Tag: poetry

Peck & Peck by Bonnie Garmus (Literary Fiction)

At heart, this is a novel about poetry and how it can change your life — but the poetry theme is tightly inserted into a narrative populated by a madcap scramble of an adventure story replete with good vs evil, multiple layers of deception, the best kind of quirky characters, and lots of personal confusion (and eventual growth :-)) You can read it for the plot, the twisty characters, and / or for the opportunity to do some pretty deep thinking.

Our narrator is Batter — a somewhat timid character who falls hard for Poetry despite experimenting with a wide variety of majors that might have led to more lucrative careers (he does surprisingly well in Accounting). He recognizes that he hasn’t the talent to be a Poet himself, but decides he wants to discover Poets — like Brian Epstein discovered the Beatles. When he heads to the Big Apple after graduation nobody (but himself) is pleased, but through an interesting set of happenstances he lands a (very) low level job at Peck & Peck — the highly illustrious and beyond upscale (also incredibly expensive) Poetry journal. That’s when things start to get interesting.

I’m a character person, and the characters in this book are so very captivating. It took me awhile to warm up to Batter whose timidity and lack of self confidence or direction I found irritating, but I fell in love with his mother immediately. If you’re looking for an Elizabeth Zott type figure, Rainey is it. Rainey is a typeface designer and even if you haven’t a smidgen of interest in the characteristics of typefaces (e.g. common fonts like Arial, Times New Roman, or Palatino or unusual ones such as Impact, Baskerville, Caslon), you might well find her mini contextual lectures on the practical and emotional factors of typeface choice fascinating — I know I did. Dad is the “interesting” kind of historian — one who examines not just what happened in the past, but how the narration shifts with the teller, and how easily we can all be bamboozled. Every one of the editors at Peck & Peck have their own idiosyncratic set of motivations, cringes, hopes, and driving instincts that keep you on your toes if you happen to get bored. And then there is Batter’s “love at first sight” interest… Every character is a real obsessive type — but that’s what makes them interesting (and almost every one of the obsessions is completely obsession-worthy!)

But what about Poetry as a strong theme? I’ve never been a big fan, despite my voracious reading habits. But I perked up when I read one poetry-passionate character toss off the fact that 95% of poetry is boring. Yes! But his thesis is that the very top 1/2% is life changing. This book included excellent pointers to some spectacular poetry and surprisingly I have compiled a set of them and am happily reading, tearing (as in crying, not ripping) up as appropriate.

So — overall fun to read, some very interesting philosophical questions to ponder, a whole lot of tangent topics that were either completely new to me or offered new depths to what I thought I knew already — such as typeface design, slam poetry sessions, and … have you ever heard of heteropaternal superfecundation? Look it up! Reminded me of John Irving books in the way all the weird tangents actually come together in the end to achieve something. A good read.

Quotes:
“Poetry provides answers and despite what my pre-law classes would call an appalling lack of evidence, their answers always seemed right. Or something even more unlikely. Truthful.”

“Awful people succeed because nice people let them. This is the drawback of being nice. Nice people worry that it isn’t nice to take action against awful people because they don’t want to act awful themselves – they don’t want to stoop to that level. But I think nice people have been stooping all along. The worst kind of stooping – because it isn’t stooping, it’s bending over.”

“Poetry is problematic. First, it’s not easy. It forces you to think and sometimes thinking hurts. Also, poetry can make you feel stupid, like you don’t get it. And if you do get it, then it’s only because it just revealed something about yourself that you were hoping to keep hidden.”

“That, in a nutshell, is how the brothers gained new readership: by showing normal, everyday people what poetry was really all about. How it could make them feel; what it could make them think; and why it could change their lives — not just for one night, but for every night thereafter.”

“Dickinson once wrote that hope is a thing with feathers. If that’s true, despair must be a pair of concrete shoes. I know because I wore mine home.”

“The poets I publish have the nerve, the audacity, to face life’s struggles. To wrestle with ugliness, to question prevailing wisdom, to grasp at beauty. And they do it, not by mimicking what’s already been done — not by tilling the same ground, not by planting the same crop, not by sowing the same harvest — but by starting fresh. In a world devoid of poets, do you know what you get? Another knockoff. Another mouthwash.”

“Humans thrive on constant renewal. We require fresh ideas and original thinking to survive, and yet it sometimes feels like the art and necessity of thinking is becoming passe; that the one-size-fits-most, sitcom-rich, knockoff lifestyle is winning. I confess that some days I find the passivity of the human race overwhelming.”

“Since you’re a poetry lover, maybe you’ve heard of this new thing that makes poetry tolerable. It’s called music.”

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on October 13th, 2027.

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabakov (Literary Fiction)

After plowing through this book, reading some online explanations, and having a discussion with other literary fans, I can honestly say that I think this is a masterpiece of literature but not terribly fun to read. The book comprises an introduction, a 999 line poem, and a (very) lengthy, almost line-by-line commentary about the poem.

