100 Years Past

Back in the early part of the century, one of the most prolific writers was a woman named Carolyn Wells. While she wrote articles and mysteries, she was most well-known for her children’s stories, chiefly those for girls.

Wells did several series, including the Patty Fairfield stories, which I believe I’ve spoken of briefly before. The series starts with Patty at fourteen visiting relatives, then follows her to school and college, abroad and then to courtship. Patty’s dad is not rich, but well-to-do enough that Patty isn’t forced to work and always has lots of nice party dresses and things. It’s a much more innocent world, where middle-class girls of seventeen weren’t too old to sit in Dad’s lap while the family gathered around the fire and while descriptions of clothing abounded were full of activities rather than lovesick teenagers mooning over the opposite sex. Patty always had something doing, whether it was a picnic or a charity bazaar or sightseeing.

Wells’ other series was for younger girls and concerned Marjorie Maynard, a lively twelve-year old, again in an upper middle-class family. Unlike Patty, she has siblings: older Kingdon, the only boy, and younger Kitty and the obligatory cute small child with a lisp, Rosy.

The differences are almost shockingly startling, and it has nothing to do with the family having horses instead of a car, traveling by steam train instead of airplane, and using crank telephones. Marjorie at twelve—and her friends of the same age—are still little girls. They play with doll houses and dolls, play tag and climb trees, and the thought of boys as future romantic mates never crosses their minds. It’s so pleasant and relaxing watching them get into mischief no worse than marking up the front stairs with their heavy shoes or splashing water at Grandma’s hired man. They get to be real kids and not premature women, with no sturm und drang about premarital sex, makeup, sexy clothing, and violence in school.

Interestingly enough, they are also smaller in stature as well; one can see how today’s children physically mature so much faster. Marjorie’s Uncle Steve and Grandmother build a tree house for her and her friends and furnish it for her with wicker chairs that are "not of a size for grown people, but were just right for twelve-year-old girls." And these are well-fed well-cared-for children, not underfed waifs from the slums--I don’t think I know a twelve-year-old today who is not adult size and who would fit in those quaint little wicker chairs!

Stormy Weather

Back when I was looking at the reviews for Scotti’s Sudden Sea, about the Hurricane of 1938 (see “There Are Bricks Flying By”), I noted another hurricane book, Storm of the Century: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, and remarked that the excerpt on Amazon.com was quite good. Well, Tuesday at Kudzu, the remaindered book store, along with Enright’s classic The Saturdays and a book about American regional language differences, I found a copy.

If you watch documentaries about hurricanes, as we usually end up doing, you find several ubiquitous notables along with the 1938 disaster. There is of course the killer 1900 storm that hit Galveston, Texas, vividly reproduced in Erik Larson’s Isaac’s Storm. There’s the 1926 hurricane on the East Coast of Florida that destroyed the finances of several businessmen building tourist accommodations in Miami and Ft. Lauderdale as well as property. (Ironically, one of these men recovered enough capital to sink all his cash into building oceanfront homes again. On the southern coast of New England in 1938.) More modern storms, such as Hurricanes Camille and Andrew, are also included.

And then there’s the 1935 storm, which struck the Florida Keys with howling force and basically destroyed the old way of life among the “Conches,” as the residents were known.

The facet that makes the 1935 event different from the others is the presence in the Keys of the workers building the highway that now connects Key West to mainland Florida. These men were United States military veterans, and they were there basically because there were no jobs for them anywhere else (and, some say, to get rid of them).

Many of these men had been in the Bonus March of 1932. There are many different “takes” on the Bonus March--President Hoover and many other Government officials apparently truly did believe that what were left of the Bonus Marchers were simply troublemakers, thieves and Communists--but all the histories will tell you that General MacArthur’s high-handed and cruel treatment of them was unfair, whether they were mad radicals or not. The day MacArthur burned out the Bonus Marchers and drove them away from town with tanks and mounted troups, Franklin Roosevelt knew he had won the upcoming election.

The Roosevelt folks will tell you he was trying to do the best for these desperate men when he sent large numbers of them down to Florida to work on the road project. They would have food, shelter, and a job. Detractors say Roosevelt shipped them there so they wouldn’t be near Washington. Either way, the men got a raw deal: the camps they were placed in were dirty, they were inadequately housed and not protected from the hordes of mosquitoes that plague that part of the country, and most of the men overseeing the project had no knowledge of hurricanes or how fast they could move and ignored the locals’ warnings of the possible force of the storm.

