The Iliad, Homer

4 stars

First Sentence: Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.

Thoughts: I have been remiss in my Classical Nerdity. I’ve read The Odyssey (many times) and The Aeneid (a couple of times) but never The Iliad. Oh, I knew about it through cultural osmosis

but I’ve never actually read it to see what else happened.

What else happened is a whole lotta fightin’ and dyin’. It’s not a glorious picture of war. Sure, everyone claims their fighting for honor and all that but a lot of men die extremely brutal deaths described in graphic details. Lots of entrails falling into the dust and brains splattered on the inside of helmets and suchlike. I guess that’s what the ancient Greeks were into before they got into the philosophy business.

Despite all the blood and other things best kept inside a human body, it’s actually quite a thrilling tale. We know the Greeks are going to win in the end, but the advantage switches between them and the Trojans several times which keeps things interesting. This is mainly due to the gods interfering with human affairs.

The gods are a big presence in the war, which is understandable because it started when Paris ticked off two goddesses. They get personally involved with the battles: Aphrodite’s pulling Trojans off the field whenever they’re in danger of getting killed, Apollo’s shooting whoever he can find for the sheer love of archery, Athena’s pulling Achilles’ hair to keep him from fighting his own people. At one point Hera seduces Zeus to distract him from the battlefield until the Greeks can gain an advantage. They don’t stop their antics until Achilles finally finds a ladder long enough to get over himself and rejoin the battle.

And speaking of Achilles, he’s kind of a brat. Yeah, he’s a great warrior and all but as a person he kind of sucks. He goes into a powerful sulk because Agamemnon takes the woman he won in battle because Agamemnon’s war-prize woman had to go back to her father, then he stays there for pretty much the whole book. He only comes out in the last few chapters after his friend Patroclus dressed up in his armor and got killed. Not only that, Hector took the armor off Patroclus so now Achilles has to get his goddess mother to ask Hephaestus to make him some new armor before he can fight. But once he gets a sword in his hand, he’s unstoppable. For now.

As you can see, the only thing Achilles liked more than Patroclus was holding a grudge. I don’t think he ever really forgave Agamemnon, but at least he was willing to put his feelings aside for five minutes to work together for the common cause. And the whole thing with dragging Hector’s body around Patroclus’ grave was nothing more than a temper tantrum. You’d think he’d catch on the gods wanted him to give the body back to the Trojans what with the no damage or decay after two weeks, but no. Achilles is kind of dumb.

But I can put up with him because he’s going to die anyway. It was foretold early in the book that Achilles’ death will follow soon after Hector’s so we know it’s coming even though the book ends before it happens. We’ll have to wait for The Odyssey for that bit of satisfaction.

Right or Wrong? (Making Moral Decisions)

Today’s Saturday Short is “Right or Wrong? (Making Moral Decisions), a morality play brought to you by the state of Georgia…and they’re playing “Dixie.” Not a great way to make your case for “morally right,” Georgia.

“Most of us think we know what is right,” the title card says. “But do we? Here are some situations which involve moral decisions. Test yourself. Decide what you think is right–and why.”

We find ourselves in a dark alley outside the Kastner & Co. warehouse. A security guard is on duty inside, limping along while he hums to himself. Outside a gang of boys begin throwing rocks at a window. The watchman quickly limps over to the window. He peers outside just in time to see a boy holding a rock. The guard yells at them and they all scatter.

Watchman Limpy hobbles over to the phone. He starts to dial the police, but pauses. The ghost of the boy he saw hovers over his shoulder. That was Charlie Green’s boy! Shame that he slipped up, hanging with a gang of toughs like that. Maybe he didn’t really see who it was. He hangs up the phone. No, if he doesn’t alert the police, young Green might get into worse trouble later on. Besides, it’s his job. He’s literally required by his bosses to call the police if someone causes damage to the warehouse. The lure of a steady paycheck decides him. The watchman calls the police.

