, and I nearly had a full-blown panic attack 500+ feet in the air. We are all capable of denial and magical thinking. 

In any event, the message that O'Farrell urgently states throughout this book is: Don't be afraid of life. You don't know when it will end. Go on living, as best as you can. A worthy message at any time. 

Forty Autumns

Forty Autumns is a true story of a family first caught behind East German lines after WWII, then separated by the new country's boundaries. The author, Nina Willner, is the daughter of Hanna, who escaped East Germany after multiple tries, then--with one exception--didn't see them for 40 years.

Willner herself has an interesting backstory, in that she became a U.S. Army intelligence officer and ended up serving in Berlin during the Cold War. She was quite aware that she had family there, but it wasn't even remotely safe for her to try and find them. And when I say safe, I mean it wasn't safe for her, nor was it safe for the East German family members.

The story is told in short segments, some of which focus on the experiences of the family members left behind in East Germany, some on Hanna's life outside of East Germany, some on Nina's life as an intelligence officer, and some general history of the time, to give more context and scope on what was happening. It's a mostly successful approach, although towards the end I found myself wearying of the political explanations and just wanted to get to the part where East Germany dissolves and the family could finally meet again. There was also a long stretch involving Hanna's niece, Cordula, who became an East German athlete during the highly competitive sporting years, when sports were all that East Germany had to brag about. But Cordula's sporting adventures, while numerous, were overall not that interesting and could have been shortened.

But the other parts of the book were riveting. From the German women waiting for their husbands and sons to come home from WWII in defeat, to learning their small town has been put under Soviet control, to the ever-tightening noose around their necks as the East German government became totalitarian, makes for tense, can't-turn-pages-fast-enough reading. The misery of food shortages, the fears that neighbors were informants, that not looking interested enough at a military parade could end a career--Willner tells these stories straightforwardly and frighteningly. Highly recommended. 

A Small Porch

This is such a lovely book. Poet Wendell Berry apparently has taken up the habit over the decades of spending his Sabbaths outdoors, wandering his farm and nearby natural spots, and thinking and writing about them. This strikes me as something pretty much everyone could benefit by doing, religious or not. (Although, as I write these words, my area has just received a foot of snow and it's still snowing on Sunday, so I won't be going out exploring today.)

He's a smart man, and careful with his language. The poems are deceptively simple, but that often adds to their effectiveness:

"There is never an end to imagining
the lives of the birds. Or to wondering
at the superfluous beauty and unspeaking
flight of butterflies who light nearby:
the Eyed Brown, the Spicebush Swallowtail,
the Red Admiral, the Red-spotted Purple.
These so visible must stand for countless ones
and kinds easily overlooked or hard to see
or invisible. A world of words could not
describe this wordless world."

The first half of this slim volume contains a number of these spare, thoughtful poems. The second half is an essay called "The Presence of Nature in the Natural World: a Long Conversation," which is indeed long at 77 pages. But it does read like a conversation, albeit one-sided, with a thoughtful farmer (Berry is a farmer) who wants to discuss the views poets (Alain de Lille in the Plaint of Nature, Chaucer, Spencer, Milton, Pope, Pound) have viewed nature and how humans can and do operate within it. But he also wants to talk about the problems men wreak upon nature, especially farmers, and why it's important that the conversation around farming begin to focus on that, before it's too late. He notes with exasperation that many self-proclaimed environmentalists are loud in their support of wild areas, but silent on what's happening to vast swaths of farmland--and what happens to that farmland could (and already is) have a dangerous impact on what's still wild.

Together, the poems and the essay show a fine mind, a thoughtful, concerned farmer, a lover of poetry and language. Can't ask much more out of a book than that.