oh henry

We should read to give our souls a chance to luxuriate. -- Henry Miller (December 26, 1891 -- June 7, 1980)

lily and rosedale

One of my favorite novels is Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, which tells the fateful tale of lovely Lily Bart and her quest for a husband.  And not just any husband, because Lily is part of New York society and must make the best match possible, but even though she has the right instincts, she isn't shrewd enough to close the deal.  To complicate matters, Lily has strong feelings for a typical Wharton hero, Lawrence Selden, who chafes at social confines but is never quite able to break free of them.  Lily plays her cards with a kind of narcissistic honor, and if you've read the book you know how that ends up -- and if you haven't, I won't give anything away.  Among Lily's admirers is a gentleman named Simon Rosedale, described by Wharton as "a plump rosy man of the blond Jewish type, with smart London clothes fitting him like upholstery, and small sidelong eyes which gave him the air of appraising people as if they were bric-a-brac."  Rosedale is of a different breed of wealthy New Yorkers, coming in with the then-impending 20th century and eager to work his way into higher social circles.

Since The House of Mirth was written in 1905, Rosedale and Lily never had a chance romantically and Rosedale himself was never going to be more than just a pivotal side character.  Rosedale is sympathetic at the novel's end, in his own way, but essentially Lily's resisting him and all he stands for as a nouveau riche Jew only adds to her tragic lily-like honor.  Lev Raphael's Rosedale in Love, however, takes Mr. Simon Rosedale and anyone who happens to be intrigued by him to a new fictional level that is quite enjoyable and well worth reading.  Written over a hundred years later, Rosedale in Love still remains faithful to its Gilded Age setting and allows us to see Lily through Rosedale's eyes, yet also offers a portrait of Rosedale beyond Lily's limited view.

tarot cuisine

Technically a Tarot deck isn't a book, but if you find Tarot cards intriguing and you have a dash of culinary passion, The Epicurean Tarot (U.S. Games, 2001) will be a great addition to your cookbook shelf.  The Epicurean Tarot's creator Corrinne Kenner has concocted 78 inventive and tasty recipes that take their own special meaning from each traditional Tarot card, and this particular deck is functionally oversized and laminated for hands-on kitchen adventures.  Also included is a companion booklet for more detail on both the cards and recipes, with the only problem being is that a quick survey of Amazon and Barnes & Noble shows that The Epicurean Tarot is out of print and the copies currently out there for purchase are pretty pricey.  Good news if you want to part with your boxed set and sell it, but not so good if you're looking for an Epicurean Tarot of your own -- especially if you want to whip up some of Death's Stuffed Mushrooms and The Devil's Deviled Eggs (what else?) for your Halloween party. 

royal care

Chicago veterinarian Dr. Barbara Royal has a new book out called The Royal Treatment:  A Natural Approach to Wildly Healthy Pets -- and I highly recommend it.  Dr. Royal can claim some celebrity pet clients indeed, but she treats each dog, cat, or whatever animal she sees with an amazing level of care and attention, and you do not have to be rich or famous to visit her warm, friendly clinic on Chicago's north side.  I know because my cat was a patient of Dr. Royal's and she helped me -- and especially him -- through the last month of his life with true compassion.  (Yes, he was an exceptional cat among a world of exceptional cats but maybe I'm somewhat biased!)  Her book details the holistic and conventional elements to her practice, and her words emphasize her level of feeling for all creatures great and small.  And as a wildlife, zoo and domestic animal vet, she really knows her creatures.  There are also recipes for natural diets and therapeutic options to help our indoor pets live with more outdoor vigor.  With the holidays just around the corner, this would be a great gift for any pet lover on your list.

Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.  -- Anatole France

it's national book month!

What will you be reading??