The poem is written by John Shade, while the introduction and commentary is written by the character Kinbote. Kinbote is the epitome of an unreliable narrator, but that’s OK because what narrative there is is buried in fits and starts within the commentary. While it may seem like “cheating,” I did read a couple of summaries that helped me frame the basic premise my structure craving brain required to make any headway. I won’t include anything here in case you are a firm non-peeker, but know that it can help. Suffice it to say that nothing is what it seems, and the hints to what might be reality are all included but told through the perspective of a madman and only dribbled out in disjoint segments. And yet, it is beautifully done. The writing is incredible (see some quotes below) and the vocabulary … I love words and have (I think) a pretty good vocabulary but the non-native speaker Nabokov blew me away. Just a few of the new (to me) words: Orbicle, Nacreous, Quiddity, Bimanist, stillicide, Ephebe, Pudibundity, Maculation, Architectonically, Trochee, Goetic, Contrapuntal, Perlustration, Selenographer, Versipel, Ament. Life is so much easier when you can look them up on your phone without getting out of the chair!

If you appreciate intricate, highly complex book structure, love beautiful language, and understand that the plot isn’t always the point, this is the book for you!

Quotes:

Alas, my peace of mind was soon to be shattered. The thick venom of envy began squirting at me as soon as academic suburbia realized that John Shade valued my society above that of all other people.

His misshapen body, that gray mop of abundant hair, the yellow nails of his pudgy fingers, the bags under his lusterless eyes, were only intelligible if regarded as the waste products eliminated from his intrinsic self by the same forces of perfection which purified and chiseled his verse. He was his own cancellation.

Nevertheless the urge to find out what he was doing with all the live, glamorous, palpitating, shimmering material I had lavished upon him, the itching desire to see him at work (even if the fruit of his work was denied me), proved to be utterly agonizing and uncontrollable and led me to indulge in an orgy of spying which no considerations of pride could stop.

I notice a whiff of Swift in some of my notes. I too am a desponder in my nature, an uneasy, peevish, and suspicious man, although I have my moments of volatility and fou rire.

And moreover [he said] we, whites, are not white at all, we are mauve at birth, then tea-rose, and later all kinds of repulsive colors.

All the seven deadly sins are peccadilloes but without three of them, Pride, Lust and Sloth, poetry might never have been born.

And let me add here how much I was honored a fortnight later to meet in Washington that limp-looking, absent-minded, shabbily dressed splendid American gentleman whose mind was a library and not a debating hall.

Resemblances are the shadows of differences. Different people see different similarities and similar differences.

The Tick and Tock of the Crocodile Clock by Kenny Boyle (Literary Fiction)

It’s all about words. That theme comes up often in this earnest, confusing, and genuine book about Wendy, a young would-be poet who exists fully in the world of her imagination and is simply lost in the world in which we are all forced to reside.

The book is a gem. Starting with our narrator hiding (terrified) in her gran’s attic with a stolen painting at her side, the story backtracks to an explanation of how she got there, beginning with her short tenure at a Glasgow call center where her daily game is to sneak as many unusual words as possible into her calls. Wendy loves language and weaves wishful fiction into her own backstory (always confessing and eventually letting the truth out). When she quits the call center, she is surprised when several others accompany her in the walk out. One fellow decamper is Catriona, an artist who is wild, wonderful, and has (it becomes clear) been struggling with mental illness for some time.

The story is humorous, surprising, sad, and deeply insightful. I admit to almost closing the book because I got frustrated with the way Wendy could not handle her life the way I thought she should — a good lesson for me about the (should be obvious) fact that my way is not what is best for everyone! I was afraid the book was about self-destructive tendencies which I have little patience with, but it actually was not. I loved her interior monologue that laid bare her development into a whole person making decisions that were right for her.

Lots of great use of language including some truly “new” (to me) words such as curglaffic; ultracrepudarian; lexiphanicism. Seriously, they don’t even begin to sound familiar to me, never mind managing to use them in a call center dialog sentence!

Not surprisingly, there are some great quotes. Here are a few:
“Honestly, I don’t think call centres have the strength of character to be hell. In call centres even bright things or bright people get washed out and individuality is smothered by customer service.”

“Thank you for calling Chay Turley Telephone Banking. How may I dissuade you from truculence?”

“They’re mostly useless in conversation, because people look at you like you’ve just flown in from some fantasy land if you say them. Having to explain the meaning of a word every time you use it goes against the whole point of having words in the first place. I like them anyway; their uselessness adds to their mystique.”

“Her mind is ponderous, like an iguana. When you say something to her it takes a good two seconds to process it — two whole seconds of silent glaring as the words take root. When someone like that meets someone like me it doesn’t ever turn out well. I can’t bear those two seconds of silence, so I have to fill the gap. A lot of the time I fill it with incriminating evidence to my detriment.”

