The Bookshop (1978) by Penelope Fitzgerald. A soft-spoken entrepreneur opens a bookshop in a small, busy-body town. Florence decides to open a bookshop to enrich her hometown and her own life. At first a success, Florence eventually draws the wrath of the townsfolk, including the influential and well-connected Mrs. Gamart. Green asserts herself and her business, and petty but profound vindictiveness follows. I was a bit puzzled by the wrath of the townsfolk, but I did find this book to be enjoyable.

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Excerpt:

The desire to exhibit somewhere more ambitious than the parish hall accompanied this crisis, and Florence related it to the letters which she also received from ‘local authors.’ The paintings were called ‘Sunset Across the Laze,’ the books were called ‘On Foot Across the Marches’ or ‘Awheel Across East Anglia,’ for what else can be done with flatlands than to cross them? She had no idea, none at all, where she would put the local authors if they came, as they suggested, to sign copies of their books for eager purchasers. Perhaps a table underneath the staircase, if some of the stock could be moved. She vividly imagined their disillusionment, wedged behind the table with books and a pen in front of them, while the hours emptied away and no one came.

___

Vulgar language. Fitzgerald started her literary career at age fifty-eight. She has experience working in a bookshop.

. . . . .

Blockade Billy (2010) by Stephen King. An “out-of-nowhere” baseball player displays phenomenal skill and luck. “Blockade Billy,” an emergency last-minute baseball player substitution plucked from Americana, briefly plays with the New Jersey Titans. But “Blockade Billy” isn’t what he seems… The story is framed as the recollections of a retired NJT player as told to King. The story reads very much like a baseball game announcer transcript.

___

Excerpt:

But when he looked at me, there was no panic in his eyes. No Fear. Not even nervousness, which I would have said every player feelson Opening Day. No, he looked perfectly cool standing there behind the plate in his Levi’s and light poplin jacket.

“Yuh,” he says, like a man confirming something he was pretty sure of in the first place. “Billy and hit here.’

“Good for him,” I tells him. It’s all I can think of t say.

“Good,” he says back. Then—I swear—he says, “Do you think those guys need help with them hoses?”

___

Vulgar language. King wrote of BB: “I love old-school baseball, and I also love the way people who’ve spent a lifetime in the game talk about the game. I tried to combine those things in a story of suspense. People have asked me for years when I was going to write a baseball story. Ask no more; this is it.”

. . . . .

Morality (2009) magazine, and (2010) book by Stephen King. A poor, married couple commit a heinous – yet seemingly surmountable – crime for money. Chad, a struggling writer, and Nora, a frustrated nurse, agree to Rev. George Winston’s offer to commit and videotape a sin in a park for $200,000. The consequences of sin follow. This story was riveting. What on Earth was the $200,000 sin? Read to find out!

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Excerpt:

Nora was sitting on a park bench. When she saw him, she brushed her hair back from the left side of her face. That was the signal: It was on.

Behind her was a playground—swings, a push merry-go-round, teeter-totters, bouncy horses on springs, that sort of thing. At this hour, there were only a few kids playing. The moms were in a group on the far side, talking and laughing, not really paying much attention to the kids.

Nora got up from the bench.

Two hundred thousand dollars, he thought, and raised the camera to his eye.

___

Vulgar language. King is a democratic political activist.

. . . . .

Glaciers (2012) by Alexis M. Smith. An unobtrusive library employee recollects her childhood highlights and relates it to her present day-to-day life. Isabel, a book restorer, reminisces about the trials of her childhood. Through tangible symbols rescued from the past, she constructs a sense of meaning in her disjointed adult life. Glaciers is a symbolic story with a dream-like quality. I usually don’t care for those types of books, but this one drew me in. I felt like I knew Isabel, and recognized some of her own life experiences as my own. I read this book during two of the most emotionally wrenching days of my life, and was still transfixed by the story. I attribute this to the skill of the author. Highly recommended!

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Excerpt:

Michael appears. He holds out his hand.

