Teaser Tuesday Two-fer

"He thought intelligence a function of the individual and that groups of persons were intelligent in inverse proportion to their size.  Nations had the brain of an amoeba whereas a committee approached the condition of a trainable moron."

-- Bech: A Book by John Updike.

This is a novel-in-short-stories about a fictitious American novelist named Henry Bech. It is the first of a trilogy, followed by Bech is Back and Bech at Bay. 

This has renewed my faith in Updike after my somewhat disappointing run in with The Witches . . . and The Widows of Eastwick a few months back. 

"In most places and at most times, appreciation of savor in food has usually gone cheek by jowl with appreciation of beauty in women. The pleasures of the table have a natural affinity with the pleasures of the bed."

-- The Food of France by Waverley Root.  Well said, Waverly. 

While not given much to anecdote, Root does occasionally offer this kind of amusing generalization in his comprehensive account of the regional foods of France.

This is on my French Connections list and is the first book I am reading for the Foodie's Reading Challenge. It will also count as one of my Chunkster Challenge books, coming in at exactly 450 pages, plus an introduction.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Happy Birthday, George Washington!

The story of Washington chopping down the cherry tree loomed large in my childhood, but I never think of it as an adult. It took me a minute to think why a hatchet symbolizes George Washington.

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at The Printed Page, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here).

The Library of Clean Reads is hosting in February.

I got two books last week:



Broken: My Story of Addiction and Redemption by William Cope Moyers.  The author is the son of Bill Moyers and a former journalist himself.  He struggled with drugs and alcohol for years, before getting himself cleaned up.  He now is the vice president for external affairs at Hazelden Foundation, which provides addiction treatment and recovery services across the country.

I saw Moyer speak here in Portland last week.  He is an ardent speaker who told his story with animation and humor. Hopefully the book will be just as good.



Maps and Shadows by Krysia Jopek.  This is a novel based on the WWII experiences of the author's relatives, who were sent to Siberia from Poland during the war, then spent years drifting around the Middle East and Africa before reuniting and moving to America.  It looks terrific and I am going to turn to it soon.

Vicarious Opening Sentence: Sunken Klondike Gold

"If you travel to southeastern Alaska by water, your route will likely include Stephens Passage, a part of the Inside Passage between Skagway and Juneau."

Sunken Klondike Gold: How a Lost Fortune Inspired an Ambitious Effort to Raise the S.S. Islander by Leonard H. Delano.

It's actually my husband reading this book, which is why this is a "vicarious" opening sentence.  He nabbed it off my stack of Guilt List books the day it arrived.  It is just his kind of book -- a real life adventure story about sunken treasure, chock-o-block with photos of the salvage operation and historical pictures of the Klondike Gold Rush and people involved in the ship's sinking.

From what I observe, he loves this book. For one thing, he keeps exclaiming while he reads, "I love this book."  Other clues are: "This is a terrific book!" "These pictures are amazing!" And, "What a story!"

Review of the Day: 99 Novels

99 Novels: The Best in English Since 1939 by Anthony Burgess.

It was the arrival of 1984 (the year, not the book) that inspired Burgess to compile a list of what he considered to be the 99 best novels published since 1939. He explains his inspiration in the introduction:

For thirty-five years a mere novel, an artifact meant primarily for diversion, has been scaring the pants off us all. Evidently the novel is a powerful literary form which is capable of reaching out into the real world and modifying it. It is a form which even the non-literary had better take seriously.

Why he chose to include only books published since 1939 is a little less clear. Burgess says only that "it is more poetic to begin with the beginning of a world war and to end with the non-fulfillment of a nightmare." His book choices, like his timeframe, are his alone. He chose books that brought him reading pleasure, but also "concentrated mainly on works which have brought something new – in technique or view of the world – to the form."

Each book, discussed in chronological order, gets only about a page, sometimes two, of Burgess's keen analysis. He briefly describes each book and a little about its circumstances, such as its historical context, how it fits in with the author's other work, or how it was received. He explains why he thinks it is significant and why he enjoyed it. Then he usually wraps up with a pithy little conclusion, such as, "The vitality of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning compensates for its faults of form," or "Written in the middle of the swinging sixties, it has a very clear vision of Western moral decay."

His mini-reviews are generally compelling. Some make you want to hole up with a particular book immediately; others engender respect for the choice, but little actual excitement. For instance, after reading 99 Novels, I am eager to crack the spine on The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark ("Brilliant, brittle, the production of a fine brain and superior craft"), but not looking forward to Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban, a post-apocalyptic story written entirely in a made-up dialect ("This novel could not expect to be popular . . . [b]ut it seems to me to be a permanent contribution to literature").

It becomes apparent that Burgess was drawn to novels exploring the concept of free will. In particular, several of the books he chose deal with the exercise of free will in the face of religious tradition or political tyranny and suicide as an expression of free will. In discussing these concepts, Burgess doesn't avoid spoilers, probably because his analysis requires looking at the whole story. For those who enjoy the process as much as they payoff, this won't matter, but be warned.

The best part of 99 Novels is the introduction, in which Burgess expounds on the art of fiction, what he thinks makes a good novel, and the joys of reading. Filled with such gems as "BOOK can be taken as an acronym for Box of Organized Knowledge," and including a fervent apologia for popular fiction, this essay should be required reading for any bibliophile.

NOTES

The list of 99 novels Burgess chose can be found here.  I've read several books because they were on this list and greatly enjoyed them.

If anyone else is reading the books on this list, please leave a comment on the list page with links to any related posts and I will list them there.

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.