The narrator pipes up. “RIGHT OR WRONG,” he intones. “The watchman made his decision.” It is, the narrator insists, a moral decision because it will have an effect on other people and make them choose between right or wrong. The film will not judge these people. It will just hint strongly at what it believes the correct choice should be. The main job of judging will be on you, the viewer.

A police officer knocks on the door of the Green home. Mrs. Green opens the door. “Harry Green live here,” the officer asks. Zoom in on Mom: is Harry in trouble? Should she let the cop in? Should she ask for a warrant or at least time to call a lawyer? No, just let him in to arrest her son.

In the police station, Mr. Kastner is glaring at the detective in charge of the case. “The boy has no criminal record,” the detective says. Besides, he’s scared silly. What if he replaces the window? Mr. Kastner is having none of this foolish compassion. He was woken up at one in the morning so he will press charges. Someone has to pay for interrupting whatever he was doing that required that scarf. Besides, they can use Harry to get to the whole Gang of Toughs that’s been vandalizing the area.

But Harry won’t talk, the detective says. Who cares, lock him up, Kastner replies. He leaves in a cloud of arrogance, leaving the detective to work on Harry.

“Get him to talk,” the detective thinks. “Get tough with him. Scare him. No, he’s already scared enough.” Besides if he threatens the kid he will make a gangster out of him. So he calls Harry into the office to have a little heart-to-heart.

Harry slumps in. “You’re in a spot, boy,” the detective says. You’re going to be charged with VANDALISM. Do you know what that is? WILLFUL and MALICIOUS DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY. Siddown, boy. Listen, Kastner’s out for your blood. But if you turn in the others, he might go easy on you.

“I didn’t break any window,” Harry squeaks. “Who did?” the detective asks. Harry sits silently. The camera zooms in on him. He can’t tell on his friends. That would be squealing. Better to go to juvie to protect the rest of them. Surely they would do the same for him, right? Right?

The detective gives up. He tells Harry that his mother has asked Mr. Barker from their church to pick Harry up. He’ll bring Harry back in the morning for another bout of questioning. Mr. Barker arrives an undetermined time later. He wakes Harry up and walks him back to his house. On the way they pass the Kastner & Co. Warehouse. As they crunch the broken glass on the ground, Mr. Barker asks Harry to confess. “I didn’t break any windows,” Harry grumbles. “But someone did,” Mr. Barker says. They walk on.

At Mr. Barker’s house, Harry sits on an uncomfortable house while Mr. Barker tries to be hospitable. Mr. Green will come by in the morning to get Harry. Oh boy, that’s something to look forward to! He once again tries to get Harry to tell who he was with that night. Harry insists it isn’t right to squeal on your friends. Oh well. Since he won’t come clean, Harry will have to sleep on the uncomfortable couch. But Mr. Barker will leave him a thought to fall asleep on: Is it right to hide a lawbreaker from justice?

Harry beds down on the couch while the narrator sums up his lousy day. Harry’s problem is far from solved. It’s not up to the film to solve the problem though, but you the viewer. Apply your morality to Harry. Judge him according to your standards rather than the facts of the case. Judge him! JUDGE HIM! JUDGE EVERYONE! JUDGE JUDGE JUDGETY JUDGE!

The Insulted and Injured, Fyodor Dostoevsky

3 stars

First Sentence: Last year, on the evening of March 22, I had a very strange adventure.

Thoughts: Vanya is an author who has just published Dostoevsky’s his first novel Poor Folk. He should be on top of the world, but he isn’t. For one thing the public has Expectations about him now. He has to write more short stories for the magazines and another novel. Along with that, he has problems in his personal life that keep distracting him from work.

