The Literate Quilter

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

There's Something About Darcy: The History of a Romantic Archetype

I became a Janite in 1978.

At Temple University a professor told our class there were three courses we should not miss and I took them all. Toby Olshin's honors class on Jane Austen was one; it had a huge impact on me as a student and a reader.

In 1978 no one could foresee Jane Austen becoming universally recognized or Darcy taking precedence as our favorite literary romantic hero. Although Pride and Prejudice was early adapted for the stage, it took film to reach a wide audience. Darcy's various film portrayal have eclipsed Austen's original in the public mind. Darcy has become Colin Firth in a wet shirt or Mathew Mcfayden's soulful sensitivity.

Darcy hands Elizabeth a letter. Regency Redwork, a Pride and Prejudice
Storybook quilt by Nancy A. Bekofske

In There's Something About Darcy Gabrielle Malcolm contends that Austen created a romantic hero archetype and traces his many manifestations and transformations over the centuries. It's a lot to cover, as she delves into every genre including romance and fanfiction!

I was engaged while reading about literary heroes before and after Darcy, including Rochester and Heathcliff.

I had seen many of the various film adaptations she discusses but was getting overwhelmed by the time she came to contemporary novels and spin-offs. I was overloaded. I have not read many of these books, and although she explains each book's plot and such, I was often reduced to skimming the text.

Malcolm has given me a lot to think about and I feel impelled to revisit the novel and the famous film versions with her interpretation in mind.

I was granted access to a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

There's Something About Darcy
by Gabrielle Malcolm
Endeavour Quill
Pub Date 11 Nov 2019
ISBN: 9781911445562

PRICE: £9.99 (GBP)

from the publisher:
For some, Colin Firth emerging from a lake in that clinging wet shirt is one of the most iconic moments in television. But what is it about the two-hundred-year-old hero that we so ardently admire and love?

Dr Gabrielle Malcolm examines Jane Austen’s influences in creating Darcy’s potent mix of brooding Gothic hero, aristocratic elitist and romantic Regency man of action. She investigates how he paved the way for later characters like Heathcliff, Rochester and even Dracula, and what his impact has been on popular culture over the past two centuries. For twenty-first century readers the world over have their idea of the ‘perfect’ Darcy in mind when they read the novel and will defend their choice passionately.

In this insightful and entertaining study, every variety of Darcy jostles for attention: vampire Darcy, digital Darcy, Mormon Darcy and gay Darcy. Who does it best and how did a clergyman’s daughter from Hampshire create such an enduring character?

*****

Polite Society with my Austen Family Album quilt

Jane Austen's Novels:

Northanger Abbey
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2018/05/northanger-abbey.html

Persuasion
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2015/05/anne-eliot-vs-modern-perky-heroine.html

Jane Austen Quilts:

Pride and Prejudice Storybook Quilt
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2012/02/pride-and-prejudice-story-book-quilt.html

Regency Redwork: a Pride and Prejudice Storybook Quilt
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/11/my-regency-redwork-pattern-is-featured.html

Austen Family Album
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2018/02/austen-finishes.html

Jane Austen's Quilt Reproduction Pattern from Linda Franz
https://lindafranz.com/shop/jane-austen/2

Jane Austen Quilts Inspired By Her Novels by Karen Gloeggler
https://shop.americanquilter.com/books/ebooks/1427-ebook-jane-austen-s-quilts-inspired-by-her-novels.html

Monday, November 11, 2019

The Trees

I am reading Richard Power's novel The Overstory with the Facebook group Now Read This, sponsored by PBS Newshour and the New York Times Book Review.

Readers have been uploading amazing photographs as a testament to the beauty and power and meaning of trees. I have been thinking about my childhood home and the importance of the trees planted by my grandfather in my own life.