From all accounts the men at these camps weren’t the best folks in the world. Many of them had come back from the war with what we would call today “post-traumatic stress syndrome” but back then was known more vividly as “shell shock.” They were belligerent, nasty, and tended to get roaring drunk on payday, partially because the camps were so bleak there was nothing else for them to do. But however badly they behaved, they didn’t deserve the offhand treatment they received—and the fate in store from them as the hurricane struck.

Author Willie Drye doesn’t have quite the narrative strengths of Larson, Scotti, or Everett Allen (A Wind to Shake the World), but the story is still quite compelling and is an excellent portrait of the old way of life in Florida and the hardships of the time.

Synopsis of Storm of the Century on Amazon.com.

1926 Hurricane

American Experience: MacArthur and the Bonus March

Bonus March information

The Bonus March as written by an honors student

Herbert Hoover's take on the Bonus Marchers

Skipping Grisham

I stopped at the library last night. (Good God, here I go again.) I was looking for Elizabeth Peters’ Guardian of the Horizon and ended up with four books. The other three were Christmas books. One of them was one I’d wanted to read for a while: John Grisham’s Skipping Christmas.

Brief boring notes of exposition:

I’ve never read John Grisham. Even though I watched Perry Mason religiously as a kid, a book involving law has all the appeal of curdled milk. I have no interest in reading about it.

If you hadn’t gathered from my “Holiday Harbour” blog and my Christmas web page, I love Christmas. I like the decorations, the music, the entire idea. Despite all that, I don’t relish the overspending and maniac fanaticism that cames at the Christmas season. Fun and exciting is one thing, desperation and bankruptcy is another.

Which is why the idea of Grisham’s book sounded so appealling.

[Warning! Major spoilers ahoy!]

Luther and Nora Krank (I should have guessed what the ending would be when I saw that surname) have just seen off their 23-year-old daughter Blair, leaving for two years in Peru with the Peace Corps, her first Christmas away from home. It’s Thanksgiving weekend and a grumpy Luther notices the already burgeoning Christmas madness--and decides he’s sick of it. He retreats to his calculator and realizes he spent $6,100 on Christmas the previous year and neither he nor his wife were satisfied. It was hectic, no fun, they got and gave useless presents, etc.

Time for another personal interjection: I collect Christmas books. Not Christmas books with crafts or recipes, but books about Christmas itself. Several of them, like Unplug the Christmas Machine, are about simplifying Christmas, since I dislike the furor that goes on during the holiday season. So although Luther isn’t the world’s most likeable character, I was completely in sympathy with him and what he decides to do next: he convinces his wife, also weary of Yuletide shenanigans, to go on a cruise for the holidays, leaving Christmas Day.

It’s not like it’s a new idea; many folks do it. But the Kranks go one step further than some might: they’re not going to decorate, or throw their usual party, or buy a tree, etc. They will forgo all the trimmings of the holiday except their charitable contributions, which they plan to make at other times of the year. Great. Not what I would do, but I understood perfectly.

Unhappily, most of the Kranks’ friends don’t. Oh, a few of them are envious of the pair not having social obligations or unwanted relatives coming over, but most of them are downright indignant. Their bafflingly selfish attitude is “how dare you not have Christmas with all the trimmings?”

The worst are the Kranks’ "neighbors." The couple live on a street that always takes place in a neighborhood decorating contest. This includes every house having a big plastic Frosty the Snowman on the roof. When the neighbors find out the Kranks won’t be decorating, they are nearly apoplectic with rage. Even the neighborhood police, firefighters, and Boy Scouts collecting for charity treat the Kranks like they’re...well, some sort of cranks, even though Luther assures them he will give to their spring and summer charities. The printer who usually does Nora Krank’s Christmas cards and party invitations is downright indignant when the Kranks won’t even tell him why they’re not ordering cards and invitations (as if it were any of his business).

The neighbors, however, go over the top. They harass the Kranks with whispers and gossip, and serenade them with loud Christmas carols under their windows every night. Even the newspapers get into the act, publishing a picture of the Kranks’ undecorated house as if it’s some type of hideous unknown crime.

Well, Linda, you say, that’s the point of the book, isn’t it? Non-Christians, athiests, and others who don’t celebrate Christmas are bombarded with this stuff from before Halloween onward. This is just that syndrome taken to absurdity.

And had the book left it at that, it might have been fine.

