Friday, February 16, 2018

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

I was very pleased to have listened to the audio book of George Saunders novel Lincoln in the Bardo

I read that Saunders was inspired, in part, by Thornton Wilder's play Our Town. Which play always leaves me in tears. This novel lends itself extremely well to being read as a play. 

The plot, in short: President Lincoln's dear son Willie has died. The Civil War has been going on for a year and 3,000 young men have just lost their lives in a Union defeat. On the day of the funeral, the President returns to the crypt to hold his son once again. Willie cannot leave his father but remains with other shades in the limbo of the graveyard.

The story of Willie's death on the day of a magnificent party at the president's mansion and the day of his funeral is told through snippets of historical writings that link into a loose narrative, sometimes contradicting each other.

The denizens of the Bardo are rooted to their old lives, wrapped up in self-centered concerns. They include all kind of folk from various times past, class, and race. Some are unable to accept they are dead. Some are vulgar, some giving over to sin. There is a clergyman who fled from the judgment place in fear. Into this motley crew comes this blessed, innocent, boy. Several shades make it their concern to help the child move on.

I was so moved by the scene where the shades enter President Lincoln to inspire him to tell his son to leave this place for the home of glory Lincoln imagines for him. And in this community of shades and living man they feel each other's pain and understand each other's burdens. They realize that Lincoln is president and filled with doubt, staggering under the immense weight of a nation and all the deaths of war, other families also grieving over sons.

Willie realizes his truth and in excitement and understanding, shouts out his readiness to move on. The shades begin to understand, and forgetting their worldly concerns, let go and move on to the afterlife.

Now I want to read the book again, pencil in hand to mark it up and note the passages that move me and make me sigh. This novel of grief is also a celebration of life.

I thank the public library for the audio book through Overdrive.

Missing Isaac: A Story of Family, Community and Faith

Missing Isaac is a vivid portrait of a community in the 1960s South, concentrating on the story of a boy growing up and learning about class, love, family, faith, and community.

In the opening scene Pete's father has died in an accident; his field hand Isaac tried to save him. Isaac befriends Pete; later he disappears.

I expected Isaac's story to be the main one, but instead it is placed on the back burner while we watch Pete grow up. Looking for Isaac, Pete meets a girl from an isolated family group who stay away from town folk. The children secretly meet, but when found out their parents cooperate to monitor the children's relationship, expecting that come puberty it will blossom into something more than friendship.

In the end, the mystery of missing Isaac is revealed. He did not fall victim to the KKK, but to something more insidious.

The novel is nostalgic and idyllic, showing the best of the community but also revealing the evil that hides behind careful facades.

I am not used to reading Christian books and the scenes in church worship seemed uneventful. The vilification of town youth culture and the division between the Hollow folk and town folk were definitely us vs them territory. Racism was barely lurking in the background, as Pete's family respect all people, regardless of color or class, as equals.

Pete and Dovey are too sweet and their long courtship is very respectful--but they marry ASAP.  I had friends who believed in courtship and whose children married too young; one was divorced within a year. The problem, of course, is that young adults want more than pristine kisses, lust into marriage, and discover they are not prepared for reality.

Still, for readers who want old-fashioned values and a story with no graphic violence, sex, profanity, this is a lovely book. It is what my mother-in-law wanted to read when she was in her 90s.

I received a free book from Bookish First in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Missing Isaac
by Valerie Fraser Luesse
Revell
Feb 16 2018
ISBN: 9780800728786

Thursday, February 15, 2018

The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy by Val D. Greenwood

I became involved with genealogy after inheriting my grandfather Lynne O. Ramer's personal papers, including genealogy research on the Ramer family by Grant L. Schadle.

In the early 1990s I began my own research through the Internet and Family Tree Maker. I already had Robert Evan's published book on Jacob Gochenour and His Family and Grant Schadle's Ramer family tree research. I wanted to find out about my British roots and my husband's ancestry.

Looking back, my early work was shoddy. I relied on family trees that lacked supporting documentation and my record keeping consisted of saved "Favorites" on the search engine, saved files to my computer, and printed off copies of documents, trees, and other sources.

I later committed to World membership with Ancestry.com and the family tree I have created there is my main source of records keeping.