In 1935 my Grandfather Gochenour lost his job as an insurance salesman. The family had to sell their new bungalow house in Tonawanda, NY, built by my grandmother's brothers. They moved into an apartment in an old farmhouse on Military Road.

the Military Road house in 1935

The house was built by one of the early German settlers who farmed the land. When my family moved in it was in disrepair, divided into several apartments. My grandfather was a self-made man; he left his home in Woodstock, VA as a teenager and set up a furniture polishing business in New York City before ending up in Tonawanda. In a few years, he purchased the house and restored it. There were lilac bushes surrounding the house and my family planted Weeping Willow Trees.

The Military Road house in the 1940s

In the 1940s my grandfather built a gas station along the Military Road property line and ran his own business.

my grandfather's gas station on Military Road

Dad married my mother and in 1952 I was born. We lived in one of the apartments in the house, my grandparents living in another section and my dad's sister and her family in the third.

By the time I was born, the farm fields around the house were sold off and Levittown-style housing projects were built. The willow tree had grown and towered over the landscape. I loved to climb the tree. We sat under its shade. I took the branches and dangled them over the porch pretending to be fishing. In winter the branches would be covered in ice.

In 1963 my family decided to sell the service station and move to Metro Detroit for Dad to seek a job in the auto industry. I dreamt of growing up and returning to buy my childhood home. We often returned to Tonawanda to see family and neighbors and I took photos of the Weeping Willow trees.

The willow in 1965

another willow near the service station

In the early 1970s the property was sold again and torn down, an apartment building erected in its place. My father's sister took photos and told us the house was so well built, framed with old-growth timbers, it was a hard tear-down. I was heartbroken.

my childhood home being torn down; you can see three willows

The trees were brought down as well.

In later life I wrote a poem* about my childhood home, The View From Windows, in which I talked about the willows:

From my bed, looking across a gravel drive,

ironposted streetlights lit small box-like houses,

while from another open window I could hear the wind

playing in the branches of willows

(how they swayed like a girl's long hair in summer,

but in winter were plaited in clean ice).

These trees my touchstone;

I knew my house by its being next to the biggest tree,

I told others so, believing my own veracity.

My mother was an oil painter who preferred landscapes that always featured trees.

painting by Joyce Ramer Gochenour, my mother

I now live in the house my parents bought in 1972. Dad planted two Silver Maples, two Northern Spy Apple Trees, two pine trees and birch.

the Northern Spy apple trees planted by my dad

We had to remove the pine trees. One was growing too close to the neighbor's driveway and onto the roof of the house and the other had a split trunk. They both were towering. We planted flowering trees in their stead.

My brother is fed by nature, walking, and kayaking and photographing the beauty he sees.

While reading The Overstory I came across this line: "How willows clean soils of dioxins, PCBs, and heavy metals."

I had long considered how my childhood home had lead paint and asbestos siding, and how my family used poisons to kill the rats and weeds, and how the land around the house was leveled by allowing dumping--who knows what was dumped there! And then the gas station was built with leaded gasoline and all the chemicals used in the service shop. I realized how my family had polluted the area.

But they also planted five willows, unwittingly, which helped to alleviate the pollution they created.

To survive we must preserve our trees.

*The View From Windows
by Nancy A. Bekofske

Rescue is out of the question,
going back not an option open to me.
Gone are those lofty trees like green umbrellas,
the purple flag of iris near the white rail fence,
the fragrant French lilacs, purple and white,
my world--my first world--and a life rooted
in a sense of place, no longer exists in space.

I remember the view from every window in every room.
Windows to the wider world.

I could see traffic on the burdened road;
the pushy hopefulness of yellow crocus in sooty snow.
From a doorway, looking across the room and out a window,
a water tower seen in a flat land, horizon's sentry.

From an upstairs window, I could see to the river,
the perpetual flame of the gas works,
the mangle of pipes and tanks.

Drying dishes, a glance to the left revealed a doorway,
pink hollyhock, a gigantic horseradish plant.