Oh no, she says. My feet are a little sore. Actually, they’re wreaked. I’ve walked the city and back today.

Isabel, it would be a disgrace to that dress, he says, grabbing her hand.

The music is loud and percussion-heavy. She cannot demur. She lets tall Michael lead her around the room, practically carrying her, lifting her off her feet in an improvised waltz. She loses a shoe. Faces turn toward them as Michael ferries her through conversations, interrupts drunken courting. They are sanguine, dreamy, cocktail-soaked faces. More dancers join, anachronistic dance moves erupt. She loses her other shoe. She laughs until her eyes are wet and Michael releases her to the wood planks, barefoot, telling her to watch for splinters, and then turns to a startled young man in a baby blue button-down shirt and sweeps him off his feet. He has dropped Isabel at the green velvet sofa where Leo has settled with a red-headed young man. His red-headed young man, she thinks. She runs her hands along her dress and falls next to Leo with a poof of her skirt.

Catch your breath, he says.

___

Vulgar language.

This post contains blasphemy and vulgar language.

. . . . .

The Actual (1997) by Saul Bellow. Interconnected Chicagoans interconnect. Harry, an emotionally challenged would-be lover of long-time friend Amy, has a meeting with billionaire Sigmund. Long, drawn-out rendezvouses, recollections and ruminations precede and follow. Like a Woody Allen movie, except in Chicago, and minus (most of) the fun and action.

___

Excerpt:

Beside the bath was a toilet with a cushioned cover on the lid, and Amy pulled down her underclothes and had seated herself, when Madge came in. She entered from the master bedroom. The toilet was in a recess between the whirlpool bath and a shower stall. Amy had failed to notice how long the tiled room actually was. Beyond, there were washbasins and mirror walls, and there was a dressing room as well.

“I don’t think I was especially well brought up,” said Amy, “but I was taught that this is one place where privacy is respected.”

“Well, I gave you time enough to examine the burned spot. The tea was lukewarm, not boiling. The Mexicans do good coffee, but they don’t understand how to brew tea. I realized when I poured the old lady her cup that it was tepid. I wanted a private talk, to have you to myself for awhile. That was the whole idea. Wasn’t it sweet of Bodo to bring the aloe vera? It’s one of his special remedies. But I can see for myself that the red scald isn’t too bad. You got wet, I’m sorry to say, and I’ll pay the cleaner’s bill too, but tea won’t stain—we used to rub spots out with tea when I was young.”

“Well, let me pull my clothes into place.”

“Yes, adjust a little, honey, and don’t mind me.”

“You did behave like a wild bitch,” said Amy. “Do you always do every goddamn thing that rushes into your head?”

“Well, at least I didn’t set you up for a hit.”

___

Vulgar language.

. . . . .

Dangling Man (1944) by Saul Bellow. The diary of Joseph, an unemployed Chicagoan with violent tendencies waiting for his draft papers to be authorized. His aimlessness and dissatisfaction in life is caused by the red-tape delay of his absorption into the army. Pro-military.

___

Excerpt:

“You’re crazy, Uncle,” she said.

“All right, that’s said and over, there won’t be any more of it,” I said, and I believed that I was succeeding in checking myself. “You can listen to the conga, or whatever it is, when I leave. Now, will you go or sit down and let me play this to the end?”

“Why should I? You can listen to this. Beggars can’t be choosers!” She uttered this with such triumph that I could see she had prepared it long in advance.

“You’re a little animal,” I said. “As rotten and spoiled as they come. What you need is a whipping.”

“Oh!” she gasped. “You dirty . . . dirty no-account. You crook!” I caught her wrist and wrenched her toward me.

“Damn you, Joseph, let go! Let me go!” The album went crashing. With the fingers of her free hand she tried to reach my face. Seizing her by the hair fiercely, I snapped her head back; her outcry never left her throat; her nails missed me narrowly. Her eyes shut tightly, in horror.

“Here’s something from a beggar you won’t forget in a hurry,” I muttered. I dragged her to the piano bench, still gripping her hair.

