Another Christmas pleasure

   Matthew is a grandson that I don't see often because he lives in Michigan.  He is also our youngest grandchild- just finishing high school.
  It is always wonderful when Matthew comes prepared to tell us about the book that he is reading.  This year he was bubbling over about "Reality is Not What It Seems" by Carlo Rovelli.  Rovelli is an Italian theoretical physicist who is the founder of the loop quantum gravity theory.
  This book was recommended to Matthew by a friend of a friend, who lives in Belgium, but attends University of British Columbia, where Matthew is hoping to study engineering in 2 years.
  Matthew was excited to tell us about time being different on earth than in space.  He  is very interested in space and would one day like to work for NASA. 
  I do love covers and this cover tells me that the content of this book is in the cosmos- over our heads.  It talks about these three questions:
1. What are time and space made of?
2. Where does matter come from?
3. What is reality?
Rovelli pushes beyond what is known from Aristotle, Einstein, etc. and takes you on a journey towards new discoveries.
  Matthew can't wait to get in on that journey.  And we will avidly follow his journey.

Christmas gifts

socks for Christmas 2016

 
  The same granddaughter that decorated these socks for me last year, made some bookmarks this year.
  Who doesn't love new bookmarks?  And the pictures bring back so many memories.
   

book marks for Christmas 2017

And here is a picture of her. She was cooking for us when John had surgery.

Thank you Kaitlyn!

"How To Live' by Henry Alford

   What a strange book!  Strange and entertaining!
Let's agree that the cover is pathetic, but the author is a humorist and I think I missed the point. 
   The sub-title is "A Search for Wisdom from Old People".  
   A strange topic for a humorist and he certainly attacks it in a strange way. Actually, it is like a 'dog's lunch'. He goes from deep talk about 'wisdom' to uninteresting 'blathering'. His interviews with fascinating elderly people are interspersed with the continuing story of his mother and stepfather divorcing.  In fact, the divorce happened right after he interviewed them for this book on 'wisdom'.

 
   The first person he interviews is Granny D (Doris Haddock) who wrote a book called "Granny D: Walking Across America in my Ninetieth Year".  That is what she did - walked from Pasedena to Washington, D.C. (3200 miles). It took 14 months.  I cannot find a copy of her book but it was interesting to read about her in this book "How To Live".

    
    Harold Bloom is an expert on literature.  Having taught literature at Yale for 53 years, his expertise is used to write introductions to many of the classics.  He is now 87 and living in New York.  I enjoyed reading his interview.  He taught himself to read English, Yiddish, and Hebrew by age 5.  In his youth, he was able to read 1000 pages in an hour.  Extraordinary!

Henry Alford

  
   And here is the author, at 45, taking on the topic of 'wisdom'.  I think he proved in this book that 'older is not necessarily wiser'.
  His research showed that there have been 8 million definitions of 'wisdom' over the course of history.
   He quoted Confucius, Buddha, Socrates.
Yes, it was a 'dog's lunch' from the sublime to the ridiculous.

"Where shall wisdom be found?"

The Boy in Striped Pyjamas

   This book is classified as 'youth fiction' and I like to devote one month to youth fiction in the library book club each year.  There is often a lot to discuss in these books.  So I read it as a possible book selection for next year.

   Bruno is 8 years old and very unhappy about leaving his home in Berlin to move to a new residence beside "Out-with".  This is the word that Bruno hears when the adults talk about Auschwitz.  His father has just become the commandant there.
   Since there are no houses near him, Bruno watches the people on the other side of the barbed-wire fence. He is lonely and sad, and completely oblivious of his surroundings. So he wanders along the fence until he meets Shmuel, a Jewish boy his age, on the other side of the fence. Bruno is very curious and, as he develops a friendship with Shmuel, things turn disastrous.
  A very powerful story that was written in 2 1/2 days.

I have decided that the power of this book is in reading,

 too much discussion might take away from the message.

Winnie the Pooh

book club choice

  I enjoyed re-reading "Winnie-the Pooh" and was simply appreciating it as a children's story, noticing lots of things to interest children.
  The theme of friendship seemed central.  "They began to talk in a friendly way about this and that, and Piglet said, "If you see what I mean, Pooh", and Pooh said,  "It's just what I think myself, Piglet, and Piglet said, "But, on the other hand, Pooh, we must remember" and Pooh said "Quite true, piglet, although I had forgotten it for the moment".
   Friendship and silliness.  Children love to be silly.
And I was reminded of Dr. Seuss when I read this silly exchange:
"Help! Help! a Heffalump, a horrible heffalump
Help, Help! a horrible hoffalump
help! Help! hellible horralump
Help! help! a hoffable hellerump."

And there were other silly occasions- Pooh knocking on his own door and waiting for an answer; Pooh eating the honey he intended to give to Eeyore for his birthday.
Lots of silliness.
But...

According to the Canadian Medical Association, each character symbolizes a certain mental disorder.
Winnie-the-Pooh: eating disorder, ADHD
Piglet: anxiety disorder
Owl: dyslexia, short-term memory loss
Tigger: ADHD
kana: social anxiety disorder
Roo: autism
Rabbit: OCD
Eeyore: depression
Christopher Robin: schizophrenia

Then there is the "Tao of Pooh" 
where the fictional characters
 of Winnie-the-Pooh are used 
to explain the basic principle of Taoism.





But...then there is the real character of Christopher Robin. And that is a much sadder story.  He resented his father's exploitation of his childhood, and hated the books that made his life public.  They did not have a good relationship and when his father died, he never visited his mother for the remaining 15 years of her life.  So much for this beautiful picture!

Choosing books for 2018

   It's that time of year again.  This book club that I have been attending for twenty years just went through the process of planning for next year.