The first one, or at least the one that starts the novel, is the death of Azorka, an ancient dog. She passes quietly while she and her owner rest in a coffee shop. Vanya follows the man when he runs out of the shop, catching up to him when he collapses in an alley. The man’s dying words are an address which Vanya at first thinks is the man’s. It isn’t. The man actually lived closer to where he died, in a top-floor flat in a shabby apartment building. Vanya goes into the flat where he discovers that the man was living in abject poverty, and that he was an Englishman named Jeremy Smith. He also discovers that he likes the flat and decides to rent it himself.

A few days later an eleven-year-old girl knocks on the door. She thought the old man still lived there, but when she sees Vanya she takes off running. He follows her only to find the address the old man gave him was hers. She’s living in a disreputable house being tormented by a cruel landlady who isn’t above prostituting her for rent money. Vanya enlists the help of some of his friends to get the girl out of the building. When he finds out the girl was Smith’s granddaughter Elena (or Nellie as she prefers), he ends up adopting her. Which is a good thing because Nellie’s health is not that great. She has seizures and a heart problem that will end up killing her before too long. At least, that’s what the doctor says.

As if that’s not enough, Vanya is also having girlfriend problems. He’s been in love with Natasha since they were children, but she’s fallen for a scapegrace nobleman named Alyosha. Alyosha’s father, Prince Valkovsky, has been embroiled in a lawsuit with Natasha’s father so neither family is thrilled by this. Vanya takes on the role of middleman for everyone. He keeps Natasha’s parents updated on how she’s doing and vice versa. Then Alyosha starts to cool on Natasha. Oh sure, he claims he still loves her but everyone can tell he’s attracted to a more suitable noblewoman now. An attraction his father is encouraging, despite all his claims that he’s trying to keep Alyosha and Natasha together.

Vanya finds himself caught in the middle of everyone’s problems. He’s trying to help them all (except the Prince who’s a conniving jerk) but he can’t. Nellie’s heart problems are getting worse, Natasha is trying her best not to break down but she’s just on the edge, her father is drowning in his own bitterness, and the Prince just won’t. Stop. Scheming.

I got really invested in these characters. Within a few pages I was completely drawn in to all their complicated soap opera-esque problems. I just had to find out what happened to them. Especially Natasha. She deserved so much better than that drip Alyosha. Why no one slapped him back to the Stone Age is one of life’s unsolved mysteries.

Good Man Friday, Barbara Hambly

4 stars

First Sentence: “I told you to fetch me a doctor, boy, not some damn —!”

Thoughts: Benjamin January had paying work as a musician at the beginning of Mardi Gras season, but when a man he treated at an n-bomb fight died of his wounds, the man’s owner blackballed Ben from all the American parties for the rest of the year. He couldn’t get work at the Creole parties because all of their musicians were already locked in. His only comfort was the pianist the Americans replaced him with was effing horrible, so he was guaranteed to have work again next year.

But that’s next year and the Januarys need a source of income now. The country still hasn’t crawled out of the depression caused by the banks crashing the year before. Fortunately the Viellards have need of Ben’s investigatory skills. You know the Viellards. Henri is Dominique’s protector and father of her daughter; Chloe is his wife who has no problems with Dominique. In fact, bring Minou and Charmian along too!

Where are they going? Washington City, aka Washington D.C. Why are they going there? Chloe’s pen pal Mr. Singletary has gone missing. He was an eccentric mathematician who used to do the accounts for various European banks until he got a job as a mathematics professor at the University of Virginia. Chloe had been writing her Uncle Veryl’s letters to Singletary until Singletary figured out who she was. He didn’t care that she was a woman as long as she understood math, which she did.

Anyway, Singletary arrived in Washington the previous October. He made a few contacts with some people he knew there and then dropped off the face of the earth.

When they arrive in the nation’s capital, the Louisianans begin a two-pronged investigation. Benjamin checks out the seedy side of town with the help of Mr. Grigg, the landlord of his boarding house, and a white man Mr. Poe who is hiding out from his creditors on the Black side of town. Meanwhile the Viellards tackle the upper echelons of society, including John Quincey Adams, former president and current senator who was also one of Singletary’s correspondents. He has no clue where the missing mathematician is either.

