Author: TravellinPenguin

Okay, here we go again. I don’t know if it’s just me that I am not in keeping with the rest of the world but that seems to be the way it is with these modern books. I think I am getting old.

This book by Max Porter has caught my eye for months. I have seen it in every book store I go into. I like the idea of the crow. He caught my attention immediately and has stayed with me for months. I did not even open this book to see the style of the writing. I put it on hold at the library and after a couple of months it finally came in.

I couldn’t wait to read it. The other day I had several appointments so I popped it in my bag to travel with me for the day.

I had a doctor’s appointment (just routine) and as she was running late I read most of it in her waiting room.

The story (as probably most of you know as everyone reads these books long before I get around to them) is about the death of a mother. She has left her grieving husband and two sons behind. The crow appears almost as a counsellor for the family.

The book is written similarly to free verse poetry without the rhythm or rhyme. Each page or two is written from the point of view of ‘dad’, ‘sons’ or ‘crow’.

I got irritated with it.  I thought, after all these months, it would be more of a narrative about these people and their relationship with the crow.  Although I found it went along quite well in a logical sequence I thought it was being just that bit too clever. I never held that connection between all the characters in the story. They seemed completely separate to me. Authors trying to be too clever seems to be a criticism I have with many modern books.

I felt manipulated or I didn’t  feel anything at all. This story didn’t make me feel sad. It should have. Usually if I read or hear about a family of young children who have lost their mother I am sad. Fiction or not. It is one of the more miserable things on earth. Truth being in this book I didn’t care for anyone except maybe the crow.

I really liked the premise of this book. To think a crow (or any animal for instance) could infiltrate a family and be a part of its grief is quite interesting.

Maybe I just missed the whole point. It wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe my expectations of what I thought this book was about was too much. Either way, I have finished it, the crow is no longer and the book goes back to the library Tuesday.

At least it is out of my system and I can now move onto the next ‘modern’ book that grabs me by its cover or premise and again talks me into reading it.

Next week there is something fairly big happening. I am starting to prepare. It involves the Penguin, travel and reading. Stay tuned.

If you have read this book what did you think about it? Feel free to completely disagree with me as I notice Good Reads reviews has quite a few four and five star reviews. Maybe a C+? I did like the premise of it.

I have been remiss in continuing to post lately. I took a long time to get over the very bad throat and ear infection I picked up in Japan. I am still coughing but getting back to normal.

I finished the short novella The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers. It is described as an American Gothic tale.

It is the story of Miss Amelia who was married to Marvin Macy but she threw him out ten days after the wedding. He was very mean but also the most handsome man in town.

Amelia reminded me a more complex Olive Kitteridge especially in appearance.. She is a big woman, almost 6’3″ and seems to live inside her head quite a bit. She lives alone, runs a cafe and doesn’t really interact a great deal with the locals except to administer some of their medical needs from a naturopathic point of view.

One day a man arrives at her cafe. He is a hunch backed dwarf. It turns out he is called Cousin Lymon. He introduces himself to Amelia as a distant relative and without further ado he is invited to live in the cafe. He is very attention seeking and needs to be involved in everything that is happening. I think Carson McCullers was brilliant in character development in everything she wrote and Cousin Lymon and Amelia are as real as can be.

With the arrival of Cousin Lymon the cafe begins to pick up.  It becomes quite the social hub and there is a love between Amelia and Cousin Lymon.  Although this love is not disclosed much, the reader feels the fondness they feel for each other. They seem to feel the loneliness each of them has suffered.

Then one day her ex-husband arrives out of the blue. Marvin Macy is a cruel man and has been incarcerated and out of the picture for quite sometime. He eventually moves into the cafe. Cousin Lymon appears to facilitate this arrangement.

This is where I will stop telling you what happens. The story is about loneliness, betrayal and community ties (or not). I found it to be a sad tale but that wasn’t unexpected. The title informs us of that. 

I found the first half of the story went along quite nicely and then towards the end it slows down. By the end of this tale I was just happy to be away from all of these people. It was a story worth reading but one I probably won’t be revisiting. I cannot forget these characters.

The beautiful writing and descriptions are there but I felt the story weakened as it continued until there was nothing left. In a way I think that is how it was meant to be.

