book ends
March books in May
I surprisingly read more than usual in March, and I’m not sure why that was the case, but we’ll happily take it before these busy spring months seem to suck up any and all free time I have to read!
The Last Camel Died at Noon by Elizabeth Peters
I hope you know me enough to know that I would love a mystery series taking place in late nineteenth century Egypt with an English woman anthropologist as the main character. It is almost entirely my twelve year old dreams come true in the form of a mystery series. And Peters is a wonderful writer, she’s got a fabulous sense of humour, a great style that is very tongue-in-cheek when it comes to all the “Englishness” happening in Egypt at the time, and has really come up with a brilliant character in Amelia Peabody. This particular book I picked up at a thrift store because I automatically buy Peters whenever I see her and felt in the mood to go to Egypt. Although not one of her best mysteries, this book does take us to a hidden African city inhabited by an ancient race of people who of course, want friends of Amelia and Emerson dead. Honestly, the plots aren’t the point of these books, spending time with these characters in that time and place is the point and it is so much fun. The only thing wrong with these books is that they could probably be a hundred pages shorter, but does literary criticism need to ruin fun?? Probably not.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The opposite of reading for fun is reading Cormac McCarthy. But am I ever glad I finally grew brave enough to read The Road because I was really blown away by it. This post-apocalyptic tale of a nameless father and son journeying across a utterly bleak landscape has so much to say about what civilization is, how to raise children, what we want to leave as our personal legacy, and goodness triumphing over evil and destruction. But what surprised me the most was not it’s oftentimes terrifying scenes (I could only read it during daylight hours!), but how I just didn’t want to put the book down. McCarthy really is a fantastic writer to be able to pull that off with his particular writing style and the novel’s subject matter. There is so much to say about this book that I’ll stop there, but I will say that I think this book should be required reading for parents, a completely thought provoking book. Also so glad to have read it with the
podcast because it helped me get over whatever weird, scared hurdles I had in my mind.Post After Post-Mortem by E.C.R. Locac
A lovely murder mystery that takes place in THE COTSWOLDS by a writer I had never read before! It takes quite a bit for me to not have read a mystery writer before so this was so exciting to me, and I was so happy it was a great book. This book centres around the apparent suicide of writer at her family’s home in the country, her brother calls in Inspector Macdonald to investigate when a letter the victim posted on the evening of her death arrives after her post-mortem. A well done mystery that takes place in a wonderfully described setting by a talented author.
Chasing Bright Medusas by Benjamin Taylor
A wonderful, short biography on Willa Cather that beautifully illumines the major themes of her novels and her own personal perspectives. I really appreciated the tone of this biography, while commenting on her views on sexuality I didn’t feel like he went full out/activist in using it to interpret everything Cather ever did or wrote. I love Cather and her writing so much and just thoroughly enjoyed this book.
One of Ours by Willa Cather
I realized while reading the biography that I have never read Cather’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel about a man who grows up in the midwest then goes on to fight and die in World War I. I think I always put this one off because the subject matter just feels like such a trudge, and as someone who has read Rilla of Ingleside so many times, I just don’t have much capacity left for WWI in what I read. But I needn’t have feared because Cather adds so much perspective and attention to detail and construction of character that every part of this story feels like a true portrait of a real person. What surprised me most was how invested I was in this man’s story, and how her depiction of the nobility and virtue of the individual soldiers really made me think twice about how goodness is possible in war. I think because of our modernist view of war, obviously justified by so much horror of the twentieth century, that we have become accepting of all aspects of war as terrible and irredeemable. But Cather gives a good reminder of the possibility and goodness of the human spirit even in terrible conditions. She doesn’t glorify war or its cost, but she does shed light on what true valour and sacrifice can mean to a person.
The Novel, Who Needs It? by Joseph Epstein
Epstein is an English professor who has written different essays on the topic and importance of the novel that are collected in this book. While I appreciated a lot of his thoughts on the importance of story and novel in our contemporary techno-centred society and what it means for art and for the individual, I also didn’t feel like a lot surprised me. Maybe because I agreed with him on so much of the topics? Either way the book is well written and his ideas and perspective are important ones when it comes to the current literary scene.
on audiobook:
Oh boy, she listened to A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken on audiobook. Probably not the best for audio or the best narrator for this book, but it was crunch time for book club and this was what I had to do! I suspected that because this book seems to be universally beloved that I would be less than thrilled about it because that’s my usual reaction to universally beloved things, and while I have criticisms I do think it was a wonderful and poignant story of conversion and faith. What I didn’t like was their marriage and relationship, and this was a source of discussion at our book club meeting; I don’t think it was necessarily wrong, but more that I was in no way attracted to that type of relationship or marriage. And while I understand that the goal to share interests and deep conversation and even the intellectual life with your spouse a good one, I didn’t find the way they went about it at all realistic or enviable. I could be wrong because I know this book is much beloved! Also, I don’t think he’s a great poet. Parting shot.
I feel like I’m forgetting a book, but if I did I’ll tack it on to next months post. Thanks for sticking around here for my random book notes, hope you’re reading something great right now!
I think our book club convo was probably really similar 😂. Most of us were rereading it after first reading it while unmarried in college. Soooo different to read as a married person. I also did the audiobook and he was awful. But also just Sheldon is so so aggravating! We all just couldn’t stand his smarmy, self-important tone. Could never be friends with this dude IRL.
I actually think the portrait of their marriage is in some ways *meant* to be just too much! They absolutely made an idol of it and to be fair, he admits as much. Were they also products of their time? Romantics? Hyper-intellectuals? Maybe. Either way, I think many of us found their relationship repugnant in many ways. Davy seems subsumed by Van's ideas, work, personality etc. His conversion does not seem authentic, and he basically admits as much in his sequel “Under the Mercy”.
I thought the *best* part of the whole book was all of C. S. Lewis’s letters and scenes! And actually, I really enjoyed Van’s poetry this time around. In spite of his general smarminess, he could craft a beautiful sonnet!
I had to listen to Severe Mercy myself the day of book club. I thought it was a book about marriage, and when viewed through that lens I detested it more than words could say. I believe they created an idol of their marriage and it was very distasteful and actually repugnant to me.
But then I started thinking about it as a conversion story and also about how the vocation of marriage can be used by God as a tool for conversion and salvation. That was the saving grace of the book for me.
I’m going through a difficult time period in life and have been for years. I loved the titles because it tells like many of God’s mercies to me are severe mercies. Salvation and conversion and holiness seem to always come at such a great price, perhaps because I’m a hard headed learner. I won’t forget that phrase, a severe mercy. I’m currently praying for a mercy to come out of my current suffering.