What I needed at the beginning was a better understanding of family history research. A 'researcher's guide.'

Val D. Greenwood's first published The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy in 1973, selling over 110,000 copies. Because of the huge impact of the Internet in research, he revised the book for the 4th edition published in 2017.

It is massive in size, nearly 800 pages. It is a comprehensive reference book that covers every aspect of family research. Part I addresses Background to Research and Part II Records and Their Use. Greenwood has included illustrations and charts.

The 4th Edition specifically is updated to reflect the new sources available in research provided by the Internet. Greenwood includes overviews of  all the major family history websites, including Ancestry, Family Search, Find My Past, and My Heritage, explaining what they offer and how to use them.

As he notes in his Preface, "though it is a great boon to this work, it [the Internet] is still an imperfect tool. Many important records...are not on the Internet." I know this for a fact! I have been the gracious recipient of help from researchers who have visited places I could not and shared their findings with me. A researcher who visited my grandfather's hometown courthouse shared information with me through Ancestry. In this way I discovered my great-grandmother on the 1910 census under a married name--a marriage I was ignorant of!

Greenwood separates family research as a compilation of another's work and true scientific, systematic, documented research. Of course, my early work was merely compilation of other's findings.

I can at least feel good that I have created family trees that includes not just my direct ancestors but their families. Greenwood promotes a complete family as most important. He also urges researchers to consider all the spelling variations.

"Family history...is a "marriage" of sorts between history and genealogy--what seemed like a most unlikely union in years past....Family history also includes...demography, geography, psychology, sociology, and literature." --A Rearcher's Guide

My interest in family history is rooted in my lifelong fascination in history and biographies and understanding the past. When I learned that my great-grandfather Greenwood's nephew died in the Ranua death march during WWII it brought to life a history of which I had been ignorant. When I learn about ancestors who immigrated across Europe to Volyhnia, and note the social and political conflicts they were leaving behind, I realize the root causes of immigration have always been a part of population migration.

There is so much information in Greenwood's book I realized it was not meant to be read it cover to cover. It is a remarkable acheivement.

I received a copy of the book through Book Review Buzz in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Good instructional guidance is critical to the success of family history research, and this is where The Researcher's Guide is unsurpassed. It is both a textbook and an all-purpose reference book, designed to help the present generation of family history researchers better understand the methods and principles of family history research, and learn how to utilize all available resources. As Val Greenwood writes, "These are our ancestors we are talking about here; we owe it to them to get it right." from the publisher
"Recommended as the most comprehensive how-to book on American genealogical and local history research."—Library Journal

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Allie Aller's Stanied Glass Quilts Reimagined: Fresh Techniques & Design

I have enjoyed following the Allie's in Stitches blog and thought it was time I looked at Allie Aller's book Stained Glass Quilts Reminagined.  The quilts are gorgeous. Black makes colors pop and its use as 'leading does something wonderful to colored fabric.

The three approaches used to make stained glass quilts are:

  • Couched leading, sewing a thick fiber thread down around applique or pieced blocks
  • Appliqued leading, sewing ribbon or trim along the seams
  • Iron-on leading, using bias fabric treated with fusible web


Modern Rose Window by Allie Aller
 Allie offers ideas for pattern idea sources to develop and create an original pattern. There are practise exercises with photographs showing the steps to help quilters master the skills needed.

Silk fabrics will give the quilt luminosity, but batiks and solid cottons and even wool will also work for stained glass quilts. The fabrics must have a tight, fine weave.

Six beautiful projects are included in the book:

  • Windy Sunshine, a summer throw made in pastels and an abstract block pattern
  • Leaf Vine, a bed quilt with green vines on white
  • Mondrian's Window, a geometric pattern  'couch quilt' 
  • Window for Frank, an improvisational couch quilt inspired by the designs of Frank Lloyd Wright
  • Welcome Wreath, a wool and cotton applique floral wall hanging
  • Tiffany's Peacock, a classic stained glass wall hanging, seen on the book cover


The Parish Farm by Allie Aller
Allie's quilt gallery illustrates stained glass technique applied to applique, printed fabric, and pieced quilts. I had never considered couching or stich-in-the-ditch leading on a quilt before. I was pleased to see her made her own fused bias; the one stained glass quilt I made used purchased prefused bias tape, which was costly.