From my bed, looking across a gravel drive,
ironposted streetlights lit small box-like houses,
while from another open window I could hear the wind
playing in the branches of willows
(how they swayed like a girl's long hair in summer,
but in winter were plaited in clean ice).

These trees my touchstone;
I knew my house by its being next to the biggest tree,
I told others so, believing my own veracity.

At times, an airplane--no jet, not then-- droning
overhead would shake my world of make-believe to its roots
with reality's heavy awareness.

My heart would beat a faster tattoo, and restless,
disquieted, but directionless, I rushed outdoors
to breath freer air, escape the restraint of walls,
to seek the questions I already felt swelling
in my girl's breast, the mystery I could not name.

I only knew that I must shake off
girlhood's cushioned hermitage, to live and work,
now, suddenly aware of mortality's unaccustomed weight,
because I heard, and looked up from play,
to catch sight of a mystery outside my window,
common, yet profoundly unsettling.

Sunday, November 10, 2019

Lost Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald

After reading a sample story from I'd Die For You and Other Lost Stories on NetGalley I purchased the volume upon publication. Edited by Anne Margaret Daniel with insightful commentary and photographs, the volume includes stories and movie script rejected for publication during Fitzgerald's lifetime.

The magazines and the reading public wanted Fitzgerald to be a Johnny-one-note and the darker twist to these stories didn't fit with the persona based on his iconic Flapper stories of the 1920s.

I enjoyed reading these stories, some for their artistic merit and others for insight into the author and his times.

I felt a warm response to the 1935 story The Pearl and the Fur which Fitzgerald wrote about a girl his daughter's age. Daniel informs that a previous and a later Gwen story was published but after three revisions, requested by the Post, Fitzgerald never resubmitted this lost one.

Scott and Scottie, photo from I'd Die For You

The fourteen-year-old Gwen's father is hard-pressed for money. Gwen and a youthful cab driver become involved with returning a fur coat and is offered a reward. She relinquishes the reward to help the boy.

"She was happy, and a little bit older. Like all the children growing up un her generation she accepted life as a sort of accident, a grab bag where you took what you could get and nothing was very certain."~from The Pearl and the Fur by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Thumbs Up was inspired by a story Fitzgerald's father often told of a Civil War-era incident. He rewrote the story as The Dentist Appointment.

Other stories are set in hospitals, such as The Women in the House influenced by Fitzgerald's own health problems and Nightmare set in a mental institution.

The title story, I'd Die For You, was rejected because of the threats of suicide in the plot. It is set in the mountains of North Carolina, where Fitzgerald himself attempted suicide and where his wife Zelda was hospitalized. The story feels as if the author himself were speaking to us:

"What do you mean when you said you'd lived too long?"He laughed but at her seriousness he answered:"I fitted in to a time when people wanted excitement, and I tried to supply it.""What did you do?""I spent a lot of money--I backed plays and tried to fly the Atlantic, and I tried to drink all the wine in Paris--that sort of thing. It was all pointless and that's why it's so dated--it wasn't about anything."

This is a must-read for all Fitzgerald fans.

I'd Die For You And Other Lost Stories
By F. Scott Fitzgerald
Edited by Anne Margaret Daniel
Scribner
Publication April 10, 2018)
$17 paperback
ISBN13: 9781501144356

from the publisher:

A collection of the last remaining unpublished and uncollected short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald. “A treasure trove of tales too dark for the magazines of the 1930s. Lucky us” (Newsday). “His best readers will find much to enjoy” (The New York Times Book Review).

I’d Die For You, edited by Anne Margaret Daniel, is a collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s stories never widely shared. Some were submitted individually to major magazines during the 1930s and accepted for publication during Fitzgerald’s lifetime, but never printed. Some were written as movie scenarios and sent to studios or producers, but not filmed. Others are stories that could not be sold because their subject matter or style departed from what editors expected of Fitzgerald.