But remember, our name is “Krank” here, and we must see the error of our ways. So while I was hoping desperately that Luther and Nora would eventually get away from this boorish herd of obnoxious revelers, it doesn’t happen. In fact, since the entire book has a television sitcom air about it, the predictable thing happens on December 23: daughter Blair calls. She’s not only coming home for Christmas, but she’s engaged for God’s sake to a Peruvian doctor named Enrique who’s always wanted to see a real American Christmas with the tree, the feast, the decorations on the roof.

Were these real adults with backbone Luther and Nora would have told Blair the truth. But no, in true TV sitcom fashion Nora, who was a little reserved about the “skipping Christmas” gig at the beginning but then warmed to it, does a “complete 180” to her husband, decides they will not go on the cruise and sends Luther into a frantic search for food, party guests and decorations before Blair and Enrique arrive on Christmas Eve. A requisite amount of slapstick occurs, including Luther’s foray on the roof to mount the plastic Frosty, to which the obnoxious neighbors look on with glee.

And then they find out why Luther and Nora are doing all this, immediately become sweet and kind again, and help the Kranks get Christmas together.

At the end, Luther gives the cruise tickets to a neighbor and his terminally ill wife.

Oh, please. I’ve gone through 45 years of loving Christmas stories with sappy endings, but this one just made me want to throw the book against the wall. As annoying as Luther Krank is, the idea of him having to be grateful to all these insensitive, malcontented morons makes me positively ill. If I were the Kranks, I’d put that house on the market posthaste--they seem to have the cash to do so--and go live somewhere else. But I’m sure that wouldn’t suit Nora Krank, who just up and repudiates her husband after agreeing with him for most of the book. She probably now thinks all these people are wonderful. Me, I think they deserve to have their cars keyed and eggs tossed at their windows.

The only thing I did like about the sappy ending was Luther giving away the tickets. Yeah, it was a cliché, but it was the only really nice thing anyone does for anyone in this book. And as someone who has known people who were terminally ill with cancer, it’s just a Good Thing all around.

As for Skipping Christmas, you can skip it across a pond for all I care.

Contributing to the Delinquency of Bookaholics Everywhere

Another online book search: Fetchbook

Trim Up the Tree

Do old photos intrigue you, especially those of old Christmas trees and decorations? Are those old-fashioned cornucopias and candle holders on the branches an invitation to more investigation? Wouldn't you like to step into those old parlors and meet the little girls with corkscrew curls and little boys in Buster Brown outfits and look at their tabletop trees and floor-to-ceiling beauties, covered with kugel, Dresdens, bead ornaments and wax babies?

Impossible, of course. The next best thing is Robert Brenner's Christmas Past.

Having seen most collectors' books, I can attest that, unless you are looking for prices, they're pretty dull. Oh, if you have a volume that has old colored photos of something you're interested in, the attraction factor increases, but it's still a glorified price book.

Brenner's book isn't. Instead, it's a history of the Christmas tree and its decorations and lights (candles and electric). After a chapter on the origin of the tree tradition and some reminisces from people who remembered seeing their first trees, or decorating their first trees with popcorn and cranberries and tatted doilies, each chapter is a detailed (in small print, no less) examination of each type of ornament from the glass-blown kugels (a history of Thuringia, where the glassblowers plied their trade, is included) to cotton confections to wire and bead creations to wax babies made in the form or angels or Jesus, and even more. The chapters on lighting the Christmas tree are particularly fascinating--and finally, an explanation of why early electric strings were called "Mazda lights" (named after the Babylonian god of light)!

This detailed examination of all things ornamental and lucent is accompanied by pages and pages of color and black and white photos of the different objects, old-time rooms decorated for the holidays, and old advertisements going back to the 1800s for the various ornaments and lights. It is the definitive book about old Christmas trimmings.

"There Are Bricks Flying By"

It was one of those rainy summers through July, then August raised sweltering temps, exhausting for people without air conditioning in three-story homes. In September it began to rain again, until the ground was saturated.

Mary worked through it all in a factory in Providence, RI, on Pine Street. She was 21 and had had to quit school to take care of her mother in 11th grade. When September 21 turned out to be sunny and pleasant, she was almost reluctant to go in that day.

Later that morning the wind picked up, however--it grew cloudy, then dark. Her workplace had big windows on one side of the room so that the lights were augmented by natural sunlight on nice days. Today she had to peer at her work.