(Pictured:  The Novel Reader -- Vincent van Gogh, 1888)

julia and minette...and other cats in the kitchen

Julia's Cats and/or Julia Child's Life in the Company of Cats by Patricia Barey and Therese Burson is a lovely little tail/tale about one of our first chef celebrities and all the felines who captivated her and husband Paul.  Starting with Minette who came in as a mouser at Chez Child in 1948, Julia was a cat lover who truly seemed to understand the curious quirks and ways of the whiskered ones.  If you're a fellow cat lover, you'll most likely read it in one sitting with a smile and occasional tear or two, and if you're a fan of Julia Child, you'll be even more so by the book's end.  And come to think of it, a birthdate of August 15th made Julia an astrological Leo -- and apparently all cats are regal and playful Leos, no matter what month they're born in.  

good luck, miss wyckoff

It looks like this novel by William Inge has been out of print for a while, with an original hardcover publication date of 1970.  Inge was of course best known as a playwright, penning famed stage and screen works like Picnic, Bus Stop and Come Back Little Sheba.  Born in 1913, Inge attended the University of Kansas then later taught English and drama at a Kansas high school.  He had especially keen insight into his female characters, particularly repressed women trying to reach for something beyond their claustrophobic boardinghouse lives.

Miss Evelyn Wyckoff of the Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff title is definitely an Inge woman.  She's a teacher of Latin in the 1950s at a Kansas high school, an intelligent, secretly passionate 35 year old virgin whose fairly progressive doctor suggests that she pay more attention to her physical being and become romantically involved with a man.  That her lack of healthy sexual activity is perhaps causing an early menopause and affecting her in other psychosomatic ways, and that she talk to a psychiatrist in Wichita as well.

I don't want to give away too much of the plot or the whos and whys of what happens following her treatment, but essentially the dramatic pivot occurs when Miss Wyckoff has her first encounter with Rafe, a young African-American man.  It's not a romance, it's an affair; Rafe isn't too likable, but he has his reasons for being arrogant and mistrusting and frustrated with his own lot in life.  And Miss Wyckoff, in her confused and heightened state of longing, justifies that this affair proves that she truly believes in racial equality -- unlike many of her fellow teachers or residents of Freedom, Kansas (yes, it's kind of a heavy-handed name but Inge himself was born in Independence, Kansas)   Perhaps seeking out other African-American men -- another teacher maybe -- with whom she could connect both mentally and physically would have been a better proof of racial openness, but Miss Wyckoff tends to think in intense but narrow spirals and she is after all a woman of the 1950s Midwest.

There are some nice turns of phrase in this novel, like when Miss Wyckoff recalls her college days and the "handsome fraternity boys" she'd observed "who seemed to live totally apart from her own world of eyestrain and study."  When she sees a husband and wife embrace and says to herself, "There but for the thoughtlessness of God go I."   And then there are some off-putting descriptions like "She bore the smell of aloneness in her armpits."  It's not a politically correct book nor a perfect one, but it does seem real and both suffocating and uncomfortably liberating at the same time.

A film version of the novel was made in 1979 with alternate titles of The Shaming, The Sin and Secret Yearnings -- but those come across as sensationalist and undermine Inge's original intention.  Inge opted for Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff because as Evelyn leaves Freedom with a couple of suitcases and a lot more baggage of scandal, her former landlady calls out "Good luck!" from the boardinghouse doorway.  Miss Wyckoff realizes that good luck "constituted her only hope for the future" and that she would "need lots of it."   But she at least does have a future and isn't jumping off a bridge or overdosing on sleeping pills.  Because in truth, she's had an experience, not a shaming or a sin, and with luck it might turn out to be an awakening and emergence into a bigger and more open-minded world.   Sadly, Inge committed suicide in 1973, but perhaps he wanted to give his fictional creation a bit more hope.

thirteen men

I bought Tiffany Thayer's Thirteen Men at the Salvation Army for a quarter, and at first glance I thought it was probably a sappy 1930s romance novel written by a female named Tiffany about a baker's dozen of lovers.  Tiffany, however, was a man, and the book is far from sappy.  The men in question are twelve jurors chosen for the trial of a pathological murderer called the Phantom.  Earlier, the Phantom had gone on a cold-blooded cross-country killing spree, then turned himself in to an incredulous cop who declared, "I've got a nut here who wants to be cracked."  The Phantom, of course, is the thirteenth man.

