Bird Cloud

Above the snooty sink hung a mirror with high-wattage bulbs blazing straight into one's face rather like something John Gielgud might have had in his dressing room. For an aging woman it was frightening rather than useful. Annie Proulx

I like the fact that this book is a memoir rather than an autobiography. Annie Proulx focuses on a particular event in her life - the construction of her house at Bird Cloud near Medicine Bow in Wyoming. She wanted a house built to her specifications, using natural materials where possible, with plenty of space for her large collection of books. She wanted to be able to write without interruption, spread out old maps and photographs, view the cliff face in the changing light and watch the eagles from her window.

Unfortunately, things didn't go quite to plan. There were problems with builders, architects and sub-contractors, spiralling expenses and long, long waits for materials to arrive and work to be completed. Not to mention the fact that the area is isolated and exposed to high Wyoming winds. Bird Cloud is on the North Platte River near the town of Saratoga on the western slope of Medicine Bow. The wildlife is spectacular and Proulx weaves in details of a clever mountain lion, tagging elks for a conservation project and a whole chapter about pine cones. This book reminds me a little of The Blue Jay's Dance by Louise Erdrich and has reawakened my interest in Annie Proulx. A few years ago I read several of her novels back to back and then got a bit depressed with the grim realities of life for ranchers, cowboys and drifters. One can only stand so much reality!

Now I want to re-read her wonderful novel The Shipping News.

I also have Barbara Kingsolver's Homeland to read and my author of the month is that queen of American landscape writers Willa Cather. Fabulous picture of her, don't you think?

More Elizabeth Strout

Does anybody use Pinterest? I've become quite interested in its potential for book bloggers and I do like the wish list element to it. Very much enjoyed Anbolyn's recent post on American women writers and I've also been browsing interviews with Elizabeth Strout. I have her novel Abide with Me ready to start on Sunday night. I do like to start a new novel on a Sunday - kind of sets you up for the week!

I have to say that Olive Kitteridge is not exactly a laugh a minute. There is suicide, anorexia, adultery, murder and debilitating illness - but the sheer cussedness of Olive keeps you avidly turning the pages. I loved the story where Olive and Henry have a night out with friends and Olive desperately needs the bathroom on the way home. Henry turns into the local Accident & Emergency department just so she can use the loo when a nurse with not quite enough to do decides that Olive must be examined by a doctor. Then two armed raiders looking for drugs take the nurses, doctors, and Olive hostage and also Henry who has wandered into A&E looking for her. Olive and Henry then start a petty bickering which almost sends the guy who has tied them up over the edge.

The writing is great and the humour is black. One thing puzzling me about Olive Kitteridge - perhaps American readers can translate - what on earth are doughnut holes?!

More Anne Tyler

I always thought I would save literary festivals for when I retire but when I read that Anne Tyler will be attending the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival at Christchurch in April to receive an Outstanding Literary Achievement prize I couldn't resist ordering a ticket. If anyone else is planning to visit the festival do let me know and maybe we can meet for a latte!

Breathing Lessons is probably my favourite Tyler because of lovely Ira who is married to the infuriating Maggie. From the opening chapter where Maggie pulls out into the path of a Pepsi truck to the near-farcical scene at the races where Ira's obsessive sister lines up marshmallows along the seats of the bleachers, Breathing Lessons is a perfectly pitched comic novel and like the best comic novels it is sad, too. Tyler never intervenes to judge or comment on the actions of her characters she just lets the story unfold and the characters find their own solutions or compromises.

I also liked Noah's Compass. At the age of 60, Liam Pennywell is made redundant from his job as a high school lecturer. He moves to a smaller flat in a less desirable area of town and while asleep in bed is attacked and robbed. Waking in hospital he is infuriated that he remembers nothing of the crime or his assailant. He then meets and falls in love with a younger woman who works as a 'professional rememberer' for an elderly wealthy business man, remembering names and events on his behalf. What I particularly enjoyed about this novel was the character of his younger daughter, Kitty, who drifts in and out of his flat wearing a mirror 'the size of a dime' in her pierced naval and talking into a mobile phone so tiny he 'wonders how it can stretch between mouth and ear.'

I finished Back When We Were Grownups last night and now I really will make a start on Olive Kitteridge ...

Elizabeth Strout

Oh Elizabeth Strout is a good writer. I bought Amy and Isabelle after reading an on-line interview with Anne Tyler who said that she admired it.

Fifteen-year old Amy and her mother live at Oyster Point, the posh end of Shirley Falls, Maine. Single mother Isabelle doesn't have the confidence or means to mix with the well-heeled wives of the neighbourhood. Lonely Amy embarks on a relationship with her charismatic maths teacher who seduces her by quoting the poetry of Edna St Vincent Millay. Meanwhile the soapy, sudsy river which divides Shirley Falls churns around the mill where Isabelle works as a secretary and the women in the office bicker and gossip.

