writing – Page 8 – Ripple Effects

Rewards and Awards of Blogging

Why do we blog? WordPress seems to have grasped the psyche of bloggers in five words: “Express yourself. Start a blog.” If being free to self-expression is the intrinsic reward of blogging, then being heard and read is the extrinsic reward. And, to top it all off, getting unexpected awards for what one already enjoyed doing is the icing on the cake. A few months ago Arti had the first taste when she received the Excellent Blog Award. This past week Arti has tasted more icing from fellow bloggers in the form of two awards. In chronological order, they are:

The Premio Dardos from Ms. Place (Vic) of Jane Austen’s World. Thank you Vic for naming Arti as one of your 15 recipients of this award “that is given for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing”. Thanks Vic for the honor and for the translation from Portuguese:“O conceito deste prémio passa por reconhecer valores culturais, éticos, literários e pessoais, transmitidos de forma criativa e original nos pedacinhos rabiscados por cada blogueiro que o receba.”

To meet the requirement, in turn, I am naming the following blogs to receive the same award. To avoid duplication and to make it more meaningful, I have selected 10 instead of the 15 suggested. Here are their excellent sites in alphabetical order:

Austen Quotes is the blog of Lori Smith, writer of the book A Walk with Jane Austen, her personal experience of treading the paths of Jane’s in England. She has inspired me with quotes from the works and letters of JA, some witty, some wise, some poignant, and all of them delightful. Lori may have taken a hiatus due to physical ailment, but what she already has chronicled in her site is worth reading time and time again.
Austenprose is a wealth of JA information and forum. Laurel Ann offers Janeites with a wealth of Regency knowledge, book discussion, interviews… a delight to visit every time. This is one of the first blogs that got me hooked on JA…, no I wasn’t born a Janeite. I only discovered this wonderful world a few years back. And it’s blogs like this that feed me to my fill.
Blogging for a Good Book is created by the staff of Williamsburg Regional Library. In there you’ll find in-depth and insightful book reviews. With several contributors, the blog offers a new post almost every day, keeping us up-to-date with newer titles. The quality writing and informative entries are enjoyable to read.
Film Think is a site where films, theology, and criticism meet. Writer M. Leary offers a wealth of resources and knowledgeable discussions and critique for those interested in the intellectual pursuit of the art of film, and its interaction with Christianity, criticism theory, other art forms, and their relevance in society today.
Itinerant Idealist is Sarah’s journal “in search of a soul awake”. I’ve enjoyed her excellent writing. In her casual way, Sarah embeds her prose and poems with style and spiritual insights. Hers is one of the long time blogs I’ve been reading since the beginning of my own blog. I’ve learned and gained much from reading her posts.
Looking for Life’s Humor looks at life and brings out the joyous perspective. As a mom with an autistic child, the writer of this blog depicts the humor and love that we often miss in many of life’s circumstances. A heart-warming and delightful read in every post. A truly enjoyable break in the midst of daily chores and chaos.
Of Books and Bicycles As a book lover and an avid cyclist, Dorothy has successfully created a concoction of writings involving both…well maybe more about books. Informative reviews and personal book experiences can be found here, while she has another site dedicated more to bikes and her training as a cyclist.
So Many Books Stefanie chronicles “the agony and ecstasy of a reading life” with detailed research and insightful commentaries. This is a literature lover’s blog. Just the Blogroll is impressive enough, for there are probably hundreds of lit blogs on her list to provide almost unlimited avenues for blogging and reading pleasure.
The Happy Wonderer It’s a joy every time I visit Ellen’s blog. As a happy wonderer, Ellen wanders in the fields of photography, food, life, family, and the Bible, offering us musings, pictures, and inspiration, a celebration of life every day. This is one of the earliest blogs I found when I first started blogging, and I’ve been reading her since. “To honor and encourage”, that is exactly so.
The Task At Hand What Linda Leinen has created here in her relatively new blog is nothing short of a compilation of model writing. Every single post is an example of style and inspiration. At this point of her life she is a boat varnisher along the Texas Gulf Coast (how cool is that!), and she writes what she lives. In her blog, she has woven artfully a tapestry of penetrative observations and skillful, affective writing. I have gained and learned much from reading her every single post.

*****

The other award I received just a couple of days ago is the Arte y Pico given by Linda of The Task at Hand. Directly translated from Spanish means “Art and Peak”, at the peak of its art. Linda has included Arti’s Ripple Effects for its “creativity, design, content and contribution to the blogging community, regardless of language”. Thank you Linda, I’m greatly humbled by such an honor.

To fulfill the requirement of the Arte y Pico, I’m naming 5 other blogs to be recipients in turn. Noting that it’s Spanish in origin, and the phrase “regardless of language”, I attempt to highlight some of the ones I visit that have a different geographical or cultural flavour, although I admit they are all in English.