“Don’t!” she screamed, recovering her voice. “Joseph! You bastard!”

I pulled her over my knee, trapping both her legs in mine. I could hear the others running upstairs as the first blows descended and I hurried my task, determined that she should be punished in spite of everything, in spite of the consequences; no, more severely because of the consequences. “Don’t you struggle,” I cried, pressing down her neck. “Or curse me. It won’t help you.”

Amos pounded up the last flight of stairs and burst in. Behind, breathless, came Dolly and Iva.

“Joseph,” Amos panted, “let her go. Let the girl go!”

I did not release her at once. She no longer fought against me but, with her long hair reaching nearly to the floor and her round, nubile thighs bare, lay in my lap.

___

Bellow joined the United States Merchant Marine during WWII.

. . . . .

Seize the Day (1956) by Saul Bellow. New Yorker Wilhelm is a failed actor, unemployed, poor, and estranged from his wife, children, and father. During the course of a single day, a series of unfortunate events leads to a psychological crisis. *SPOILER* He gives his last $700 dollars to a con man, and in an effort to chase him down, gets swept into a funeral, where he has a dramatic public breakdown. *END SPOILER* This story had a satisfying finish, in my opinion. Well-crafted.

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Excerpt:

“You have some purpose of your own,” said the doctor, “in acting so unreasonable. What do you want from me? What do you expect?”

“What do I expect?” said Wilhelm. He felt as though he were unable to recover something. Like a ball in the surf, washed beyond reach, his self-control was going out. “I expect help!” The words escaped him in a loud, wild, frantic cry and startled the old man, and two or three breakfasters within hearing glanced their way. Wilhelm’s hair, the color of whitened honey, rose dense and tall with the expansion of his face, and he said, “When I suffer—you aren’t even sorry. That’s because you have no affection for me, and you don’t want any part of me.”

“Why must I like the way you behave? No, I don’t like it,” said Dr. Adler.

“All right. You want me to change myself. But suppose I could do it—what would I become? What could I? Let’s suppose that all my life I have had the wrong ideas about myself and wasn’t what I thought I was. And wasn’t even careful to take a few precautions, as most people do—like a woodchuck has a few extra exits in his tunnel. But what shall I do now? More than half my life is over. More than half. And now you tell me I’m not even normal.”

The old man had lost his calm. “You cry about being helped,” he said. “When you thought you had to go into the service I sent a check to Margaret every month. As a family man you could have had an exemption. But no! The war couldn’t be fought without you and you had to get yourself drafted and be an office-boy in the Pacific theater. Any clerk could have done what you did. You could find nothing better than to become a GI.”

Wilhelm was going to reply, and half raised his bearish figure from the chair, his fingers spread and whitened by their grip on the table, but the old man would not let him begin. He said, “I see other elderly people here with children who aren’t much good, and they keep backing them and holding them up at a great sacrifice. But I’m not going to make that mistake. It doesn’t enter your mind that when I die—a year, two years from now—you’ll still be here. I do think of it.”

___

“Bellow lived in New York City for a number of years, but he returned to Chicago in 1962 as a professor at the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago… There were also other reasons for Bellow’s return to Chicago… Bellow found Chicago to be vulgar but vital, and more representative of America than New York. He was able to stay in contact with old high school friends and a broad cross-section of society. In a 1982 profile, Bellow’s neighborhood was described as a high-crime area in the city’s center, and Bellow maintained he had to live in such a place as a writer and ‘stick to his guns.’ ” -Wiki

R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) (1920) by Karel Čapek. R.U.R. was written as a play, and premiered onstage in 1921. The work officially introduced the word “robot” (coined by Čapek’s brother) to the English language and to science fiction in general. In the Czech language, the word robota means forced labor, and is derived from the word rab, meaning “slave.” The name Rossum is in reference to the Czech word rozum, which means “reason,” “intellect,” “wisdom,” or “common-sense.” Robot novel author Isaac Asimov wrote: “Capek’s play is, in my own opinion, a terribly bad one, but it is immortal for that one word. It contributed the word ‘robot’ not only to English but, through English, to all the languages in which science fiction is now written.”

