Carol's Comments September 2014

Carol’s Comments

September 2014

  Hello Everyone! Welcome to another issue of Carol’s Comments. Summer is usually a time to be adventurous and explore new things. This time I did the opposite. After spending many long relaxing summer evenings with Jon Hamm and Benedict Cumberbatch watching (and re-watching) Mad Men’s  mid-season finale and totally immersing myself  in every episode of Sherlock, I decided to focus on my favorite authors and literary genres this year. 

 After reading a very witty and delightfully candid interview in the New York Times Book Review with Diane Keaton, one of my favorite actresses and role models, I couldn’t wait to read her irreverent new book Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty over the Memorial Day weekend. Keaton’s quirky memoir, a follow-up to her 2011 autobiography Then Again features comic and sometimes very poignantly personal vignettes and essays on the true meaning of beauty. Keaton also extensively comments on her unconventional relationships with Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty and Al Pacino.

  This is definitely a must-read for devoted Diane Keaton fans. It was so hilariously funny and entertaining that I finished it in two days!

Next I wanted to concentrate on some serious historical fiction. At first, I had a little trouble finding the perfect choice. Then one day while browsing the New Fiction section at the River Park Branch, I accidently found Vindication, a fictional biography about Mary Wollstonecraft, the 18^th century feminist author written by Frances Sherwood in 1992. I thought it ironic that I had discovered this book because while reading Muriel Sparks’ biography about Mary Shelley, Wollstonecraft’s daughter, this winter, I wondered if the Frankenstein author espoused or embraced any of her mother’s radical beliefs. 

 Sherwood’s critically acclaimed first novel chronicles Wollstonecraft’s life from 1785 when she escapes her wretched, indifferent family so she can pursue an independent life to her untimely death at age 38 in 1797.

Strongly influenced by Enlightenment philosopher like Voltaire, Rousseau and John Locke, Wollstonecraft leads a very passionate and adventurous life. For instance, after her girls’ school fails primarily due to her sisters’ incompetence, she works as a governess in Ireland to support herself. Eventually she returns to England and lives and works for publisher Joseph Johnson who encourages her to become a writer. Under his mentorship, she writes her most famous book   A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792. 

 Soon after the book’s publication, she travels to Paris to observe and write about the consequences of the French Revolution firsthand, While having a torrid affair with the unscrupulous American adventurer/frontiersman Gilbert Imlay, she almost literally loses her head during  the  Reign of Terror. Shortly after returning to England, Wollstonecraft marries writer/philosopher William Godwin in 1797.

 Amazingly, this rather intellectually challenging novel was so compelling I couldn’t leave it alone even when I should have been asleep! I especially enjoyed the last chapter. It didn’t end with Wollstonecraft’s death in 1797 but instead served as an epilogue by describing the fates of all the people who played an important role in her remarkable life.

 Sue Monk Kidd has become one of my favorite authors ever since I reviewed The Secret Life of Bees and Traveling With Pomegranates for one of my first blogs three years ago. I especially admire her direct yet lyrical writing style as well as her genuine and heartfelt characters. So when I saw several months ago that her new novel The Invention of Wings has appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List, I was very anxious to read it. Unfortunately, it was such a wildly popular book at the library that I couldn’t check it out until nearly Independence Day. It was clearly worth the wait.

  Set in Charleston, South Carolina from 1803-1838, this uplifting novel focuses on the 35 year relationship between real-life abolitionist Sarah Grinke and the family household slave Hetty (aka “Handful”). After Sarah receives Handful as a gift on her eleventh birthday, she vows to free her one day. 

In the meantime, she secretly teaches Handful how to read and write despite her parents’ objections and South Carolina law. Possessing a very determined and independent spirit, she defies social convention by espousing women’s rights, becoming an abolitionist and eventually converting to Quakerism after meeting and falling in love with Israel Morris. 

 Eventually her beliefs (especially on feminism) become too radical that even the Quakers reject her and her younger sister Angelina. Throughout the rest of her life, her crusade for equality for both blacks and women never wavers. Despite much adversity, Sarah also keeps her childhood promise to Handful by helping her escape from slavery.

 Kidd’s absorbing narrative alternates between Sarah and Handful which gives the reader different perspectives of life experienced by slave and free in the pre-Civil War South. I highly recommend this book for middle and high school students as well as adults.

 After finishing The Invention of Wings, I realized I had never read Kidd’s second novel The Mermaid Chair published in 2005. I think the main reason I had avoided it was I thought it would be overly sentimental and maudlin for my taste. Plus I knew that it had been made into a very mediocre Lifetime movie starring Kim Basinger in 2006.Despite these misgivings, I plunged into it. Amazingly, The Mermaid Chair turned out to be one of the best contemporary romantic novels I’ve read in a long time.

Set in 1988 on an island off the South Carolina coast, Kidd’s book revolves around 42 year old Jessie Sullivan , a frustrated housewife and aspiring artist who narrates her own “coming of middle age” story. Returning to her childhood home after her religiously eccentric mother commits a violent act of self-mutilation, Jessie’s ordinary and conventional life dramatically changes when she falls in love with Brother Thomas, a disillusioned Benedictine monk.

Through Brother Thomas’ help, she finds “a solitude of being” to enrich her life with a meaningful purpose. More importantly, Jessie also uncovers the pivotal role the Mermaid Chair plays not only in her mother’s horrific compulsions but also the answers to long buried family secrets.

I really had lots of fun this summer taking a leisurely literary journey to the 18^th through 21^st century without leaving the comfort of my living room sofa! I’m glad I could share it with you all. 

All the books reviewed in my column can be found at most local public libraries. My readers from St Joseph County, Indiana can visit the St Joseph  County Public Library’s web site at libraryforlife.org for more information. Thanks for reading! See you all next time!