The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet

I am always nervous when it comes to be my turn to select a read for my friends The BiblioWorms. It seems like such an enormous responsibility. So I was really at loose ends for a couple of weeks in October when pondering our book for November.

Things I considered ranged from The Measure of Her Powers: An M.F.K. Fisher Reader (wonderful essayist) to Pasternak, Tsvetayeva, Rilke: Letters: Summer 1926 (we haven't read any letter collections) to Riverwalking: Reflections on Moving Water (writing about nature and life) and other selections from the "bought but not yet read" shelf in my study upstairs. But nothing seemed quite right.

So of course I found myself one Saturday afternoon in The King's English, casting about the shelves and tables for inspiration. It is not like there is a dearth of books in our house to choose from ... like the entire shelf of adventure/disaster/near-disaster travels; the books on grasses, trees, and birds of East Africa; or even the one I suggested my good friend not take to read on a very long plane flight. (Wouldn't you find it off-putting to be on a very long flight sitting next to someone who is reading Quantifying Catastrophic Risk?)

But I digress. Which seems an appropriate way to talk about the book I picked up off the table in the fiction room at King's English: The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet.

I was drawn to it (really, no pun intended), at first, by the book's slightly unusual shape. It reminded me of the shape of my Brownie Handbook with the heft of the Junior Girl Scout Handbook ... a happy flashback that only grew stronger when when I opened the pages and saw an interesting variety of drawn images, illustrations, and maps in the margins.

One of the things I regret about electronic writing, like this, is the inability to draw "stuff" in the margins. My colleagues in the '80s routinely received memos from me that had some kind of cartoonish sketch included to draw attention (pun this time intended) to the subject at hand. So while the author's drawings in the margins of Spivet, which seemed to me rather like visual footnotes, have been rightly summed up by reviewers as a precocious device, they were my favorite part of the book!

Without the drawings and interesting typography, the book itself -- the story -- is somewhat unremarkable, with occasional bits of really beautiful writing. In our book group discussion, we found connections to other contemporary writers like David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Safran Foer that seemed to take some of the luster of "originality" from Spivet. I'm not sure it's a book I would recommend as a must-read, but it is one I may turn to when I need to think creatively -- like when sitting down later today to pen our annual holiday greetings (which would probably benefit from having maps drawn in the margins).

So Spivet will remain on my bookshelves -- perhaps not nestled with novels, but somewhere on the shelves where I keep creative references. That's the room where the illustrated children's books live, too. Madeline and Babar weren't part of my house when I was young, so it is nice to find these friends in my house now. Not to mention the canine classics Lassie Come Home and Lad: A Dog (along with my very own realio, trulio little pet collie -- with apologies to Ogden Nash and Custard the Dragon, I never really envied Belinda and her little pet dragon as much as I did the girls who lived across the street ... they had Rascal The Collie).

But perhaps those are enough reflections around the margins of T.S. Spivet?

I thought the Guardian review of the book pretty much matched our discussion around the fireplace. A quick Google will bring that up along with the Spivet website (which is actually kind of interesting, if a little precious), reviews from The New York Times, and an interview with author Reif Larsen on the "Bookslut" website.

Meanwhile, after selecting the book, my thoughts pretty much immediately turned to what to serve for our late-morning gathering. Here's the recipe for the mustard-caper sauce we had with smoked salmon and a cucumber/fennel salad. The sauce is adapted from Bon Appétit via epicurious.com with notes from Hayl's Kitchen:


BiblioWorms Caper Sauce
3/4 cup spicy brown mustard (I used Gray Poupon "country style")
a little bit of sugar (recipe called for half a cup and that sounded like way too much)
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (I keep bottled Santa Cruz brand lemon juice and lime juice on hand at all times)
1 tablespoon dry mustard
3/4 cup non-flavored (canola or grapeseed) oil (I probably used canola, and less)
3/4 cup drained capers (we love capers and buy large jars when we're stocking up at Caputo's -- far more economical for us, anyway, but certainly would be worth considering for this)
1/2 cup chopped fresh dill (one could use fennel fronds here ...)
Freshly ground black pepper

This is very straightforward: mix all the ingredients together, whisking in the oil as if making a vinaigrette and adding the fresh dill (or fennel fronds) at the end. I've since used this on grilled chicken and it would be fabulous on grilled fish, as well. It wasn't bad with steamed broccoli, either!


