Opening Sentence of the Day: The Miserable Mill

"Sometime during your life -- in fact, very soon -- you may find yourself reading a book, and you may notice that a book's first sentence can often tell you what sort of story your book contains." -- The Miserable Mill, by Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Fourth. The very reason I keep track of opening sentences here on RCR. After more discussion of the purpose of first sentences, Mr. Snicket explains that the first sentence of this story is "The Baudelaire orphans looked out the grimy windows of the train and gazed at the gloomy blackness of the Finite Forest, wondering if their lives would ever get any better" and warns that "if you wish to avoid an unpleasant story you had best put this book down." The back cover goes further, explaining the the unpleasantries inside include "a giant pincher machine" and "a bad casserole." Oh, no! It is this arch tone and intentional inversion of the fairy tale happily-ever-after idea that makes these books so fun. Over the last few years, I have nibbled through the first three Lemony Snicket books. I don't usually read children's books, but my sister turned me on to these. They make me giggle. I just wish they had existed when I was a kid.

Extra Opening Sentence of the Day: My Uncle Oswald

"I am beginning, once again, to have an urge to salute my Uncle Oswald." -- My Uncle Oswald by Roald Dahl. OK, this isn't the opening sentence of this day. It was the opening sentence of a week ago last Tuesday. But I forgot to post it then. The book is long since finished and reviewed.

Opening Sentence of the Day: High Fidelity

"My desert-island, all-time, top five most memorable split-ups, in chronological order: 1. Alison Ashworth 2. Penny Hardwick 3. Jackie Allen 4. Charlie Nicholson 5. Sarah Kendrew." -- High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. This is going to be pure fun. I watched the movie when it came out and loved it. But I did not realize it was a book. Normally, my rule is to read the book first, then wait a while and watch the movie. Since I saw the movie of this first, I waited for several years to read the book. Maybe a little weird, but I wanted to wait until I forgot the details.

Author of the Day: M. F. K. Fisher

M. F. K. Fisher -- born Mary Frances Kennedy -- created a literary genre by writing about "the art of eating" and her life with food. I love, love, love her books.

Some of them are hard to find, so I may never get to finish this list, but I hope so. Those I have read are in red. Those currently on my TBR shelf are in blue.

Serve it Forth (1937)

Consider the Oyster (1941)

How to Cook a Wolf (1942)

The Gastronomical Me (1943)

Here Let Us Feast, A Book of Banquets (1946)

Not Now But NOW (1947) (a novel)

An Alphabet for Gourmets (1949)

The Physiology of Taste [translator] (1949)

A Cordial Water: A Garland of Odd & Old Receipts to Assuage the Ills of Man or Beast (1961)

The Story of Wine in California (1962)

Map of Another Town: A Memoir of Provence (1964)

Two Kitchens in Provence (1966) (an almost impossible to find novel)

The Cooking of Provincial France (1969)

With Bold Knife and Fork (1969)

Among Friends (1971)

A Considerable Town (1978)

Not a Station but a Place (1979)

As They Were (1982)

Sister Age (1983)

Spirits of the Valley (1985) (another extremely rare volume)

Dubious Honors (1988)

The Boss Dog: A Story of Provence (1990) (a novel)

Long Ago in France: The Years in Dijon (1991)

To Begin Again: Stories and Memoirs 1908 - 1929 (1992)

Stay Me, Oh Comfort Me: Journals and Stories 1933-1941 (1993)

Last House: Reflections, Dreams and Observations 1943-1991 (1995)

A Life in Letters(1997)

From the Journals of M.F.K. Fisher (1999)

Review: A Yellow Raft in Blue Water

In his first novel, A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, Michael Dorris tells the entwined stories of three generations of American Indian women. The first section is told by 15 year old Rayona, the second by Rayona’s mother Christine, and the third by Christine’s mother Ida.

The theme is the braiding together of the lives of these three headstrong women and their extended families. Parts of each story show up in the others, with the same scenes told from a different perspective at the same time new material is brought in by each narrator. While not a unique approach, Dorris handles it well.

The problem is that the characters are not likable. Rayona is a good person and trying hard, but she is so well-armored that she is not approachable. Given her upbringing, her hard shell in understandable, but it is only at the end of her story, when she breaks out and we see her potential, does she become interesting. Christine is too angry and self-destructive to like, although as she bounces from one bad decision to another, it is possible to feel sorry for her. Ida is the toughest nut of all and it is heartbreaking to watch her intentional choices set the wheels in motion.

Yellow Raft brings to life the Native American concept of “historical trauma” – that “history has caused trauma and unresolved intergenerational grief and how this trauma and grief is passed from one generation to the next.” But that is a difficult concept to contemplate and Dorris does not make it easy.


OTHER REVIEWS

Please leave a link to your review in a comment and I will list it here.

NOTE

This was my "yellow" book choice for the Colorful Reading Challenge.