Take Joy!

Lavinia

I've just received my copy of Ursula LeGuin's new novel, Lavinia. (Here's an excerpt. See if you don't want to drop everything and run to the bookstore.) It's about Lavinia, who married Aeneas . . . and, no, I've never read The Aeneid, so I also have a copy of the new translation by Robert Fagles. (This is, of course, on top of the other pile of books that just came last week. A veritable embarrassment of riches!) But I think these two will go to the top of the stack, even on top of Derrick Jensen (Endgame I and II).

You should read this, even if you don't like sheep

It's the story of  "a flock of Irish sheep who vow to solve the murder of their shepherd, George. George has always treated the flock like humans, reading to them, feeding them the best fodder, protecting them from the local butcher, acknowledging their individual personalities, and even promising to take them to Europe. Imagine the flock's shock when George is found dead in their meadow with a spade stuck in his chest!"

Besides, the sheep have such intriguing personalities: Miss Maple (who once licked the maple syrup off George's toast). Sir Richfield, the flock's lead ram, and his mysterious (and missing) twin brother, Melmoth. Othello, who is black with four horns, and spends some time in a confessional. The troublemaking winter lamb, who has no name. And my favorite, Mopple the Whale, who thinks mostly about eating and is the flock's 'memory sheep' because he can remember everything he's heard.

I know the new Harry Potter is here (and I have mine, too, thank you), but this is too good to pass up. My copy of Three Bags Full came on Wednesday. I stayed up all night Wednesday reading it; John (who normally doesn't read novels) stayed up all night Thursday reading. I have now passed it on to Brian, who will probably do the same sort of thing. (None of us have good sense when it comes to books. I freely admit it.)

The author is Leonie Swann, who is German, and this is her first novel, I think. More to come, please . . .

Tales of the Otori

I've just finished reading these three novels: Across the Nightingale Floor, Grass for His Pillow, and Brilliance of the Moon. You should read them too . . . They're unlike the usual run of fantasy novels: these are set in a mythical, medieval Japan, dominated by warring clans. There are treacherous (and honorable) warlords, a shadowy society of assassins with legendary powers, first love, the codes of honor and ritual . . . the hero is an orphan raised by the Hidden (who believe in non violence and one god, and are persecuted in various nasty ways), but cast out of his village after a raid that kills eveyone but him. He is taken up by the Otori Lord, kidnapped by the Tribe (the aforementioned assassins), falls in love with a woman who is sole heir to one of the Domains in an era when women were frequently neither seen nor heard, and certainly didn't rule . . .  and in the meantime, the clans are fracturing, alliances shift underfoot like the earth . . . The author (Lian Hearn is a pseudonym) is English, living in Australia, and a student of Japan and things Japanese.

I am going to quote here from the author's description on the books' website:

The three books that make up the Tales of the Otori are set in an imaginary country in a feudal period. Neither the setting nor the period are intended to  correspond to any true historical era, though echoes of many Japanese customs and traditions will be found, and the landscape and seasons are  those of Japan. I have used Japanese names for places, but these have little connection with real places, apart from Hagi and Matsue which are  more or less in their true geographical positions. As for characters, they are all invented, apart from the artist Sesshu who seemed impossible to  replicate. The Three Countries where the story takes place are situated at the Western end of a string of islands (the Eight Islands) nominally ruled  by an Emperor but in practice at the mercy of clans and warlords who struggle to expand their power and territory. The clans of the Three Countries,  the Tohan and, the Seishuu and the Otori, hold sway over the fiefs of the West, the East and the Middle Country, while smaller lords hold their own domains  within the fiefs. Trade is carried on sporadically with the mainland but otherwise there is little contact with the rest of the world. Most of the country follows the religion of the Enlightened One, which sits amicably alongside worship of the Old Ones, the gods of the countryside, river, mountain, forest, and so on,  but a small sect, the Hidden, brought years before by teachers from the mainland, worship the Secret God, and are persecuted for it. Society is theoretically  divided up into rigid classes: nobles, warriors, merchants, craftsman and workmen, monks and outcasts, each with their own codes of behavior, but  interaction between the classes is fluid. A network of families, the Tribe, have retained skills from the past that seem like magic and work as assassins and spies.

