Fairy Tale Fridays - Bit and Pieces

I got a new fairy tale book last Friday when I stopped at Half-Price Books to sell some books. I always hit up their clearance section, sometimes with good luck, sometimes not. The books are always a bargain and yet I often pick them up and then put them back down. But when I found Kate Bernheimer's Horse, Flower, Bird, I didn't hesitate. It will be full of modern, grownup fairy tales that just might be the kick I need to pull out my basket of fairy tale books and get back to reading them.

I read an interesting article on Tales of Faerie about the tale of the frog prince and wondering if it was meant as a statement about the marriageable age of girls in medieval times. The princess in this tale gets a bad rap as being selfish and not keeping her promise. But we seem to be overlooking the fact that the princess also appears to be a very young girl,  one we would certainly consider too young to be marrying. She is, after all, playing with a ball when she meets the frog, a ball she is so fond of that she will promise anything to get it back. Is it any wonder, then, that she would act immature later when the frog tries to force her to keep her promise?

The Guardian, this week, posted this quiz about the Brothers Grimm and their fairy tales. Don't even ask me how I did. So embarrassing! I need to go grab my book and catch up on my Grimm tales!

Lit: Uniquely Portable Magic - When Life and Reading Come Together

You know, if you've been reading this blog for even a few months how much I love football. I'm watching with a touch of guilt these days (the long-term brain damage to players all so I can enjoy myself) and, while I don't necessarily feel that the sport is too violent, I do have concerns about the violence of players off the field. Which, of course, is big news these days.

I was reading Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast just as the
Adrian Peterson case came to light. For those of you who don't follow football or tuned out when his case was all of the news, Peterson is being investigated for one count of child abuse and was indicted on another count. I am by no means condoning what Peterson did (he has admitted to whipping his four-year-old son with a switch so many times he lost count) but I can't help but think that he may well have been "disciplined" this way himself. We're prone to parent as we were parented. And while Peterson certainly went far beyond what could, under any circumstances, be considered appropriate discipline, our society's take this type of discipline has changed tremendously since Peterson's parents and grandparents may have punished him. Which is where Hemingway comes into the picture.

Hemingway and his then wife Hadley had a little boy he called Bumby (I hope to shout that was not the child's actual name!). The two of them worked and were away from home during the day (although why Hemingway needed to leave the apartment to write in a cafe was unclear). There were, Hemingway writes, no babysitters then and it was "wrong to take a baby to a cafe in the winter...even a baby that never cried and watched everything that happened and was never bored." Their solution?

"Bumby would stay happy in his tall cage bed with his big, loving cat named F. Puss. There were people who said that it was dangerous to leave a cat with a baby. The most ignorant and prejudiced said that a cat would suck a baby's breath and kill him. Others said that a cat would lie on a baby and the cat's weight would smother him. F. Puss lay beside Bumby in the tall cage bed and watched the door with his big yellow eyes, and would let no one come near him when we were out..."

The biggest problem people who knew about this had was the cat. Never mind that the Hemingways were leaving their very young child alone all day, trapped in what even Hemingway calls a cage. People who leave their children alone for any, any, length of time these days are routinely brought up on charges. I'm not sure that Hemingway's peers would have given much thought to whipping your child with a switch. For our children's sake, thank God times have changed.

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Published September 1997 by Random House Publishing Group
Source: bought this one for only $2 - a steal!

Publisher's Summary:
In 2019, humanity finally finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post in Puerto Rico picks up exquisite singing from a planet which will come to be known as Rakhat. While United Nations diplomats endlessly debate a possible first contact mission, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an eight-person scientific expedition of its own. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question the meaning of being "human."


My Thoughts:
I wanted to sit right down as soon as I finished this book, while things were still fresh in my mind, and write my review. But I couldn't. I just could not begin to wrap my head around what I had just read and put my thoughts into words. A week later, I'm still not sure I can.

It's a complicated plot that shifts back and forth in time, from the initial days when the singing is first discovered, to forty years later when the sole, broken survivor of the expedition is being interrogated to find out the truth of what happened, to the time of the expedition, and back into the future again. It's tricky to get started but, done well, that kind of storytelling can really draw readers in. And Russell does it well.

What else does Russell do well in The Sparrow?

• She makes your brain work. She challenges readers to examine their beliefs about religion, faith, science, our assumptions about the universe, and the things we do with the best of intentions. A good book will make you think. A great book will make you think long after you've finished the book. In that sense, The Sparrow is a great book.