Blogging in Paris As a 64 years-old cancer survivor, Claude’s attempt at blogging is in itself inspiring. She writes from Paris, and from her many travels in Europe, affecting us with her zest for life and eye for beauty. It’s a mixed bag in her blog, some photography, some journal writing, some personal musings. A delight to visit.
Moderato brings a European perspective to the discussions of art, books, music, films, and literature. The writer offers in-depth and well researched commentaries on the subjects. A very fine and intellectual lit blog. Some great You-tube clips to augment the enjoyment.
The Errant AEsthete From New York, “Essentials for the Cocktail Swilling Savant”, ok, it may sound a bit exclusive, but the art, photography and visuals presented in the blog are stunning and often thought-provoking. And since it’s located in the ever widening blogosphere, anyone can visit and better yet, no dress code.
Hidden Art A blog for the arts and crafters among us. The name says it all… art can be found and creativity unleashed in almost every homely place. I’ve enjoyed the casual atmosphere and the stimulating ideas for mixed media and paper arts that are achievable by those who, like myself, are not art school graduates. Accessible art speaks a universal language.
Edible Landscape This is a unique blog on food written by a young guy from Hong Kong, an interesting diversion from the blogs on food and cooking we see from North America. Wilson concocts an international flavour with his fine, quality writing on food and restaurants. What more, where do you ever read a 20-something young man writing about cooking and cuisine art with such expertise?

Wow, that’s a mouthful! Why do we blog? The above are some of the obvious answers.

Art Imitates Life, Life Imitates Art, or…

Neither. After reading Tomalin and Shields on the life of Jane Austen, I am inclined to draw that conclusion. The often sanguine outlook of Austen’s works is deceptive. The seemingly jovial ending may lead some to assume they are reading the simplistic stories of a woman wrapped in romantic bliss all her life.

Reality is, that Austen could persevere, write and published is already an incredible achievement considering the confining social environment she was in. Instead of embracing the normative female role in comfort, she chose to trod the road less traveled to become a writer despite the gloomy prospect of poor spinsterhood, enduring rejection even from her own mother. She wrote in secret and struggled in isolation. For a long period she battled depression. Upon her death, her beloved sister Cassandra could not attend her funeral because the presence of females at such events was not sanctioned, apparently for fear of any outbursts of emotion.

It is Austen’s imagination that empowers her to break free of her reality and to rise above her constraints. She has created her art from the palette of the imaginary, as Tomalin has lucidly observed:

Hampshire is missing from the novels, and none of the Austens’ neighbours, exotic, wicked or merely amusing, makes recognizable appearance. The world of her imagination was separate and distinct from the world she inhabited.

Austen’s contemporary, the renowned Gothic writer Ann Radcliffe, has attested that it is the imagination and not real-life experience which gives rise to story-telling. A scene in the movie Becoming Jane (2007) has vividly illustrated this point.

In the famous little book, The Educated Imagination, a must-read for any literature student, the late great Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye states that :

The world of literature is a world where there is no reality except that of the human imagination.

Austen has great proficiency in the language of imagination. In her novels, she has created a world that never was, but one that makes her readers yearn for. There is no Mr. Darcy in real life, or Elizabeth Bennet for that matter, but we could well use them as the ideal types to measure by, or, to strive for.

What about the satirist in Austen? How can the social critic be extracted from reality? How can one write social commentaries devoid of real life input? Austen may have toiled in isolation for fear of social repercussion, she did not write in a vacuum. While her art did not imitate her life, Austen had the chance to sharpen her observation from the very public sitting-room of her home and those of her relatives and friends, an opportunity that was conducive to her novel writing, as Virginia Woolf has pointed out. Ever since her childhood, the Austen home was the hub of family readings and discussions. Her brothers grew up to be men well versed in the fields of the military, clergy, and business.

In her ingenious way, by satirizing the things that ought not to be, Austen is bringing out the world that ought to be. In Frye’s words:

The fundamental job of the imagination in ordinary life, then, is to produce, out of the society we have to live in, a vision of the society we want to live in.

If art imitates life, it would be just a reproduction; if life imitates art, well… ours would be one very wacky world. But life could well be the reason for creating art, channeling our imagination to build a sublime vision of the ideal.

Visual: Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh

Update: This article has just been published in the Jane Austen Centre Online Magazine. Click here to go there for other interesting reads on Jane Austen and the Regency World.

*****

Reading, Writing, and the Gender Issue

With all these posts lately about Jane Austen on Ripple Effects, Arti feels there is a need for an erratum. Before the comedy of errors gets to Austenesque proportion, and considering Arti’s minute talent in writing such that there being no aspiration to become a modern day George Eliot, a major confession is called for here: Arti is A Lady.

At first when I started Ripple Effects, I thought that the name “Arti” is neutral enough like “Les”, “Chris”, or “Alex”. I subscribe to the ideal that great literature and good writing is gender neutral, by this I mean their relevance and significance surpass the boundaries of gender to reach the universal, be it the work of Jane Austen or George Orwell. And, laying aside the gender issue, good books deserve to be read. The novels of Jane Austen come to mind. The gender of a writer should not be an impediment if the writing speaks to all. Arti proceeded to write all reviews and articles based on this premise, attempting to strive, albeit remotely, towards this ideal.

I hope the disclosure of Arti’s gender does not diminish readers’ enjoyment of Ripple Effects. Definitely, Arti does not want to be accused of carrying a concealed weapon, or acting as an undercover agent when it comes to the battle of the sexes. So here I am, coming out with both hands up in the air.

As readers can quickly observe, Ripple Effects encompasses not only Austen, or just books. But because Arti is endowed with only 24 hours in a day, wherein a few have to be allotted to that essential yet elusive activity called sleep, there is just not enough time to see all the many exciting worlds Arti would like to explore. To alleviate this deficiency, Arti visits other people’s blogs to quench the thirst. I thank you all for transporting me to those worlds in this great blogosphere of ours.

