Sunday Salon

“All at once, summer collapsed into fall.” ~ Oscar Wilde

We have been glued to the television for the past two nights, watching and rewatching the footage from 9-11. Somehow, I can never tear myself away. How clearly I remember my husband calling me from Zurich, as I stopped at the end of our driveway with the brick of a Nokia in my hand. “They think someone has attacked the Trade Center in New York,” he said, as this was well before it was clear that we were, indeed, attacked. All day long, the teachers stuck their heads in the lounge to catch a glimpse of the news; no one had smartphones then, or laptops, or computers on our desks. It was probably a good thing because we were better able to keep the children calm throughout the day.

Now twenty years later, I am watching the adults who were children when one or more of their parents were taken from them. I am listening to the people whose partner was taken from them that day. So much was taken from us; my husband’s department with Zurich Insurance was closed down six months later, due to all the claims, but the loss of a job is nothing compared to the loss of a life.

I enjoyed finding new pumpkins in the garden yesterday, as they showed me how life carries on. Some rogue creature must have planted the seeds from last year’s autumnal display. Unbeknownst to us, they are growing of their own accord. And thankfully, Illinois has a respite from the dreadful humidity. I can’t tell you how miserable it’s been to be so hot for so long…at least for me.

This week is the beginning of Bible Study Fellowship, where I will lead a group of women as we study the book of Matthew. How wonderful it is to be teaching again, although this time I will be with adults, and it will be more of a facilitating job than a teaching job. The theme is Unexpected, and I love that, for so much that comes to us is, after all, unexpected.

• 

• 

I have finished Pushkin Vertigo’s The Second Woman by Louise Mey for their first ever digital readalong beginning on the 20th, and I have picked up Hour of The Witch by Chris Bohjalian for the R.I.P. XVI. It’s so interesting to me that both of these novels center around women who are “misunderstood” (abused) by their husbands. Although one is a thriller, and the other is historical fiction, they are both quite excellent.

Finally, I am greatly anticipating the announcement of the Booker Prize longlist for 2021. From my Booker Prize email: ”This coming Tuesday, our fabulous Booker dozen of thirteen longlisted novels is being reduced to a shortlist of six. At 4pm BST on Tuesday September 14, you can watch the 2021 shortlist announcement live on our Facebook page and YouTube channel.” I have not had a chance to read all thirteen books of the longlist, but I do hope The China Room by Sunjeev Sahota is included in the shortlist.

I wish a most happy Sunday to all of you, and a joyful week ahead.

Second Place by Rachel Cusk (Booker Prize 2021 longlist), and a few thoughts on others I’ve read…

I am slowly making my way through as many of the books long-listed for the Booker Prize as our library has. I read most of The Promise by Damon Galgut before abandoning it for Perpetual Light by Francis Spufford. Now I am finishing second place by Rachel Cusk.

It is disarming to read so many sentences which end with an exclamation mark! I’m absorbing a fresh idea, or pausing to write a quote in my commonplace book, and wham! An unexpected quotation mark jerks me out of my reverie!

Of all the pages in this book, I found my favorite quote early on:

Why do we live so painfully in our fictions? Why do we suffer so, from the things we ourselves have invented?

(p. 8)

If you look closely at the cover of second place, you can see it is a painting of a naked woman in a marsh. A woman who looks most distressed, covering her face with her hands, crying. This, supposedly, represents the narrator; a woman whom I perceived as greatly troubled. She searches for identity, her place as a wife, mother, desired woman. (Yawn.) Throughout the novel she addresses a person named Jeffers, whom I can only assume is a counselor of some sort.

I could not bring myself to care about her, or the foolish life she leads, inviting an artist to the marsh where she and her second husband, daughter and daughter’s boyfriend, live. The novel is very atmospheric, to be sure, but it had nothing profound (or new) to say to me. I didn’t like it very much.

The Booker long list of 2021 is not going very well for me. I was bored by The Promise, with its story of siblings in South Africa. Light Perpetual held gorgeous writing, as it imagined children who had been struck by a bomb in WWII actually living; the only “problem” was their lives were so ordinary one wonders if it made any difference that they lived. second place is my least favorite of the three. I have now begun China Room, and that is quite promising in its revelation of life in India. More news on that when I finish.

Are you reading the Booker long list this year?

Sunday Salon: What July Was; What August Will Bring

So many lovely things happened in July. First, there was the discussion of The Brothers Karamazov which I read with Arti of Ripple Effects.

Then, there was Tamara’s Paris in July 2021, during which I read Patrick Modiano for the first time. I also read Antoine Laurain for the first time, and I bought a new perfume created by the house of Molinard. Habanita made its debut in 1921, and it smells divine.

There was Stu’s Spanish Lit Month, for which I read The Foreign Girls by Sergio Olguin, sent to me by Bitter Lemon Press. I am hoping to get to Jose Saramago’s book, Cain, by the end of August.

I have read a bit more than half of my list for Cathy’s 20 Books of Summer, which has changed many times since I originally created it. One of those reasons is that the Booker Prize Longlist was released July 27.

This year’s ‘Booker Dozen’, of 13 novels, is:

• A Passage North, Anuk Arudpragasam (Granta Books, Granta Publications)
• Second Place, Rachel Cusk, (Faber)
• The Promise, Damon Galgut, (Chatto & Windus, Vintage, PRH)
• The Sweetness of Water, Nathan Harris (Tinder Press, Headline, Hachette Book Group)
• Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro (Faber)
• An Island, Karen Jennings (Holland House Books)
• A Town Called Solace, Mary Lawson (Chatto & Windus, Vintage, PRH)
• No One is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood (Bloomsbury Circus, Bloomsbury Publishing)
• The Fortune Men, Nadifa Mohamed (Viking, Penguin General, PRH)
• Bewilderment, Richard Powers (Hutchinson Heinemann, PRH)
• China Room, Sunjeev Sahota (Harvill Secker, Vintage, PRH)
• Great Circle, Maggie Shipstead (Doubleday, Transworld Publishers, PRH)
• Light Perpetual, Francis Spufford (Faber)

Of course, I searched our library for any titles which they might own, and put the ones I found on hold. Quite possibly I will review them, briefly, once they are read.

On August 10 this domain (dolcebellezza.net) will expire, and I am hoping to continue on WordPress’ free site with dolcebellezza2.wordpress.com. Of course, if I open up my blog on August 11 and find nothing, I may have to start over. At any rate, you may begin using dolcebellezza2.wordpress.com right now if you wish; it takes you here anyway.

I have a terrible thirst to reread old favorites. One of my dear friends once asked me, “Why would you spend time rereading when there are so many books yet unread?” But, the thing is, I have so many favorite books that I love so much and I miss them. I also have all five of The Cazalet Chronicles, which are certainly calling from the shelf on which they currently sit.

And so, I begin August with a post for The Sunday Salon hosted by Readerbuzz, joining many others who highlight their reading lives for us. August appears to hold many promises as we enjoy the final days of Summer.