• She makes you care, deeply, about her characters - the broken ones, the strong ones, the funny ones, the ones who take themselves too seriously. And then she breaks your heart by killing them (that's not a spoiler - you know right at the beginning of the book that many of these people will die). Seriously. Breaks. Your. Heart.

• She wrings all of the emotions out of her readers. All of them. I laughed with these people, I cried with these people, I was amazed with these people. I wanted to shake them at times and fold them into my arms at others. I was exhausted when I closed this book.

Big thanks to Andi of Estella's Revenge (her review) for convincing me that this is a book I need to read and to Trish of Love, Laughter and A Touch of Insanity for putting together a readalong that sparked me to pick it up and gave me the opportunity to talk about the book with others who were reading it at the same time.

The Sparrow is easily one of my favorite books of this year...maybe any year. I can't wait to read the sequel, Children of God,

"Once, long ago, she'd allowed herself to think seriously about what human beings would do, confronted directly with a sign of God's presence in their lives. The Bible, that repository of Western wisdom, was instructive either as myth or as history, she'd decided. God was at Sinai and within weeks, people were dancing in front of a golden calf. God walked in Jerusalem and days later, folks nailed Him up and then went back to work. Faced with the Divine, people took refuge in the banal, as though answering a cosmic multiple-choice question: If you saw a burning bush, would you (a) call 911, (b) get the hot dogs, or (c) recognize God? A vanishingly small number of people would recognize God, Anne had decided years before, and most of them had simply missed a dose of Thorazine."

Chef by Jaspreet Singh

Chef by Jaspreet Singh
Published April 2010 by Bloomsbury USA
Source: I have no idea - if you loaned me this one, let me know so I can give it back!

Publisher's Summary:
Kirpal Singh is riding the slow train to Kashmir. With India passing by his window, he reflects on his destination, which is also his past: a military camp to which he has not returned for fourteen years.

Kirpal, called Kip, is shy and not yet twenty when he arrives for the first time at General Kumar's camp, nestled in the shadow of the Siachen Glacier. At twenty thousand feet, the glacier makes a forbidding battlefield; its crevasses claimed the body of Kip's father. Kip becomes an apprentice under the camp's chef, Kishen, a fiery mentor who guides him toward the heady spheres of food and women.

In this place of contradictions, erratic violence, and extreme temperatures, Kip learns to prepare local dishes and delicacies from around the globe. Even as months pass, Kip, a Sikh, feels secure in his allegiance to India, firmly on the right side of this interminable conflict. Then, one muggy day, a Pakistani "terrorist" with long, flowing hair is swept up on the banks of the river and changes everything.

My Thoughts:
I'm a huge fan of books set in this region of the world but the books I've read have all been women's stories. Chef gave me a look at a new part of the Indian subcontinent from the male point of view.

In 1947, when the British abandoned their rule of the subcontinent, they split what was then Indian into the Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. Kashmir was connected to both India and Pakistan and has been, since the partition, a battle ground between the countries.

Kirpal Singh's story looks at the impact of that tug-of-war on the people of the region as Pakistanis battle Indians, Muslims battle Hindus. Through food, Kishen begins to teach Kirpal to look at the world more openly but it is when he falls in love with the "enemy" that he truly understands the futility of all of the violence and lost lives.

Despite some violence, this is, at heart, the quiet story of a quiet man whose beliefs are constantly shaken when those around him abuse their power and allow hatred to rule their lives.

Sunday Salon - September 21

Bloggiesta success! I've gotten so much done this weekend! Not much of it shows but I'll have my book reviews caught up and scheduled, four other posts are written and scheduled, my feed reader was empty as of midnight, I've spent a lot of time on my labels and they are looking much better (although I doubt I will get them entirely cleaned up yet), and I'm working on a mini-challenge that will be very noticeable in my family room (assuming I get it done). I'm not sure how much more I'll get done - I've got a lot of reading to do in the next couple of days before book club on Tuesday, company coming today, and The Big Guy gets back today from a work trip.

This Week I'm:

Listening To: I started Sarah's Key this week. It's a book that switches back and forth in time and it's a little jarring on audio when it does that. Otherwise, I'm enjoying it.

Watching: The Roosevelts on PBS. So interesting and I've learned so much. Now I want to get to Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time and The Bully Pulpit. Oh yeah, and football.

Reading: I'm racing through The Perfume Collector before book club on Tuesday. I didn't know anything about it going in but I guess I was under the impression that it would be a little bit on the light side. Enjoying it much more than I expected.