In between visits, Arti will continue to plow through neutral grounds to learn the art and craft of reading, writing, watching, and gleaning the worthy ones to review.

(Visual: Le Blanc Seing by René Magritte)

What was Jane Austen really like? Reading Tomalin and Shields

As a biographer, Tomalin’s account of Jane Austen’s life is meticulous and exhaustive. Her analysis is critical and sharp, her writing style bold, precise and cutting. The following excerpts are prime examples.

When speculating about the possible consequence of Mrs. Austen sending her infants away to be raised, Tomalin makes the following inference:

“The most striking aspect of Jane’s adult letters is their defensiveness. They lack tenderness towards herself as much as towards others. You are aware of the inner creature, deeply responsive and alive, but mostly you are faced with the hard shell; and sometimes a claw is put out, and a sharp nip is given to whatever offends. They are the letters of someone who does not open her heart; and in the adult who avoids intimacy you sense the child who was uncertain where to expect love or to look for security, and armoured herself against rejection.”

Or this to say about mother and daughter:

Mrs. Austen had a sharp tongue for neighbours, appreciated by her daughter and passed on to her.”

Or, with the episode of Jane accepting and later recanting Harris Bigg-Wither’s marriage proposal, Tomalin’s view is clear:

We would naturally rather have Mansfield Park and Emma than the Bigg-Wither baby Jane Austen might have given the world, and who would almost certainly have prevented her from writing any further books.”

If you can appreciate such kind of abrasive commentaries, you would certainly find it entertaining to read Tomalin’s than an otherwise ordinary biographical sketch. Ironically, I have a feeling that this is the kind of biographies Jane would have written if she could write without censure.

Putting her incisive analysis to good use, Tomalin explores Jane’s creative process, giving credits to her imaginative ingenuity. The limitation of physical and social mobility render Jane’s world parochial, yet her characters and story lines are diverse and innovative. Her writing are evidences of pure creative concoctions.

…essentially she is inventing, absorbed by the form and possibilities of the novel… The world of her imagination was separate and distinct from the world she inhabited.”

For Jane, it is imagination and not experience that has given her wings to soar outside of her bleak circumstances. A vivid example is the writing of the sprightly Pride and Prejudice. The novel was written during a time of family tragedy with the death of Cassandra’s fiancé Tom Fowle, and amidst Jane’s own disappointment with the evaporation of hope with Tom LeFroy.

All in all, Tomalin’s sharp and cutting writing style works towards Jane’s favour. Her biography is resourceful and entertaining, her analysis incisive, and her conclusion moving. Above all, Jane would have found it amusing and satisfying.

Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin, published by Penguin Books, 2000, 362 pages, including appendices, notes, bibliography, chart, and index. Additional 16 pages of photos.

*****

Carol Shield’s Jane Austen is a succinct and gentler rendition of Jane’s life. Shields and her daughter, the writer Anne Giardini, were presenters at the JASNA AGM in Richmond, Virginia in 1996. This book came out five years after that. Shields has crafted a highly readable literary gem, adorned by her lucid and flowing writing style.

As a novelist, Shields’ main thrust is to trace Jane’s development as a writer. Exploring her family circumstances as she was growing up, Shields presents to us a gifted youth of exuberant spirit, one who had known the joy of theatrical performances and experienced the exhilarating power of humor. Jane’s ingenuity lies in her parodies. As a young contributor to her older brother James’ weekly magazine The Loiterer , she was already a skillful writer of satires. Shield notes that:

“…it is the satirical form of her youthful writing that astonishes us today. What makes a child of twelve or thirteen a satirist?

… Jane Austen had been nurtured, certainly, in a circle appreciative of burlesque… but she was also a small presence in a large and gifted household. Her desire to claim the attention of her parents and siblings can be assumed. She gave them what they wanted, that which would make them laugh and marvel aloud at her cleverness”

This yearning to entertain, influence and be acknowledged remained the motivation for Jane’s writing throughout her life. Her youthful gigs and satires transformed into full-fledged novels. Just take Northanger Abbey for example. It is a burlesque of the Gothic in a style which she was so familiar with since her girlhood days. And a look at the characters like Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice, or Mrs. Elton in Emma, readers could readily appreciate Jane’s “comic brilliance and… consummate artistry”.

Shields offers in-depth analysis of Austen’s works, exploring not just the writing but the psyche of a brilliant mind. Like Tomalin, she dispels the myth of art imitating life, and credits Jane’s imagination as the key ingredient of her ingenuity:

“Her novels were conceived and composed in isolation. She invented their characters, their scenes and scenery, and their moral framework. The novelistic architecture may have been borrowed from the eighteenth-century novelists, but she made it new, clean, and rational, just as though she’d taken a broom to the old fussiness of plot and action. She did all this alone.”

Considering the physical and social limitations confining Jane, it was her writing that transported her to brave new worlds, and the vehicle was her imagination.

As I finished reading these two biographies, Virginia Woolf’s praise of Jane Austen resonated in my mind:

“Here was a woman about the year 1800 writing without hate, without bitterness, without fear, without protest, without preaching. That was how Shakespeare wrote.”

While we lament that Jane had left only six complete novels upon her untimely death at forty-one, we treasure these legacies of imagination and the inspiration they evoke for generations to come.