A scientist accidentally discovers a chemical with the same properties as protoplasm, “except that it did not mind being knocked around.” (wiki) This leads to the invention and proliferation of assembled meat robots, similar to humans.

I enjoyed this quick read insomuch as I felt reading it was completing a rite of passage for a science fiction writer.

___

Excerpt:

NANA [cleaning]: Nasty beasts! Heathens! God forgive me, but I’d—

HELENA [in the doorway with her back to the audience]: Nana, come here and button me.

NANA: I’m coming, I’m coming. [Buttoning HELENA’s dress.] God in heaven, what wild beasts!

HELENA: What, the Robots?

NANA: Bah, I don’t even want to say that word.

HELENA: What happened?

NANA: Another one of ‘em took a fit here. Just starts smashing statues and pictures, gnashing its teeth, foaming at the mouth—No fear of God in ‘em, brr. Why, they’re worse’n beasts!

HELENA: Which one had a fit?

NANA: The one . . . the one . . . it doesn’t even have a Christian name. The one from the library.

HELENA: Radius?

NANA: That’s him. Jesusmaryandjoseph. I can’t stand ‘em! Even spiders don’t spook me as much as these heathens.

HELENA: But Nana, how can you not feel sorry for them?!

NANA: But you can’t stand ‘em either, I ‘spect. Why else would you have brought me out here? Why, you wouldn’t even let them touch you!

HELENA: Cross my heart, Nana, I don’t hate them. I just feel so sorry for them!

NANA: You hate ‘em. Every human being has to hate ‘em. Why even that hound hates ‘em, won’t even take a scrap of meat from ‘em. Just tucks its tail between its legs and howls when those unhumans are around, bah!

HELENA: A dog’s got no sense.

NANA: It’s got more’n they do, Helena. It knows right well that it’s better’n they are and that it comes from God. Even the horse shies away when it meets up with one of those heathens. Why, they don’t even bear young, and even a dog bears young, everything bears young . . .

HELENA: Please, Nana, button me!

NANA: Yeah, yeah. I’m telling you, churning out these machine-made dummies is against the will of God. It’s the Devil’s own doing. Such blasphemy is against the will of the Creator [she raises her hand], it’s an insult to the Lord who created us in His image, Helena. Even you’ve dishonored the image of God. Heaven’ll send down a terrible punishment—remember that—a terrible punishment!

HELENA: What smells so nice in here?

NANA: Flowers. The master brought them.

HELENA: Aren’t they beautiful! Nana, come look! What’s the occasion?

NANA: Don’t know. But it could be the end of the world.

___

Čapek’s childhood was shaped by “an overbearing, emotional mother and a distant yet adored father” (wiki) He was plagued with spondyloarthropathy, which manifests as a painful spine. The intensity of pain is inversely proportional to physical activity. Čapek was very close to his brother Josef, who ultimately died in a concentration camp in 1945, seven years after Čapek died of double pneumonia.

. . . . .

The Uncommon Reader (2007) by Alan Bennett. This story is written as a “royal humor” piece, and I must confess my blood is not sufficiently blue to appreciate the barbs. I did, however, enjoy the story as a social commentary. Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom becomes an avid reader of “common” books, as opposed to an occasional reader of “royal” books. The common reading leads to common writing. *SPOILER* At the conclusion of the story, the Queen is forced to throw caution to the Windsor. That last line was my attempt at “royal humor.” *END SPOILER*

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Excerpt:

It was with some relief that she got back into the coach and reached behind the cushion for her book. It was not there. Steadfastly waving as they rumbled along she surreptitiously felt behind the other cushions.

‘You’re not sitting on it?’

‘Sitting on what?’

‘My book.’

‘No, I am not. Some British Legion people here, and wheelchairs. Wave, for God’s sake.’