There are many wonderful moments in this novel - Isabelle and Amy sharing doughnuts in the steamy coffee shop and Amy's fleeting moment of happiness, Isabelle trying to improve her mind by reading Madame Bovary which the women in the mill nickname 'Madame Ovary', kind Fat Bev's battles with her digestion and the way the river reflects the events of the novel. There is also the recurring motif of a missing 12-year-old girl which turns the novel almost into a thriller at the end.

Strout is an earthier writer than Tyler (her characters say f**k!) but has the same gift for dialogue and humour. I've ordered her novel Abide With Me and Olive Kitteridge a collection of short stories, both set in Maine. Do let me know if you've read Elizabeth Strout, I'm sure I've seen reviews of Olive Kitteridge around the blogosphere but can't remember where. I'd like to re-read them.

The Thorn Birds

I started and abandoned a couple of books this month. Neither The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett or Gillespie and I by Jane Harris held my attention beyond the first fifty pages or so. Perfectly good books but they didn't speak to me. I wanted a big novel with a strong sense of landscape and a compelling story. I wanted something like The Poisonwood Bible with its female focus and exotic setting. The Virago logo on the spine of The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough caught my eye in Waterstones and I thought it might fit the bill.

Well it's certainly unfamiliar terrain! The novel is set in the early part of the twentieth century on the fictional homestead of Drogheda, a vast sheep station in Northwest New South Wales, Australia. Summer begins in December and winter in June. The land is populated by kangaroos, emus, parakeets and kookaburras, fearsome lizards with blue tongues, snakes, spiders and grasshoppers. Dust storms leave finely grained brown powder on all surfaces in the houses, even getting into sealed containers and 'dulling newly washed hair.'

Amidst the dust storms, floods and droughts the male-dominated Cleary family work as stockmen on the land. Meghann Cleary the only daughter reaches the age of fifteen wholly innocent of the facts of life while her strange, silent mother keeps her working in the family home. Mary Carson the elderly landowner seems to be obsessed with the local priest - the handsome, ambitious Father Ralph de Bricassart who smokes, swears and helps drive the sheep. Father Ralph seems to be very fond of young Meggie. I never did watch the TV series but I think I can see where this is going!

The dialogue in this novel is a little far-fetched at times but the sense of landscape is breathtaking. I can't put it down.

Jane's letters

I will not say that your Mulberry trees are dead, but I am afraid they are not alive. Jane Austen, letter to Cassandra, 31st May 1811

Very much enjoyed the two Jane Austen documentaries screened in the UK over Christmas. Despite my reservations about the title, The Many Lovers of Miss Jane Austen proved to be rather good. Amanda Vickery is a charming presenter and thankfully did not wear a bonnet.

Jane Austen: The Unseen Portrait? was a riveting programme. The attempts of the art historians and costume experts to authenticate the portrait were fascinating and there was a good ole academic row at the end with Paula Byrne coming out of it rather well. My own feeling is that the portrait may well be genuine.

You are looking at my reading challenge for 2012. The new edition of Jane Austen's Letters edited by Deirdre Le Faye. You are also looking at my new year's resolution - to stop drinking so much coffee!

I would like to thank my fellow bloggers and readers for proving that the internet can be a place for friendship and creativity. Happy New Year!

Digging to America

I've been buying books as Christmas presents using my usual 'one for you, two for me' method. Sticking to paperbacks though, hardbacks are just too expensive. All the Charlotte Bronte news yesterday made me want to re-read Jane Eyre when I've worked through my Anne Tyler phase. Very much enjoyed Digging to America. Look, I've even written a review!

Baltimore airport. Two Korean babies arrive in America to be met by their adoptive parents. A large welcoming party are gathered to greet Jin-Ho. Brad and Bitsy, her all-American adoptive parents and their friends and relatives hold balloons and pink ribbons and video record the arrival. Sooki has a much more low-key welcome from Sami and Ziba, the young couple who are adopting her and their mother, an Iranian immigrant, Maryam, who resents the way that Americans expect her to think and behave.

The two families decide to keep in touch so that the girls will grow up as friends. Each year on the anniversary of their arrival in America an Arrival Party is held to celebrate the event and the video is replayed. Brad and Bitsy raise Jin-Ho to retain her Korean identity - to the extent of occasionally dressing her in full Korean costume complete with headdress - and naturally Jin-Ho eventually rebels, wanting to be called Jo and coming to hate the Arrival parties.

I've always admired the way that Amy Tan writes about Asian-American culture clashes and Tyler writes with the same sensitivity and humour. I particularly enjoyed the chapter in which Hurricane Isabel hits the neighbourhood.

Jin-Ho began to feel prickly-skinned and excited, the way she did on Christmas Eve. During supper she kept twisting around in her chair to look out the kitchen window. The air was a weird shade of lavender and the trees were flipping their leaves wrong side to. "Keep your fingers crossed for our elms," her father told her. "As much money as I've spent on those things, I might as well be putting them through college." Digging to America, Anne Tyler