So with that, here's to more BiblioWorm Capers in the coming year!

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

This was a sweeping family saga with depth of character and interesting locales. Brothers Shiva and Marion Stone arrive in the world conjoined by a slender strand of tissue just as their mother, Sister Mary Joseph Praise, is leaving it in a pool of blood and chaos. Who is the father and what is the legacy of Dr. Thomas Stone, surgeon at Missing Hospital? Shortly after the birth, he is missing and the story of the twins raised by two other doctors and the local medical community unfolds over years and continents.

What is the definition of home? “Not where you are from, but where you are wanted.” So many of the characters have come to Ethiopia from other lands – India, England, and elsewhere, but most find a welcome home at Missing Hospital, forming a slightly dysfunctional family of choice, not birth. Scenes of political upheaval, betrayal, and medical second-tier hospital culture opened my eyes to the wider world and really enhanced this “passionate, vivid, and informative novel.” This seemed to be enjoyed by most and probably would be recommended to other book groups.

Prisoner of Tehran

One of the first comments about "Prisoner" of Tehran was "I enjoyed this book; is it ok to use the word enjoy for a story that includes torture?" This page turner is written with just enough detail to comprehend the very difficult situations the author experienced and yet the overriding theme is focused on relationships with prison mates, interrogators, family and a love interest. The story is set in Tehran during the Iran/Iraq war providing an insider's view of the oppressive actions taken by the government. Marina chronicles her life as a young girl in a less than warm and loving family. She is grateful for her grandmother as a positive influence on her growing up years. The action that led to her arrest seemed minor to those of us in a more tolerable culture. Her bravery and survival skills, as well as a bit of luck, kept her alive when execution looked imminent. Her reaction to a forced marriage, which was accompanied by her husband’s loving family, was reflective of her teenage view of the situation. The man who married Marina saved her life twice, while losing his own, and his father secured her freedom from prison. Her subsequent marriage to the love of her life demonstrates her strong will to defy oppressive government action. She made the ultimate statement of disagreement with her county by successfully leaving it to live abroad. This book begs for a sequel about a very strong, passionate and loving woman as she creates a new life in Canada.

Bridge of Sighs

I was responsible for choosing Bridge of Sighs by Robert Russo as our April/May 2010 book, and ergo responsible for blogging about our experience with it. What with the end of the school year and all else going on I am regrettably tardy in this post . . . and in the interest of full disclosure, some of the synopsis of this book was 'borrowed' from Ron Charles' review of the book in the Washington Post.

"Richard Russo was already the patron saint of small-town fiction . . . once again he places us in a finely drawn community that's unable to adjust to economic changes, and with insight and sensitivity he describes ordinary people struggling to get by. But more than ever before, Russo ties this novel to the oldest preoccupations of our national consciousness by focusing on the nature of optimism and the limits of self-invention.

Here is a story true to the pace and tenor of town life but rife with all the cares and crises of people everywhere. It takes place over many decades in Thomaston, N.Y., where the tannery slowly laid off and poisoned residents until most of them died or moved away. But not all-around nice guy "Lucy" Lynch, who grew up here, never left and is now nearing retirement. He acquired that embarrassingly feminine nickname in kindergarten when the teacher called for "Lou C. Lynch." All this and much more is explained in a history he's writing of the town and his life, a project inspired by an upcoming trip to Italy, where he hopes to see an old friend.

Bridge of Sighs crosses through many subjects and themes, but the story revolves around Lucy's relationship with his father, the man he adored and resembles in so many ways that it troubles him. Big Lou was a slightly goofy, sentimental man who grew up during the Depression but emerged convinced "that we were living a story whose ending couldn't be anything but happy." A milkman at the dawn of the supermarket era, Big Lou refuses to acknowledge the imminent demise of his career. Lucy's mother, on the other hand, is a sharp, realistic woman, who finds her husband's unbridled optimism exasperating. She makes a point of contradicting his cheery predictions, but it makes no difference to Big Lou.