You should read these.

 

Not Your Mother's Paper Dolls

I've just received my copy of this book

by Linda Fleming. (Admission: Yes, I stole this image from her website, because I am too lazy to photograph my own copy.)

It's a wonderful book, full of color images of paper dolls that can be cut out (or copied onto cardstock and cut out, since I don't want to cut up my book!) and either used as it or embellished. . . she sells it two ways, either as a book with both dolls and embellishment ideas, or as a book of the dolls only and a CD for the ideas. If you like paper dolls, you ought to to take a look at this one. Here's her book blog, with more pictures and ordering info. (And she's a really nice person to deal with . . . an added bonus!)

Miscellania

I finally finished reading David Guterson's Our Lady of the Forest. I guess I'm just too not-with-it to appreciate these things: I didn't enjoy (and didn't finish) Snow Falling on Cedars, and I didn't enjoy (but did finish) this one either. (It was free, OK? and I thought it might be an improvement . . . etc.) The premise wasn't bad, but the characters were very unsympathetic (yes, I realize that people are often unsympathetic in real life, but this is a novel. I wish to be entertained, if not edified. If I want real life, I'll go hang out at the Waffle House.) abd frequently thoroughly unlikable. Besides—call me picky if you like—I hate reading dialogue without quotation marks.

I have new glasses, so I can see again . . . they're bifocals, of course, and stronger than before, so everything is foreshortened and I feel as if I'm going to slip over the edge of the world when I try to walk with them on, but that will pass. Soon, I hope. Fortunately I don't have to wear them all the time: only when I read, or sew, or anything like that. Or drive. (And new frames, too! I'm stylin', yes indeed!)

It is definitely fall-ish: Theo is snorting, as she does every spring and fall. She's allergic to things, so she goes around sounding like a very grumpy old lady (which she is). I spotted a flea on Mr. Schmoodge, so it's time for the fall Advantage for everyone. (I know you're supposed to put it on them once a month, but with eleven to deflea—Theo doesn't get any, for it causes a small bald spot where I put it. That can't be good.—who can afford that?)

The goldenrod that I have assiduously protected from he who shall remain nameless (imagine! some people think goldenrod is a weed!!) is now much taller than I am, and getting ready to bloom. It's right outside my workroom window, so I can enjoy it while I work. Pictures later . . .

And it is hazardous duty now to go and feed the chickens . . . I should wear an egg-gathering helmet, if such a thing existed. There's a black walnut tree by the lot, and I was beaned by a falling nut yesterday. Ouch! From now on, I think I'll at least wear my old straw hat. (Oh, it's nasty down there! Nearly three inches of rain this weekend have left the upper lot an expanse of mud. We're feeding them in the lower part until it dries out a bit. No rain today, though; the sun was out and the sky was that gorgeous crystalline blue that means fall.)

It's early, obviously, and the roosters are beginning to crow—all three of them in concert, plus the one from down the road—and there's an owl of some sort answering them. How interesting . . .

I have sold all my aprons but one, so that's what I'm doing this week. I have five cut out and ready to sew up.

Halloween costumes are in the works. Eliza wants to be a cheerleader. She has a costume, of course, because I made it for her for Christmas . . . but now she wants a blue one. How uninteresting . . . but Mom suggested that perhaps I could make a circle skirt and edge it with marabou. Yes, I think so . . . And Emma is going to be a pirate, patterned after her favorite Captain Feathersword. I've found a pattern, and John has ordered ostrich feathers to make an Emma-sized feathersword, and there was this lovely bolt of scarlet crushed velvet last time I was at Hancock. . . after all, doesn't every self-respecting pirate need a red velvet vest? And a purple satin sash? I think so. (ED: I just found the perfect fabric for a vest lining: a cotton printed with pirate gold coins. The Force is with me . . . )

I need to finish the jester I'm working on . . . I pinned the ruff on and have been eyeing it all this week, but I think it really needs to be something else. I shall have to haul out the boxes of fabric remnants and dig for something else.

