by Jennifer Krebs | Mar 29, 2019 | Books, Uncategorized
A quick little book about reading, writing, and love…is there more to life? Le Mystere Henri Pick, par David Foenkinos (yup, read it in French), is set largely in contemporary Brittany, a young woman editor is searching for a book to publish that is going to establish her reputation. She finds it in a library of unpublishable manuscripts (rejected manuscripts). The mystery is who wrote the book – the name of the manuscript’s cover doesn’t seem to comport with the actual man, deceased, who ran a pizzeria and seemed (to his wife and daughter) barely literate. Foenkinos has barbs and kudos for actual writers near and far, as well as the publishing world. I happened to open the Goodreads page on the book and saw rave reader reviews in many, many languages. Also a movie will be forthcoming.
by Jennifer Krebs | Mar 29, 2019 | Books
Admittedly, I’m late to the party. If anyone read To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, in Spencerport, NY during the 1970s, he or she wasn’t assigned it in my English classes. In February 2019, I got the opportunity to see the Aaron Sorkin remake of the play, To Kill a Mockingbird, starring Jeff Daniels. The play did an excellent job of presenting the confusion of childhood about issues of race, class, and oddball-ness in the 1930s. But the audiobook, read by Sissy Spacek, outshone the play (my cousin Linda had recommended it). I so admire the way Harper Lee/Sissy Spacek was able to capture a young girls’ voice: the small hurts and anger, the bravado, the warmth and sensitivity as well as the obliviousness. The confusion of growing up among wonderful and terrible people, as we are all capable of great and awful things. I’m not sure if I would have loved this book at age 15 as many did, but I certainly appreciated it this past winter.
by Jennifer Krebs | Mar 22, 2019 | Books
I think I’ve now read the last of Erik Larson’s books written to date. I’d put off The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America for quite a while because I’m not so big into gore & I knew this was a tale of a serial killer. It’s hard not to call In the Garden of the Beasts my favorite (who can resist family drama and intrigue at the American Embassy in Berlin as the Nazis came to power?). But the The Devil in the White City really is a marvel. There’s the invention of the Ferris Wheel, the birth of modern landscape architecture, Chicago’s heyday, unionization and muckrakers, and more. The post script alone is worth a look. Was Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom based on The White City (Disney grew up close to the Fairgrounds & his father worked building the Fairgrounds). Frank Lloyd Wright worked for Adler and Sullivan, who also worked on the Fair. How did the Fair influence his later works….The attached photo is from one of FL Wright’s designs in Oak Park, within a couple of miles of Jackson Park, where the Fair of 1892 (400 anniversary of Colombus finding his way to the “New World”) was held.
by Jennifer Krebs | Mar 21, 2019 | Books
Ghost Wall, by Sarah Moss. On Maureen Corrigan’s review, I began Ghost Wall, a story of a teenager and her family joining an academic “experimental archeology” field course in the North of England. Wikipedia describes Experimental Archeology as “a field of study which attempts to generate and test archaeological hypotheses, usually by replicating or approximating the feasibility of ancient cultures performing various tasks or feats…Living history and historical reenactment, which are generally undertaken as a hobby, are the non archaeological person’s version of this academic discipline.”
Ghost Wall = pre-historical re-enactors (with a right-wing nationalist cast) + 2nd rate academic with lacky grad students + teen girl coming of age.
As the story unfolds, the protagonist’s father shows himself to be as brutal as the prehistoric Brits he emulates, and the protagonist, who loves her father, has to come to grips with what that brutality means to her.
by Jennifer Krebs | Mar 21, 2019 | Books
Blood, Water, Paint, by Joy Mccullough. I picked up this book because it was about Artemesia Gentileschi & I thought I’d be re-reading a book that I read a decade ago about her. No, that book,The Passion of Artemesia, by Susan Vreeland, had a different span and scope.
Blood, Water, Paint covers Artemesia’s late adolescence shortly after the death of her mother. Artemesia’s lonely, in a house full of boys and men, and her only real engagement is with the paintings that she does under her father’s name. As the book progresses, she is raped by an artist, and wishes him to be punished. In 17th Century Italy, however, it is mainly she that is punished. The book is a quick read about the injustices and lonelinesses of adolescence. One leaves the book wondering if art will save Artemesia.
The Vreeland book follows Artemesia throughout her life and provides different perspectives on her relationships with her family, and the art world of the 17th Century, and the legacy of her rape throughout her life. I think I’ll read it again.
In the meantime, should you visit Mexico City Soumaya Museum, you’ll find 3 canvasses of Artemesia’s. She is definitely looking to the heavens for answers.
