Howling Frog Books

Wigs on the Green , by Nancy Mitford This was such an oddball funny novel!  I really enjoyed it a lot.  But first, some history: Nancy Mitford, oldest of the six Mitford sisters, was a comedic novelist who made it a rule never to take anything too seriously.   You may also know that two of her sisters were dedicated Fascists (and one was a Communist too! and one became a duchess!  and one just liked chickens.).  Diana dumped her mundane husband to become the lover and later wife of Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Fascist movement.  Unity went to Germany to meet Hitler, who she thought was marvelous. And Nancy wrote a novel that poked some light-hearted fun at them.  This was in 1935, when many Britons still found Fascism more amusing than anything else.  Unity--who the main character is based upon--seems to have taken it in good part, but Diana was so offended she broke off relations for several years.  After the war, Nancy refused to ...

I read a boring Everyman edition. Go Tell It on the Mountain, by James Baldwin This is such a powerful novel; it's not easy for me to describe it.  The story starts with John on his 14th birthday.  It's 1935 in Harlem, and he belongs to a family that is very strictly religious.  Their lives revolve around the church they attend, and John's mother expects great things from her oldest son who is so intelligent and quiet.  John, however, is not at all sure that he has (or wants) a calling to follow God, and his feelings about religion are complicated by his hatred of his father, who claims to be a preacher and a man of God but mostly seems to use that as an excuse to beat the son he despises.  As the novel unfolds, we learn the stories of John's elders--his mother, his father, his aunt, and others--and we come to understand the family in ways that John cannot.  He, however, starts to gain his own understanding.  The novel's language is amazing....

In the Steps of the Master, by H. V. Morton H. V. Morton was quite a famous journalist in his day.  He made his career by being the first to report on the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb, and then he wrote a lot of very popular books about spots in Britain (I have read and loved a couple of them).  This book is the account of a trip he took to Palestine in about 1934, and though he writes quite a bit about Crusaders and Arabs and Romans, his main focus is on the events of the New Testament and on the Hebrew people. The amazing thing about this book is that Morton was there 80 years ago--before the modern state of Israel was established, and just about before much modernization had occurred at all.  I'm quite sure that if I went to the same spots, they would all be very very different now.  Although much had changed in 2000 years, Morton was able to see quite a few things--ways of life, habits, and so on--that had changed relatively little.  Every so often...

People Tell Me Things: Stories by David Finkle It's high time I wrote up reviews for all these books on my desk that I read during the Wicked Wildfire Readathon!  I'll start with the TBR titles, since I'm extra-late with those. David Finkle writes about the arts for various New Yorky publications, and here he was written a collection of short stories that are about the same world.  The stories are kind of rambly--I mean, they have a point and they're not over-long, but they're kind of like a guy at a coffee shop telling you a random story about his life.  Artists, writers, and film people wander in and out and get up to things.  And all of it takes place in Manhattan, with very, very New York sensibilities.  It's probably quite literary, but in a way that I don't really get. I'm not really much on New York stories, so I wasn't enthralled.  Meh.

Well, that kind of got away from me for a few days!  Nevertheless, I enjoyed the readathon and finished a pile of books, few of which I have managed to actually write reviews for yet.  Here on my desk in front of me I have the following finished books: Blind Justice , by Anne Perry Tristan , by Gottfried von Strassburg People Tell Me Things: Stories , by David Finkle Go Tell It On the Mountain , by James Baldwin Wigs on the Green , by Nancy Mitford Linnets and Valerians , by Elizabeth Goudge In the Steps of the Master , by H. V. Morton And today I started Savage Continent, a book about the aftermath of World War II in Europe.  It's been fun!  Thanks to My Shelf Confessions for hosting!  Hope it happens again next year.