Jane Austen, a Penguin Lives series, by Carol Shields, published by Vikings, 2001, 185 pages.

Update: This article has been published in the Jane Austen Centre Magazine, where you can read online informative articles on Jane and the Regency Period.

For more on Jane Austen’s creativity, click here to read the post “Life Imitates Art, or Art Imitates Life”.

*****

What was Jane Austen really like? Reading Cassandra & Jane

Reading Jill Pitkeathley’s biographical novel Cassandra & Jane has prompted me to find out what Jane Austen was really like. The persona depicted in her book is so different from what I had conjured up while reading Austen’s six novels. Upon finishing Pitkeathley’s fictional account, I could not wait but delve right into Claire Tomalin’s Jane Austen A Life, and Carol Shields’ Jane Austen. So, kicking off my fall reading, I have devoured, back to back, three biographical works on a woman writer who is more popular today than she was in her time two hundred years ago.

Jill Pitkeathley’s Cassandra & Jane is a fictitious rendering of Jane Austen’s life. It is based on historical facts as recorded in biographies; in fact, it reads like a fictional illustration of Tomalin’s work. As a novelist, Pitkeathley takes the liberty to fill in the gaps and offers imagined scenarios of events. That is the fun or ambiguity of reading a historical novel. The intermingling of fact and fiction has spurred me on to explore what actually happened, above all, what kind of a character Jane herself truly was.

I was surprised to find that behind the romantic book cover shrouds a very sombre portrait of Jane Austen. What is most intriguing is the revelation that, unlike the sanguine ending in Austen’s novels, the very author of these works had led a life filled with misfortunes and disappointments. And unlike Austen’s heroines, females who could impact and influence those around them, Jane was often bound by powerlessness and subjugated to consequences of familial and social disparities. For most part of her life until she received the meager profits from her books, she was solely dependent on her father and later her brothers financially that she could not make any travel plans or purchases on her own.

Written from the point of view of Cassandra, who was the sole person privy to the intimate and private side of a beloved sister, the novel depicts a discontented soul, at times critical, at times bitter, and poignantly resigned at the end. Unlike her own novels, which end on a high note with exhilarating conclusion, Jane Austen’s life was far from fulfilling for her in love, in health, and in career. Within the confines of late 18th and early 19th century England, the lively and soaring spirit of Jane Austen was kept distressingly in check. What Pitkeathley has chosen to present to us therefore is a multi-layered persona, deep and intriguing.

“Hers was such a complex nature that it was not possible to explain to those who did not love her that she could be cruel and kind, disparaging and compassionate, bitter and hopeful, almost in the same breath.”

Considering the complex character of her beloved sister, her sharp wit and critical eye, her cutting comments on the people and circumstances around her, Cassandra had a very legitimate reason to burn the intimate correspondences she had with Jane, knowing that Jane would easily be misunderstood and even judged by posterity if they were released to the public. Pitkeathley had taken full advantage of this void to fill in the gaps and offer her own renderings of the events and motives marked by silence, albeit based on historical evidences.

The account of the romantic episode with George Atkins is an example. Regarding the Rev. Atkins, whom Jane met in Lyme, and who received a passing mention in her letters anonymously, Pitkeathley has painted a star-crossed love affair, adding colours to a life that is thought to be devoid of romance.

Considered by some who think her life as uneventful, and indeed, she may not have travelled far from her home in her short 41 years of life, Jane had had her share of life experiences. First off, from infancy, she had the taste of banishment as all Austen newborns were sent off to be raised elsewhere from home, coming back only as they entered childhood. Her childhood days with her siblings were probably the most joyous period of her life, growing up in a literary household, devouring books in her father’s library and participating in theatrical gigs her brothers organized. Her strain relationship with her mother however remained a dark spot most of her life.

Jane’s young adulthood saw disappointment of lost love and opportunities, or the lack thereof. Nevertheless, married life to her may not be that appealing, after witnessing two sister-in-laws die at giving birth to their eleventh child. She had felt the grief of the death of Cassandra’s fiancé days before the wedding. She was dislocated from home beyond her own choosing, moving to Bath and thus triggering a long period of depression. She had led a life of poverty, suffered the loss of her dearly beloved father, endured familial and social disparities first as a female, then as an unmarried female, and later as an unmarried female writer. She had seen her own works rejected, and later even with some of her novels published, had to remain anonymous to avoid social deprecation. And finally, she saw the bankruptcy of her brothers, jeopardizing her mother’s, her sister’s and her own livelihood, and lastly, faced an untimely death at age 41 after a debilitating and painful illness.

What is left that makes life meaningful and fulfilling? How can a spirit confined to so many limitations break through and soar? Pitkeathley has painted a Jane who was resilient and determined. Choosing a life of literary pursuit over a loveless marriage to Harris Bigg-Wither, Jane was ready to take on the social denigration of spinsterhood and the working woman. From her writing, Jane had found release from her entrapment. She had created stories wherein heroines were passionate and free like Marianne Dashwood, intelligent and self-assured like Elizabeth Bennet, adventurous and imaginative like Catherine Morland, persistent and morally upright like Fanny Price, lively and mischievous like Emma Woodhouse, and patient and long-loving like Anne Elliot. From her writing, Jane had opened a way for her own self expression, channelled her indignation of injustices, and found a platform to proclaim her ideals.