Some of the eighteen stories were physically lost, coming to light only in the past few years. All were lost, in one sense or another: lost in the painful shuffle of the difficulties of Fitzgerald’s life in the middle 1930s; lost to readers because contemporary editors did not understand or accept what he was trying to write; lost because archives are like that. Readers will experience here Fitzgerald writing about controversial topics, depicting young men and women who actually spoke and thought more as young men and women did, without censorship. Rather than permit changes and sanitizing by his contemporary editors, Fitzgerald preferred to let his work remain unpublished, even at a time when he was in great need of money and review attention.

Written in his characteristically beautiful, sharp, and surprising language, exploring themes both familiar and fresh, these stories provide new insight into the bold and uncompromising arc of Fitzgerald’s career. I’d Die For You is a revealing, intimate look at Fitzgerald’s creative process that shows him to be a writer working at the fore of modern literature—in all its developing complexities.

Saturday, November 9, 2019

Helen Korngold Diary, November 3-9, 1919

Helen Korngold, Dec. 1919, New York City

Helen's father is on the road to recovery and she begins her third teaching job.

November

Monday 3

Teaching at Harrison. I’m as “stern as stern can be” – youngsters are lambs.

Tuesday 4

This is a pipe dream. The kids are so cute.

Sunday 9

Over to Pauline’s – Satellites in evening.

Notes:
From an article on the Benjamin Harrison School found at http://preservationresearch.com/historic-preservation/harrison-school-slated-for-rehabilitation/

Benjamin Harrison School is a magnificent example of the earlier St. Louis Public School buildings. The basic plan comes from architect August H. Kirchner, who designed the original 1895 section of the building. (Coincidentally, Kruntchev’s other school project, Grant School in Tower Grove East, also involved a Kirchner school.) That one-story, four-room section was designed for expansion. After all, the city and the Fairgrounds neighborhood were growing rapidly, and until construction of Harrison the only other school in the vicinity was Ashland School, first opened in 1870. Kirchner made attempts to overcome the limitations of previous school buildings, which were dour, crowded and devoid of proper ventilation and light. Kirchner made the classrooms large with substantial windows for light and air. His ideas would influence his successor as district architect, William B. Ittner, who expanded Harrison School with additions in both 1899 (adding additional floors to the 1895 section) and 1909 (adding the north wing).

The result of the architectural evolution is an imposing Romanesque Revival school whose brick body is articulated through buff brick and red Iowa sandstone. The design is very similar to other Kirchner schools later expanded by Ittner, including Adams and Euclid schools. One of the striking features of Harrison is a kindergarten in the 1909 addition that placed two trapezoidal bay windows on either side of a hearth, an Ittner innovation that was not repeated.

A sad article from the Nov. 13, 1919, St. Louis Star and Times:

In the news:

A headline in the Nov. 3, 1919, St. Louis Star and Times shows the continued fear of foreigners after WWI. The coal strike and other labor movements were blamed on outside influencers.

A few pages later, the Star shared the reality of the coal miner's life.

A Nov. 7 photo in the same paper:

Pubic opinion, in general, was against labor organizing.

Another instance of how some things don't change, women's dress was blamed for unwanted male attention.

On the other hand, a doctor accused American women of flirting too much but also said that having suitors made women happier and prettier!

" A lack of love affairs would be to my mind more apt to cause that 'tired look' than too great a number. "It is absolutely true that the girl with many suitors looks happier and healthier than the neglected unattractive young woman," continued Dr. Hinkle. "Attention satisfying the ego, makes her feel her own value. Her opportunity to pick and choose from many men gives her a feeling of power. The unsought girl suffers an agony of unappreciation that reflects itself in her unhappy look."