Here's an update on my weekend's reading:  I finished Go Tell It On the Mountain , which is an amazing novel.  Wow.  I'm now about 3/4 of the way through In the Steps of the Master .  And I've started Wigs on the Green , a comedic novel by Nancy Mitford that is very funny!  Sort of Wodehousy.  It was written in about 1935 and pokes fun at Fascist beliefs, which annoyed at least one of her two Fascist sisters so much that after the war, Mitford wouldn't let it be reprinted so as not to offend her--and also because by 1951 Fascism wasn't very funny anymore.  But I'm completely entertained by a group that makes their shirts out of Union Jack flags so that they are called the Union Jackshirts.  There is also, of course, a lot of comedy around romantic pairs. Clearly I need a 30's jazzy kind of song here, for Wigs on the Green .  I picked "Okay, Toots!" which was a hit in Britain about that time--you can imagine Bertie Wooster banging it out o...

I was out and about a little more today, but I did get some reading done.  I finished People Tell Me Things , which was meh.  Too much New York.  I read a good solid chunk of Go Tell It On the Mountain , which is just amazingly written but (as you might expect) very wrenching.  And I've read a bit of In the Steps of the Master --I'm now a little over halfway through. I keep meaning to pick up Beauty in the Word , a book about classical education.  Just today I heard that the author has passed away; he will be very missed, I know.  So I'm going to start that next. I now have 3 finished books in a pile on my desk to review.  Maybe tomorrow... Go Tell It On the Mountain is written in a gospel style; it's all about people who live and breathe their religion, and they think in the semi-Biblical, gospel style that is most familiar to many of us now through the speeches and writings of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.  Gospel songs are quoted througho...

Today was pretty good for reading.  I finished Anne Perry's Blind Justice , about the last third of it (turned out I'd read two thirds yesterday), and got in a chunk of In the Steps of the Master --a really long book, I'm now about a third through it.  I also picked up a book of short stories from my TBR pile that I started a while back, which I'm having trouble getting into.  It's called People Tell Me Things , and they are really New Yorky stories which I'm not much into.  One of the stories I read today had a poster of Sting as a story element.  Sting is possibly the only real person mentioned in this entire book of stories, which contains a lot of gossipy-sounding stuff about real-sounding people who are not in fact real.  Sting, therefore, gets the song of the day.  I quite like Sting (despite his undeniable pomposity) so it was hard to pick, but we'll go with Desert Rose because it's about the right timeframe for the story--no early songs al...

Today I read a pretty good piece of In the Steps of the Master , which has some great stuff in it about old legends and ruins and history.  I needed something to read by the pool, so I started Anne Perry's latest mystery, Blind Justice , which is pretty good so far. I'm probably about a third of the way through.  I always read Perry, but she sort of bugs me too, always spending a lot of time on fine shades of emotion and meaning--though her characters aren't as annoyingly prickly and irritable as they used to be. The Perry novel is, of course, set in Victorian London, and contains some mentions of music halls.  The music hall song I know best is "My Old Man Said Follow the Van," so here it is, with some other classic London songs.  This performance is from 1961 and quite stagey, but it's fun. I have another song for you!  This is a library-themed song, and I can't get it to embed, but the lyrics are at the page anyway.  Please enjoy "Wha...

I had a much quieter day today and actually did some reading.  I finished Tristan !  I read a good chunk of Go Tell It On the Mountain , and I got started with In the Steps of the Master , H. V. Morton's journal of his travels in Palestine in about 1935. In other booky news, I was directed to this completely wonderful collection of "pulp librarian literature" --that is, old paperbacks changed into librarian titles.  Take a look, they are hysterical.  Here are some of my favorites:

1st ed. cover V., by Thomas Pynchon I wanted to spend part of the summer reading Thomas Pynchon's first novel, V .  This is my first full-length Pynchon venture, so I figured I might as well start at the beginning.  I cannot say that I loved it, but I will say that I plan to continue with the next novel--at least one of these days, not right away.  It was interesting sometimes, and other times not so much.  It's kind of more a guy novel, maybe. It starts with Benny Profane, ex-Navy, who falls in with a crowd of oddballs called The Whole Sick Crew in New York, and there are random adventures.  Then there is also a fellow called Stencil who is on a life-long quest to search for V., a mysterious woman with many different personae.  Maybe.  The episodes interchange and wander all over the place and in time as well. There are fictional countries and real places--Malta figures largely--and a lot about yo-yoing and Vs, and historical episodes.  I...

