birds & bees & the city: minot's "lust & other stories"

disclaimer: i wanted to get this review done before leaving for mississippi but, obviously, didn't, what with all the packing and paperwork and all that jazz... so i am sorry this is not as in-depth as i would have liked it to be, but i really wanted to let you know about this book in any case. 

i guess you'll just have to read it for yourself if you want more.

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"lust" is another book i picked off the public bookshelf. these are short short stories, and like the title story, all of them are about, well, lust. physical love. how boys and girls, men and women are and are not made for each other, how they click and don't click, how love and Love do not always overlap.

this is from the title story, one in a series of memories of boys past:

You'd go on walks to get off campus. It was raining like hell, my sweater sopped as a wet sheep. Tim pinned me to a tree, the woods light brown and dark brown, a white house half hidden with the lights already on. The water was as loud as a crowd hissing. He made certain comments about my forehead, about my cheeks. (p.4)

minot's narrator is straight-forward, honest, and observant. the book starts out with the narrator's memories of growing up, noticing how boys and men begin to act differently, treat her (and other girls) differently, how she experiences adolescence:

Certain nights you'd feel a certain surrender, maybe if you'd had wine. The surrender would be forgetting yourself and you'd put your nose to his neck and feel like a squirrel, safe, at rest, in a restful dream. But then you'd start  to slip from that and the dark would come in and there'd be a cave. (p.7)

the stories are subtle, yet frank. from teenagers via hipsters to liaised couples and old friends, minot creates and illuminates love in its peculiar and commonplace forms, its complications and effects. this is not a collection of romance stories. it is not sappy. it is also not a sexy sort of book. it is, however, intimate and personal and intensely interesting. 

pale horse, pale rider (porter)

i have to admit i had never heard of porter before a friend recommended "pale horse, pale rider" to me. the book contains three short stories (or, novels as the author preferred to call them, detesting the word "novella"): 

1. old mortality
2. noon wine
3. pale horse, pale rider

the copy i have is a browned, formerly eggshell coloured 1962 signet paperback that, undeniably, must have spent years on a smoker's shelf - not read, but exposed to lots of smoke. the lower quarter of the spine is brittle with a tear like it's been bent, but otherwise it is a good reading copy. this group of stories was first published in the 1930s. 

detail from "apocalypse"
by vasnetsov

i started with the title story, pale horse, pale rider, which in this edition (but not in all) comes last. the title is a reference to the four horsemen of the apocalypse: the fourth horseman is death, on a pale horse. porter's tells the tale of two lovers who cannot be together because of world war 1, as well as a portrait of the circumstances of miranda, a young journalist who is the focal point of the story.

the whole, for me, falls into four parts: a very short part at the beginning, where she "meets" the pale rider, then her work and economic concerns, meeting adam, and the influenza. the first and last part, rather dream-like and disorienting, not only drew me in but drained me of energy while reading, while the other parts are much more clear and, i guess, illustrate her lucid state of mind.

old mortality i found easier to read. at times, i fell in love with little passages here and there. this story is split intentionally into three parts:

part 1: 1885 - 1902
part 2: 1904
part 3: 1912

in part 1 we meet the sisters miranda (8 at the time) and maria (12), who see their family and their own destinies through the stories about other family members. (this miranda may well be the same person as in pale horse, pale rider, only younger, and, in the last part, older.) the grandmother is instrumental in making those stories "real" in the sense that she is the keeper of tangible evidence to go with the stories: letters, photographs, a wedding dress.

Photographs, portraits by inept painters who meant earnestly to flatter, and the festival garments folded away in dry herbs and camphor were disappointing when the girls tried to the living beings created in their minds by the breathing words of their elders. Grandmother, compelled in her blood twice a year by the change of seasons, would sit nearly all of one day beside old trunks and boxes in the lumber room, unfolding layers of garments and small keepsakes; she spread them out on sheets on the floor around her, crying over certain things, nearly always the same things, looking again at pictures in velvet cases, unwrapping locks of hair and dried flowers, crying gently and easily as if tears were the only pleasure she had left. 