I recieved a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

This book is available now fro C&T Publishing.

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World

Jeff Goodell traveled the world to report on how rising sea levels are impacting human society across the globe. His new book The Water Will Come takes readers to shrinking Alaskan glaciers with President
Obama and into the flood-prone homes of impoverished people living in Lagos, Nigeria.

"By that time, I'll be dead, so what does it matter?" Quote from a Florida real estate developer, The Water Will Come 

I long wondered how bad it would get before people broke down and changed how we live and do things. I consider how Americans gave up comforts during WWII rationing, all pulling together for a great cause we all believed in. I don't see that happening today.



As Goodell points out, "fossil fuel empire" Koch industries money has swayed government. Private citizens can recycle and lower the heat and ride bicycles but the impact is small. As long as governments are more worried about big business than national security endangered by climate change we can't alter what is coming.

What? you ask; national security?

Well, consider that military bases across the nation and world are located in areas that WILL FLOOD. Like the Norfolk Naval Base, the Langley Air Force Base, and NASA's Wallops Flight Facility! Along with the financial district of New York City and expensive Florida beach front homes, we will be losing the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site in the Marshall Islands, where 12,000 Americans operate space weapons programs and track NASA research.

So if the loss of Arctic ice and habitat and the Inuit way of life doesn't concern you, perhaps this information will.

So many issues are raised in the book. Consider: We have not established how to deal with climate change refugees. Where are these people going to go? Countries in Europe, along with the U.S.,  are closing borders--the same countries whose fossil energy use is the primary cause of climate change behind rising sea levels! What is their responsibility?

There are a lot of ideas of how to deal with rising sea levels, including the building of walls and raising cities. It seems, though, that people are more interested in coping with the change than addressing the root cause of climate change. We just don't want to give up fossil fuels.

The book is highly readable for the general public. Although the cover photo made me think of an action disaster movie, the books is a well-researched presentation of  "fact, science, and first-person, on-the-ground journalism."

I received a free book from the publisher through Goodreads.

Hear an interview with Goodell with NPR at https://www.npr.org/2017/10/24/559736126/climate-change-journalist-warns-mother-nature-is-playing-by-different-rules-now

The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World
by Jeff Goodell
Little, Brown & Company
$17.95
ISBN-13: 9780316260206

Sunday, February 11, 2018

As Bright as Heaven: Surviving And Thriving

In 1918 the Bright family leaves a tobacco farm in Quakertown, PA to move to center city Philadelphia. The father is to work for his uncle's funeral parlor, which he would then inherit. They have suffered the devastating--but at that time all too common loss--of a baby. Their grief travels with them into their new life.

In the autumn of 1918 the Spanish Influenza hits Philadelphia, leaving over 12,000 dead in its wake. The mortuary fills and the uncle dies. When a daughter falls ill, the mother keeps her alive but, worn down, succumbs and dies of the disease. Friends die, and a beloved neighbor leaves for the trenches of France. Amidst all this loss, one of the daughters rescues an infant in distress in a house full of the dead, and the child becomes the family's heart and reason to go on.

The women, the mother and her four daughters, speak in alternating chapters, their unique personalities and perspectives revealed through their own words. Philadelphia has a distinct presence, although fictionalized and geographically ambiguous at times. (The cover photo shows Logan Circle with City Hall in the background.) The time period, between 1918 and 1926, covers the flu and the war but also prohibition and the rise of the speakeasy.

The story is about people who suffer great loss and live through horrible times, who carry their ghosts and demons with them, until they are able to see that life goes on and somehow the world can be bright again.

My Goodreads friends have rated this a four or five star book and found it very engaging. So I will safely say that readers of historical fiction and woman's fiction will enjoy Meissner's book.

SPOILER ALERTS

I had several issues with the writing.

I lacked emotional connection to the characters. It could be the multitude of voices, but I think it was because the story is too much told and not enough shown. For instance, one daughter develops a crush on an older man who goes to war. He is gone for the bulk of the novel, and returns at age thirty-eight and the girl is still "in love." There is not enough interaction between them to make me believe she is "in love" with him for life. It seems contrived.