At the end, with Cassandra, we lament the short life of Jane Austen, but we cherish a literary talent whose resilience and ideals have inspired readers through the centuries. Considering the numerous film adaptations today and the proliferation of fan fiction, Jane can finally impact and influence, an ideal she could only imagine in her novel writing.

You are invited to vote on the poll question: Which Austen heroine do you think Jane was most like? Find the Poll on the top of the side bar. Just check your answer and click “Vote”.

*****

Cassandra & Jane by Jill Pitkeathley, first published 2004, reprinted 2008 by Harper Collins, N.Y. 270 pages.

Then She Found Me: Book Review

This is one of those frequent examples where a film is so drastically different from the book that they are virtually two very separate entities. But what’s unusual is, I’ve enjoyed them both.

Then She Found Me, published in 1990, is written by award winning New England author Elinor Lipman. Helen Hunt, together with Alice Arlen and Victor Levin, wrote the screenplay and turned it into a movie. I can understand why those who have read the book first before seeing the movie are flabbergasted. The only commonality between the book and the film other than the title may just well be the two main characters, the quiet and rational high school Latin teacher April Epner and her birth mother Bernice Graverman, the ostentatious TV talk show host who wants to claim back the daughter she had given up for adoption more than 30 years ago. There are almost no traces of the original story in the movie.

The amusing character contrast in the book is a springboard for some creative channelling for Hunt and her screenwriter team, kudos to Lipman’s original conception of the story idea. Despite its digression from the book, the movie still works and entertains. What more, it has preserved the spirit of the book and has brought to the screen the basic issues the book touches on, the major one being the meaning of motherhood, and the inevitable debate over the value of the birth versus the adoptive mother. For my detailed review of the movie, click here.

The She Found Me is my introduction to Elinor Lipman, the acclaimed author of eight books of fiction and short stories. The book is almost script ready, for it is predominantly dialogues, witty, intelligent, and incisive dialogues. Lipman’s sensitivity and subtle humor effectively bring out the nuances of her characters and their relationships, at times sarcastic, at times genuine, at times poignant.

36 year-old April Epner is a high school Latin teacher, quiet, rational, academic, and single. Her long-sleeved cotton jersey and drop-waist Indian cotton jumper persona hides a kind and genuine soul. The only parents she has known all her life are her adoptive Jewish parents Trude and Julius Epner, Holocaust survivors, who have lovingly brought her up and given her a Radcliffe education. After they have passed away and as she stands in the crossroads of her life, the last thing April needs is to be found by a brassy and impulsive talk show host Bernice Graverman, who claims to be her birth mother. Conscientious April has to match wit with evasive Bernice, with the help of her school librarian Dwight, who happens to be much more than just a supplier of encyclopedic information. Without giving out spoilers, let me just say the story unfolds with sprightly twists and turns, effectively driven by Lipman’s first-rate, cutting and entertaining dialogues.

Those who have seen the movie but have not read the book should move right along to savor the source material. In here you’ll find the intended closure to the seemingly unsolvable conflict and ambivalence. I can see this as a good choice for book/movie discussion in reading groups and book clubs.

As I was reading, I thought I saw Jane Austen cameo. What Lipman has created here is something close to what Austen would have written today: a contemporary comedy of manners, a likable heroine reminiscence of Anne Elliot, an anti-Darcy male character, albeit with similar height and social ineptness, and through the characters and their situations, dares to explore some serious social issues that are masked by very funny, sharp and witty lines. The result is a tasty concoction of humor and heart.

And lo and behold, guess whose portrait I see when I open up Elinor Lipman’s website ?

Then She Found Me by Elinor Lipman is published by Washington Square Press, 1990, 307 pages.

~ ~ ~ Ripples

The Glass Castle: Book Review

For my 100th post, I’d like to share an extraordinary personal narrative by writer Jeannette Walls.

The opening of the book grabbed me right away as I was browsing in a bookstore. The author, a successful journalist and writer, was in a taxi, all dressed up for an evening event in New York City. As she glanced out the window, she saw a homeless woman scavenging a garbage bin. A closer look made her realize that was her own mother.

That is one dramatic opening of a book. Knowing that it is the telling of a real-life story intrigued me all the more.

Since its publication in 2005, the award-winning childhood memoir of Jeannette Walls has garnered high acclaims and been on the New York Times Best-Seller List for 100 weeks.

Growing up nomadic is a succinct description of Walls’ childhood. At age four, she had already moved eleven times. Upon the direction of her eccentric father and idealistic mother, and often to escape debts or consequences of misdeeds, the four Walls children were herded across the United States from Arizona to California, across mining towns and even living out open in the Mojave Desert, moving on a whim and often given just minutes to pack up whatever meager possessions they had.

Afflicted with alcoholism, dad Rex had trouble holding down a job. But he was a man with a brilliant mind and a wealth of knowledge which he readily passed to his favorite daughter Jeannette. She learned from him science and engineering, mathematics and history. The glass castle is his promise to her, assuring her one day he would strike gold with the Prospector he had invented, and build the family a glass castle they could all live in. The glass castle remained a glimpse of hope, yet sadly proven to be one illusive dream.

Mom Rose Mary was an idealistic artist and writer. Besides teaching her children to appreciate nature, art and literature, she had taught them adaptability and instilled in them the spirit of resilience. Once driving through the Mojave Desert, they saw an ancient Joshua tree. Growing through the wind swept years, the tree was permanently bent and yet was still firmly rooted. Later, Walls found a sapling growing not far from the old tree and wanted to dig it up and replant it near their home:

I told Mom that I would protect it from the wind and water it every day so that it could grow nice and tall and straight.