Nov 7, 1919, St Louis Star and Times

On a lighter note, there was a contest for the best Uncle Wiggly Doll

Thursday, November 7, 2019

The Winter Army by Maurice Isserman: The WWII Odyssey of the 10th Mountain Division

Over twenty years ago I met Floyd Erickson, born in the Upper Penninsula Michigan. During WWII Floyd served in the 10th Mountain Division. His life-altering experience under fire on Mt. Belvedere was legendary; everyone knew of his bargain with God which led to his becoming a well-beloved patriarch of the church.

I recall how Floyd, still trim, proudly donned his uniform to join his fellow soldiers at a reunion. And the stories his wife Elizabeth told of how Floyd supported his large U.P. family and the alteration in his character when he returned from war.

Maurice Isserman quotes Floyd in his history of the 10th Mountain Division, The Winter Army, in the chapter concerning the Allied invasion of Kiska. After months of training in extreme conditions, the Army was uncertain of what to do with this 'winter army' of men trained for mountain snow and ice. Their first deployment was to oust the Japanese from Kiska in the Aleutian archipelago.

"It was a terrible night, that first one," Floyd said, recalling the twelve-hour ascent carrying his gear and machine gun ammunition, then digging a foxhole in the pouring rain. The Americans did not know that the Japanese army had already abandoned Kiska. Nineteen mountain troopers died from 'friendly fire'. It was a demoralizing blow.

Floyd Erickson in Italy

Isserman narrates the history of this legendary division with details drawn from oral histories that bring the story to life.

Toward the end of the war, the 10th Mountain was sent to the Italian Alps. They were there to keep the German army busy. Climbing the iced mountains, crossing the open Po Valley the Po River, and the final battle was horrific.

Floyd saw his best friend killed in action and suffered permanent hearing loss from a blast.

Isserman's book focuses on the extraordinary men, the "mix of Ivy League students, park rangers, Olympic skiers, and European refugees," who "formed the first specialized alpine fighting force in US history."

After the war, these men impacted the ski industry. One became the first executive director of the Sierra Club; another co-found The Village Voice. One co-founded Nike; another became a renowned historian. And there was Bob Dole, US senator, and presidential candidate.

And there were men like Floyd, an ardent skier from a small town with a large impoverished family, a good man whose life was dedicated to his family and church and community.

I was given access to a free book by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

The Winter Army: The World War II Odyssey of the 10th Mountain Division, America's Elite Alpine Warriors
by Maurice Isserman
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Pub Date 05 Nov 2019
ISBN:9781328871435
hardcover $28.00 (USD)

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

Patchwork Quilt Design Coloring Book & 24-Hour Quilting Projects

Lovely book mail from Dover Publications included two super books--Patchwork Quilt Designs Coloring Book and Rita Weiss's 24-Hour Quilting Projects.

This coloring book was a fortuitous arrival as I am recovering from surgery and needing to 'take it easy,' something I am not used to doing.

The 31 pages of quilt designs presented by Carol Schmidt include a variety of styles, from patchwork samplers to applique samplers.

I decided to try my hand with the Crazy Quilt.

Patchwork Quilt Design Coloring Book

Carol Schmidt

Dover Publications

ISBN-13: 978-0-486-78031-3

$5.99

*****

Quilters are always looking for fast and easy projects for gifting. We want patterns that are adaptable to different fabric choices, interesting yet simple, and with no-fail instructions.

In 24-Hour Quilting Projects, Rita Weiss offers twenty quilts of all sizes that can be constructed in a day--or less!

Most are pieced patterns based on traditional blocks including the Log Cabin, star variations, nine-patch, and pinwheels. She includes several quilts that combine appliqué and piecing. Each pattern tweaks the traditional block for an interesting twist.

Also included are full-page color photograph of the completed quilt, materials and yardage lists, step-by-step instructions for making blocks, borders, and completing the quilt, and a useful color picture layout of the completed quilt.

I especially was impressed with her general quiltmaking instructions with great information for beginning quilters. Her rotary cutting guide is detailed with lots of photographs and includes instructions for right and left-handed persons, She also has guides for 'stitch and flip' methods, chain piecing, binding, fussy cutting, and appliqué.