I found the book preachy and full of clichéd lessons. The ex-soldier, once returned home, consoles his now grown-up lover that the war was horrible and he had to heal. All this healing happened off camera and lacks emotional impact; he is just telling her a lesson he learned. Make peace with the past, he advises. Later, the foundling brother's family is discovered to be alive. The father forgives the Brights, saying that he was angry for a long time by his losses and is finally seeing there is good in life, ending with the old chestnut of 'we are all doing the best we can with what we have'. Nothing new here, kids.

And the story wrapped up with far too many predictable and implausible outcomes. I won't even go into them. There is talk of fate and destiny and finding patterns.

END OF SPOILER ALERT

Consequently, although I had looked forward to reading As Bright As Heaven, especially for its setting and the time period, I found the book an average read. For those who are not familiar with the Spanish Influenza, who like feel-good endings, and who want the horror of history softened by wish fulfillment romantic endings, this is the book for you. It was not my cup of tea.

As Bright as Heaven
by Susan Meissner
Berkley Publishing Group
Pub Date 06 Feb 2018
Hardcover $26.00
ISBN: 9780399585968

Saturday, February 10, 2018

Favorite New Classics: Stoner by John Williams and Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

I was thrilled to find John Williams' novel Stoner on my library book club list. Soon after I had bought a Kindle I purchased the ebook and it became one of my favorite discoveries.

Stoner is one of literature's great characters, an Everyman/Job/Willie Loman who endures life's bitter realities, often dejected but with bursts of resistance and empowerment.

Stoner was the child of uncommunicative, distant, Midwestern parents, observing their joyless life fighting the barren land to survive. His father was convinced to send him to agricultural school to learn modern methods that would perhaps make their farm successful.

Stoner is disconnected and passive until he faces the big unknowns and questions posed by literature. He struggles to understand, switching his major to English. His mentor realizes Stoner had  found something he loved.

When he learns his son will not return to the farm, Stoner's father merely replaces his son with a hired hand.

During WWI, Stoner's mentor convinces him not to enlist and abandon his studies; his duty is to keep the world from snuffing out the flame.

Stoner falls in love with a woman who 'doesn't mind' and seems to be more interested in escaping her father than desiring a marriage. Their relationship is a disaster and a disappointment to Stoner.  His wife punishes him every way imaginable, even interfering with his writing and career. He carries on, accepting rejection and isolation.

He never leaves his Alma Mater, eventually becoming a good teacher. Then a new department head promotes a gifted student who relies on charm and blarney while neglecting true scholarship and mastery of his subject. Stoner and his boss clash over the student's dissertation when he insists the student is unworthy. He will not lower his standards. Stoner is punished for not playing the game with the loss of his specialty course and only given freshman level classes.

There are moments of glory in Stoner's life.

His wife got the idea of having a child but found no joy in motherhood. She became an 'invalid', so Stoner had to care for the infant and child, cook and clean. His daughter bonds with him, and in vengeance's Stoner's wife separates them.

A graduate student falls in love with him and their relationship is carried on behind closed doors for a year. When the department chair learns of  their relatiobship, Stoner is pressed to make a decision; he cannot abandon his wife and their daughter. The love of his life moves on to her own career.

Depressed and feeling his age, Stoner plods on until one day he throws away his freshman texts and instead teaches the upper level material he has been denied. His freshman class finishes with higher scores than their peers.

One book club member used the word miserable for Stoner's life. We discussed his fatalism and acceptance, his inaction to better his life, and the reasons behind his choices and lack of action.

I drew attention to his achievements: he held to his values at any cost. He was, as a college friend pointed out early in his life, a Quixotic dreamer out of joint with the world. At the end of his life he understands and accepts his life with unexpected contentment. In his last moments, there is a clarity to his life. Stoner and his wife forgive each other, and a strange comfort envelopes him.

The book group filled the entire hour with our discussion. And that is the sign of a great book--it made us think and reflect and endeavor to probe the mystery of the human experience.

Read the New Yorker review here.

“A masterly portrait of a truly virtuous and dedicated man” —The New Yorker
*****
This month I was also thrilled to reread another of my favorite 'new classics', Marilynne Robinson's Pulitzer Prize winner Gilead. I read it nearly ten years ago, then reread it for a book club. I believe this is my third reading of the book. It is an affirming book that inspires us to pay more attention to the wonder of human existence.