If Maria and Miranda were very quiet, and touched nothing until it was offered, they might sit by her at these times, or come and go. There was a tacit understanding that her grief was strictly her own, and must not be noticed or mentioned. (p.11)

apart from the girls, their aunt amy, whom they have never met, is an important, if absent character here.
after refusing his advances for years, and after a scandal at a dance and a shooting, amy suddenly decides to give in to gabriel and marry him. some weeks after the wedding, she dies. mysterious aunt amy is important to the girls, even if the painting of her does not strike either girl as beautiful. in the family's stories, and hence in their minds, amy is (was) wonderful.

the defining impact of stories told on their perception of reality goes further than idealized family members: when their father takes them to see some shakespeare plays (they are not allowed trivial entertainment),

Miranda thought the magnificent lady in black velvet was truly the Queen of Scots, and was pained to know that the real Queen had died long ago, and not at all on the night she, Miranda, had been present. (p. 15)

part two tells of the two sisters' time away from home, in a convent school in new orleans. miranda has, in the meantime, decided she will never grow into a tall beautiful woman, and toys with the idea of becoming a race jockey. both girls have strong ideas about stories. when they come across a fiction paperback, they read it but do not take it seriously, taking from the book just one word: "immured" - as a more romantic adjective for their time at the school. (p. 31)

It was no good at all trying to fit the stories to life, and they did not even try. They had long since learned to draw the lines between life, which was real and earnest, and the grave was not its goal; poetry, which was true but not real; and stories, or forbidden reading matter, in which things happened as nowhere else,  with the most sublime irrelevance and unlikelihood, and one need not turn a hair, because there was not a word of truth in them. (p. 32)

during the time at the convent, the girls briefly meet uncle gabriel, who is nothing like the romantic poet they had constructed in their minds from the stories they were told, and his hostile second wife.

the last part takes place on a train, as miranda, then 18 and recently married, travels to uncle gabriel's funeral. by chance, she meets old cousin eva, whom she has never met before and also only heard stories about. the stories mainly focused on eva's lack of a decent chin and her (supposedly) consequential life as a spinster. during the train ride, cousin eva tells a different version of the stories about amy and gabriel and the shooting. miranda comes away disillusioned and with the conviction that, at least, she will know the truth of her own life, her own story.

noon wine - a gripping story. i am trying to think what i can say about it without giving too much away, because this story relies much on plot events, and not so much on the characters' internal goings-ons as the other two. i hope you'll read the story anyhow, and if you don't want spoilers do not read past the following paragraph! :)

the setting: the title refers to a (real or fictitious) scandinavian drinking song about waking up feeling so great that one drinks all the wine ("likker") normally saved for the lunch break in the morning already, and feels even better. now, the story is set in south texas, and the notion of feeling great while drunk and working on the farm strikes farm owner mr thompson as bizarre, since he can barely stand the heat sober. the man who plays this song every day on his harmonica, mr helton, never touches a drop of alcohol for as long as thompson knows him. mr helton appears out of nowhere (well, out of north dakota) and asks for work, which mr thompson is happy to provide him with, for low wages. helton is a quiet character, very private and not always polite, but a hard worker and very good at what he does (tending the animals, making butter, straightening out the farm, later even making cheese for them to sell) and becomes almost a part of the family over the years.

--- spoilers ---

after many years, a stranger appears in search of helton. he makes some unsettling claims about the man who has been helping the thompson family immensely for years. he tells thompson that helton is an escaped lunatic, and a murderer at that, and the farm owner realizes this is a bounty hunter of sorts. he has to take sides. when thompson refuses to help him capture and handcuff helton, the stranger pulls out a knife. helton, hearing the argument, comes to thompsons' aid and there is a brief fight - believing the stranger is stabbing, even killing helton, thompson tries to knock him out with an axe, killing him accidentally. helton runs but then dies when caught. there are no knife wounds on him, but still, thompson goes free, claiming self-defense. despite the verdict (that he is not guilty) nobody believes him.  a week after the trial, having told his side of the story to every single neighbour, finding his wife stricken with panic attacks at night, and hearing his sons warn him not to ever do her any harm again, he gives up, writes one last testimony and shoots himself in the fields.

--- end of spoilers ---

if you wanted to, you could look at the images of manliness in this story. mr thompson has clear ideas about what is "man's work" and what is "woman's work" and what is "paid help's work". helton does not, apparently. (p. 74) there is also the passage where thompson and the stranger compare their stumps of chewing tobacco. (p. 91). you'll find some more stuff in here if you want.

anyway, thanks for recommendation, i am glad i read this. all three stories (novels) are very different from each other and well-written and interesting in their own way.

