Vintage Contemporaries,
2005. 352 pages.
Fiction Favorites
The Canadian author's short stories offer examinations of
love and life: meandering paths, unbounded betrayals, sundry surprises. We establish immediate and neighborly connections with Munro's characters, women of varying age and circumstance who connect and disconnect with friends and loved
ones, often in the snow. Indeed, there is incomparable snowfall in Runaway: snow that sits in thick caps on top of the rocks... plastered to the windward side of the trees... large flakes of snow... falling straight down, leaving on the sidewalks a fluffy coating that melted into black tracks where people walked, and then filled up again... snow that already had a gray tinge to it, as if it had got old overnight... Fiction Favorites
This literally and meteorologically brings us to Sunday, January 23, 2005.
A thick, plastering, large-flaked snowfall, followed by a fluffy coating, followed by a gray-tinged cycle of
freezing, thawing, and re-freezing, has rendered Our Flagstone Walkway hazardous for pedestrian traffic. In the late morning, a paper-bagged hardcover copy of Runaway is
delivered to Our Home and hung on the exterior garage door handle by a Reader-and-a-Friend,
one who is eager to share the gift of incomparable literary fiction but unwilling
to risk a trip on Our Flagstone Walkway. Undetected by button-pressing inhabitants
of the icebound domicile, the paper-bagged hardcover copy of Runaway travels up and down on the
garage door handle for several hours that winter afternoon. The practiced reader of incomparable literary fiction will understand, then, the circumstances that deliver us to Monday, January 24, 2005.
TROUBLESHOOTING! We rifle through The MVP by Allstar Residential Vehicular Garage Door Installation and Owner’s Manual, scanning
the table of contents for mention of: MIDDLE GUIDE RAIL OBSTRUCTIONS; see also SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS JAMMING THE SYSTEM, or: PAPER-BAGGED HARDCOVER FICTION, see also ALL F-ED UP.
Even as we marvel that one work of literary fiction has delivered incomparable domestic and psychological havoc to our garage doorstep, we recall that works of incomparable domestic and psychological fiction often connect us to other works of incomparable domestic and psychological fiction, literature previously beyond our range of temporal experience and thought...
Even as we marvel that one work of literary fiction has delivered incomparable domestic and psychological havoc to our garage doorstep, we recall that works of incomparable domestic and psychological fiction often connect us to other works of incomparable domestic and psychological fiction, literature previously beyond our range of temporal experience and thought...
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia
Woolf.
Hogarth Press, 1925. 225 pages.
Oldies But Goodies
As she makes preparations
for a party she will host one 1920s English evening, upper-class and middle-aged political
spouse Clarissa Dalloway spends the day ruminating on her youth—when she opted
for a sensible existence rather than following an adventurous man who was very much in love with her. The
story rambles across the timeline and rummages through characters’ psyches,
delivering an eloquent depiction of between-the-wars social and domestic life. Compounded from two of Woolf’s short
stories, Mrs. Dalloway provides thematic impetus for....
The Hours: A Novel by
Michael Cunningham.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
1998. 230 pages.
The Pulitzer Project
In 1923 suburban London, Virginia
Woolf puts pen to paper with nascent notions of
Mrs. Dalloway, struggling to craft an opening line, struggling with her own
mental illness. In 1949 Los Angeles, Laura
Brown, pregnant and restless wife of a World War II veteran, is torn between
reading Mrs. Dalloway and planning her husband’s birthday party. And in present-day Greenwich Village, middle-aged-care-giving
lesbian Clarissa Vaughan is planning a party celebrating the literary success of her oldest love: Richard, a seriously ill poet who
has nicknamed her Mrs. Dalloway. We appreciate the Pulitzer-winning
point that three generations of women with very different lives share important
connections and communality of feeling-- including, but not limited to, party planning, personal
conflict, and intimations of global angst.
As Garden State Door Guy continues to restore important connections, alleviating intimations of residential vehicular garage door angst, we consider...
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.
grim mouth... features
that define a proud and defiant man, features that belie a man capable of warmth
and deep feeling. This dichotomous vibe
quite masters young Jane and captures the sympathetic affection of older, wiser Jane. Reader, she marries
him... every time we read the book! In many ways, Charlotte Brontë's mid-nineteenth century novel changes the face of fiction—with its exploration
of internal life and considerations of morality, class, sexuality,
religion, and feminism. In every way, it leads
to a mid-twentieth century re-visitation of these themes—and a haunting
re-consideration of the madwoman in the attic of Thornfield Hall.
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean
Rhys.
As Garden State Door Guy continues to restore important connections, alleviating intimations of residential vehicular garage door angst, we consider...
Puffin Books, 2011
(1847). 461 pages.
Oldies But Goodies
We revisit Jane every decade or so, following and re-following her escape from an oppressive upbringing, her life experience, her emotional growth, her slowly-but-surely awakening love for iconically ironic hero, Mr. Rochester. Indeed, Miss Eyre rambles on and on about Mr. Rochester. She steals glances at
her master, studying his colourless, olive face, square, massive brow, broad
and jetty eyebrows, deep eyes, strong features, firm,  |
| The Face of Fiction, 1854 |
Norton, 1992 (1966). 189 pages.