It isn’t until they meet a Kentucky planter whose more-cultured English wife is pressuring to get a job in the government that the investigations bear fruit. The planter’s valet, Mede Tyler, the “Good Man Friday” of the title, gives Ben a notebook that Singletary left behind at the house. The last few pages contained strange columns of numbers. A code of some kind?

Almost against his will, Ben gets caught up in the townball craze that’s sweeping the capital. Every man in the city, it seems, is on a team, even the free colored. Technically their team is illegal but the police don’t care as long as they can make money betting on their games. Mede Tyler is recruited for the team, but he doesn’t qualify since he’s still a slave. So his owner frees him, setting the whole tragedy in motion. Now Ben, Chloe, and Mr. Edgar Poe have to find the killer along with the motive for getting rid of Mr. Singletary.

And yes, that’s Edgar Allen Poe. Baltimore’s not far from D.C. so I can buy his presence in the story. He still feels shoehorned in, though. At least it wasn’t Jefferson Davis again.

The Patchwork Girl of Oz, L. Frank Baum

5 stars

First Sentence: “Where’s the butter, Unc Nunkie?” asked Ojo.

Thoughts: Baum thought The Emerald City of Oz was going to be the last Oz book. After all, Ozma had cut off the entire country from the rest of the world, so how was he going to get his stories from Dorothy anymore? Then an enterprising young fan wrote a letter to Baum with a suggestion: why not try a wireless set to contact Oz? Baum set up a radio tower and found he was able to contact Dorothy to get more Oz stories with it. He published a brand-new Oz book in 1913 and the world went insane with delight.

Insane is a good way to describe the Patchwork Girl as well. But before we get to her we have to meet Ojo and Unc Nunkie. They’re Munchkins living on the edge of the middle of nowhere. When we first meet them Ojo is looking for something to eat but all they have left is a dry loaf of bread. The rest of the loaves on the bread tree are nowhere near ripe, so Ojo and Unc Nunkie go over the mountain to visit their nearest neighbor to get some food.

The neighbors were Dr. Pipt and his wife Margolotte. Dr. Pipt was an illegal magician who we first encounter stirring a cauldron with both hands and both feet. He’s finishing up a batch of the Powder of Life after six years of stirring. You might remember the Powder of Life from The Land of Oz where Mombi and Tip used it to create all sorts of abominations. The Pipts had used the last of the old batch to bring the Glass Cat to life. Margolotte wanted her to kill mice, but the Glass Cat was too vain for that sort of menial work. She had pretty pink brains, after all. See how they roll!

Anyway, the new batch was intended for a Patchwork Girl Margolotte had made to help with the housework. While Pipt is finishing up the new Powder, Margolotte begins to put in the ingredients for the Patchwork Girl’s brains. She’s called away when the Powder is done, so Ojo decides to put in a little of each bottle of ingredients into the doll’s head. And this is why the Patchwork Girl is nuttier than a squirrel convention.

When Pipt sprinkles the Patchwork Girl with the Powder of Life, tragedy strikes. She starts to flail about, knocking the rest of the powder on a nearby phonograph. She also overturns a bottle of the Liquid of Petrifaction onto Unc Nunkie and Margolotte, turning them into statues. There’s only one way to save them: start another batch of the Powder of Life. Ojo doesn’t want to wait six years to get his uncle back. Well, there is another way to save them but it requires a list of impossible ingredients.

And so Ojo, the Glass Cat, and Scraps the Patchwork Girl set off to find the ingredients. The first thing that happens is the phonograph running after them. It annoys the everlasting out of them, so they send it off to irritate the rest of Munchkinland. They continue on until they meet the Wocky, a square creature with three hairs on its tail. Three hairs that they need to create the potion to save Margolotte and Unc Nunkie! Unfortunately they can’t pull the hairs out, so the Wocky chooses to come along with them.

