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Category Archives: Firefly
“The Hare with Amber Eyes” by Edmund De Waal
- Tuesday, 18 January 2011 12:27
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Well, THAT was a lovely weekend–I started AND finished a book, “The Hare with Amber Eyes” by Edmund De Waal, the first full book I’ve read from this year’s Notable Books list.
It’s nonfiction, De Waal’s family’s own story of a collection of netsuke, small Japanese figurines, that were purchased by a great-uncle in Paris in the 1870s, presented as a wedding gift to a young couple in 1899, and then very nearly lost when the Nazis took control of Vienna in 1938.
The story is much more than just the netsuke, it’s the story of a fabled Jewish banking family, the Ephrussi’s. They rose to prominence beginning with grain futures in the mid-1800s and rose to wealth and prominence, to have businesses in Odessa where they began, then Paris and Vienna also. De Waal looks back on their social prominence, the impact of their being Jewish, and how it all came crashing down with the Nazis. He creates a lovely braid of family memory, cultural life, and history. I felt such a sense of doom as the story approached the era of Hitler.
Looking back on what I will remember most from this book, three things come to mind. One is Charles Ephrussi, the young art collector, with an apartment jam-packed with Impressionist paintings and almost countless other art objects. De Waal contrasts that image of art-on-top-of-art with what we typically see in art museums now, one painting well-separated from another on a plain wall. The second, an image of the Ephrussi home in Vienna ransacked, priceless furniture dumped from one floor to another. Finally another is the return of the netsuke to an Ephrussi who makes his post-warhome in Tokyo, the collection restored to a lovely display case in the country where they were created.
What a great story. De Waal tells it well, though from time to time the pace seems to founder. De Waal, a ceramic artist, seems so practical and so down-to-earth in contrast to his wealthy ancestors. That alone provides a shot of energy at several turns.
I recommend this book generally, and especially to people who are interested in art, in history, or in collecting.
Willa Cather’s “One of Ours”
- Wednesday, 12 January 2011 12:33
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Today I’m returning a library copy of “One of Ours” by Willa Cather, her novel of Claude Wheeler, the Nebraska farmboy who joins the Army in World War One.
This novel earned Cather the Pulitzer Prize in 1922. Some observers have noted that the Pulitzer was awarded for this novel when it ought to have been given instead to “O Pioneers!” or “My Antonia,” earlier novels with a Nebraska setting.
I chose “One of Ours” because I recently visited the National World War One Museum in Kansas City, a remarkable place. I tend to have a short attention span in museums, but was held intellectual captive by this place for a good four hours. I’ve also set reading or re-reading books by Nebraska authors as one of my Reading Resolutions for 2011.
I’ll try not to give too much away about the novel in terms of its plot. In terms of character, Claude Wheeler suffers from a combination of a desire for a wonderful life, an intellectual life, a gracious life, a life bigger than the Wheeler farm, with an infuriating lack of grace in his own social skills. When he’s confused among people, he blushes and becomes angry. His marriage isn’t satisfactory. He catches a glimpse of the life he wants when he attends college in Lincoln, but then is caught in his father’s snare that returns him to the responsibility of the farm.
In many ways his time in Europe before he actually enters the trenches of the war re-ignites his passion for something bigger. He meets new people and sees how they live. He senses a return to excitement in his life. His troops respond to his leadership.
Cather is such a beloved and well-known Nebraska author that I’m reluctant to criticize her work. I will say that the book seems a little like Claude–a glimpse of something grand that is held back by a lack of grace. Yet I love Claude, as I still love this novel, for that romantic hope for something beyond what seems ordinary and everyday.
And the New Year (of Reading) Begins
- Monday, 10 January 2011 15:56
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Over the weekend, the Reference and User Services Division, a division of the American Library Association, rocked my reading world by announcing the 2011 Notable Books list.
Several of these titles are already quite popular. When I checked for them in our catalog, I had to join a request list. But I was able to check out “The Lonely Polygamist” by Brady Udall from the fiction portion, and “Citizens of London” by Lynne Olson from the nonfiction.
The libraries seldom close for snow days, and didn’t close today, but what a perfect day it would be for sitting down with one of these, feet up, warmly wrapped up, coffee or cocoa nearby, with hours of reading ahead.
Finally! “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
- Monday, 15 November 2010 16:02
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Saturday was gloriously free of obligations, so I spent much of the day finishing up “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson. I’d begun to think that I was the only reader in America who hadn’t read it yet. (I’d felt the same way about “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett, which I also recently completed.)
Set in Sweden, it’s a suspenseful telling of a business reporter tracking down the secrets of a prominent industrial family, helped out by an unusual young woman who is remarkably adept at finding information. What they discover together includes some harrowing bits.
I enjoyed feeling myself in the hands of a master plotter. I tried to pay close attention to those characters who were just barely introduced, thinking that surely they will return later with a bigger role to play. Certain relationships seemed entirely predictable, others surprising.
I wish that I could say it was better written, perhaps some of the clumsiness was due to the translation. I tend to believe that “it’s better to show than to say” in a novel. It seemed to me that often Larsson just got inside someone’s head and flat-out said what he or she was thinking instead of going to the work of showing us through that person’s actions and words.
Even so, like many others, I found myself compelled, reading for hours, looking forward to seeing the loose ends nicely tied–or horrifically tied, as the case may be. I appreciate its look at one of the world’s compelling questions–how do people overcome the remarkable evil done to them?
“One Good Turn”
- Monday, 08 November 2010 13:40
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Over the weekend, I finished “One Good Turn” by Kate Atkinson. Enjoyed it immensely–a novel of several braided lives, woven around an initial road rage incident. Contemporary. Set in Edinburgh. The second book about Jackson Brodie.
What I loved about it at first was that the action begins immediately–the road rage incident. I wasn’t quite so excited when the next half-dozen or so people were introduced into the action, slowing things down. But it picked up again. I love this kind of fiction, love feeling in the hands of someone who’s crafted a series of events that will eventually make sense.
I appreciated the various characters–a man who writes cozy mysteries and is hiding a hideous secret of his own, a hitman who seems to get very little attention, the wife of a crooked financier, a Russian woman who keeps turning up at unlikely times, Jackson Brodie the former policeman, and many more.
I realize that when I read a “braided lives” novel, I usually prefer one or two of the story lines over others. In this case, I especially liked Jackson Brodie, a good sign since Atkinson is crafting a series around him. As the story progressed, a few times I realized that I should have paid better attention earlier on, as someone who was introduced and then fell to the background was brought back to the spotlight.
All in all, a well-written and well-crafted mystery.
I found it by looking back at past “New York Times best of the year” lists, in this case, the list from 2006. These lists of 100 titles have enough to include a wide variety of potential books. I’ve found some of my favorite books by fishing through those lists–I recommend that you take a look for your own next read.