Yes, being married to an ordained pastor who spent 30 years in the pulpit does impact my love of John Ames, a third generation pastor living in a small Kansas town. His grandfather came to Kansas from Maine during the Bloody Kansas days, a vehement abolitionist who knew John Brown. The image of his sainted grandfather was Biblical in size.

But when he returned to his pulpit with a gun and bloody shirt, preaching abolition and taking up the sword, his son went to worship with the Quakers. His pietism was also strong, and lived on in his son, John Ames.

John lost his wife and newborn baby early in life. In his years of sadness and isolation, he resorted to his books for consolation. His dear childhood friend Broughton is a neighboring pastor, once a vigorous man and remarkable preacher, now crippled with arthritis. Broughton named a son after his friend, a child to 'share.' But John Ames Broughton, known as Jack, was a troubled child prone to pranks and deviltry, culminating in an act that drove a wedge between him and John Ames.

A miracle happened to John in later life. A woman wandered into his church. He noticed her sad and quiet face. She asked to be baptized, and in time proposed that he marry her. They had a son. The joy they brought into his life is profound. But John Ames is now turning seventy-six. He has heart disease and knows his days are numbered.

The novel is John's letter to his son, to be read when he reaches adulthood. In the letter he writes about his love for his son and tells stories of their family history, his personal life, his personal theology, and Jack's story. 

Each entry is gorgeous and moving. John has suffered and struggled. Love comes late. But he is in awe and wonder at the beauty of existence. "I love this life," he writes to his son while watching him blowing bubbles with his mother.

****
Gilead is the story of fathers and sons. John Ames loves the son of his late life, and is concerned for what his life will be like growing up without a father.

John returns again and again to the journey he and his own father took during the Depression to find his grandfather's grave. The journey took many weeks across dusty roads. They were thirsty and people along the way had little food to spare them, even for cash payment.

He talks about his father's troubled relationship to his grandfather. During the days of Bloody Kansas, Grandfather was a supporter of John Brown, and perhaps had even killed a man.

Then there is Broughton's son Jack, named for John Ames to compensate John for his lost child. Broughton's children, Glory and Jack, have returned to help their elderly father. John knows Jack's failings and sins. He is distrustful of Jack. As a pastor, this causes a crisis of conscience and calling and he struggles with his inability to trust and forgive Jack.

Jack has been friendly with John Ames wife and son. He plays catch with the son while John watches, his heart too frail for activity. Should he warn his wife and son against Jack?

In his journal, John writes about his morning sermon on Abraham and Isaac, Hagar and Ishmael. John notes that Abraham, who is too old to father more sons, must trust the Lord to watch over them both, one sent into the wilderness and the other intended to be a sacrifice. And he continues,

"...any father, particularly an old father, must finally give his child up to the wilderness and trust to the providence of God. It seems almost a cruelty for one generation to begat another when parents can secure so little for their children, so little safety, even in the best circumstances. Great faith is required to give the child up, trusting God to honor the parents' love for him by assuring that there will indeed be angels in that wilderness."
At one point, John Ames spends considerable time mystifying the Fifth Commandment, honor your mother and father, as related to our relationship to God more than to community. He contends that we must see the spark of God in every human, and learning to see God in our parents is the beginning.

*****

Can people change? Is Jack a changed man? John's wife is sure that people can change. She has not shared her secret past with anyone, but John has seen the sadness in her face and known she had a hard life. What did she need to do to survive all those years before they met? She had no family, and lived through hard times. She and Jack seem to 'understand' each other; unlike John and Broughton, they have been out in the world beyond Gilead.

In the last pages of the novel Jack finally tells John why he has really returned to Gilead, the sorrow and pain of his inability to believe, and the secret heartache that has worn him down.

*****
It happened that the book club members who most loved the novel had all settled next to each other. Most wish there was a stronger, linear story line, or less theology and religion, but most appreciated the beautiful language describing the simple joys of existence and fatherly love. One woman hated the book, hated Jack, and said she hated the Prodigal Son parable he seemed based on. And another could not read about fatherly love, having been denied the opportunity himself.

It is always interesting in a book club to hear how one work of art affects people is such diverse and personal ways.