Something interesting I read in this book was the information about Carson McCuller’s herself. I will share this information with you.

“Carson McCullers was born in Columbus, Georgia in 1917. She was always a delicate person and as a young adult began to suffer from strokes, and by the age of thirty-one was paralysed down her left side. For awhile she could only use one finger to type, and for years before her death could not sit at a desk to work. In 1938 she married James Reeves McCullers, a corporal in the US army.  The marriage was not a success and they divorced. They did, however, keep in touch and subsequently remarried, separating finally in 1953. He later committed suicide.”

She was established as a writer by her early twenties but it was not until she published, The Heart is A Lonely Hunter at the age of twenty-three that she won widespread recognition.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter has long been one  of my favourite tales. If you haven’t read it I would recommend it. A beautiful book. There is a line of sadness throughout her writing but not so much it puts me off. I think knowing what I do of Ms Carson’s life there is no wonder her stories can be pretty downtrodden.

I would read more of her stories.  I still have a few short stories of hers on my shelf to be read.

I am happy to be picking up again in energy and health and look forward to more happening in the next month but I will explain that in my next post.

There has been a great deal going on during the past couple of weeks. We have returned from Japan and must say as much as I wanted to post everything we did it was so impossibly busy we collapsed into bed quite early each night. We were exhausted.

I will still pop in the odd photo maybe. The cherry blossoms were a spectacle and were bursting everywhere. Very pretty. We ended up having made sushi, learning how to make Saki, everything you need to know about preparing a kimono for wear and got to wear them a couple of hours one afternoon shopping. We went through museums, shrines, temples. Rode fast trains, slow trains and trains that went backwards. We wrestled Sumo wresters and learned there is a great deal more to their sport than it seems.  We even made paper and brought three of our home made post cards home.

We participated in meals that made some of us feel like the Sumo wrestlers. One meal after another and sometimes several in the same day. We walked for miles, shopped in the souvenir stores and department stores. We learned more history than I will ever remember. It was fun. Great friendships were made, hotel life was great and when it was time to come home I got sick.

I must have caught it from two others on the tour that also fell foul.  Not just sick as in mild cold. My journey home on the plane was wracked with deep chesty coughs, a high temperature and enough germs to spread across everyone who was on the plane that day. I lost my hearing almost completely between two of the flights. I especially hope I contaminated that wayward mother with the four squealing girls who never slept and bothered everyone in the extreme. Of course the food on the plane wasn’t good enough for them. Of course they had to butt in front of everyone at the toilet. If the windows had opened they would have all been gone. There is rude and then there is ‘rude on a plane.’  I’m sure my surrounding seat mates couldn’t wait to get me off the plane. We were exhausted.

I came home and went to bed. The next day Mr. Penguin made an appointment with the GP and I am now, one week later still filled with antibiotics. Today was the first day out of the house. I took the dogs for a 30 minute walk and I was stoked to get out and breathe real air. So good to be home.

Reading? Bits and pieces here and there. Now what does one download and attempt to read on a Japanese trip? Shogun by James Clavell.  I have read about 9 percent of this very violent, interesting, heavy (both literally and physically) novel. I want to read it. I really do. But I don’t have the stamina to keep going with this book. I think it may be the book that stays on my phone for waiting rooms. I always have a book, that generally moves slowly to read while I wait for people, sit in cafes or ignore the old magazines in the doctor’s office.

Carson McCuller’s book The Ballad of the Sad Cafe is ridiculously short. I should have finished it by now.  I did soak in a hot bath with it one day since I returned but woke up just before I drowned. I only have a tiny bit left.

I think my goal for the next month will be mopping up all the half read books and magazines around the house. You really do get sick of them if you don’t finish them and file them away.  I think it will be released to the wild by the Book Phantom once I finish. (more on that later).

So nothing planned right now except a possible photo shoot with some camera club members on Saturday of an old insane asylum north of here, about to be bulldozed and the land developed. That’s another story too. But for now I need to just get better, enjoy some walks with the dogs and enjoy the wonderful Tassie air and sun. (I didn’t say heat… I said ‘sun’).

So until the next time…happy travelling and happy reading.