Then, in the early afternoon, she looked outside and saw bricks flying, one by one, past the windows. It was raining steadily and then hard, lashing the glass.

She mentioned it to her supervisor, who only told her to get back to work. She was doing piece work at the time and every minute she dawdled meant a penny or two less in her paycheck. When she mentioned the bricks to other people, they only pooh-poohed her. Once she said she was going home early, but was told to sit down and do her work.

A scant half-hour before quitting time they announced, "It's pretty stormy out. Everyone can leave early."

Mary was lucky--she didn't have to take the bus home or walk as always; a girlfriend's brother had called: "I'm coming to pick you up." They had to walk six blocks in driving rain and were drenched by the time they got to the car.

When she got home her mother was frantic. Her father had chosen that day to go up to their vegetable garden allotment and was not back yet. The power was out and Mary's younger brother trudged to the hardware store in drenching rain to buy kerosene for the storm lanterns. At nine o'clock, finally, a voice from the darkness outside asked, "Hey! Where are all the lights?"

It was her father, who had had to take a different bus to get home in the storm and then got trapped downtown as a storm surge flooded Providence. Mary's niece Anna and her godmother had been in Providence, shopping for a dress for the former. They also made it home unharmed.

The place where Mary worked, Coro's, hadn't been touched because it was on high ground; the flying bricks weren't even from that building. Most weren't so lucky, especially if they had a home at the shore.

What Mary--my mom--had struggled home through was the great Hurricane of 1938. The Weather Bureau didn't believe a hurricane would hit New England and did not send out timely warnings. They were sure it would go out to sea. Instead it hit Long Island--to this day the fast-moving storm is referred to as "the Long Island Express"--and New England like a battering ram. It not only tore up the coastline, it roared inland, destroying pine in New Hampshire, a quarter of Vermont's maple trees, and countless little New England tree-shrouded greens. Downtown Providence was submerged under 17 feet of water that had roared up Narragansett Bay, flooded the basements of the department stores and killed shoppers, submerged cars and drowned their drivers, short circuited trolley cars so their horns blew endless ghostly symphonies under the water.

The hurricane of '38 tale was one of the stories I always begged from my mother as a little girl. It was like the tornado in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz or some other fairy tale cataclysm to me, but this one came with photos--we had a "hurricane book" from Hurricane Carol up in the attic that compared the damage done in 1938 and again in 1954--and an "up close and personal" extra. I vaguely remember Hurricane Donna in 1960, lashing the house and tearing shingles from the roof, leaving us under the light of the kerosene "hurricane lamp" for three days.

R.A. Scotti's Sudden Sea, which I recently re-read after purchasing the book in paperback, transports you to 1938--to the salt-air homes on Napatree Point, RI, the hardscrabble farms on Conanicut (Jamestown), the coastal communities of Long Island, and even "Fenwick," the Connecticut home where Katharine Hepburn was spending the summer with her parents and brother. I re-read the book in a sultry setting that was as warm and oppressive as the approaching storm, and blinked and felt lost and disoriented when I finally finished and returned to my own world.

This is a fabulous book, with all the intensity and realism of Larson's Isaac's Storm and Junger's The Perfect Storm, a time machine back to "the last of the old New England summers," and is much recommended, along with Everett Allen's A Wind to Shake the World, which was written in the 1970s. Not only did Scotti used Wind as part of her research, but his narrative equally absorbing and evocative, and Allen knows of what he speaks: he was there. A neophyte newspaper reporter, Allen began his first journalism job in New Bedford, Massachusetts, on September 21, 1938.

(BTW, I have only read the excerpt on Amazon.com, but Willie Drye's Storm of the Century: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, sounds super as well.)

(YOW! I'm glad I found my copy of the Everett Allen book last spring...it's now going for a minimum of $20. Someone at Alibris wants $619.00 for it!)

Library Books du Jour

Finished:

Unsinkable, purportedly the "entire story" of the Titanic disaster, starting with the conception of the ship and ending with Bob Ballard's discovery of her resting place and the subsequent graverobbers who visited her. I learned quite a few things, including that there was an American inquest into the accident. I found some of the reviews on Amazon.com, however, very amusing: several people accuse the author of quoting from Walter Lord's A Night to Remember nearly word for word. They might want to look at the recommendations on the book jacket: the first "attaboy" is from Walter Lord himself. I think if someone were copying his book "word for word" he'd have something different to say.