Just when they’re in danger of getting lost, they meet the Shaggy Man who escorts them to the Emerald City. They also meet the Scarecrow who falls head over heels for Scraps and vice versa. When they get to the Emerald City they tell Ozma about their troubles. She lets Dorothy come with them to gather the rest of the ingredients. They head into the lands of the Quadlings and Winkies for more adventures until Ojo almost ruins everything by picking a six-leaved clover.

The Patchwork Girl of Oz was a runaway success that ensured the life of the rest of the series until Baum’s own death. It also inspired a movie in 1914 directed by Baum. I had seen it years ago on a Wikipedia page when it was a tiny Quicktime movie. Now it’s on Youtube and you can fullscreen that sucker. Warning: it is truly bizarre. Reassurance: it’s nowhere near as scary as Return to Oz. (But then, what is?)

Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell

4 stars

First Sentence: A boy is coming down a flight of stairs.

Thoughts: The boy is Hamnet Shakespeare, son of William. On this particular day, Hamnet is alone in the house. It’s not the best time for everyone else to be out because his twin sister Judith has suddenly started feeling sick. He looks all over the place for his mother, sister, and grandmother but he only finds his grandfather who’s drunk again. He smacks Hamnet upside the head and sends him out of the house.

There’s not a real villain in the book, but John Shakespeare is certainly the front-runner for the role.

Turns out Judith has bubonic plague. The house is quarantined while her mother Agnes tends to her. Agnes is an herbalist with witchy tendencies and she is NOT going to let one of those doctors in to scare her children with his plague mask and drain Judith’s blood. In the end, she succeeds in saving Judith, but it cost Hamnet his life.

That’s not a spoiler. That’s history.

The story switches between the present day of Judith’s illness to the courtship and marriage of Agnes and William. They met when William was tutoring Agnes’ younger brothers in Latin. She knew from the moment she touched his hand that Will was destined for great things (see witchy tendencies above). The early years of their marriage was difficult because John was such an overbearing jerk, but everything changed when Will went to London. He was supposed to go there to find a new market for John’s gloves, but ended up working in the theater. He stayed there, writing, directing, and performing in plays, with only occasional visits home to Stratford.

Of course they notified him when Judith fell ill. The messenger caught up to him at a theater in a small town since all the playhouses in London had been closed due to plague. William raced home, but he was too late. Hamnet was dead. He knew that Agnes and his daughters couldn’t stay in the house where his son died, so he used his savings to buy them a new house with a garden for Agnes and no ghosts.

Agnes descended into a deep depression. She was roused out of it when a neighbor gave her an advertisement for Will’s new play: Hamlet. How dare he write a play about their dead son! Agnes fumed. She stormed off to London to see the play only to realize that she and Will had different ways of showing their grief.

It’s a lovely story, much like The Marriage Portrait. Unlike the other book, this one has a cover with a sense of style. I know, I know, don’t judge a book by its cover, but this is really an argument for increased art education in our schools. Design is important, people!

I also want to note that William is never mentioned by name in the novel. That’s because this isn’t about him, it’s about his family. He’s only an occasional presence in their lives, as much of a mystery to them as he is to us five hundred years later. The story is really about Agnes since she was the one keeping them all together. But even she couldn’t do it alone. Will did have a role to play: Agnes never would have recovered without her husband.

The Metamorphosis and Other Stories, Franz Kafka

5 stars

First Sentence: It was on a Sunday morning in the loveliest part of spring.

Thoughts: Franz Kafka was a man ahead of his time. I still can’t get over the fact that these were written in the 19-teens. They seem much more modern, but that’s probably because Kafka wasn’t afraid to depict the surreal in an everyday sort of way. If you’re like me, and I know I am, you are all about some surreal weird stories. Which ones are in this collection?