"it's not a sin to have feelings" (Gay Mormons?)

i told you in an earlier post that i was reading this, and that i would tell you more about it soon. today is "soon." the book, Gay Mormons?, is now available and so, now seems like a good time to talk about it.

brent kerby's book is a collection of over 30 different personal stories of latter-day-saints (nicknamed "mormon") and their experiences with same-sex-attraction (ssa). the contributors speak of how they came to realize they were not heterosexual, they speak of their fears and feelings of guilt, but they also speak of their hopes and wishes. they are sons, daughters, parents, girl/boyfriends, spouses with partners of the other or the same gender.

each story is different, yet there are some recurring themes, the strongest of which has to be the common desire for a meaningful, trusting relationship with another person - something pretty much every human being experiences, no matter what their orientation. this collection makes it very clear that those who feel attracted only or mainly to their own gender do not do so simply out of lust,  and that a homosexual relationship can be (and often is) based on love just as much as any heterosexual relationship.

another commonality is having to deal with the conflict between the teachings they grew up with and the feelings and experiences they are having. what do you do when the religion, the community you trust in and live with every day of your life tells you that what you are feeling is not right? some contributors tell of their failed attempts at reconciling their faith and their orientation, others tell of success, while others again are still trying to figure things out for themselves.

since the family unit of husband, wife and children is an important focal point in the church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints (as in many other churches), and many lessons in sunday school and other meetings center around this configuration, it is not easy for church members who know that they will / can never form such a family to feel included. much like single working moms, they may feel judged by others for the way they lead their lives, - others who do not understand their situation. the idea that ssa is a "choice", a more or less conscious decision that can be reversed if one simply wants it enough is still wide-spread.

some homosexual church members may enter into a heterosexual marriage in an attempt to "do what's right", some choose to never marry, live in a celibate relationship, or stay alone. others may turn away from the church community. some people may find the conflict irreconcilable and go into a deep depression or even try to take their own lives.

the book aims at giving people who experience ssa a voice, sharing the ideas, worries, and hopes others might otherwise not be aware of. as the editor of this work, brent kerby has done his homework: he has researched the church's official position on this topic and provides quotes and also a list of resources for those who want to read further. he has also paid much attention to keeping the tone in these stories helpful, - honest and straightforward, and free of anger or personal accusation.

these are real stories, from the lives of real people, most of whom were happy to see them printed under their real name. only a few contributors opted for a pseudonym. i think this book will be interesting to anyone who wants to know about mormons and ssa, to understand their experience. it will be particularly interesting to those latter-day-saints who experience ssa or have a friend, family member, spouse, or other acquaintance who does.

in the introduction one general authority of the church is quoted as saying that we (here: the members of the church, but i think it goes for all of us really) need to be more loving and more tolerant of those around us. we need to re-examine our own ideas and preconceptions. we need to see beyond theoretical rules, the letter of the law, and make sure we look at the person, their heart, their desires, their hopes.

the book is now available at amazon: 
http://www.amazon.com/Gay-Mormons-Latter-day-Experiences-Same-Gender/dp/1461034221/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303441945&sr=8-4

dusty answer (rosamond lehmann)

i finished dusty answer, and just in time too - while the book was in impeccable shape when i found it, it had been sitting on shelves in this family for the past 75 years or so and, well, i am guessing that i was its first (and probably its last) reader. the glue of the binding is breaking and the paper cover has begun to peel a little, despite my usual carefulness with books.

anyway, let me tell you about the book!
(spoiler alert: you might not want to read this if you still want to read the book for the simple enjoyment of it, because i am going to tell you what happens and how it ends!)

rosamond lehmann
(1901-1990)

the plot of "dusty answer" is simple, if you like: judith spends the duration of the novel trying to figure out who she loves, should love, should be loved by, or should not be loved by. her fixation is on roddy, although both martin and julian, who also lived next door to her as children, were kinder and nicer to her. when they grow up, judith is in for a bit of a surprise, - roddy sometimes plays along with her secret dreams, but also keeps odd company:

Tony Baring sat opposite and stared with liquid expressive blue eyes. He had a sensitive face, changing all the time, a wide mouth with beautiful sensuous lips, thick black hair and a broad white forehead with the eyebrows meeting above the nose, strongly marked and mobile. When he spoke he moved them, singly or together. His voice was soft and precious, and he had a slight lisp. He looked like a young poet.

so far so good, but -

Suddenly she noticed his hands - thin unmasculine hands - queer hands - making nervous appealing ineffectual gestures that contradicted the nobility of his head. She heard him call Roddy 'my dear'; and once 'darling'; and had a passing shock. (pp98-99)

not that roddy himself acts "unmasculine" - a little later he tells her about his past lovers: he's had "a French, an Austrian, a Russian - countless mistresses." (p.216)

then, there's jennifer baird, a stunning creature she meets at cambridge.