1876. This was a volume drawn from newspaper and magazine articles of the era and published in 1976, the year of the Bicentennial. Despite all the nice accompanying photos and engravings, I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped when I first saw it.

In Progress:

Sunday Nights at Seven, Joan Benny's biography of her dad interspersed with Jack Benny's own unpublished autobiography, found after his death.

Endurance. Story of Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated Antarctic expedition, with photos taken during the journey.

1900 by Rebecca West, someone who lived the year.

Flanders' Follies

In 1996, I took the two classes CDC then offered on that newfangled frontier, the Internet. In "Internet II" class, we learned how to make a basic web page using Notepad, writing the HTML code by hand.

I was like an adult duck getting to swim for the first time. I went back to the office next day and found "The Beginner's Guide to HTML," which is still wandering around at NCSA's site. Having devoured that, I went to Paul McFedries' Complete Idiot's Guide to Creating an HTML Web Page, which is still around as well.

So I got myself addicted to HTML and web books as well and still have a fair collection of them. Two of my favorites are the Vincent Flanders' Web Pages That Suck books, based on his web site. These are "for God's sake, don't do this!" volumes with amusing text and highly illustrative--if not ysterically funny--screen caps of so-called "professional" web sites that are so mind-bogglingly bad that you can't believe someone paid to have them done. I especially enjoy Flanders' diatribes at "mystery meat navigation," which refers to those websites with obscure looking graphics or photos that are not labeled and you have to mouse-over them to see what they stand for. The poor man practically gets apopleptic about them.

My one complaint with computer books is they are so darned expensive. I understand that even with the popularity of computers today, they are still a niche market, so they are priced higher to recoup publishing costs. But they come at college textbook prices most of the time, an unreal cost that has you paying $40-$50, even $60+ for one book.

Luckily for my habit, I've gotten most of my HTML books at Sam's (back when they had the occasional title), on remainder counters, and lately off Amazon Marketplace. Flanders' Son of Web Pages That Suck was a heart-stopping $45, but I got it for a tenth that price on AM. And I'm enjoying it, too, perhaps even more than the original. There are some great links to web usage sites in this edition.

Thrilling Days of Yesteryear Part 2

I'm enjoying this Dana Girls story a lot. The author has the language of those older series books down pat. It may surprise folks who know what a devotee I am of these old kids' series books, but I've never read a Dana Girls book, whether the originals or any updating they did in the 1960s. I've never actually read a Nancy Drew, either. The books cost $1.25 when I was of the age to read them and my mom couldn't afford them (and it would have taken five weeks to save up for one with my allowance). I owned mostly Whitman books, which were 29 cents, and later paperbacks. Occasionally on Christmas or my birthday, I would get a Bobbsey Twins book--the rewritten ones of the 1960s, not the original books I collected as an adult. I only had about eight of them, though.

It is so funny reading these, with their proper grammar and condemnation of slang, and remember that they were banned from most libraries of my day! The librarians scorned them as cheaply written and manufactured sensationalist twaddle. They wanted us to read the classics, like Tom Sawyer and Treasure Island and Jane Eyre and the Maud Montgomery books. (To be honest, I always loathed Treasure Island; I never have figured out what is so romantic about dirty, smelly killer pirates. Nancy Drew, the Bobbsey Twins, and yes, even the Dana Girls, were well-educated, clean and respectful. What was the problem?)

Those Thrilling Days of Yesteryear

Remember those wonderful series books of the past? The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Joyce Jordan, Rick Brant--and the Dana Girls? If you do, check out The Secret of the Ice Castle, a full-length fan-written Dana Girls mystery done in the style of the 1930s originals.

For Robert Heinlein Fans

Wow, I didn't know this existed online:

The Heinlein Society

Take a look at their cool concordance!

I started my Heinlein reading career with Have Spacesuit, Will Travel from the Hugh B. Bain library.

For "American Girls" Fans

Well, it figures...it would be about Samantha, who I always found less interesting than the others! I would have preferred Molly--but Felicity would have been interesting, too, since not many dramas center around the Revolutionary War era any longer.

First there's a new "Samanthauniverse" book out, Nellie's Promise, about the orphan girl and her sisters who were taken in by Samantha's family.

Plus the WB network has apparently just finished Samantha: An American Girl's Christmas, which will debut on November 23 of this year.

