From Harry Potter-style mega-hits to controversy over banned books to hot competition for literary prizes, there is never a dull moment in the book world. Chapter & Verse keeps readers up-to-date on the latest in literary headlines. Check in with us daily to learn about books and their people - those who write them and those who love them.
A Rose for Emily
I well remember the first time I read Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily.” My father, who was a high school English teacher, had an old volume of classic American short stories.
All were illustrated by beautiful old black and white photos. Of these photos, I now only remember two.
To illustrate a Sarah Orne Jewett story, there was a heavily textured photo of a pine tree. To illustrate “A Rose for Emily,” there was a picture of an impossibly ornate antebellum Southern mansion. But the mansion was no longer in its glory. Like Emily in the story, it was faded and sad and no longer loved.
“A Rose for Emily” may not seem an obvious choice for a volume of love stories.
And yet it is, of course, in its own sad way, a love story indeed, as are all the selections in Jeffrey Eugenides’s “My Mistress’s Sparrow Is Dead: Great Love Stories from Chekhov to Munro.”
If you’re a reader, many of these will already be familiar to you. But they are well worth the re-reading. To see the Monitor’s review of “My Mistress’s Sparrow Is Dead,” click here.
A most considerate poet
I just saw a 1999 quote by Ted Kooser taken from a piece in the Midwest Quarterly. It reminded me why this former US poet laureate is so easy to love.
“Every stranger’s tolerance for poetry is compromised by much more important demands on his or her time,” says Kooser.
“Therefore, I try to honor my reader’s patience and generosity by presenting what I have to say as clearly and succinctly as possible .... Also, I try not to insult the reader’s good sense by talking down; I don’t see anything to gain by alluding to intellectual experiences that the reader may not have had.
"I do what I can to avoid being rude or offensive; most strangers, understandably, have a very low tolerance for displays of pique or anger or hysteria. Being harangued by a poet rarely endears a reader.
"I am also extremely wary of over cleverness; there is a definite limit to how much intellectual showing off a stranger can tolerate.”
To read the Monitor’s review of “Valentines,” Kooser’s new book of love poems, click here.
The best and worst of the written word
Here’s an interesting item from Shelf Awareness, the blog aimed at independent bookstore owners:
Belgrade is book crazy. According to Balkan Travellers, “whether from a nostalgia for its existence as an imperial centre or as an escape from reality, the literary obsession of the Serbian capital grows with every passing season. . . . While in Rome nightlife is based around the fountains, in Amsterdam around the beer locales and in Southern France around the bistros, in Serbia’s capital the night begins and ends among books.”
Not all booklovers’ options are positive ones, however: “Beside simply bad literature, there are also examples that chill to the bones--one of the centrally-located bookstores until today specialises in the sale of books oriented against various ethnic and religious groups on the Balkans.”
It’s the price those of us who live in free societies pay for the right to read what we like – others have the same right. It’s nice though to know that in Belgrade, “the night begins and ends among books.”
Why you feel better when you pet a dog
I recently found the following on a website devoted to the topic of “pet therapy”: “The profound satisfaction of living with a dog and the therapeutic qualities of their mere presence has been demonstrated in many stories of peoples’ experiences as well as clinical studies.
A number of well known studies have shown that petting a dog, in some cases, even being in the same room as a dog, has a calming effect on people, reducing blood pressure and heart rate.”
I’ve been living with a dog for six years now and no one has to convince me. I started feeling better the minute that she stepped into my apartment for the first time and that sense of well-being has only deepened with the passage of time.
But for many people (dog-lovers or not), the mind-body connection demonstrated in the kinds of studies that show that dogs (and other animals) are good for the health remains mysterious and hard to accept.
For those who are curious (not necessarily about the animal side of the equation, but about the mind-body connection in general), a good place to begin investigating is “The Mind Cure: A History of Mind-Body Medicine” by Anne Harrington.
Harrington is a Harvard University professor and respected scholar. She traces the mind-body connection through the centuries.
She doesn’t try to force higher conclusions about what she has observed, but she does make a strong case that this is an area ripe for further study.
To see the Monitor’s review of “The Cure Within,” click here.
Life in the Celtic Tiger
In “Paula Spencer,” Roddy Doyle’s last novel, his characters reflect on the changes that have come to Ireland, their country.
To them it seems that they went to sleep one night in the old familiar Ireland and woke up the next day in the strange new Celtic Tiger.
For her birthday, Paula (the protagonist of the title) treats herself to a visit to a new Italian cafe. When she and her neighbor, Rita, pass a store named “Pride and Joy,” Rita says that she knew the country was changing when the first kids’ clothing shops opened.
“They were the proof, said Rita. - People had more money than they needed. It’s great. I noticed them before all the new cars, said Rita. - And the talk about house prices. Even all the cranes.” And while 10 years ago Paula cleaned offices with other Irishwomen, today she works with “men from Romania and Nigeria.”
These new images of Ireland are at the heart of “The Deportees,” Doyle’s latest collection of stories.
Ireland is now the land of immigrants and not too surprisingly there’s a certain amount of friction between the new and old residents.
“Today, one in every ten people living in Ireland wasn’t born here,” writes Doyle. It’s a phenomenon worth studying and that’s exactly what Doyle’s stories do. To see Heller McAlpin’s review of “The Deportees,” click here.
‘I don’t like short stories’
Heller McAlpin begins her review for us today by listing the three comments she hears most often as a book critic: “I don’t have time to read,” “I don’t like short stories,” and “I only read nonfiction.” For my money, Heller is exactly on target – or maybe we just meet the same people. All I know is that I hear the exact same things time and again. The second comment: “I don’t like short stories” surprises me because so many of the readers who say this to me are avid consumers of fiction – yet for some reason they don’t care for the short forum.
That’s why it was refreshing to wander onto Literary Network Forums (http://www.online-literature.com) and see the results of their poll asking online readers to indicate their favorite short stories.
Two of my favorite responses were lists:
“The Snowstorm” by Pushkin.
“A lodging for the night” by R.L.Stevenson.
“Two gallants” by Joyce.
“A canary for one” by E.Hemingway.
“The Day We Got Drunk on Cake” by William Trevor
and
I can’t choose just one (the respondent wrote...)
“A White Heron,” Sarah Orne Jewett
“Big Two-Hearted River,” Hemingway
“Fleur” and “Saint Marie,” Louise Erdrich
“Red Leaves,” William Faulkner
“Blackberry Winter,” Robert Penn Warren
“Entropy,” Thomas Pynchon
For anyone who doesn’t like short stories, the above would make an excellent sampler platter, possibly capable of changing some minds. (As might a reading of “Cheating at Canasta.” See Heller’s review for us as well.) But for those who do like short stories, please write and tell us: What do you think are the best?
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