When they arrived at the palace she had a word with Grant, the young footman in charge, who said it was security and that that while ma’am had been in the Lords the sniffer dogs had been round and security had confiscated the book. He thought it had probably been exploded.

‘Exploded?’ said the Queen. ‘But it was Anita Brookner.’

The young man, who seemed remarkably undeferential, said security may have thought it was a device.

The Queen said: ‘Yes. That is exactly what it is. A book is a device to ignite the imagination.’

The footman said: ‘Yes, ma’am.’

It was as if he were talking to his grandmother, and not for the first time the Queen was made unpleasantly aware of the hostility her reading seemed to arouse.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Then you should inform security that I shall expect to find another copy of the same book, vetted and explosive-free, waiting on my desk tomorrow morning.

___

Some vulgar language.

In 2008, Bennett announced he will donate the entirety of his “archive of working papers, unpublished manuscripts, diaries and books to the Bodleian Library, stating that it was a gesture of thanks repaying a debt he felt he owed to the British welfare state that had given him educational opportunities which his humble family background would otherwise never have afforded.” (Wiki)

In 2010, Bennett reported he had been “mugged by two women who surreptitiously squirted him with ice cream in Marks & Spender, Camden Town. As they purported to wipe off the confection with tissues, the robbers stole £1,500 cash he had withdrawn from the bank minutes earlier. Bennett, who initially was grateful the women had helped clean him said the experience afterwards made him ‘less likely to believe in the kindness of strangers.’ ” (Wiki)

. . . . .

The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) by John Buchan. A political drama-adventure shocker in which the hero implausibly eludes a national manhunt and uncovers an international political assassination plot at the same time. In London, at the dawn of WWI, secret agent Richard Hannay gets mixed up in the business of fellow spy Franklin P. Scudder, who claims to have uncovered a plot to murder the Greek Premier, and so forth. Somebody murders Scudder, and Hannay escapes to Scotland to avoid erroneous prosecution. I found the book a chore to finish, as I don’t particularly enjoy political intrigue books.

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Excerpt:

“At your service,” he said politely. “I am the landlord, sir, and I hope you will stay the night, for to tell you the truth I have had no company for a week.”

I pulled myself up on the parapet of the bridge and filled my pipe. I began to detect an ally.

“You’re young to be an innkeeper,” I said.

“My father died a year ago and left me the business. I live here with my grandmother. It’s a slow job for a young man, and it wasn’t my choice of profession.”

“Which was?”

He actually blushed. “I want to write books,” he said.

“And what better chance could you ask?” I cried. “Man, I’ve often thought that an innkeeper would make the best story-teller in the world.”

“Not now,” he said eagerly. “Maybe in the old days when you had pilgrims and ballard-makers and highwaymen and mail-coaches on the road. But not now. Nothing comes here but motor-cars full of fat women, who stop for lunch, and a fisherman of two in the spring, and the shooting tenants in August. There is not much material to be got out of that. I want to see life, to travel the world, and write things like Kipling and Conrad. But the most I’ve done yet is to get some verses printed in ‘Chamber’s Journal.’ ”

I looked at the inn standing golden in the sunset against the brown hills.

“I’ve knocked a bit in the world, and I wouldn’t despise such a hermitage. D’you think that adventure is found only in the tropics or among gentry in red shirts? Maybe you’re rubbing shoulders with it at this moment.”

“That’s what Kipling says,” he said, his eyes brightening, and he quoted some verse about “Romance bringing up the 9.15.”

“Here’s a true tale for you then,” I cried, “and a month from now you can make a novel out of it.”

___

Pejorative and vulgar language. Buchan wrote TTNS while convalescing from a life-long ulcer. The title “The Thirty-Nine Steps” originated with Buchan’s daughter counting the steps from the nursing home where Buchan convalesced, to the beach. “Some time later the house was demolished and a section of the stairs, complete with a brass plaque, was sent to Buchan.” (Wiki)

. . . . .