The lives of the twelve jurors are then detailed up to the point when each receives his jury duty summons, reinforcing the notion of how no verdict is without prejudicial experience.  And then there's the history of the person on trial.  (Sure, we know it from Twelve Angry Men but that was 1954 and this was published two decades earlier.)  Mr. Thayer was apparently pretty way-out there in terms of some of his theories (read more about him here) and fond of writing sci-fi tales, but in this case he's dealing primarily with the honest or dishonest, arrogant or timid, bizarre or mundane creatures that tend to amount to life on this planet.

Thayer's work is not regarded too highly and was scorned by his literary peers, but I have to admit, this is a crazy, strange, page-turner of a read.  It reminds me of a sensationalized version of John Dos Passos' USA Trilogy, the first book of which came out in 1930, also the year that Thirteen Men was published.  The fast-flowing biographies of these diverse thirteen, the slang of the day, the cynicism, the political incorrectness, the trial and jaded aftermath -- if you're a fan of the American Dirty Thirties, this is worth checking out.  Also featured in my Sun Dial Press copy are a whole side-set of intriguing pen and ink drawings by Mahlon Blaine, the first of which -- the Phantom himself -- is pictured here.      

***

Mother of Marty Durkin, the Tearney boys, Dean O'Banion, "Scarface Al" Capone, Johnny Torrio, Tony Lombardo and a thousand other celebrities, Chicago took "the Phantom" to her capacious bosom and tried to make the world believe that he, too, was a home product.  The feature writers warmed to the subject they loved.

From Thirteen Men, Tiffany Thayer

myth-mistress edith

Today was once the birthday of author Edith Hamilton (1867-1963), who was born in Germany but raised in Indiana, and who graduated from Bryn Mawr but dreamed of ancient Greece.  Among her many works was the classic Mythology, first published in 1942 and used for decades afterward in high school English classes like my own.  I can't say that I truly cared for Mythology the first time around because we were quizzed on it daily and somehow lost the epic excitement of the Greek, Roman and Norse tales, but I reread it later just for kicks and enjoyed it much more.  And then I also had a foundation of mythological knowledge to fully appreciate lovely paintings like the pictured François-Edouard Picot's Cupid and Psyche and John William Waterhouse's Psyche Opening The Golden Box.  So thanks, Edith, for keeping the mythic torch burning and passing its light to us all.

women in art

I found Charlotte Streifer Rubenstein's American Women Artists at the Chicago Rare Book Center in Evanston a couple of years ago.  It was a blazing June day and a friend of mine was selling jewelry at the Custer Street Art Fair, so I went into the bookstore to browse and escape the heat.  The friendly staff gave me a chilled glass of white wine, and they had air conditioning and a wealth of wonderful books that kept me happy for the next hour.  I spotted American Women Artists on my way out, bought it on impulse and have enjoyed it ever since.

American Women Artists was originally published in 1982 and is time-limited, but otherwise it's a fine anthology beginning with Native American works and spanning through to the late 20th century.  There have been so many great American women artists, and this book is an excellent starting point to discover their lives and talents and the creative movements they were part of.  Yes, we know Mary Cassatt, Georgia O'Keeffe and Grandma Moses, but how about Jane Stuart, Sarah Goodridge, Cecilia Beaux, Lilla Cabot Perry, Marguerite Zorach, Grace Hartigan, Isabel Bishop, Malvina Hoffman, Agnes Tait, Romaine Brooks, Kay Sage, Joan Mitchell, Alice Neel and Janet Fish?  And there are plenty of other names within the 560 pages (along with color and black and white reproductions), and anyone truly interested in American women in art should really seek out this book as a resource. 