Rosebuds 50" x 56"

Originally published in 2005, 24-Hour Quilting Projects is now republished by Dover Publications. The fabric choices and colors in Weiss' projects reflect her preference for bright colors and the prints of 2005. Contemporary quilters can image these patterns in the fabrics trending today.

For instance, her Angel Fantasy includes a fussy-cut 9 1/2" block using a print of angels which is no longer available, but today's quilter can choose one of the wonderful new prints available as a feature fabric.

24-Hour Quilt Patterns
Rita Weiss
Dover Publications
Publication Date: March 12, 2016
$19.95

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

Mighty Justice: My Life in Civil Rights by Dovey Johnson Roundtree and Katie McCabe

Mighty Justice begins with a powerful chapter of Dovey remembering her grandmother's nightly ritual of soothing her gnarled and twisted feet after a day of nonstop work. Hearing the story of how her feet were broken, and the courage she showed standing up to power, is unforgettable.

Each chapter is vividly rendered in Dovey's voice, telling her story of accomplishing what most would have deemed impossible. The remarkable people who inspired and mentored Dovey over her life are lovingly portrayed, from her grandmother to Mary McLeod Bethune, her teacher Mary Mae Neptune who personally sacrificed to keep Dovey in college, Julius Winfield Robertson who became her law partner, her pastors, her family and those she adopted as family.

Out of our indebtedness I believe, our real selves are born. For it is when we grasp what we owe, how beholden we truly are, that we remain children no longer. ~Dovey Johnson Roundtree, Mighty Justice

But Dovey herself also was a mentor, ministering to her people. She was a defender of the weak and a rectifier of injustice. She came to recognize that children were the victims of racism and violence and how children mirrored the violence in their lives through their actions. She came to believe that in ministering to children and changing their lives, "redemption is truly possible."

Determined to change the world, Dovey earned a law degree, was in the first wave of African American women in the Women's Army Auxillary Corps championed by her grandmother's friend Mary McLeod Bethune, argued at the bar for an end to segregation on the railways, and was one of the first women to be ordained in the African Methodist Church. Each chapter of her life is riveting and thrilling with a story arc all its own. The law cases were well presented in their historical context with moving insight into Dovey's personal dedication and hopes.

And the ending of the book, Benediction, brings the story full circle, back to the inspiring grandmother whose example first inspired Dovey.

Katie McCabe words have recreated Roundtree's voice in a narrative that is thrilling and moving.

I received an ARC from the publisher through a LibraryThing giveaway in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Mighty Justice
by Dovey Johnson Roundtree and Katie McCabe
Algonquin Books
Publication: November 5, 2019
$16.94 paperback
ISBN: 9781616209551

Winner of the 2009 Letitia Woods Brown Memorial Book Prize

"The book moved me at times to tears. Dovey Roundtree's nobility, the courage and effectiveness of her work, are enough to restore anyone's hope for the human race. The book, though it describes an era that is past, is above all a study of something that doesn't change much: human character and its possibilities." -- Time Magazine essayist Lance Morrow

Mighty Justice recalls all the major stories in the history of Civil Rights. Some of the people who inspired Dovey:

Mary McLeod Bethune appears on my quilt I Will Lift My Voice Like a Trumpet

See the Mary McLeon Bethume quilt from HERstory Quilts here

Pauli Murray also is on my quilt. Read my review of Murray's autobiography Song in a Weary Throat here

Other books I have reviewed that you may want to consider:

Lighting the Fires of Freedom by Janet Dewart Bell
My Life My Love My Legacy by Coretta Scott King
Just Another Southern Town: Mary Church Terrell and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Nation's Capital by Joan Quigly

One Mississippi, Two Mississippi: Murder, Methodists, and the Struggle for Racial Justice in Neshoba by Carol V. R. George