Carol’s Comments December 2013
By Carol Rusinek
Hello
Everyone! Welcome to another issue of Carol’s Comments. I am a volunteer
at the River Park Branch.
As
autumn approached, I realized that I hadn’t read or reviewed any biographies of
memoirs, my favorite type of nonfiction in two years! So after watching a
fascinating 60 Minutes profile about Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor,
I decided to read her new memoir My Beloved World.
Sotomayor’s
book primarily concentrates on her personal life from 1962 through 1992 rather
than her tenure on the Supreme Court. Using a very approachable, informal
writing style, Sotomayor meticulously describes how she had to overcome many
adversities such as juvenile diabetes, living in the Bronx public housing
projects and enduring her father’s alcoholism and untimely death during her
childhood and adolescence. All these experiences significantly shaped her and
gave her the self-confidence and courage to pursue her dream of becoming a
lawyer and eventually a federal district court judge. Moreover, Sotomayor
graduated from Princeton and Yale Law School mainly due to her own stubborn perseverance
and fierce determination, a supportive mother who valued education and
affirmative action.
This
very inspirational memoir shows that anyone can fulfill their goals despite
seemingly insurmountable hardships if they believe in themselves and receive encouragement
from family, teachers and friends. Ultimately, My Beloved World is an
uplifting tribute to the human spirit.
I
stayed pretty obsessed with everything about Dorothy Parker after finishing
Ellen Meister’s delightfully whimsical novel Farewell Dorothy Parker
over the summer. I quickly immersed myself in Parker’s Complete Stories and Complete
Poems which featured an insightful introduction by biographer Marion
Meade. All this binge reading compelled me to tackle Meade’s definitive 1988 biography,
Dorothy
Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?
Meade’s
well researched and exhaustive biography extensively chronicles Parker’s fascinating
and rather decadent life by comprehensively detailing her unhappy childhood,
two failed marriages, her literary, play and screenplay writing career, battles
with alcoholism and involvement with radical politics. The book’s most
enjoyable chapters focus on her years as Vanity Fair’s very opinionated and
outspoken drama critic when she became the only female charter member of the
Algonquin Round Table formed by New York Times drama critic
Alexander Woollcott in 1919.
For
the next ten years, Parker traded witty literary barbs and wisecracks with such
literary greats as her best friend Robert Benchley, Robert Sherwood, Ring
Lardner, Jr., George Kaufman and Edna Ferber. This constant daily camaraderie
helped her develop her acerbic wit and eventually become America’s most famous
(and most quoted) critic especially during the 1920’s and 1930’s. Dorothy Parker truly epitomized the
flamboyant atmosphere of the Prohibition era in New York City.
Furthermore,
Meade intersperses excerpts from Parker’s poems, short stories and literary
reviews throughout the book to show the reader how her life experiences
profoundly influenced her writing. Despite the biography’s lackluster second
half describing Parker’s later years, Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell is This? provides
an revealing glimpse into Dorothy Parker’s remarkable yet tumultuous literary
and personal life.
After
reading Meade’s biography, I remembered seeing the 1994 biopic Mrs.
Parker and the Vicious Circle a few years ago. Not wanting to leave the
1920’s literary scene quite yet, I decided to re-watch it.
Directed by Alan Rudolph and starring Jennifer Jason
Leigh, the movie effectively dramatizes Dorothy Parker’s reign as America’s literary
darling in the 1920’s and 1930’s, her constant struggles with alcoholism,
depression and failed personal relationships. Despite Jason Leigh’s uneven,
affected and overly dramatic performance, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle authentically
captures the ambience and witty banter of the Algonquin Round Table during its
heyday.
Many
of my loyal readers know that one of the first books I reviewed in this column
was Eat,
Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. So when I read a wonderfully candid New
York Times Magazine article about Elizabeth Gilbert’s personal and
professional life where she talked extensively about her new novel, The
Signature of All Things, I rushed to the River Park Branch to put a
hold on it before its October publication date. Although Gilbert’s new
bestseller isn’t technically a biography or memoir, I figured I could take a
fanciful literary detour since Gilbert had written one of the most popular
memoirs of the 21st century.
Set
primarily in early to mid-19th century Philadelphia, The
Signature of All Things focuses on Alma Whittaker, daughter of the
self-made and unscrupulous entrepreneur Henry Whittaker. Intellectually curious
and fiercely self-reliant since childhood, Alma becomes a botanist despite 19th
century conventions mainly due to strong encouragement from her father, an
amateur naturalist himself.
For 25 years, Alma
stays content with a productive, yet solitary life. Then in 1848, she falls in
love with Ambrose Pike, an unconventional botanical illustrator. Unfortunately,
she must suffer through an ill-fated marriage filled with tragic consequences.
After her father’s
death in 1851, Alma leaves her sheltered life behind and escapes to Tahiti and
Amsterdam to reinvigorate her botanical studies along with uncovering long
buried family mysteries. This odyssey helps her discover her life’s true
passion and purpose.
Gilbert’s uses an
unusually evocative writing style reminiscent of Charlotte Bronte’s to recount
her heroine’s extraordinary life. Part multi-generational family saga, part love
story, The Signature of All Things is an incredible adventure story of
spiritual self-discovery.
I enthusiastically
recommend this book even if you’re not an Elizabeth Gilbert fan. I loved this
enthralling novel so much that I plan to re-read it very soon.
All books and the movie
reviewed in this column are available at all SJCPL locations. For more
information, visit the library’s web site at www.libraryforlife.org
. Thanks for reading! Happy Holidays!
Previously posted at the SJCPL blog
Previously posted at the SJCPL blog