A Red-Headed Stranger

I think I watched every--or almost every--episode of The Partridge Family; I seem to remember skipping the episodes with "adorable Ricky Segall." My favorite character was Danny, played by Danny Bonaduce. He was cute, red-haired, and, most importantly, smart.

I never quite got over liking Danny Bonaduce (I still miss the syndicated The Other Half, with Bonaduce, Mario Lopez, Dorian Gregory and Dick Clark, a guilty pleasure), even though I knew he'd been in major trouble over the years for drugs, alcohol and violence. I didn't read a lot of tabloids, so I didn't realize how much trouble with drugs, alcohol and violence until I picked up his book Random Acts of Badness.

I swear, I cannot for the life of me understand how people can do this drug shit to themselves. His stories are absolutely horrifying--not just the effects of the drug use on his body and his personality, but the lengths he would go through to get drugs, including going into neighborhoods where slayings were common just to get his next "hit." What I can't figure out is how, after doing all that damage to himself, he actually survived. It seems nothing short of miraculous.

Too Busy Reading...

...to write about books:

From the library:

So Dear to My Heart, Jane Goyer--memories from a 90+-year-old woman from Worcester, Massachusetts (written in 1990, so I assume she's passed on). Jane talks about her childhood and all the fun things she and her brothers and sisters used to do: listening to the radio, playing outdoor games, helping grow vegetables. A bright portrait of a bygone era.

Triangle: the Fire That Changed America, David von Drehle--despite the title, only a few chapters about the 1911 New York sweatshop fire, but well done: sets up the era and the lives of the people who worked in the factory, the labor movements that proceed it, the trial afterwards and how the factory owners got off. It will make you admire our immigrant ancestors and the trials they endured.

The Blizzard of '88, Irving Werstein--Story of the unexpected March storm that brought New York City and environs to disaster: death, destruction of property, and terrifying events. Illustrated with engravings and photos of the storm. Some very touching stories about the victims, including the poor girl whose tale opens the book.

Isaac's Storm, Erik Larson--Story of the 1900 Galveston hurricane that killed thousands due to botched weather predictions that could have been avoided. Larson weaves a tapestry of characters, Galveston history, and the history of the Weather Bureau together as Galveston heads for disaster.

In Love With a Tall, Dark Stranger

Hopefully, my husband will forgive me, considering this man lived, if he lived at all, 1500 years ago. :-)

Many years ago, my mom fed my book addiction by enrolling in the Doubleday Bargain Book Club. These were the miracle of miracles, hardback books, although less expensive club editions, with ragged page edges. The monthly selections were announced in a glossy color booklet with the featured selection receiving illustration and a page or two of plot summary, with the alternate selections behind. I remember a lot of romance/women’s type books, Catherine Cookson, Victoria Holt, that sort of thing, plus nonfiction of mostly the self-help variety: dieting, Dr. Wayne Dyer, etc. I traded off some of them when I moved, but I still have a dozen or so of my favorites including Leon Uris’ QB VII, Marilyn Durham’s Dutch Uncle, Gone With the Wind, and Robert Kimmel Smith’s Sadie Shapiro’s Knitting Book.

But my favorite three have always been Mary Stewart’s Merlin trilogy*: The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, and The Last Enchantment.

I’ve never been much of an Arthurian buff. My mother was the one who liked the knights and lords and ladies stuff, movies like Knights of the Round Table with Robert Taylor or Camelot. Frankly, all the thous-thees-and-thosing bored me, as well as the Lancelot-Guinevere- Arthur love triangle. I didn’t even like Disney’s Sword in the Stone very much, and that was as child-friendly as you can get. (I tried reading the T.H. White novel once; it has such good reviews. But again I couldn't get around the medieval setting or the idea of calling the future King Arthur "Wart.")

The most interesting character in these stories may have been Merlin the magician, but the doddering, grey-bearded fellow in all these adaptations left me cold. He was usually extremely eccentric and/or talked in riddles and was so distant that I couldn’t get a handle on the man.

Then came Mary Stewart. The three books mentioned are the story of Merlin’s life, from his childhood in Wales to his old age, and they drew me in irresistibly from the first paragraph of the first book. Stewart’s Merlin is an approachable creature, a real man who knows magic, not some fey glimmer in spangled robes, someone I would have enjoyed speaking with or even being friends with. He eats, sings, works, and tells his story with compelling power. From the moment I open one of the books, I become entangled in Merlin’s world: Great Britain and Brittany of the 5th century. I can see the landscapes of Wales, smell the horses and trails, see the different dwellings and the various characters Merlin interacts with as well as I can sense my own surroundings. Everything is lovingly and vividly described.