The Metamorphosis, obviously. It’s Kafka’s most famous work, the story of Gregor Samsa who woke one morning from uneasy dreams to find himself transformed into a giant insect. It’s never specified which insect, but popular opinion makes it a cockroach. I can believe that based on his family’s reactions to him. Anyway, since Gregor had been the main breadwinner of the family, his transformation means they all have to make some big changes themselves. The biggest problem is how to make money while keeping Gregor locked up in his room. His father, mother, and sister have all find new opportunities for themselves that wouldn’t have existed without his metamorphosis. In the end he does them the biggest favor of all, dying so they can be free.

There’s also The Judgment, about the terrible relationship between Georg and his father. It begins with Georg writing a letter to his friend in Russia. He’s got big news: Georg just got engaged to a very nice young woman. After he finishes the letter, he goes to check on his father who has been ill since Georg’s mother died. The conversation starts with Georg’s father accusing him of making up the Russian friend and degenerates from there. By the end of the story, Georg’s father has completely demolished his son’s self esteem and self-will and condemns him to death by drowning.

Y’all, I don’t think they get along very well.

A Country Doctor is peak surrealism. The title character is called out to tend a sick man one winter’s night and finds himself lost in a nightmare. A Report to an Academy is more weird than surreal. The report is made by Red Peter, an ape who decided he didn’t want to be an ape after he was captured and taught himself how to be human.

Finally there’s my favorite Kafka story of all, In the Penal Colony. Why is it my favorite? Because I am a dark, twisted person. The penal colony is on a tropical island somewhere in the hot portion of the globe. A Traveler is visiting the colony for purposes that aren’t really important. The Officer invites the Traveler to witness the most famous punishment in the colony. It’s a complex machine that writes the prisoner’s wrongs on his body. The Officer spends the first part of the story crawling around the machine adjusting it for the upcoming punishment while explaining the vision of the previous Commandant of the colony. Meanwhile the condemned man and the soldier guarding him amuse themselves. The Officer tells the Traveler how great the machine was in its heyday, how people would gather for miles around to see it in operation, even bringing their children to the show. Then he tells the Traveler that he wants him to convince the new Commandant to keep using the machine. The Traveler, being a reasonable person, is horrified by the torture device and refuses. The Officer, seeing the imminent destruction, straps himself into the machine while Chekhov’s flywheel (which has been squeaking throughout the story) finally comes loose.

Again, I am a dark, twisted individual with no hope of redemption. But at least my cat loves me.

Sula, Toni Morrison

5 stars

First Sentence: In that place, where they tore the nightshade and blackberry patches from their roots to make room for the Medallion City Golf Course, there was once a neighborhood.

Thoughts: Sula and Nel came from very different backgrounds, but they were the best of friends. Nel’s mother Helene had escaped her childhood in New Orleans to make a new life for herself as a proper woman in the midwest. Nel never knew why her mother was so insistent on everything being just so until she went back to Louisiana for her great-grandmother’s funeral. There she found out that Helene’s apple didn’t just fall far from the tree, it rolled away. She went back to her restricted life. Then she met Sula at school.

Sula was much more carefree than Nel. Her house was much, much more chaotic as well. Her grandmother Eva had left town for a while, then returned with only one leg. Rumor had it she had stuck it under a train to collect insurance money. Sula’s mother Hannah was a loving woman. In fact, she loved every man in town. No one hated her for it, though, because she was so casual when it came to sex. Then there was Tar Baby, a white man boarding at Eva’s house while he drank himself to death, and the Deweys, three boys Eva adopted for no discernible reason.

Then there was Plum, Eva’s son. He came back from WWI a shadow of his former self. No one knew why he stayed locked up in his room all day until Hannah found a spoon burned black. Eva didn’t want her son to die like an animal trapped by heroin so she lit him on fire. Hannah and Sula never completely trusted Eva after that, and can you blame them?

Sula and Nel spent every moment they could together growing up. They knew all each other’s secrets, all their desires, and even their thoughts. Nel provided the restraint Sula needed on her wildness while Sula helped Nel come out of her shell.