“She’s beginning to pick up speed, like a juggernaut of discipline ready to smash through me with sheer momentum.”

“There’s no amount of shyness that will diminish the West of Scotland impulse to respond to compliments with aggression — it would be weird not to.”

“I wish I weren’t so afraid of words in the real world, I wish they didn’t turn into glue in my mouth so often. Life is an unlimited cascade of parallel possibilities and every single word alters the path. That’s petrifying; it’s fossilising. How can people handle that responsibility?”

“There’s a miniature sun made of gratitude right in the centre of my rib cage and its beams are tearing out of me, but, because we’re in the real world where words can’t be retrieved once they leave your mouth, I don’t know how to tell her how much it means to me.”

“…but even when his expression was flat, the lines of it were an origami template for a smile.”

In the Wild Light by Jeff Zentner (YA)

Writing: 5/5 Characters: 4.5/5 Plot: 4/5

Delaney Doyle and Cash Pruitt are best friends. Growing up in a very poor small town in East Tennessee with a large addiction problem, both having seen their share of hardship and trauma. When Delaney manages to get both of them a scholarship to an elite private high school in Connecticut, a new (and utterly unpredictable) chapter begins for both of them.

There is a lot of depth to this book. Told from Cash’s perspective we get both typical coming-of-age experiences and some very atypical life experiences. Delaney is a gifted scientist — her talk is peppered with black holes, human wormholes, olfactory fatigue, and a theory of how humans may have descended from aquatic apes (I love this one). She sees patterns everywhere — in people as well as the natural world. Cash is sure that his only choices are a “sh**ty life or an ordinary life.” His Papaw (grandfather) is slowly sinking with emphysema back home, and Cash has the strongest feeling that he doesn’t even deserve an opportunity like this in the first place. And then, in a complete surprise to himself, he discovers the magic of poetry.

The book is very sweet and brought tears to my eyes multiple times. Themes of love, family, loneliness, being an outsider, and doing the right thing, even when it is difficult pervade. Some fascinating discussions on the similarities between the sciences and the arts in trying to understand the world we live in. I am absolutely not a poetry person, but I found the descriptions of how Cash came slowly to love both reading and writing poetry to be fascinating — an aspect of character development through passions that I don’t often see to this extent. Some of the language seemed a bit overdone at times to me, but I do find Zentner’s writing quite beautiful. The negative characters seemed kind of two dimensional to me but I’m guessing that is how they appeared to Cash so it makes sense.

Good for fans of John Green.

A few good quotes (there are many):
“Because it’s heretical. That’s how science advances and takes humanity with it. People have to be brave enough to look stupid in a field where looking stupid is the worst thing you can do.”

“I think the real problem is you feel so lucky to have survived what you did, you think you bagged your limit of luck by finishing out your childhood in a safe and loving home.”

“You’ll never regret a decision more than the one you make out of fear. Fear tells you to make your life small.”

“Life often won’t freely give you moments of joy. Sometimes you have to wrench them away and cup them in your hands, to protect them from the wind and rain. Art is a pair of cupped hands. Poetry is a pair of cupped hands.”

“It feel like he’s bequeathing me an inheritance of the only wealth he possesses — his memories, his quiet joys.”

“Being a poet takes bravery. Yes, the courage to bleed on a page. But also to bleed for the world we write poetry about.”

Thank you to Crown Books for Young Readers and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on August 10th, 2021.

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger (Fiction)

Writing: 4 Plot: 3.5 Characters: 5

11 year-old Reuben was born to witness. Coming into the world with troublesome lungs, his father called him to life after the doctors had long given him up for dead. In this book, he bears witness to the events in Roofing, Minnesota that cause his elder brother, Davy, to shoot two boys dead; Davy’s subsequent escape from prison; and the long search that Reuben, his father, Jeremiah, and younger sister, Swede, take looking for him.

Beautiful descriptions of a harsh landscape that yet evokes “home” to our characters and a moral undertone that is never preachy and yet fully covers each individual’s worried contemplation of the situation. Well-drawn and intimate characters — Jeremiah has a special relationship with God and performs miracles that only Reuben seems to see; Swede has an off-the-charts imagination and bangs away at her typewriter working her ideas into narratives and poetry; Roxanna Crawley runs a gas station in a remote town and is big, warm, and has possession of an astonishingly large vocabulary; and Andreesen — the “putrid fed” — chases Davy, but is slowly revealed to be honorable and compassionate.

I had some trouble getting started with this book. The first third — taking us through Davy’s escape — was slow, stressful, and full of (what felt to me as) injustice. I didn’t like it at all but kept plugging away as I was reading it for a book club. Then it simply took off into something wonderful. It’s rare that I read a book with that kind of composition (probably because I give up too soon) but I recommend skimming if necessary to get to the good part.

Good for fans of Ivan Doig or Markus Zusak.