The Thanksgiving Visitor 1967 (magazine), and 1968 (book), by Truman Capote. A boy is bullied, and is taught that bullies should be coddled instead of humiliated, as bullies suffer enough already. Buddy is relentlessly bullied by his classmate Odd. Buddy’s best friend and cousin, Miss Sook, invites Odd to have Thanksgiving with them. *SPOILER* Buddy catches Odd stealing, and Miss Sook stands up for Odd, instead of Buddy. *END SPOILER* Having endured a childhood of bullying, I did not agree with the moral of this story.

___

Excerpt:

“I don’t suppose there will be much Thanksgiving in their house. Probably Molly would be very pleased to have Odd sit down with us. Oh, I know Uncle B. would never permit it, but the nice thing to do is invite them all.”

My laughter woke Queenie; and after a surprised instant, my friend laughed too. Her cheeks pinked and a light flared in her eyes; rising, she hugged me and said, “Oh, Buddy, I knew you’d forgive me and recognize there was some sense to my notion.”

She was mistaken. My merriment had other origins. Two. One was the picture of Uncle B. carving turkey for all those cantankerous Hendersons. The second was: It had occurred to me that I had no cause for alarm; Miss Sook might extend the invitation and Odd’s mother might accept it in his behalf; but Odd wouldn’t show up in a million years.

He would be too proud. For instance, throughout the Depression years, our school distributed free milk and sandwiches to all children whose families were too poor to provide them with a lunch box. But Odd, emaciated as he was, refused to have anything to do with these handouts; he’s wander off by himself and devour a pocketful of peanuts or gnaw a large raw turnip. This kind of pride was characteristic of the Henderson breed: they might steal, gouge the gold out of a dead man’s teeth, but they would never accept a gift offered openly, for anything smacking of charity was offensive to them.

___

TTV is Capote’s sequel to A Christmas Memory.

Here’s a bizarre story about the cultural and societal attitudes of the era in which Capote lived.

Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) by Jean Rhys. An ill-fated couple struggle with race, class, and gender inequality in a socially oppressive tropical paradise. The arranged marriage of Antoinette and her (unnamed) husband quickly disintegrates into distrust, abuse, and betrayal. As Antoinette’s husband is in control of the dowry, he moves himself and his Jamaican-born wife back to his home country of England, where Antoinette is further isolated.

This book resonated with me, and brought back memories of my time in Hawaii in an abusive relationship. The racism Antoinette experiences as a white Creole growing up among newly the emancipated native Jamaicans, and later, living among native Dominicans, is similar to the modern-day racist attitudes in the Big Island of Hawaii. If you are white and visiting Hawaii and have money, you are politely tolerated. If you are white and living in Hawaii and do not have money, you are a haole. Haole destroyed the Hawaiian kingdom in 1893, stole the Hawaiian islands and ruined the native Hawaiian economy in 1898, and forever cheapened the native Hawaiian culture when Hawaii became the 50th state of the USA in 1959.

__

Excerpt:

Antoinette was leaning back against the pillows with her eyes closed. She opened them and smiled when I came in. It was the black woman hovering over her who said, ‘Taste my bull’s blood, master.’ The coffee she handed me was delicious and she had long-fingered hands, thin and beautiful I suppose.

‘Not horse piss like the English madams drink,’ she said. I know them. Drink drink their yellow horse piss, talk, talk their lying talk.’ Her dress trailed and rustled as she walked to the door. There she turned. ‘I send the girl to clear up the mess you made with the frangipani, it bring cockroach in the house. Take care not to slip on the flowers, young master.’ She slid through the door.

‘Her coffee is delicious but her language is horrible and she might hold her dress up. It must get very dirty, yards of it trailing on the floor.’

‘When they don’t hold their dress up it’s for respect,’ said Antoinette.

__

Pejorative language. WSS is a parallel novel to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847).

. . . . .

Three Men in a Boat AKA Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) (1889) by Jerome K. Jerome. Three chums and a dog take an English boating holiday on the Thames. Cheerio and tally-ho, the chaps had a jolly good time in-between Keystone Cops-eque hijinks.