As I thought, I didn't get very much read today.  The birthday was more important, and I baked an awesome Doctor Who cake (plus many other things).  What I did read: A bit of Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan .  I'm 2/3 of the way through and they've finally quaffed the love philtre. A bit of James Baldwin's Go Tell It On the Mountain , which I've just started.  I think I made it to page 35.  The writing is amazing. Tomorrow will be much more relaxed, and I presume will contain more reading. Tristan -- check out Strassburg's name up there!

The Custom of the Country , by Edith Wharton I don't think this is the most famous of Wharton's novels, but a review quotation on the cover says "Edith Wharton's finest achievement," and that may be true.  This is a wonderful novel. Undine Spragg, social climber and daughter of suddenly-wealthy parents, is set on getting her own way.  She wants to move in the best circles, and to do that she has dragged her parents to New York City.  There, she waits for her chance to break into the enchanted circles of the Gilded Age.  Soon she meets and charms a young man belonging to the old New York aristocracy, but exclusivity turns out to be less fun than she thought it would be; the aristocracy are not wealthy enough for Undine.  Surely there is more out there for her. I really had kind of a hard time with this novel.  It's a beautifully-written, excellent novel, but Undine is constantly, blindly, willfully extravagant, and it was painful to read about.  S...

Today is the start of the annual Wicked Wildfire Readathon!   I love the mini-challenges and things they have.  It's 10 days long, which is lucky for me because I won't get much done today.  From my perspective, it's even more important that it's my oldest daughter's birthday and she is 14.   (Ack.  Help.)  I have secret plans for a cake! I will be posting a bit today on whatever I do manage to read, plus a review of the Edith Wharton book I just finished. So, if you want to join up, you still can.  Ready, set, read!

Tristran , by Thomas of Britain One of the earlier versions of the Tristan and Isolde tale is one by "Thomas of Britain," who was probably writing for the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine.  It's all rather fuzzy, but the clues seem to point that way, and certainly Thomas was writing for a courtly audience who expected certain things out of the story.  This divides Thomas' story from the earlier Beroul, who is known as 'primitive' in contrast. This tale of Tristran and Ysolt only survives in fragments.  There are about 50 pages of material, and they start with the story already well underway.  Tristran is living in the wilderness alone, after King Mark's suspicions got to be too much.  In a truly strange addition, Tristran has life-like mechanical statues made of Ysolt and Brangvein (and their dog!).  He keeps them in a cave, which he visits to lament his awful fate.   Before long he marries Ysolt of the White Hands, and Thomas includes a long lament o...

Joseph Andrews , by Henry Fielding Remember last summer, when I tortured myself by reading both volumes of Pamela ?  Well this summer I had a better idea; I read Henry Fielding's second take-off on Pamela .  The first was Shamela , an outright parody.  Joseph Andrews is not quite a parody and not quite a satire, though it has those elements.  This is the story of Pamela's brother, Joseph.  He is just as good-looking, just as intelligent, just as humble, and just as virtuous as Pamela was in her story! After all, why can't a man be chaste and virtuous?,  Fielding asks.  Joseph is a footman in the house of Lady Booby, a very recent widow.  (She is Pamela's Mr. B's aunt, so now we know Mr. B's real name!)  Lady Booby cannot resist the charms of Joseph, and when he declines to respond, he is fired.  Poor Joseph sets out to walk the long miles to the Booby country estate, and as he meets his clergyman, Mr. Adams, and later on his true l...

Kindly Inquisitors: the New Attacks on Free Thought, by Jonathan Rauch OK, people, this is it.  THIS is the best book I have read so far this year (in the non-fiction category, but way above most of the fiction too, I just don't want to dis DWJ here).  And everybody should read it who plans to be a citizen of a country.  Or ruler of their own one-person country, it would be important then too.  You wouldn't want to oppress anyone, now would you? In 1993, Rauch published this treatise about the importance of free speech, free thought, and the whole system he calls "liberal science."  He used the then-current case of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses as a special example of the importance of free speech.  It was a timely book, what with the quick rise of political correctness on college campuses and all.  Nobody paid a lick of attention, so in 2013 Rauch wrote another chapter and re-published the book.   Rauch e...

