In preparation for Iceland Writers Retreat, I am reading a book by each of the featured authors. Although it feels weird to review a book by a pending teacher, I read best when I know I have to report on it later, so here we are. While I was immersed in A Year of Wonders, all of my library holds came in. I picked the next book at random: O My America! Six Women and Their Second Acts in a New World, by Sara Wheeler. Read More
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Book Report: O My America!
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Book Report: Heliopolis
In preparation for Iceland Writers Retreat, I am reading at least one book by each of the featured authors before I go. Although it’s a bit weird to review a book by someone who is about to become your teacher, I read best when I know I have to report on it later, so here we are. While I was reading Iain Reid’s The Truth About Luck, I took the girls to the Central Library for a children’s film festival. Afterwards, I browsed fiction, keeping an eye on my oldest daughter as she moved among the homeless in the manga section nearby. I found Heliopolis by James Scudamore first. Read More
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A Hearing Trumpet for The Whispering Muse Pt 2
Leonora Carrington
This is part two of the story of my recent foray into Surrealist fiction. Read Part One here.
Suddenly I remembered – Leonora Carrington was Remedios Varo’s best friend! (Okay, I confess. I googled her.)
A long time ago in a galaxy far away, I became a member of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. I never made it to DC to visit the museum, but the member materials acquainted me with Varo, a Spanish surrealist who lived in Mexico. Her life was every bit as shockingly bohemian as that of her contemporary Frida Kahlo, but her art more closely resembled Hieronymus Bosch. According to my special-ordered copy of Janet Kaplan’s biography of Varo, she and Carrington
established an association between women’s traditional roles and magical acts of transformation…stimulated by the Surrealist belief in ‘occultation of the Marvelous’ and by wide reading in witchcraft, alchemy, sorcery, Tarot, and magic.
They collaborated on plays, constructed elaborate hats, and victimized their famous art world friends with performance art/pranks that sometimes made their way into each other’s painting and writing.
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A Hearing Trumpet for The Whispering Muse Pt. 1
As we trickled into the room our yoga teacher commented on the cold. “Yes, and it’s so dark,” one woman replied, “It’s like the sun never even rose today.” Leaden skies are commonplace in Seattle, and December can be forgiven for freezing temperatures, but her words, like the echo of a prophesy, filled me with foreboding. What if the earth’s magnetic poles really had begun to shift, triggering a new ice age and plunging the world into darkness?
How did I, scientifically trained product of a Jesuit education, come to harbor such dark fantasies? It wasn’t just the sheep heads mysteriously scattered in my neighborhood the night before. No, the root of my unease stretched much deeper. It all started, as such things do, at the Nordic Heritage Museum.
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Laxness is Dependably Frustrating in Independent People
After hating The Great Weaver of Kashmir without being able to dismiss its quality, I read Independent People and didn’t know what to think. My relationship with Laxness will always be volatile; he inspires fervor and frustration in equal measure.
This is the real thing: a head-over-heels incredulity that there exists in the universe so perfect an imperfection.
(from the intro by Brad Leithauser)
Independent People is often cited as his masterpiece, and it proves that Laxness’ Nobel Prize is well-earned. It holds up in comparison to The Grapes of Wrath; in both stories, dirt-poor farmers epitomizing the national spirit fight for survival and dignity against economic forces they don’t understand. In the case of Independent People, the farmer is Bjartur, who sacrifices everything of value in his life to pursue his ideal of independence. Read More