I discovered I read this on May 2, Jerome’s birthday. Somehow that seems fitting.

___

Excerpt:

We passed a very pretty little hotel, with clematis and creeper over the porch; but there was no honeysuckle about it, and, for some reason or other, I had got my mind fixed on honeysuckle, and I said:

‘Oh, don’t let’s go in there! Let’s go a bit farther, and see if there isn’t one with honeysuckle over it.’

So we went on till we came to another hotel. That was a very nice hotel, too, and it had honeysuckle on it, round at the side; but Harris did not like the look of the man who was leaning against the front door. He said he didn’t look a nice man at all, and he wore ugly boots: so we went on farther. We went a goodish way without coming across anymore hotels, and then we met a man, and asked him to direct us to a few.

He said: ‘Why, you are coming away from them. You must turn right around and go back, and then you will come to the Stag.’

We said: ‘Oh, we had been there, and didn’t like it—no honeysuckle over it.’

‘Well, then,’ he said, ‘there’s the Manor House, just opposite. Have you tried that?’

Harris replied that we did not want to go there—didn’t like the looks of a man who was stopping there—Harris did not like the colour of his hair, didn’t like his boots, either.’

‘Well, I don’t know what you’ll do, I’m sure.’ Said our informant; because they are the only two inns in the place.’

‘No other inns!’ exclaimed Harris.

‘None,’ replied the man.

‘What on earth are we to do?’ cried Harris.

Then George spoke up. He said Harris and I could get an hotel built for us, if we liked, and have some people made to put in. For his part, he was going back to the Stag.

___

An instance of pejorative language. Jerome’s sequel to TMIAB is Three Men on a Bummel.

. . . . .

No-No Boy (1957) by John Okada. Immediately after WW2, a Japanese-American college undergraduate struggles with racism and self-respect. After two years in a Japanese-American internment camp, and another two years in federal prison for refusing the draft, Ichiro Yamada returns to Seattle to face the hatred of his fellow Japanese-Americans, the hatred of non-Japanese-Americans, and his own self-hate.

NNB is a powerfully revealing story about the ugliness of patriotism, nationalism, and racism, which seems to repeat itself with perplexing regularity throughout history.

___

Excerpt of 1943 Leave Clearance Application Form administered to interned Japanese-Americans:

Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty wherever ordered?

Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, to any other foreign government, power or organization?

___

Excerpt:

“Bobbie was like that. Me and the other guys, all we talked about was drinking and girls and stuff like that because it’s important to talk about those things when you make it back from the front on your own power, but Bobbie, all he thought about was going to school. I was nodding my head and saying yeah, yeah, and then there was this noise, kind of a pinging noise right close by. It scared me for a minute and I started to cuss and said, ‘Gee, that was damn close,’ and looked around at Bobbie. He was slumped over with his head between his knees. I reached out to hit him, thinking he was fooling around. Then, when I tapped him on the arm, he fell over and I saw the dark spot on the side of his head where the bullet had gone through. That was all. Ping, and he’s dead. It doesn’t figure, but it happened just the way I’ve said.”

The mother was crying now, without shame and alone in her grief that knew no end. And in her bottomless grief that made no distinction as to what was wrong and what was right and who was Japanese and who was not, there was no awareness of the other mother with a living son who had come to say to her you are with shame and grief because you were not Japanese and thereby killed your son but mine is big and strong and full of life because I did not weaken and would not let my son destroy himself uselessly and treacherously.

Ichiro’s mother rose and, without a word, for no words would ever pass between them again, went out of the house which was a part of America.

___

Pejorative language. Okada was a Japanese-American student at the University of Washington when Pearl Harbor was bombed by Japan. He and his family were interned in 1942. After passing the 1943 Leave Clearance, he became a Japanese translator in the United States Army Air Force. Today he is interred at Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park. NNB is Okada’s only novel.

. . . . .