I have to admit Stewart has ruined me. I went to see the otherwise realistic John Boorman flick Excalibur, which portrayed Arthur and his retinue as the real 5th century warriors they were rather than the medieval personages in 1940s knight movies, and was repelled by their snake-surrounded Merlin, even though he was portrayed by one of my favorite actors, Nicol Williamson. Not even for the love of Sam Neill could I sit through NBC’s miniseries Merlin, partially due to its jerky “artistic” photography and SFX and the presence of Martin Short, but mostly because their Merlin was another one of these otherworldly, distant incarnations. (Had only Neill been cast in a version of the Stewart story; I smile dreamily just at this intriguing thought.)

I found, eventually, there was one problem with my Stewart books: when I wanted one, I wanted all three, and if I wanted to take them somewhere, I had to carry those three. So, recently, armed with a Borders discount coupon and a $5 off certificate, I bought the trilogy once again, published by Morrow in one hardbound volume. I’m sure some would think me foolish to repurchase books I already own, but I don’t care. After all, it’s not everyday one can carry an entire lovingly crafted world under one arm, to dip into any time one chooses.

Be part of the magic! Buy the trilogy at Amazon.com. (Or just hit a bookstore!)

Here's an interview with Stewart about the trilogy.

Review

Another Review

Yet a Third Review

* As someone once reminded me, this is actually an "Arthurian tetralogy." There is a fourth book, but it's not about Merlin, and while I've read it, it (if you'll forgive the description) doesn't hold the magic that Merlin's story does. It's called The Wicked Day and is basically the end of the story of King Arthur, concerning his bastard son Mordred and the end of Camelot.

Discovering the Joy of Reading

I've found several online quotes from Eudora Welty's "A Sweet Devouring," about her adventures as a child discovering the world of reading. After a search, I found a copy of the entire essay:

"A Sweet Devouring"

Books Finished and Continued

Done:

The Speckled Monster, history of the 18th century fight to have immunization against smallpox accepted as a legitimate medical treatment in both America and England. The book has a novel-like narrative that draws you into the story and there are copious notes at the end.

Freedom Just Around the Corner, a new history of the United States from the early 1600s to the Missouri Compromise. First history book I've ever read that made me understand what Bacon's Rebellion was all about.

Doctor Who: The English Way of Death--as I mentioned in another post, these have proved increasingly annoying in narrative in general, but this particular one wasn't bad. Features the fourth Doctor and Romana Mark 2, and a not-bad use of K-9.

In Progress:

Doctor Who: Milennial Rites--just started; surprised at the absence of the usual verbal gymnastics--this may be the first sixth Doctor story I've ever liked. But I won't hold my breath.

Christmas Customs and Traditions, the classic Clement Miles history from 1912. If you're into light prose about Christmas traditions, you probably won't like this book. This is a more a scholarly tome, going back to medieval hymns. On the other hand, due to its publication date, it's full of real Christmas traditions that don't involve the 35th viewing of It's a Wonderful Life, starting from All Saint's Day on November 1 and ending with Candlemas on February 2.

The Ghost Finds a Body--I haven't been so delighted by a mystery novel and its characters in a long, long time. Written by Brad Strickland and the late Thomas Fuller (damn, it still hurts to have to put that "late" in there), this is a grand mystery set in a small Florida panhandle town, involving a writer, a smart-mouthed Asian computer whiz, a romance writer's convention, the obligatory mysterious death, and a colorful collection of interesting supporting characters, including a reclusive romance author. So highly recommended this one bleeds...pun intended...off the scale.

Doomsday Book Story

Found this wandering about in newsgroups, of all places; it's a story set in the universe of Connie Willis' Doomsday Book, which I enjoyed a lot:

"Fire Watch"

My St. Nicholas Book is Here!

Despite what McFarland's web page said, Amazon was right about this book.