Still it was no surprise that Sula grew up to be a hard woman who didn’t trust anyone (except Nel, of course). Eva knew what Sula was when she saw her watching Hannah burn to death. (Eva didn’t start that fire.) After Nel’s wedding Sula left town. She returned ten years later in a plague of robins. Nel thought she and Sula could pick up right where they left off and they did until Nel found her limits. It happened the day she walked in on her husband Jude in bed with Sula.

The last few years of Sula’s life were a continual downward slide. She became the town villain, uniting everyone in hatred. While she did have a few lovers, she spent most of her time alone. She died alone, as well. Twenty-five years later, Nel realized what Sula had taken with her when she died.

It’s beautifully written as only Morrison could write. She had a way of revealing the beauty in darkness. She deserved the Nobel for the way she could make the English language sing. I mean, look at this:

If I take a chamois and rub real hard on the bone, right on the ledge of your cheek bone, some of the black will disappear. It will flake away into the chamois and underneath there will be gold leaf. I can see it shining through the black. I know it is there…

And if I take a nail file or even Eva’s old paring knife—that will do—and scrape away the gold, it will fall away and there will be alabaster. The alabaster is what gives your face its planes, its curves. That is why your mouth smiling does not reach your eyes. Alabaster is giving it a gravity that resists a total smile.

Then I can take a chisel and small tap hammer and tap away the alabaster. It will crack then like ice under the pick, and through the breaks I will see the loam, fertile, free of pebbles and twigs. For it is the loam that is giving you that smell.

That’s art is what that is.

The Song of the Lark, Willa Cather

2.5 stars

First Sentence: Dr. Howard Archie had just come up from a game of pool with the Jewish clothier and two traveling men who happened to be staying overnight in Moonstone.

Thoughts: Thea Kronborg was the daughter of Swedish immigrants living in Colorado. She wasn’t like the other girls. She had a real gift for music. Her mother always made sure Thea had lots of time to practice her piano and got her lessons from the best music teacher in the region, a dissipated German pianist named Wunsch. He had his faults, but he gave Thea a thorough grounding in the basics of music.

Because she was so devoted to her art, Thea didn’t have any friends her own age. All of her friends were older men, which is just as creepy as it sounds. Dr. Howard Archie encouraged Thea’s intellectual pursuits by letting her borrow books from his library. He took her on his house calls as well, which is how she met the Mexican immigrants in Spanish Town. She loved sitting with them at night listening to their music.

Another friend was Ray Kennedy, a railroad man who told her about the world outside Colorado. He was always talking about how he was going to marry Thea as soon as she was old enough, so it was a distinct relief when he was killed in a train wreck. He left all his money to Thea, who used it to move to Chicago to further her musical education.

The first year she studied piano under Andor Harsanyi. He soon realized Thea didn’t have any real calling to the piano, but when he heard her sing he realized it was because her real gift was her voice. He sent her to Madison Bowers to develop her vocal talents. Bowers was a good teacher but a miserable human being. Thea learned a lot from him, but she wore herself down being at his beck and call all the time.

Through Bowers she meets Fred Ottenberg, the son of a brewery mogul. He convinces Thea to spend her summer in the Arizona desert. He meets her there after a few months and they fall in love. Alas, t’was not to be just yet. Instead Fred breaks her heart before financing her further musical education in Dresden.

Ten years later Thea is in New York for the summer singing with the Metropolitan Opera. Dr. Archie, who has given up medicine and now owns several mines, comes to visit her and hear her sing. There he and Ottenberg witness her breakthrough into real artistry/stardom.

Honestly, this is not my favorite of Cather’s works. The best part was when Thea and Fred were in the desert. Cather’s true gift was describing the stark beauty of the American Southwest. Unfortunately this was a character-driven novel, not a landscape novel, and all the characters were likeable at all. Except Harsanyi, he was a good sort. All of the other men, however, were pervy creeps. As for Thea herself, she was a cold fish of a person. The novel tried to pass of her superiority complex as “artistic,” but it wasn’t. She was a spoiled brat who became a right bitch by the end of the book. The story doesn’t tell us how she turned out after her breakthrough performance, but it’s really not a mystery. She became a prima donna of the worst order. There was no other possible future for her.