Yesterday I made black beans and rice with Polish sausage for supper. The actual recipe, a variation of the Cuban Moros y Cristianos called Moors and Martyrs, is from  Bert Greens' The Grains Cookbook, which is full of wonderful sounding things for those of us who would just as soon eat beans and rice as anything else. Not "healthy" recipes (too much sugar, cream, etc.), but good! There are leftovers . . . I plan on having rice and beans and homemade applesauce for breakfast in a little bit.

And here is the obligatory cat picture: Sam keeping me company in the wee hours.

Oddments

This is a hat I finished last week, and am just now getting around to photographing . . . it's crochet, of alpaca in a couple of colors, some beige chenille, and some variegated mohair. I hate working with mohair, but I seem to have accumulated a fair amount of it (don't ask, all right? I was at the fiber fair, the moon was full . . . ) so I'm trying to work it in with other things. That way I don't have to work with it for very long . . .

 

On a totally unrelated subject, I picked this up last time I was at Goodwill

By E. Nesbit, one of my favorite [children's] authors, it's dragon stories. (Well, obviously.) I enjoyed it immensely, especially the story about Edmund and the Cockatrice.

Second Nature

I've just (well, late last night) finished Michael Pollan's Second Nature: A Gardener's Education . . . if you garden, or just like to read about gardening, this is a good one. He's a bit long-winded sometimes, but not often, and the chapter on garden catalogs is priceless. It happens to us all: in January we are "made wild by pompous catalogs from florists and seedsmen." (Henry Ward Beecher, nineteenth century . . . the more things change, etc.) I am not much of a gardener—I plant things that look interesting, and they live or not; John is the actual gardener here—but I greatly enjoy reading about "real" gardening. (In somewhat the same way that I enjoyed reading about Arctic exploration as a child . . . it's something I might possibly do when I grow up.)

No fan of lawns, I especially enjoyed the chapter entitled "Why Mow?" Why, indeed? And there's the saga of The Woodchuck . . . (speaking of which, we appear to have another. He seems to be partial to sunflowers. drat, drat.)

This one was written before The Botany of Desire (ten years or so, in fact), which I read first. . . I'd never heard of him, but I ran across it at Goodwill, and for 50¢ . . . well, if I didn't like it, I could  always inflict it on someone else. Anyhow, it would probably be a better idea to read Second Nature first, then Botany of Desire, if you are going to explore his writing. (I can see, now, where one led to the other.)

His newest is Omnivore's Dilemma, which was excerpted in the current issue of Orion. We have bought the book, but I may read something lighter in between. (And, no, finding something to read won't be a problem . . . the pile of books-I-am-planning-to-read-next on the table by the bed is currently about four feet tall. Plus the two other piles in the window, and the one by the rocking chair . . . my major reading regret is that I won't live long enough to read everything that looks interesting.) Actually, it's a tossup between Pollan and Two-Handed Engine, which is a collection of sf&f stories by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, written in the 30s-40s-50s. Oh, and I want to reread Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer . . . it's that time of  year, and since we have goats and all . . .

There's never enough time.

This, That and The Other

We had a groundhog visiting the garden last week (the emphasis here is on "had"; she is no more, alas):

 

 

 

 

We buried her in the garden's edge, near the compost pile.

 

 

I hope none of her relatives come by; I hate to have to kill one, but . . . We've found the hole we think she used, and we're going to fill it in, in order to discourage anyone else from making themselves at home.

At least John is a good shot, and it wasn't up to me.

On a somewhat brighter note, we went to Barnes and Noble today . . . I tell you, we really should not be allowed in a bookstore together. We just reinforce each other.