The articles are:
"Children's Magazines" by Mary Mapes Dodge
"In Memory of Mary Mapes Dodge" by William Fayal Clarke (Dodge's successor)
"Fair Ideals and Heavy Responsibilities: The Editing of St. Nicholas Magazine" by Susan R. Gannon
"Illustrating St. Nicholas and the Influence of Mary Mapes Dodge" by Michael S. Joseph
"'Here's to Our Magazine!': Promoting St. Nicholas" by Susan R. Gannon
"St. Nicholas and Its Friends: The Magazine/Child Relationship" by Suzanne Rahn
"Young Eyewitnesses to History" by Suzanne Rahn
"In the Century's First Springtime: Albert Bigelow Paine and the St. Nicholas League" by Suzanne Rahn
"Onward and Upward with the Arts: the St. Nicholas League" by E.B. White
"A Debut in the League" by Suzanne Rahn
"The St. Nicholas Advertising Competition: Training the Magazine Reader" by Ellen Gruber Garvey
"'Work Well Done': Louisa May Alcott and Mary Mapes Dodge" by Daniel Shealy
"The Utopia of St. Nicholas: The Present as Prologue" by Fred Erisman
"Two Narrative Formulas" by R. Gordon Kelly
"Money: The Change of Fortune Story in St. Nicholas by Anne MacLeod
"St. Nicholas and the City Beautiful (1893-1894) by Greta Little
"'When Did Youth Ever Neglect to Bow Before Glory?': St. Nicholas and War" by Marilynn Strasser Olsen
"Young England Looks at America" by Gillian Avery

Needless to say, it looks "yummy"!

Collected Miscellany - What Kind of Book Person are You?

1) What is your favorite type of bookstore?
A. A large chain that is well lit, stuffed full of books, and has a café.
B. A dark, rather dusty, used bookstore full of mysterious and vaguely organized books.
C. A local independent bookstore that has books by local authors and coffee.

Hon, a bookstore is a bookstore is a bookstore. All of the above. Not to mention the online stores--but they just don't have that appeal, especially the delicious scent of bookprint...

2) What would excite you more?
A. A brand new book by your favorite author.
B. Finding a classic you've been wanting to read.
C. Receiving a free book from a friend in the mail.

Ooooh, I'm greedy; I want all three.

3) What's your favorite format?
A. Novel
B. Short story
C. Poetry

Novel, followed by short story. Certain poems are cool, though.

4) Favorite format, part II.
A. Contemporary fiction.
B. Classic novels.
C. Genre (mystery, espionage, etc.)

Genre, mostly, although I have many favorite classic novels. Contemporary fiction in general leaves me cold, like the old "Oprah's bookshelf" material.

5) Favorite format, part III (none of the above) Fiction or non?
A. Almost entirely fiction.
B. Almost entirely non-fiction.
C. A mix of both.

C. Although I probably have more fiction--but you haven't seen my collection of history and Christmas books. :-)

6) Does the design and condition of the book matter?
A. Yes, I love a well designed book and keep mine in mint condition.
B. No, the words are what matter.
C. Yes and no, I appreciate good design and treat my books with respect but I am not obsessive about it.

Hmn. Is this how I keep my books or how I purchase my books? I'm afraid I've gotten enough gravy stains and berry spots on my books, simply because I'm obsessive enough to be reading even when I eat. As for buying them, if I want it bad enough, I'll pretty much take anything. Some of my St. Nicholas volumes were in horrendous shape. I've glued, taped, and patched. Heck, I once wanted an out-of-print book so badly I paid someone to photocopy it for me.

7) On average how many books do you read a month?
A. I am lucky to read one.
B. I am dedicated. I read 4 or 5.
C. I am a fiend. I read 10 or more!

Ah, a simple question. C!

8) Do you prefer to own or borrow?
A. There is a particular joy in owning a book. I have a large library.
B. Why spend money when you can read it for free? I use the public library.
C. Different tools for different jobs. I do both.

I borrow books from the library all the time. Some I just want to read but not to keep. Some I have read and then ended up buying (or going to buy--Sudden Sea isn't out in paperback until August). I'd rather own most of them; it's a bit hard to hit the library at two in the morning.

9) Where do you get (the majority) your book news?
A. Newspapers.
B. Magazines.
C. TV
D. Blogs.

Sheesh, almost always A, B, and C recommend bestsellers. I tend to loathe bestsellers. I think I've read about a few interesting books on blogs. More likely it's a newsgroup or a search on Amazon.com.

10) Are books a professional obsession?
A. Yes, I work in the field (writer, reviewer, publisher, teacher, etc.).
B. No, I do it for fun.
C. Kinda, I write the occasional review but have a regular job outside of books.

Sadly, B. I'd love to do something I love for a living, especially working with words. I hate numbers. Numbers are God's way of punishing us for our sins.