Lucy spends much of the novel negotiating these opposing points of view, aware that he always took his father's side against his mother's deflating realism. Though decades have passed, Lucy remains torn between the two people who loved him, still trying to work out what kind of man he has become. This is not a particularly dramatic story -- a racially charged high-school beating provides the only real fireworks -- but Russo's sensitivity to the currents of friendship and family life, the conflicts, anxieties and irritations that mingle with affection and loyalty, make Bridge of Sighs a continual flow of little revelations.

The most interesting relationship in the novel is Lucy's unlikely friendship with Bobby Marconi, a tough kid who despises his abusive father as much as Lucy adores his own. He's confident and athletic, the mirror opposite of Lucy. Their friendship is badly one-sided, but Lucy is too infatuated to notice, and Bobby is just kind enough to resist telling this nerdy kid to get lost. Even after Bobby and some other ruffians stuff him in a trunk and traumatize him for the rest of his life, Lucy remains determined to believe that his friend wasn't involved.

Russo narrates significant sections of the novel in the third person, filling in details about Bobby's disturbing family life and "Lucy's terrible neediness." In addition, we get several chapters narrated by the adult Bobby, now 60, a famous artist living in Italy. The cumulative effect is a story of constantly evolving complexity and depth, a vast meditation on adolescence and the way it's remembered and misremembered to serve our needs." (end of borrowed synopsis)

As a group we collectively enjoyed Bridge of Sighs. I chose the book because I have loved Russo's writing in the past and this book did not disappoint, although I still think I like The Straight Man most of his novels. We all liked the book; no one hated it, but conversely no one loved it either. We liked the characters we were supposed to like - Lucy and Big Lou, Sarah and Bobby Marconi. We disliked the characters presented to us in darker shades, Lucy's mother Tessa, Bobby's abusive father, and Bobby grown into the unlovable Noonan. Some peripheral characters gave us a few laughs or emotional tugs, like Deborah (?) the somewhat forgettable, already world-weary female classmate of Lucy's who lives above their store for a time and plays on his kindness to get free cigarettes, and Uncle Declan, Big Lou's no-good brother who partially redeems himself by helping to recreate their small store in the face of the supermarket threat in town. Even Bobby's father ends up somewhat if not completely redeemed when he tries to forge a relationship with his young adult son.

One thing we have noticed in our 13+ years as a book group is that we seem to have less to talk about when we all like a book. When nothing inspires us to love or hate we all seem to agree and then be done. This leads me to wonder if more controversial choices should be made; I know I for one choose things for book group that I think will be agreeable, moderate sorts of read instead of the things I read for my own pleasure outside of the book group setting. But in the end it is the time we spend together that matters, not only the choice of books that we choose. We have read hundreds of books by my count, and on average we absolutely love about one per year. I think that is probably in keeping with the rest of our reading lives as well.

The View From Castle Rock

So I just realized that I'm supposed to write the post from our last book selection. Unfortunately I don't have much to say. I liked it, but it wasn't especially memorable. The first story/chapter was difficult to read, and scared some of us away. It was confusing and lacked anything even remotely interesting. The book did get better after that, and the few of us that did finish enjoyed it. I like the concept of fictional writing based on factual personal history - Munro is lucky that some of her ancestors provided her with these records and stories, and she did a nice job assembling them into this collection. It sparked some discussion about our own family backgrounds, and how things like genealogy, places, and items can spark memories or drive us to further investigation of our own past. According to those who have read her other books, Alice Munro has written better.

The Tent - Margaret Atwood

I stumbled upon "The Tent" by Margaret Atwood. It's a small collection of short, short fiction essays that can be read in an afternoon ... but, then again, the essays beg re-reading to figure out just how Atwood accomplishes so much so economically. Here's one I particularly enjoyed:

Our Cat Enters Heaven
from "The Tent" by Margaret Atwood

Our cat was raptured up to heaven. He'd never liked heights, so he tried to sink his claws into whatever invisible snake, giant hand, or eagle was causing him to rise in this manner, but he had no luck.