'Have you got a cigarette? Never mind... I've just learnt how to blow smoke-rings. I'll teach you.' More whistling. 'It's terrible to be so swayed by appearances. I'm afraid it's a sign of a weak character. Ugly people rouse all Hell's devils in me. And beautiful ones make me feel like the morning stars singing together. I want beauty, beauty, beauty.... Don't you? Lovely people round me, lovely stuffs, lovely colours - lashions and lashions of gorgeous things to touch and taste and look at and smell.' She flung her head back on its round white throat and took a deep sighing breath. 'O colours!... I could eat them. I'm awfully sensuous - I look it, don't you think? Or do I mean sensual? I always get them muddled; but I know it's unladylike to be one of them.' (pp.121-122)

jennifer's lust for life and her careless spontaneousness mesmerize judith.

'You love somebody, I think. Who is it you love?'

'I love nobody.'

Jennifer must never never know, suspect, dream for a moment....

'You mustn't love anybody,' said Jennifer. 'I should want to kill him. I should be jealous.' Her brooding eyes fell heavily on Judith's lifted face. 'I love you.'

And at those words, that look, Roddy faded again harmlessly: Jennifer blinded and enfolded her senses once more, and only Jennifer had power. (p.134)

when jennifer leaves cambridge, dropping out of school for mysterious reasons (to be with geraldine), she leaves judith a copper bowl that judith apparently had admired, with the comment that it was the nicest thing she'd ever owned, and more:

'It's all of me,' whispered Jennifer. (p.186)

left with questions, the promise of a letter with answers, and a copper bowl, judith focuses on roddy once again. she finally finds out, the hard way, that he is not the person she has been imagining for all these years after he takes offense at her passionate admission of her feelings towards him. after a romantic, secret midnight canoe-trip to a small island where he intends to say goodbye forever, and for some reason tells her he loves her (and they kiss passionately), she sends him a letter, which is causes the following exchange:

'Well,' - he hesitated. 'If a man wants to ask a girl to - marry him he generally asks her himself - do you see?'

'You mean - it was outrageous of me not to wait - to write like that?'

'I thought it a little odd.' (p.235)

they decide to never see each other again. heartbroken, still waiting for jennifer to explain herself in the promised letter, she moves on to martin, who introduces her to his mother and shows her his farm. he shoots a rabbit right in front of her, which reminds her of roddy who, unable to bear her sadness at the sight of a dead rabbit when they were children, buried the creature for her. reduced to a pile of sobbing misery, she lets martin comfort her and when he, too, tells her he loves her, she suggests he marry her, saying she would be his wife.

she knows it is the wrong thing to do, she does not love him, and breaks up the engagement a day later. they part, and never meet again. finally, julian, the last of the boys next door, finds her in paris, explaining that he had been waiting for his turn, and courts her. they have a great time together until they hear martin has died. their ways part. julian writes to her to tell her they also must not meet again.

finally, judith is on her own, and the long-awaited letter from jennifer arrives. jennifer also wants to not see judith again, explaining that while she still loves her, she does not deserve judith's love and concern. judith wants to see her again and they arrange to meet in cambridge. when jennifer doesn't show up, judith realizes she has come full circle and is now free.


i have to say the first hundred pages or so were tedious. the style, the character of judith, her thought patterns took some getting used to. the middle part, where she is at cambridge, is much more readable, more enjoyable because of all the beautiful descriptions and because things actually happen, while in the first part, it's mainly judith thinking about stuff.

why did i read the book in the first place?
because i was curious. the book itself, the physical object, was interesting to me (see previous post about albatross books), and seeing that rosamond lehmann was involved with the bloomsbury group and also quoted by simone de beauvoir made me even more curious. also, i will admit that the comment (on wikipedia) that "dusty answer" was a succes de scandale was a selling point. :)

this book is all about emotions, muchly so because judith is nothing but emotions and wonderings.