To the Lighthouse (1927) by Virginia Woolf. An overbearing patriarch and a brooding matriarch intermittently discuss whether they shall go to a lighthouse. The Ramsay clan visits Scotland’s Isle of Skye, have guests for supper, and experience inner emotional turmoil. I found I had little resonance with this novel. Many of the passages were poetically interesting, but the book, as a whole, was tedious.

___

Excerpt:

How trifling it all is, he thought, compared with the other things—work. Here he sat drumming his fingers on the table-cloth when he might have been—he took a flashing bird’s-eye view of his work. What a waste of time it all was to be sure! Yet, he thought, she is one of my oldest friends. I am by way of being devoted to her. Yet now, at this moment her presence meant absolutely nothing to him: her beauty meant nothing to him: her sitting with her little boy at the window—nothing, nothing, He wished only to be alone and to take up that book. He felt uncomfortable; he felt treacherous, that he could sit by her side and feel nothing for her. The truth was that he did not enjoy family life. It was in this sort of state that one asks oneself, What does one life for? Why, one asked oneself, does one take all these pains for the human race to go on? Is it so very desirable? Are we attractive as a species? Not so very, he thought, looking at those rather untidy boys. His favourite, Cam, was in bed, he supposed. Foolish questions, vain questions, questions one never asked if one was occupied. Is human life this? Is human life that? One never has time to think about it. But here he was asking himself that sort of question, because Mrs. Ramsay was giving orders to servants, and also because it had struck him, thinking how surprised Mrs. Ramsay was that Carrie Manning would still exist, that friendships, even the best of them, are frail things. One drifts apart. He reproached himself again. He was sitting beside Mrs. Ramsay and he had nothing in the world to say to her.

___

Woolf committed suicide by drowning in 1941. Her suicide note to her husband:

Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier ’til this terrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can’t even write this properly. I can’t read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that—everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer. I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been. V.

Attribution: Johannes Jansson/norden.org

Lately I’ve been reading a lot of non-fiction, and I’ve been falling behind on my fiction reading. So it’s time to catch up. 31 days, 31 fiction books, all in May. Why May? Because it’s next month, and the words “day” and “May” rhyme. I’m not claiming this idea as original – a quick google reveals a book a day has been done before. There are even websites dedicated, with varying degrees of determination, to the book-a-day theme.

So why not just start plowing through my towering “to read” pile? 2 reasons: accountability and sharibility. If I announce my intention, I’m much likelier to follow through. Plus I believe reading is awesome, and I promote the activity whenever I can. Why did I name it BookDayMay? It all started with Albert Berg’s* Flash Fiction February (FlashFicFeb) a couple years ago. One whole month devoted to the pursuit of completing the same specific activity per day. How obsessive admirable is that? Now it’s my turn.

So I present BookDayMay! Care to join me? All you have to do is read a book a day in May. For me it will be fiction books, and more in the short story / novella range. For you it can be any books. Fiction, non-fiction, adult, children’s. Paper, electronic. Stone tablet, rice. (Audiobooks squeak by, even though that’s not reading with your actual eyeballs.) Even booklets count, if you want to get technical. You can do this in secret, or you can shout your intention from the rooftops. Or you can leave a comment saying you’ll read a book a day in May and I’ll cheer you on. Or not.**

Here’s what I’m gonna do:

1. Every day in May I’ll read 1 book. I’m going retro and checking these paper books out of my local library. Plus I’ll be walking there and back with said books. Crazy retro, eh?

2. Twice a week in May on this blog, I’ll post what books I’ve read since my last post, and write a brief paragraph on each.

3. At the end of May, I’ll collapse in a heap and succumb to an ocular migraine. (I’m hoping this last step will be optional.)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

*Speaking of Albert Berg, and for that matter, speaking of Tony Southcotte, check out my flash fiction tale “That’s not Snow” on the Human Echoes Podcast. (The transcript is under the podcast link.)

**BookDayMay not your thing? That’s OK! Get in on an experimental collaborative indie project here!