When he got to heaven, it was a large field. There were a lot of little pink things running around that he thought at first were mice. Then he saw God sitting in a tree. Angels were flying here and there with their fluttering white wings; they were making sounds like doves. Every once in awhile, God would reach out with its large furry paw and snatch one of them out of the air and crunch it up. The ground under the tree was littered with bitten-off wings.

Our cat went politely over to the tree.

Meow, said our cat.

Meow, said God. Actually it was more like a roar.

I always thought you were a cat, said our cat, but I wasn't sure.

In heaven, all things are revealed, said God. This is the form in which I choose to appear to you.

I'm glad you aren't a dog, said our cat. Do you think I could have my testicles back?

Of course, said God. They're over behind that bush.

Our cat had always known his testicles must be somewhere. One day he'd woken up from a fairly bad dream and found them gone. He'd looked everywhere for them--under sofas, under beds, inside closets--and all the time they were here, in heaven! He went over to the bush, and, sure enough, there they were. They reattached themselves immediately.

Our cat was very pleased. Thank you, he said to God.

God was washing his elegant long whiskers. De rien, said God.

Would it be possible for me to help you catch some of those angels? said our cat.

You never liked heights, said God, stretching itself out along the branch, in the sunlight. I forgot to say there was sunlight.

True, said our cat. I never did. There were a few disconcerting episodes he preferred to forget. Well, how about some of those mice?

They aren't mice, said God. But catch as many as you like. Don't kill them right away. Make them suffer.

You mean, play with them? said our cat. I used to get in trouble for that.

It's a question of semantics, said God. You won't get in trouble for that here.

Our cat chose to ignore that remark, as he did not know what "semantics" was. He did not intend to make a fool of himself. If they aren't mice, what are they? he said. Already he had pounced on one. He held it down under his paw. It was kicking, and uttering tiny shrieks.

They're the souls of human beings who have been bad on Earth, said God, half-closing its yellowy-green eyes. Now if you don't mind, it's time for my nap.

What are they doing in heaven then? said our cat.

Our heaven is their hell, said God. I like a balanced universe.

until her next book...

The task of deciding how to express our visit with Susanna Barlow has kept my mind occupied for many days. I am challenged to do Susanna justice with my words after the privilege of time spent with her words. Having met Susanna before she set out on the journey of writing her story, we were honored when she accepted my invitation to discuss her writing process with our group. To our amazement, she willingly spoke about so much more.

"What Peace There May Be" is the truth of her childhood and the abuse that ruled a home of one father and many mothers. Her story is part of our local community but somehow feels as if from another time. Susanna bravely exposed the emotional and physical abuse she and her forty-five siblings experienced. Forty-five siblings. I have a hard time believing my entire family tree consists of forty-five members. It is difficult to comprehend this lifestyle and the resilience it would require to find your identity within it, yet Susanna has emerged with her true self intact. She shared the struggles she and her husband faced upon leaving this community; deep doubts about her own skills as a mother and the potential to repeat learned behaviors; and her decision to speak her truth to the world...knowing the impact would ripple out towards the people she still loves. Susanna is brave, strong and uncensored.

The opportunity for our group to spend time with Susanna Barlow was truly a gift and a day in our years of reading together that we will never forget.

To the Lightouse

Thanks, all, for agreeing to read Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse." There is no shortage of critical analysis of this book, so I'm not even going to venture into those waters (pun intended, of course). I think our group recommendation to other readers would be sure to set aside blocks of time (probably no less than half-hour increments) for reading "Lighthouse" as the rhythm of Woolf's language is one of the huge rewards of this read and impossible to enjoy in short snippets. My greatest pleasure in reading this came from some of the internal thoughts of the female characters - the kind of internal dialogue that is often present in my head - though really quite more elegantly phrased!!!!


I would like to return to Woolf's journals and letters again at some point in my personal reading. Which reminds me that we did discuss the joys of real letter writing (and reading) when we discussed "Lighthouse." Perhaps we should remember to include either a compendium of letters or an epistolary work of some sort in our readings sometime down the road.