Mom frowned at me. ‘You’d be destroying what makes it special,’ she said. “It’s the Joshua tree’s struggle that gives it its beauty.

This book could well be named The Joshua Tree.

Rex’s alcoholism left the family in dire poverty. In this candid and personal account, Walls remembers that often she had to go without food for days. While in school, she would scavenge garbage cans for leftovers after lunch. Often they would have no electricity in the makeshift shack they called home, and took a shower once a week.

Mom was plagued by depression and often lived in a world of her own ideals. Her laissez-faire style of child-rearing often left her kids to fend and provide for themselves. Even if she found a job as a school teacher, she would soon grow tired of it and wouldn’t get up in the morning. The kids would have to drag her up, usually in vain.

I’m surprised the term “Dysfunctional” never occurred in my mind as I read the book. The Walls children were tenacious, resourceful, bold and confident. They were avid readers and did well in school. What more, they were devoted to each other and loyal to the family. From an early age, they had to learn to handle an alcoholic father, a moody and depressed mother, and mediate their occasional fights and conflicts. The kids had to parent their own misfit mother and father. The Walls might be financially crippled, they were able to maintain strong relationships and an exuberant zest for life.

Walls’ account is candid and personal, poignant with cutting humor. One time in winter, when icicles were formed in their kitchen ceiling because the roof was not insulated and there was no electricity in their home, Walls describes her mom’s response:

All seasons have something to offer,” she said. “Cold weather is good for you. It kills the germs.

How we view the Walls parents of course depends solely on how their daughter presents them in her memoir. And this is precisely my point. Jeannette Walls has painted a loving picture of her parents depsite their failings. She is sympathetic to their struggles with their own demons. Through out the book, I am touched by her capacity to forgive, to persevere, to hope, and to plan for a better future, not only for herself, but for all her siblings.

The last chapters of the book detail how the author and her siblings pursued a new beginning by establishing an independent life in New York City, while still as teenagers. The story of resilience moved on to another phase. Readers are gratified to see a rewarding end to Walls’ years of perseverance.

Film rights have been optioned for the book. If it is ever turned into a movie, from a visual sense, it is easy to illustrate the hilarious and sensational parts. However, my sincere hope is that the film will keep the integrity and poignancy of the memoir. Often, it is not what has happened that is worth telling, but how the narrator sees what has happened that makes the storytelling moving and memorable. In this case, both the what and the how are extraordinary and uplifting.

The following is a video clip of Jeannette Walls and her mother talking about The Glass Castle.

~ ~ ~½ Ripples

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, published by Scribner, NY. 2005. 288 pages.

NOTE: Here is the latest (April 23, 2012) regarding the film adaptation of the book. Lionsgate has bought the rights and Jennifer Lawrence is in talk for the lead. CLICK HERE to read more.

FOR A LIST OF UPCOMING BOOKS INTO FILMS, CLICK HERE.

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Excellent Blog Award

“I am not a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things.”

— Lizzy Bennet, Pride and Prejudice.

excellentblog1 I’m honored to be named one of the recipients of the Excellent Blog Award given out by Vic, a.k.a. Ms. Place, of Jane Austen’s World. Considering her criteria and a look at my fellow honorees, I feel greatly encouraged indeed. Thank you Vic, it means a lot for a “non-Austen” blog to get a nod from Jane Austen’s World. Actually it is blogs like yours that spur my interest in Austen and the Regency world.

Ripple Effects is not exclusively an “Austen blog”, although Jane Austen is one of my all time favorite writers, and you can certainly find many Austen posts here. But as Lizzy Bennet in Pride and Prejudice said: “I’m not a great reader and I have pleasure in many things”. I enjoy writing about topics relating to my various interests in the arts and entertainment field. I try to maintain a magazine-style format to encompass the diverse subjects. Ms. Place has kindly observed: “I’ll never know what I’ll find when I visit.”

I love books, but I’m a slow reader. So my mind is always trying to catch up with what my heart desires. I love movies, but I seldom go to opening showings to avoid the crowd. So what you read in Ripple Effects are often hindsights and resonances from delayed gratification.

At times, it’s a rough road, this blogging journey. Sometimes I just drive not knowing where I’m heading. But receiving acknowledgement like this is the fuel needed for me to press on, and help me to relax enough to enjoy the scenery along the way.

At first I was planning to write a post like this on my first blogaversary August 29. But at 11 month now I feel I just can’t wait to express a heart-felt thank-you to all my fellow bloggers and the many anonymous visitors from around the world. You’ve unknowingly added fuel to these clattering wheels.

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Chesterton Quotes

I just couldn’t resist. Even though I posted a link to GKC Quotes in my last entry, I’m compelled to share some here for all to savor. As a writer who encompassed social commentary, political satire, literary criticism, philosophical ponderings, Christian apologetics, poetics and plain humor in his writing, G. K. Chesterton’s (1874-1936) wit and wisdom surpassed the social and political environment of his time:

*****

“My country, right or wrong,” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, “My mother, drunk or sober.”

“A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

“By a curious confusion, many modern critics have passed from the proposition that a masterpiece may be unpopular to the other proposition that unless it is unpopular it cannot be a masterpiece.”

“Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.”

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”

“Journalism largely consists of saying ‘Lord Jones is Dead’ to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.”

“Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.”

“Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.”

“The most astonishing thing about miracles is that they happen.”

“To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.”

“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”

“If there were no God, there would be no Atheists.”

*****

Links to more GKC quotes:

The American Chesterton Society Quotations Collection

The Quotations Page

To G. K. Chesterton: Happy 134th Birthday

Well, I miss it by a day, but I don’t think he’d mind.

To celebrate the birthday of the gifted writer G. K. Chesterton (born May 29, 1874 – June 14, 1936), I’m posting here some thoughts I wrote down after I finished reading his book The Man Who Was Thursday earlier this year.

‘Well, I don’t understand anything…’ — Gabriel Syme

‘I understand nothing, but I am happy…’ — Dr. Bull

Just finished this book by G. K. Chesterton. One word had been on my mind as I was reading it: ingenious. Of course, there were other words too, like baffling, profound, funny, even hilarious. Published exactly 100 years ago in 1908, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare reads like an allegory, farce, fantasy, thriller, adventure, philosophical treatise, religious exposition, and a postmodern piece of literary anime, and yes, that’s 1908.

Having said all that, I must concede and humbly admit, upon finishing this first reading, I understand very little. The twists and turns make one doubt what actually is real, or what is disguised as real, and where the line lies between good and evil, friend and foe, government and anarchists. I’m baffled by the symbolism and eager to seek the appropriate interpretation.

Who is Sunday? Is he who I think he is? The author in his own words in the addendum says, no, he’s not. So, what am I to think? And, even if he is, how can I explain all the events that lead up to the ending? And…what does the ending mean?

I welcome anyone who has read, studied, or taught the book to help me out with my bewilderment. Of course, I could research on what scholastic publications have said, but, I’d just like to entertain some casual and random thoughts.

For those who wish to explore more, here are some Chesterton links:

The American Chesterton Society: Common Sense for the World’s Uncommon Nonsense (Plainly tells you who you’re dealing with here)

G. K. Chesterton Quotations (Just brilliant!)

Read Chesterton Online

The Man Who Was Thursday discussion on the blog “So Many Books”

And When Did You Last See Your Father? Book Review

when-did-you-last-see-your-father-book-cover2 I saw the movie When Did You Last See Your Father? at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, twice. I didn’t have the chance to read the book until a couple of days ago, about 7 months later. But as I read, all the scenes came back to me, and I appreciate the film even more than before. Yes, this is definitely a successful attempt at turning Book Into Film…and a hugely impressive one at that. The stellar cast with Jim Broadbent as the father and Colin Firth as the adult son, plus the exceptional supporting roles have brought out the spirit and the essence of the book poignantly, thanks to the very artistic and sensitive treatment by director Anand Tucker. To read my review of the movie, click here.

Blake Morrison is a contemporary British poet and writer. He was literary editor of The Observer and the Independent on Sunday before writing full time in 1995. AWDYLSYF is a memoir of his relationship with his father, Arthur Morrison, who died of cancer at age 75. Published in 1993, the book has won literary awards, and has been translated into many languages, from Japanese to Syrian.

The name of the book has its source in a painting of the same title by the Victorian artist W. F. Yeames. Yeames depicted an imaginary scene during the English Civil War. The young son of a Cavalier (Royalist) was questioned publicly by the enemy, the Roundheads (Parliamentarian), as to the whereabouts of his father. The question posed a serious dilemma for the boy. If he answered truthfully, he would endanger his father. If not, he would be commiting the immoral act of lying. Click here to read the story behind the painting.

And Painting by W. F. Yeames, When Did You Last See Your Father

Such a dilemma finds a parallel in the book. And it is apparent that Morrison has chosen to do the former, for the story he tells is incredibly candid, up-close and personal. As a reader, I’m glad he has done that. Eulogies are sometimes euphemism honoring the dead in order to please the living. But what Morrison has delivered is a courageously honest narrative of a precarious father-son relationship marked by ambivalence and love-hate sentiments. I can sense the pain such exposure could bring to the people involved, his mother, his sister, close family and friends. But I feel Morrison has burst the romantic bubble of the naturally congenial relationships we assume as we look at other people’s family portraits, or see families depicted in movies and novels. Love does not come naturally because of the tie that binds. Respect still needs to be earned, and loving acts need to be learned, for both parent and child.

The 20 independent, short chapters darting back and forth across the landscape of memory record the poignant reminiscence of a son living under the shadow of a powerful father. Arthur Morrison was a revered doctor in the town of Earby, in the County of Yorkshire…revered because of his imposing, domineering and callous demeanor. He could always get his way, and get out of troubles. In his recalling of childhood episodes, son Blake has aptly intermingled humor with pathos, all the more bringing out the complexity of character, and the ambivalence we sometimes feel towards our loved ones. And to be fair, Arthur had cared for his family, albeit in his own patriarchal and egotistic manner.

He was gregarious. In all social situations, he was the one leading the conversation and successfully avoiding topics that he was ignorant about…and was sure to stay away from games like Trivial Pursuit.

He hates feeling fallible: ‘I may not be right but I’m never wrong’ is the motto on a horrible brass wall-plate he has. He isn’t a vain man, but he is a proud, even bumptious one, a man with a puffed chest who learnt to water-ski in his fifties and thought he could go on forever.