Uncle’s Dream and Other Stories, Fyodor Dostoevsky

3.5 stars

First Sentence: Under a certain roof, in a certain one-roomed apartment, on a certain fourth floor, lived two young civil-servant colleagues, Arkady Ivanovich Nefedevich and Vasya Shumkov…

Thoughts: This was an okay collection of four short stories. They were entertaining, but nothing really grabbed me. Then again, nothing really annoyed me so there’s that. Rated in ascending order of how much I liked them they are:

White Nights: The story of an unnamed narrator and his brief friendship with a woman named Nastenka. The narrator liked to walk alone at night along the streets of St. Petersburg and imagine the houses were talking to him. One night he came across a young woman being annoyed by an oafish man. He rescued the woman and walked her home, conversing all the way. She invited the narrator to come over the next night so they could continue their conversation. Over the next four nights Nastenka told him her life story. It was mainly the tale of her love for the young man who boarded at her aunt’s house the year before. He went home to earn enough money to get married on, promising to contact her when he returned to St. Petersburg. Nastenka found out the young man was back in town, but hadn’t gotten in touch with her. The narrator spends his time in the story falling in love with Nastenka, but all for naught since the other young man does meet up with her and they get married.

A Weak Heart: Arkady Ivanovitch Nefedevich and Vasya Shumkov are roommates, as the first sentence implies. Vasya comes home late one New Year’s Eve absolutely incandescent with delight. He got engaged to a Nice Young Girl that day. Unfortunately he also has a pile of papers for work that are due on January 2 that he hasn’t even started on yet. He tries to sit down to work, but he can’t. Arkady tells Vasya that he’ll pay all his New Year’s visits for him so Vasya can catch up on work. Instead Vasya goes insane, leaving Arkady to pick up the pieces.

Uncle’s Dream: The story of how Mariya Aleksandrovna Moskaleva lost her standing in the town of Morsadovo thanks to Prince K. The Prince was an elderly man with a touch of the dementia. Everyone loved him, though, and called him “Uncle” even if they weren’t related. One day Pavel Mozglyakov found Prince K next to his overturned sleigh in the woods. Uncle was escaping from the harpy of a housekeeper at his estate. He had no idea where he was going, so Pavel took him to Moskaleva’s house. Pavel knew Moskaleva well because he was in love with her daughter Zinaida, even though she kept refusing his proposals. Moskaleva got a brilliant idea to marry Zinaida to Prince K because he was old and wouldn’t live much longer. Then Zinaida would inherit all his money and they’d be living on Easy Street. Pavel finds out about the plans, however, and tells Uncle who then turns the whole thing into a scandal.

The Meek One: A dark, disturbing tale of a woman driven to suicide. The narrator is a pawnshop owner with a checkered past. He met his wife when she brought trinkets to pawn to get enough money to run newspaper ads offering her services as a governess. The narrator discovered the girl (she was only sixteen) was running the ads so she could get a job away from her aunts who wanted to marry her to a brutal grocer. The narrator offers his hand in marriage instead. She accepts, but comes to regret that decision. There is absolutely no communication between them once they are husband and wife. She tries to get away from him through an affair, but that doesn’t work. She points a revolver at his head one night, but can’t bring herself to pull the trigger. Eventually she falls ill and the narrator has to nurse her back to health. When she recovers, he promises to take her to the Mediterranean to recuperate. He goes to get their passports, but when he comes home he finds a crowd gathered over his wife’s broken body in the street. She had jumped out the window to get away from him, although the narrator refuses to acknowledge his role in her death.

Why was that one my favorite? Why am I like this?