Making: With BG gone and the kids at work so much this week, I haven't made much at all. Mini-me spent the day at home yesterday so I did make him some pizza and caramel chocolate brownies.

Planning: I started a book reorganization project as a mini-challenge that I need to get finished and I'll probably continue to tweak for the next week or so.

Grateful: I miss BG when he's gone but I've got to admit, I have enjoyed the quiet while he's been gone!

Enjoying: Saturday night with Miss H. She unexpectedly had the night off and we haven't gotten to have any time together in much too long.

Feeling: Like it's time to embrace fall. Even though I did have to turn the air-conditioning back on this weekend. Never mind - the fall decorating is going up and I had a pumpkin spice frappucino the other day.

Looking forward to: Book club Tuesday - love my evenings with these ladies!

What are you grateful for this week? Have you started to wrap your mind around the fact that fall is here?

Bloggiesta - OLE!

With a knee that still doesn't allow me to do a lot of the bigger projects I should be doing on weekends (who knew that a meniscus repair would take so long to heal? not this girl, I'll tell you that!) and The Big Guy off on a business trip through the weekend (don't tell the bad guys who might try to break into my house that!), this is the perfect weekend for me to work on my blog. But I know me and I know I'll be distracted by a lot of bright and shiny objects along the way, including books I want need to read. So I'm not going to get overly ambitious with my plans. Here's what I'd like to get done:

1. Clean up my email - of course this is on the list, it's always on the list!
2. Write three book reviews - started all three
3. Check out the mini-challenges and try to do at least one **I've decided on my challenge but it will take some time so I'll do it tomorrow and post pics**
4. Solve my Nook problem - I've got too many books on my Nook I want to read soon
5. Write a Fairy Tale Friday post - started
6. Write a bookish news post
7. Catch up on my feed reader - I'm actually actually in pretty good shape with this for a change
8. Check out other bloggers who are participating to see what they are getting done
9. Spend some time cleaning up tags
10. Get my book club blog up to date
11. Write 2 Top Ten Tuesday posts - started

Okay, well maybe a little ambitious but many of these things won't take too long. No pressure; I'll get done what I get done.

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
First Published 1964 (3 years after Hemingway's death)
Source: I paid for this one

Publisher's Summary:
Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most beloved works. It is his classic memoir of Paris in the 1920s, filled with irreverent portraits of other expatriate luminaries such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein; tender memories of his first wife, Hadley; and insightful recollections of his own early experiments with his craft. It is a literary feast, brilliantly evoking the exuberant mood of Paris after World War I and the youthful spirit, unbridled creativity, and unquenchable enthusiasm that Hemingway himself epitomized.


My Thoughts:
Who'da thunk it - the only Hemingway book I've ever read and actually enjoyed would be a memoir? If you're a Hemingway fan or even a person who feels like you "should" read Hemingway, I'd definitely recommend A Moveable Feast. As a look into life in Paris in the 1920's. As a window into the lives of several literary greats. And as a honest look into a few years of one young author's life.

I put this book on my nightstand and read a chapter at a time, each an individual story about an event, person, or part of Hemingway's life in Paris. Reading it this way is probably one of the reasons I appreciated this book as much as I did; I'm not sure I would have had I tried to just read straight through. Then I might not have appreciated gems like this:

"The blue-backed notebooks, the two pencils and the pencil sharpener (a pocket knife was too wasteful), the marble-topped tables, the smell of early morning, sweeping out and mopping, and luck were all you needed. For luck you carried a horse chestnut and a rabbit's foot in your right pocket. The fur had been worn off the rabbit's foot long ago and the ones and the sinews were polished by wear. The claws scratched in the lining of your pocket and you knew your luck was still there."

The title, as the publisher's summary says, refers to a literary feast but I could easily have read it as part of Fall Feasting. Hemingway writes extensively about eating and drinking in the bistros and restaurants of Paris and other European cities he visited. I kept having the urge to go sit at a little table in a quiet cafe and while away the afternoon drinking wine and writing. While Hemingway and his wife, Hadley, were poor and he talks about going hungry and cold because of it, it's plainly clear that he knew it was the price to pay for living the life he wanted and never seemed to feel sorry for himself. It pained him more to be without books until he discovered the "library" in the legendary Paris bookstore "Shakespeare's." Hemingway was not just a writer, he was a voracious reader and I finally found at least one thing I could really like about him. That and his willingness to admit his flaws, including the infidelity that cost him his marriage to a woman who clearly adored.

I'm so glad I finally got brave enough to pick this book up!