How can such a character be brought to face his own imminent demise? Blake Morrison describes his father’s fast deterioration after diagnosed with cancer. The preparation though seemed to be harder for those who were going to be left behind than the patient himself. There was a relationship that needed mending, and, there were truths to be revealed. For years, Morrison had suspected the intimate relationship between his father and Auntie Beaty, a family friend. It had affected his perspective on his father, and on himself as a son. But he wasn’t given such a privilege. Other people’s secrets are theirs to own, even though that person is your father. And the living won’t tell: “Please leave me one last small piece–it’s mine” Auntie Beaty pleaded.

So the pressing question is: How is a son to prepare for the imminent demise of his own father, having lived in such a precarious relationship? The revelation comes at the end of the book. Death and mortality has a way of helping us put things in perspective:

Don’t underestimate filial grief, don’t think because you no longer live with your parents, have had a difficult relationship with them, are grown up and perhaps a parent yourself, don’t think that will make it any easier when they die.

Faced with the finality of death, all grievances one has towards the dying seem minute in comparison. As a son now, Blake has to learn to let go of his father, ironically, a lesson his father had failed to learn in the raising of his own son. Grievances give way to caring, to the consoling of the living, to the respect of a life lived on its own terms, to forgiveness, to closure.

In his Afterword, Morrison writes:

When young, we were impatient with our parents: now we want to atone for our callowness, and to acknowledge what they were and all they did.

Poignant words for us to ponder.

And when did you last see your father? by Blake Morrison is published by Granta Books, London. 1993. 230 Pages.

A movie tie-in edition by Granta Books is published October 2007.
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The Maytrees by Annie Dillard: Book Review

To celebrate National Poetry Month, I am reviewing Annie Dillard’s novel The Maytrees. That’s right. For Annie Dillard, even her novel reads like poetry. Consider these lines:

“Behind his head, color spread up sky. In the act of diving, Orion, rigid, shoulder-first like a man falling, began to dissolve. Then even the zenith and western stars paled and gulls squawked.”

Toby Maytree came home to Provincetown, Cape Cod, after the Second World War and met Lou Bigelow. They soon fell in love and married, their lives bound by nature.

“His wife, Lou Maytree, rarely spoke. She painted a bit on canvas and linen now lost. They acted in only two small events–three, if love counts. Falling in love, like having a baby, rubs against the current of our lives: separation, loss, and death. That is the joy of them.”

Toby and Lou Maytree live a bohemian life. Toby works enough as a carpenter to support his real pleasure, poetry writing; Lou paints, rendering obsolete her MIT architecture degree.

“For a long time they owned no car, no television when that came in, no insurance, no savings. Once a week they heard world news on the radio. They supported striking coal miners’ families with cash. They loved their son, Pete, their only child. Between them they read about three hundred books a year. He read for facts, she for transport. Nothing about them was rich except their days swollen with time.”

Can life, or love, be any simpler for any married couple? Life in Cape Cod is idyllic for the Maytrees, and for a long while, time almost stood still. Until, a third person, their long-time mutual friend Deary, came between them. Anticipating the ambivalence of guilt and desire, Toby and Deary secretly plans a move away to Maine, leaving Lou to raise Pete alone in Provincetown.

“We bound ourselves to the fickle, changing, and dying as if they were rock.”

Dillard follows the Maytrees’ lives together, apart, and together again years later under very peculiar circumstances. She uses condensed and poetic language to describe the subtle beauty of love, the reality of human frailty, the numbing of separation, and the inevitability of death. Against the backdrop of nature, and a web of characters in the Maytrees’ lives, the author explores the power of forgiveness, the sharing of human responsibility, the acceptance of the human condition, and the preparation for death. Love can still triumph despite failings, and yet, she also queries, what exactly, is love.

For most of the novel, Dillard displays fully her expertise: meditative nature writing, her thoughts touching the realms of science, literature, anthropology, religion, and philosophy. I do not pretend that I fully comprehend all that Dillard writes. Eudora Welty in her 1974 New York Times review of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek admitted that: “I honestly do not know what she is talking about at such times.” Who am I to say I have understood all that Dillard has written here in The Maytrees. It may help if you are well-versed in Keats, Kafka, and Wittgenstein. But often it is in the language. Occassionally, her condensed language has left me cold and clueless. However, it is also her language that appeals to me. Amidst the ambiguity, I have appreciated the mesmerizing power of her poetic sense.

“Later he stood on the foredune’s lip and looked at the stars over the ocean. A wider life breathed in him, and things’ rims stirred and reared back. Only the lover sees what is real, he thought. Only the lover sees the beloved truly, inwardly. Far from being blind, love alone can see. Watching the sky now, and forever after, doubled his world. He felt he saw through Lou’s eyes as an Aztec priest, having flayed an enemy, donned the skin. Or somewhat less so.”

At the end, death wraps up a life and a narrative. Surprisingly, Dillard describes it in a prosaic and matter-of-fact manner. And yet, the images are vivid, and the humanity shines through. This is the genius of Annie Dillard. The Maytrees is a gem of a story; it gives and demands much. It may need some effort to plough through, but well worth the time. And like poetry, you would want to go back and savor it again.

The Maytrees by Annie Dillard. Harper Collins, 2007. 224 pages.

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