Here is a list:

Sex with Kings, and its companion volume, Sex with Queens, both by Eleanor Herman

Here Is Your War, by Ernie Pyle (WWII dispatches by Pyle)

The General and The Jaguar, by Eileen Welsome (Gen. Pershing's hunt for Pancho Villa)

Empires Colllide, The French and Indian War 1754-64, ed. Ruth Sheppard

The Comedians, Graham Greens (novel about Haiti under Duvalier)

Second Nature, Michael Pollan (gardening meditations)

The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan (food, and its social/ethical/environmental impacts)

Desk Reference to Nature's Medicine, Steven Foster and Rebecca L. Johnson (herbal)

and something called The Film Junkie's Guide to North Carolina, which neither of us will admit to buying . . . I suspect it got into the pile by  mistake, but I know someone who will probably enjoy it, so . . .

And I didn't even get what I went after (a dollmaking magazine, which wasn't in yet, and some books on Haiti and Cuba, because I am reading Tracy Ridder's book about Paul Farmer, Mountains After  Mountains, and would like to know some more about both countries. I seem to be incapable of reading anything without finding some tangent that looks interesting to explore . . . on the other hand, just think of all the most-useless knowledge I'll have accumulated by the time I die!)

And now I am going to go and crochet another hat . . . afghans for Afghans is collecting for another shipment at the end of June, and I'd like to have half a dozen hats to send them. (They have a crochet version of their vest, but I don't believe I can get one finished in time for this shipment. Next time.) I have several balls of alpaca (2 greens, pink, rose, brown) and I think I can get at least four hats out of them, maybe more.

Odds and Ends

Today is/was Fred Chappell's birthday. He is North Carolina's Poet Laureate, and his evocative novel Farewell, I'm Bound To Leave You is one of my favorites.

I picked up a copy of The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan at Goodwill the other week. It looks to be interesting (especially the chapter on tulips. Here's what caught my eye:

But if the pleasure bees and people take in flowers have a common root, standards of floral beauty soon begin to specialize and diverge—and not just bee from boy, but bee from bee as well. For it seems that different kinds of bees are attracted to different kinds of symmetry. Honeybees favor the radial symmetry of daisies and sunflowers, while bumblebees prefer the bilateral symmetry of orchids, peas, and foxgloves.

How interesting! I suppose that explains why the altheas at my grandmother's were always full of bumblebees, but not honeybees . . . and why bumblebees love lamb's ear.  In fact, my mother swears that she has petted bumblebees . . . you must go out early, early in the morning and inspect the althea blossoms, for bumblers sometimes sleep in them. If you find one not yet awake, you may very gently stroke it with a delicate finger, and it will hunch its back and buzz sleepily, as a drowsing cat would.

We have no altheas (yet), so I have been unable to try this myself . . .

The Blind Assassin

I've just finished reading The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood, and I am bemused . . . but I usually am when I'm reading one of her books. I always feel that I've been immersed in another universe, and when I finish, I surface, bewildered at finding myself just where I always was. I suppose this is a compliment to the author, but it's unsettling; that's why I read her books sparingly.

At any rate, this is a first-rate novel (it won a Booker Prize, I believe, back in the mid-90s) of two sisters, one of whom is dead under ambiguous circumstances within the first few pages; the other is the narrator of these several nested stories. There's the story of the sisters' growing up; the memoir of the elder (and surviving) sister; excerpts from the dead sister's posthumously published novel (The Blind Assassin of the book's title), which contains another set of stories within it . . . I had figured out most of what was going on by the middle of the novel, and considered myself ahead of the game. It's complicated, but not overly so; it was well worth the read, if only for a look at humanity's massive capacity for overlooking (or looking around) what is in plain sight.

The novel is also in audiobook form, and it got good reviews from Publisher's Weekly, for those of you who like audiobooks. (I don't, myself; I find people talking distracting, and I like having an actual printed thing in my hands . . . but to each his own.)