the men we meet in 'dusty answer' are unmasculine (tony), plain (martin), and hypermasculine (roddy), its women childlike (mariella, who even after having born her son still acts and looks like a child), unfeminine (geraldine, mabel) and hyperfeminine (jennifer).

judith is trying to find her way through this maze, and it is only toward the end that she realizes how much power she holds over how people react to her, how they see her. in the end, she realizes she as one single person had enough power to break apart the circle of familiar friends of the kids next door.

the dervish and the homemaker (elif shafak)

"Oh, it's no big deal, " Ella rushed to  explain now. "I'm only a part-time reader for a literary agent."
But David seemed determined not to let her think too little of her new job. "Come on, tell them it's a well-known agency," he urged, nudging her, and when she refused to comply, he heartily agreed with himself. "It's a prestigious place, Esther. You should see the other assistants! Girls and boys fresh out of the best colleges. Ella is the only one going back to work after being a housewife for years. Now, isn't she something?"
Ella wondered if, deep inside, her husband felt guilty about keeping her away from a career, or else about cheating on her - these being the only two explanations she could think of as to why he was now going overboard with his enthusiasm. Still smiling, David concluded, "This is what I call chutzpah. We're all proud of her."
"She is a prize. Always was," said Aunt Esther in a voice so sentimental that it sounded as if Ella had left the table and was gone for good.
They all gazed at her lovingly. Even Avi didn't make a cynical remark, and Orly for once seemed to care about something other than her looks. Ella forced herself to appreciate this moment of kindness, but she felt an overwhelming exhaustion that she had never experienced before. She secretly prayed for someone to change the subject. (pp.6-7)

and this is how it all starts. for her first assignment, ella is to read and critique a manuscript titled sweet blasphemy which tells the story of famed poet and mystic rumi and his friendship with shams of trabriz, a wandering dervish. set in anatolia in the 1200s, this story nonetheless has a very real effect on the life of ella rubinstein, jewish american mother of teenage twins and a daughter about to marry for love. which brings us to the word that keeps popping up in this book: love. this book, in short, is all about love. not in the saccharine sappy sort of way, not in the mere physical sort of way, - this is mystic, spiritual love we are talking about.

... someone comes along and makes you realize what you have been missing all this time. Like a mirror that reflects what is absent rather than present, he shows you the void in your soul - the void you have resisted seeing. That person can be a lover, a friend, or a spiritual master. Sometimes it can be a child to look after. What matters is to find the soul that will complete yours. All the prophets have given the same advice: Find the one who will be your mirror! For me that mirror is Shams of Tabriz.
... It's as if for years on end you compile a personal dictionary. In it you give your definition of every concept that matters to you, such as "truth," "happiness," or "beauty." At every major turning point in your life, you refer to this dictionary, hardly ever feeling the need to question its premises. Then one day a stranger comes and snatches your precious dictionary and throws it away. (p.192)

this book walks a fine line. so much has been said and written about love that almost anything one could say or write now, overtly, about love, would be repetition, or a breach of copyright (who holds the copyright to love?), or wading into cliché. shafak takes the risk, talks about love, introduces us to a number of memorable, strong characters through their own voices and the voices of those who care about them, fear them, love them.

and yes, of course the book talks about the Quran. how could it not, when its central characters are passionate scholars of Islam, of religion, of God. the central theme however are the forty rules of love already mentioned in the title.

i am an unlikely reader for this book, at first glance: impatient (poetry is my fiction! short books rule!), feminist, not interested in history-themed stuff, and the type of person not to pick up anything with "love" in the title. the reason i did read this book (well, i am two thirds of the way through) is that my friend p. gave it to me, saying, "you'll like this." she hadn't even finished reading it yet, but she gave it to me anyway, saying she would read it over again in turkish. :-) thank you, p! this is quite the book, and i am enjoying it very much. i am learning much, and, like ella, i am noticing how the ideas and ideals inside shams of tabriz are getting me to think, to look at things from a different angle. if that's not a good think in a book, in a work of art, then i don't know what is.

elif shafak's forty rules of love is very readable, it is by far not as dark as i feared it might be, in fact it is enjoyable and interesting and thought provoking. spiritually and intellectually stimulating.