My Antonia

My Antonia is Willa Cather’s clear-eyed look back at her roots in the American plains.  There are a number of small sub-plots, but the book primarily is a portrait of a time and place, especially of the serene but harsh plains landscape and its powerful effects on those who grow up there.  

In the morning, when I was fighting my way to school against the wind, I couldn't see anything but the road in front of me; but in the late afternoon, when I was coming home, the town looked bleak and desolate to me.  The pale, cold light of the winter sunset did not beautify - it was like the light of truth itself.  When the smoky clouds hung low in the west and the red sun went down behind them, leaving a pink flush on the snowy roofs and the blue drifts, then the wind sprung up afresh, with a kind of bitter song, as if it said : This is reality, whether you like it or not.  All those frivolities of summer, the light and shadow, the living mask of green that trembled over everything, they were lies and this is what was underneath.  This is the truth."  It was as if we were being punished for loving the loveliness of summer.

The book is focused on the memory of Antonia, the daughter of the Shimerdas, new immigrants from a city in Eastern Europe, who find life on the plains to be very different and particularly hard. Although some of the neighbors helped them, many were too busy surviving on their own to help people so little adapted to their new location.  Antonia's father, Mr. Shimerda, a cultured man and talented musician, is never able to adapt and commits suicide, which leads to a particularly moving scene at his deepest winter funeral.

Cather draws a dramatic difference between the “country girls” and the “town girls” in the plains, although these "town girls" are living in such small, rural towns that we would hardly think of them as “city girls”!  Though she faces many difficulties, Antonia has a joy and strength that allow her to triumph over the hardships.  The book is basically pretty realistic, although the harsh setting and events are viewed forgivingly.  I found this to be a very satisfying book that offered insights into the character of the midwest and the challenges facing immigrants.

The Lure of the Bush, and The Black Virgin

Two more books by Arthur Upfield, featuring the charming “half-caste” detective, Bony.  Although I picked these two to read at random, they turned out to have a powerful common theme – the lure of the bush – the irresistible force of the Australian outback and especially of the aboriginal way of life.  The Black Virgin featured two interesting mysteries – an inexplicable murder coupled with the disappearance of a hired man at an outback station and the puzzling, unfulfilled love affair between the son of the owner of the outback station and a strong, attractive, and talented neighbor.  Methodical and creative investigations by Bony eventually unified and resolved the two mysteries as suggested by the title, but both mysteries were quite interesting reading.  The Lure of the Bush had more striking characters: William Clair, an outback swagman bent on revenge; King Henry, a handsome, physically powerful, and charismatic chief who has recently returned to his tribe after a long absence; the diminutive, but forceful Mrs. Thornton,  a fierce admirer of the real Napoleon Buonaparte - and some protagonists who are less colorful.  In this case, Bony's solution to the dramatic murder opens up a veiled family history that explains how the lure of the bush underlies a mysterious love affair and disappearance.  Quite lively reading!

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

This book by Haruki Murakami was highly recommended by Lauren and was completely absorbing and very rich.  Simple writing, but compelling – parts were very funny, or horrifying, or terribly sad, or sexually stimulating, or thought-provoking.  The simplicity of the writing seemed to imply or even emphasize the normalcy of life – but this was strongly contradicted by the strangeness of some of the characters, the mysterious relationships between different plot lines, the magical nature of many key events, and some deeply embedded philosophical issues.

I was captivated by the book, but found it hard to “understand”.  For example, take the title – the wind-up bird is something that the protagonist, Toru Okada, hears, but never sees – a “bird” apparently, that lives somewhere in the trees near his home, and often makes a strange call or noise that sounds like a mechanical wind-up bird.  Mr. Okada frequently comments that the bird winds up, or starts, the day, so the world can go on.  But the bird is sometimes described not as an actual flesh-and-blood animal but like a strictly mechanical contrivance that has no emotions, no goals, no remorse.  And, importantly, but mysteriously, Mr. Okada’s neighbor begins referring to him as Mr. Wind-Up Bird – and this nickname seems a little edgy… that he is a bit of a character and a little mechanical himself.  And, indeed, Mr. Okada is extremely emotionless and seems rather passive, yet eventually turns out to have extraordinary powers – powers that seem really to wind-up or change the world.  So, does the wind-up bird represent “fate” versus “free will”?

Very captivating and very thought-provoking…..and perhaps, like Shakespeare, doesn’t provide clear answers or conclusions!  

Sherlock Holmes: Complete Stories & Novels

I can't remember when I first read the Holmes stories and novels - but I loved them and re-read the stories from beginning (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes)  to end (The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes) every few years - before reading again, I waited until I couldn't really remember the endings, so I had to wait longer and longer in between reads.

Well, it had been quite awhile since I last read them, but my interest was piqued again when Jesse recommended the Sherlock TV episodes with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.  The episode I watched with Jesse was A Study in Pink - fantastic! - loosely based on the novel A Study in Scarlet.  I thought I would read A Study in Scarlet to compare to the TV adaptation, and I realized that though I had re-read the stories several times, I had only read the novels once (except for Hound of the Baskervilles, which I love and have re-read several times).  So, the game was afoot, I was off and reading - the novels and then all the stories - (accelerated by having loaded them onto my phone and reading at all odd moments of inactivity)..

Well, the novels are pretty good reads, but (except for Hound) are basically a long backstory wrapped at each end: a short introduction that describes a case presented to Holmes and an ending that provides Holmes' solution.  Each of these is a good case and a good yarn, but generally not a full-length mystery (Hound is an exception - it's perfect!)  Of the other three, the Valley of Death was terrific: a compelling case and a completely absorbing and fascinating backstory.

This time, on reading the stories, I had some new favorites.  Some of the most famous (eg, A Scandal in Bohemia) no longer held quite the same fascination for me, though another famous one, Silver Blaze, still seemed magnificent (eg, "Is there any point to which you would like to draw my attention?"  "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."  "The dog did nothing in the night-time!" "That was the curious incident").    But this time around, some others really captured my interest