Dante  1265-1321

Shakespeare 1564-1616

   This is the most eclectic book club that I have attended.  We alternate classics with contemporary novels.  The classics have sometimes been children's books, e.g. "Winnie- the-Pooh", but it can also be Shakespeare.  In fact, next year we are tackling "The Divine Comedy" by Dante, as well as a Shakespearean play.  Actually we are only doing the first section of "The Divine Comedy".  The book that was the most challenging for me was "The Illiad" by Homer.

 Here's our list:
"A Doll's House" by Henrik Ibsen
 "Do Not Say We Have Nothing" by Madeleine Thien

 "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett

 "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro

 "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" by R.L.Stevenson

 "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot

 "Cymbeline" by William Shakespeare

 "Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie" by Alan Bradley

 "The Divine Comedy" (Inferno) by Dante

 "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak

 "Three men in a Boat" by Jerome K. Jerome

 "The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper" by Phaedra Patrick

Yes, we have twelve choices- no breaks at Christmas or in the summer.  A motivated group of readers!

             

Books versus Films

  This blog is motivated by an e-mail that I received from a friend who went to see "Murder on the Orient Express" directed by Kenneth Branagh. My friend and her husband were disappointed.  The character of Poirot was changed and additional episodes were added.  The format of the murder was kept but it was very hard to follow.
  It was especially disappointing because the original movie closely followed the novel and was much more convincing and much more enjoyable.

  She believed that this also happened to "Anne of Green Gables" when it aired on CBC.

Her question is this:

Is there no restraint on writers and directors?  Can they take someone else’s story and turn it in to their own version ? 
   I would expect that when the movie rights are sold, there are different contracts. For the right amount of money, probably the producer has complete control.

I found this quote:
"Another important grant from the producer's perspective is the right to make alterations to adapt the work for a film or television production.  Authors are often concerned that a producer will make changes that ruin the work or embarrass the author.....  Often a compromise is reached whereby the producer agrees to consult with the author on major plot and character changes."

   Margaret Atwood must understand this process well.  Two of her books have recently been made into television series: "Alias Grace" and "The Handmaid's Tale".

  I have heard many discussions about 'book versus movie'.  Some people believe that the book is always better because you are more involved in the story as you visualize the setting and plot.

    I have talked about my disappointment with "Light Between Oceans".  You can read about it here.  And I would agree that well-written books touch you more deeply than a movie.

   However, one exception was "Angela's Ashes".  The visual was very powerful!  The child actors were extraordinary.  I loved that movie.  It had voice-overs of the actual words from the book on occasion.
  The newer movies often have background noise that ruins it for me.

   Sometimes the movie rights are sold before the book is finished.  I believe that happened with "The Horse Whisperer".  
Robert Redford bought the rights and put a different ending on it than the book.
   And then there is "The Bridges of Madison County".  Book versus movie?  Well....
  There seems to be no rule.  Good books are good books...and good movies are good movies.

The Book that Matters Most

    A friend told me that I must read this book because it is about a book club.  She knows that I love book clubs!    I have read non-fiction books about book clubs, but this novel is purely fiction. The book club here is in a library and only allows 12 people to join.  After that, you must wait until a spot becomes available.
   They choose a theme every year.  The theme explored here is 'the book that matters most'. 
    I had to think long and hard about this theme.  I guess it means the book that has great importance or significance for you.  Each member chose one title.  Wouldn't that be difficult?

These were their choices ( 9 real books, 1 is part of the fictional story)
1. Pride and Prejudice
2. The Great Gatsby
3. Anna Karenina
4. One Hundred Years of Solitude
5. To Kill a Mockingbird
6. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
7. Catcher in the Rye
8. The Unbearable Lightness of Being
9. Slaughterhouse five
10. From Clare to Here ( part of the fiction of the book)

   I love books about books.  I have not read the last two real titles.  So, I immediately searched out my copy of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being".  It is one of those books that I always intend to read but never get it done.  I bought it many years ago.

   The main focus of "The Book That Matters Most" was Ava, whose 20-year marriage had ended and she joined the book club for companionship. Fortunately a spot had opened up.  For this theme, she chose a book from her youth (From Clare to Here) and a rather interesting mystery developed around that fictional book and author.
   I did not enjoy the characters of Ava and her troubled daughter Maggie.  There was a lot of detail about Maggie's reckless behaviour in Paris.  Also, the writing was not great.
   But it is always interesting to read about book clubs, even in fiction.

"The Last Neanderthal" by Claire Cameron

   How I love linear narratives in novels!  And, perhaps, I have complained a bit about 'disruptive' narratives.  I like that word (disruptive) because you just get into one storyline when it switches to the other story.  I find it really disruptive!  If you can tolerate my rants, you can read about it here.
  However, I enjoyed reading "The Last Neanderthal", even though it had two plotlines.  AND, I learned that it is called 'bifurcated narrative'- divided into 2 narratives.  Also called 'twinned narrative'.
   

These are the 2 narratives in this novel:
1.) a Neanderthal family with young daughter "Girl" as the focus.
2.) a modern-day archaeologist, Rose Gales, who discovers the remains of "Girl" in France.

What is spectacular is that Girl's remains are facing the remains of a Homo Sapien male, with the inference of interbreeding between the species.
  So, Claire Cameron, the author, imagines the circumstances around this situation.

   With 40,000 years between the narratives, there is a wonderful connection between Rose and Girl- both young mothers with very different challenges.
   Quite a fascinating book!

Claire Cameron

 The author, Claire Cameron is 44 and lives in Toronto.  She has previously written fiction and non-fiction, but her best known novel is "Bear".  It is a suspenseful story about a young girl and her brother who have to fend for themselves after a bear attack.