This month's question for Classics Club bloggers is: Have you ever read a biography on a classic author? If so, tell us about it. If you had already read works by this author, did reading a biography of his/her life change your perspective on the author’s writing? Why or why not? Or, if you’ve never read a biography of a classic author, would you? Why or why not?  I have read several biographies of authors!  From Beverly Cleary's wonderful autobiographies to Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson , I've read a bunch.  Plus an old and obscure life of Jane Austen that I got from the library and have no idea what it was called.  It was a nice book though. Here are some that I remember: Dr. Johnson, writer of first English dictionary Life of Samuel Johnson , by James Boswell -- rambling and huge, but entertaining.  Actually more fun to read than most of Dr. Johnson's writing (sorry) and source of many favorite quips. The Tale of Beatrix Potter , by Margare...

The Guns of August, by Barbara Tuchman  I wanted to re-read this classic of history this summer, and I was sure right!  This is such a great book, and I'd forgotten everything.  The Guns of August is not Tuchman's first book, but it is the book that launched her into well-deserved fame.  She covers the first month of World War I in detail, from all sides--after giving the necessary background as well--we go day by day, seeing decisions as they were made and as if we don't all know how it's going to turn out.  It works really well. The book actually starts with Edward VII's funeral, a glittering parade that brought 70 countries together for one last gasp of the old order.  Even at the official parties, Kaiser Wilhelm II ("possessor of the least inhibited tongue in Europe") couldn't help trying to wheel and deal in politics, usually to the horror of everyone else including his own staff.  We then see the world hurrying towards disaster. Tuchman c...

O wants to know how we're all doing with the Russian literature.   I've been reading a lot of Russian this year, though I needed a break after August 1914 .  So far I have read 8 titles.  I signed up for 4-6, but I'd quite like to get to ten. So far I've read:   We , by Yevgeny Zamyatin   Dead Souls , by Nikolai Gogol Eugene Onegin (final installment), by Pushkin Fathers and Sons , by Turgenev (mini-review!) What is to be Done? by Nikolai Chernyshevsky Maidenhair, by Mikhail Shishkin Notes from the Underground , by Dostoevsky August 1914 , by Solzhenitsyn Last night I got back on the Russian horse and started reading Chekhov's play Uncle Vanya .  I figure I'll read at least one play, maybe all of the three I have planned (but that might be too many plays at once), and then tackle the big one: War and Peace .

Nathan the Wise , by G. E. Lessing Before I finished work for the summer, I grabbed several books of literature that I thought I might like to read.  One is a collection of "Classical German Drama" that includes selections from Goethe, Schiller, and others I've not heard of.  The play I was after is "Nathan the Wise," by Lessing, published in 1779, and it's about religious tolerance. Nathan is a Jewish merchant, living in Jerusalem during the Third Crusade.  The play narrates how he, the Sultan Saladin, and a Templar knight overcome their differences to become friends.  At the center of the play is a story narrated by Nathan about three rings which illustrates that each religion (Islam, Christianity, and Judaism) has the ability to teach us to live rightly and love God.  This being a drama, there is also an incredibly complicated plot about Nathan's daughter Recha, the Templar's love for her, and just who their parents are (not who they think, of...

Hey everyone, I have been in a bit of a blogging slump.  I went away for a week, which was a great but exhausting trip to Utah, and then I came back but I just didn't make it to the blog.  I need to do some thinking about how my blogging fits into everything else.  Anyway!-- It's the day for the Classics Spin Title!  I drew a couple of plays by Kit Marlowe; I'd planned to read Doctor Faustus and one other, and I chose the obvious one-- Tamburlaine , the play that made Marlowe known while he was still alive. In Doctor Faustus , a scholar makes a pact with the Devil.  Mephistophilis becomes Faustus' servant, bringing him whatever he wants for 24 years, at the end of which he will be dragged down to Hell.  This does not seem like a really great deal to me, but throughout the play Faustus ignores his many chances to back out and save himself.  A Good Angel and a Bad Angel argue with him, he sees the Seven Deadly Sins in a vision, even Mephistophili...