When I was a child, there weren't roles available for women then in the arts, really. The most imaginative thing they could think of would be a school teacher, which is what my aunt was.  -- Grace Hartigan (1922-2008)

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. -- Cicero

Pictured:  Reading -- Frederick Childe Hassam, 1888 (Hunter Museum of American Art)

july and julie and julia

I have to note that I found this particular copy of Julie & Julia in the dumpster behind my apartment building.  However, it was way at the top of the dumpster and discovered on a bitterly cold March day, so it's not like I had to dive in there among festering heaps of garbage to pull it out.  The book wasn't with any other books so I don't think it was part of a group purge -- it just seemed like someone didn't like what they were reading and simply threw it out in protest.  Or they opened up their apartment window, hurled it off into the four winds and it happened to land in the dumpster below.

I read the book because I had heard much about it and then I saw the subsequent Meryl Streep/Amy Adams movie.  The film version of Julie & Julia, re-envisioned by the recently late great Nora Ephron, seemed more cohesive and left me with a stronger sense of the joy of food, cooking and life.  And I think that's how some other people and the Academy Award panel felt, but then again there is still a faction that prefers the edgier, more personal pace of the book, originally based on Julie Powell's blog.  And there's also a part of me that totally respects the frustration from whence her blog/book came, in terms of being trapped at a job that is just not where you want to be in life and wondering desperately how to escape.  The idea of taking on all of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking was brilliant, and I think if I'd kept up with it as a blog before it was published I would have really enjoyed each new post and recipe success/fiasco and getting to know Julie as well as Julia.  However, I can see where hardcore Julia Child fans or foodies might have expected something more sensual and richly paced like Under the Tuscan Sun, which is ironically, a better book than film.  So as the French say,  à chacun son goût, or everyone has his or her own taste and that's why books can earn 5 star Amazon reviews and/or end up in city dumpsters.

the great summer solstice

Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips, the two young women preceded us out onto a rosy-colored porch open toward the sunset where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.

"Why candles?" objected Daisy frowning.  She snapped them out with her fingers.  "In two weeks it'll be the longest day in the year."  She looked at us all radiantly.  "Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it?  I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it."

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

books, a cat and beautiful architecture

Selected Works Used Books is located in Chicago's Fine Arts Building in the south part of the Loop -- this photo was taken after hours when the bookstore was closed but Hodge, the resident literary cat, was clearly still on the watch.  Selected Works is a great place to visit and browse through, and the whole Fine Arts Building complex itself is a vintage architectural jewel that celebrates Chicago's cultural heritage while fostering today's creative community.    

beggars of life

Jim Tully (1886-1947) was an author and journalist known for his tough, realistic yet occasionally poetic style, perhaps best exemplified in his 1924 "hobo autobiography" titled Beggars of Life.  Tully ran away from an orphanage when he was fourteen to ride the rails, work odd jobs, and pursue his dream of becoming a writer by hanging out in libraries and reading everything he could.  He eventually found his way to publication, often recounting tales of his vagabond days.

Beggars of Life was made into a movie starring Wallace Beery and Louise Brooks, though parts of the book were toned down to fit Hollywood standards of the day. The book itself is an interesting historical read (though not at all politically correct) and a quirky odyssey of life on the road, while the 1928 film version of Beggars of Life was an early talkie and noted as being a great Louise Brooks' performance.  The particular printing of Beggars of Life that I have was published in 1928 by Grosset & Dunlap and has stills from the movie included; the original was published by Albert and Charles Boni, who took a chance on so many groundbreaking writers of the day.

A famous writer of tramp life said that the poor always give to the poor.  Writers should not make definite rules about humanity.  They are always wrong.

From Beggars of Life by Jim Tully

what do you reread?

Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who you are is true enough, but I'd know you better 
if you told me what you reread.  
 François Mauriac

(quote from www.quotegarden.com; 
1933 Mauriac photo from wikimedia commons)

things that people do in books

There are many swanky editions of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1920 breakthrough novel, This Side of Paradise, but one of my favorites is the Dover Thrift paperback, still a bargain at just $3.50.

Somewhere in his mind a conversation began, rather 

resumed its place in his attention. It was composed not 

of two voices, but of one, which acted alike as 

questioner and answerer:

Question.--Well--what's the situation?

Answer.--That I have about twenty-four dollars to my name....

Q.--Can you live?

A.--I can't imagine not being able to. People make money in books and
I've found that I can always do the things that people do in books.
Really they are the only things I can do. 

This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald 

captain alatriste

A paperback copy of this appeared mysteriously on my desk at work and I never did find out who left it there -- so to begin with, the novel had an aura of real life intrigue beyond the already swashbuckling story of Arturo Pérez-Reverte's Captain Alatriste in 17th century Spain.  It's not annoyingly swashbuckling or adventurous, however, and has fine notes of dark humor and character throughout.  In fact, when I first discovered the book I flipped through it and was hooked by this passage:

It was evident that he and his companion had seen death face to face, with no soft lights or heroic drumrolls, but in the dark, and nearly in the back, like rats in an alleyway and several leagues from anything resembling glory.

The original was published in 1996 and this is the Plume/Penguin 2005 translation.  Arturo Pérez-Reverte is also quite interesting to follow on Twitter, if you habla español and enjoy Twitter being used in a fun and historical-literary way.

moon and sixpence

This pictured Penguin edition of W. Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence seems to be from 1979, with a colorfully collaged but maybe vaguely racist cover.  Maugham's 1919 novel focuses on Charles Strickland, a British stockbroker who leaves his comfortable, business-oriented lifestyle to pursue a passion for painting.  The story parallels the true quest of Paul Gauguin, though Strickland doesn't really have the same charisma that Gauguin did -- or at least not for me.  Like many of Maugham's tales it involves the amiable and neutrally observing Maugham-narrator, who usually happens to stroll into an unfolding major drama and then becomes everyone's confidant.  Such as how Mrs. Strickland (Amy) asks our narrator to go find her husband in Paris after he suddenly abandons his family.  Our narrator protests, as he often does:

"But I've not spoken ten words to your husband.  He doesn't know me.  He'll probably just tell me to go to the Devil."

Still, Mrs. Strickland persists even though she doesn't know our narrator too well either, and of course he goes to Paris and beyond and that's how we get our story.

strange interlude

Not that I have any issues with Nook or Kindle -- I love them like I've loved every minute of the Internet Age -- but there are just so many used books on real paper out there from years gone by and they're still hard to resist.  They may be mildewed or dog-eared or stained with coffee, or they smell like someone's basement or attic or are full of crazy scrawled notes in the margins; they may have ridiculously dated cover art or the name of a total stranger written on the cover page -- but that's why they're irresistible.  They've been on mysterious journeys, traveled on planes and trains, ended up in yard sales or at thrift shops or -- if they're lucky -- at a good old-fashioned secondhand or rare bookstore. 

This particular book is really the play Strange Interlude by Eugene O'Neil in book form, published by Boni & Liveright in 1928.  Albert Boni and Horace Liveright re-energized American publishing in the early part of the 20th century by printing works by then-modernist authors like O'Neil and also Theodore Dreiser, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulker -- to name a few.  This edition of Strange Interlude has an inscription as you can see:

Charlotte

from 
Madge & Roy
-- Xmas 1928

You have to wonder who Charlotte was, along with Madge & Roy.  My guess is that they probably weren't too traditional since they were reading Boni & Liveright and because Xmas is used, something that wasn't too common back in the 1920s, i.e., leaving the Christ out of Christmas.  Otherwise the book cover is falling off of the binding and there seems to be a pawprint on the inside leaf.  Strange Interlude was found in a box of wayward books at a church sale, and I think it cost about 50 cents.

ACT ONE/SCENE:  The library of PROFESSOR LEEDS' home in a small university town in New England...a small room with a low ceiling.  The furniture has been selected with a love for old New England pieces.  The walls are lined almost to the ceiling with glassed-in bookshelves....