Historical Fiction
In this postcolonial prequel
to Jane Eyre with an archipelagic drum beat... reader, she marries him, too.
And by she, we mean white Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway, aka
Bertha Mason, aka eventually the madwoman in the attic of Thornfield
Hall! The story follows Antoinette’s
adolescence in the West Indies, her removal to England, her passionate love for
and unhappy union with Mr. Rochester. In this case, it appears that a colourless,
olive face, square, massive brow, broad and jetty eyebrows, deep eyes, strong
features, firm, grim mouth indicate a callous and
conceited ironically iconic hero.
The Flight of Gemma Hardy:
A Novel by Margo Livesey.
Harper Perennial, 2012. 446 pages.
Fiction Favorites
Modern intimations of classic Jane. Orphaned and removed from her native Iceland when her widowed father drowns at sea-- 0h my góðvild!-- Gemma Hardy comes to live with a kindly uncle and his kind-of-unkind family. His death leaves our heroine under the care of a now-completely-unkind aunt, bless og gott riddance! After a stint at an oppressive yet formative private school, Gemma finds employment as an au pair to the niece of soon-to-be-ironic hero Mr. Sinclair, master of Blackbird Hall on the far-flung Orkney Islands. Not surprisingly, Gemma launches into all manner of archipelagic life experience and emotional growth, rambling on and on about Mr. Sinclair. We think, reader, she will marry him!
The service call continues.
Garden State Door Guy, proudly serving the tri-state area since 1972, tweaks and reconnects a tortured torsion spring. Our fragmented thoughts turn to...
Harper Perennial, 2012. 446 pages.
Fiction Favorites
Modern intimations of classic Jane. Orphaned and removed from her native Iceland when her widowed father drowns at sea-- 0h my góðvild!-- Gemma Hardy comes to live with a kindly uncle and his kind-of-unkind family. His death leaves our heroine under the care of a now-completely-unkind aunt, bless og gott riddance! After a stint at an oppressive yet formative private school, Gemma finds employment as an au pair to the niece of soon-to-be-ironic hero Mr. Sinclair, master of Blackbird Hall on the far-flung Orkney Islands. Not surprisingly, Gemma launches into all manner of archipelagic life experience and emotional growth, rambling on and on about Mr. Sinclair. We think, reader, she will marry him!
Garden State Door Guy, proudly serving the tri-state area since 1972, tweaks and reconnects a tortured torsion spring. Our fragmented thoughts turn to...
Howard’s End by E.M.
Forster.
Vintage Books, 1954
(1910). 343 pages.
Oldies But Goodies
Only connect... Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die. We recollect how Forster’s finely-turned
masterwork, an elegant exploration of social, domestic, moral, and philosophical
tensions in post-Victorian England, connects us to...
On Beauty: A Novel by Zadie
Smith.
Penguin Books, 2005. 445 pages.
Fiction Favorites
Meet the Belseys: ultra-liberal,
assiduously non-religious, dealing with consequences of patriarchal indiscretion and betrayal. English academician Howard
Belsey, his African-American wife Kiki, and children Jerome, Zora, and Levi
make their home in a fictional New England university town. Next, meet the Kipps: ultra-conservative,
especially religious, dealing with the incidentals of patriarchal ego and all-consuming career. Montgomery Kipps is Howard Belsey’s
professional rival and personal nemesis; a native of Trinidad, he is living in
England with wife Carlene and two children, Victoria and Michael.
 |
| Only Connect: E.M. Forster |
Like Howard’s End, On
Beauty explores relationships between two households with contradictory modi operandi and value systems, families with different yet increasingly intersecting
lives. We find many narrative
and thematic equivalencies between the two novels. Howard’s End opens with snail mail from one
sister to another, while Smith’s comedy of manners kicks off with
email missives from son to father. Sympathetic
character Ruth Wilcox attempts to bequeath a house—the titular Howards End-- to
unlikely friend Margaret Schlegal, for goodness' sake; On Beauty's equally sympathetic character
Carlene Kipps bequeaths a treasured painting to unlikely friend Kiki Belsey,
also for goodness' sake.
In the (Howard's) End, On Beauty
expands and elaborates upon Forster’s novel, addressing ethnicity
and culture on both sides of the pond, instigating provocative conversations on
the nature of beauty and the eternal clash of liberal and conservative ideals
in insular academia, on the modern domestic front, and in the wider world.
Not one to instigate provocative conversations on the nature of beauty and the eternal clash of liberal and conservative ideals on the modern domestic front, Garden State Door Guy instead pronounces, Your safety reversing sensor, it's all f-ed up. Piece of molding must have hit it. The red light shouldn’t be
blinking...
The Great Gatsby by F.
Scott Fitzgerald.
And speaking of transformative connections, we wonder when this service call will be complete. It’s
getting late in the day, growing dark, and the dismal prospect of a delayed
dinner lay spread before us like Miss Havisham's wedding banquet. Beats the Dickens out of me, grumbles Garden State Door Guy, changing the position of his stepladder, ascending to repair parts unknown...
Charles Scribner’s Sons,
1925. 218 pages.
Oldies But Goodies
This masterwork of Jazz Age
literature offers no insight into residential vehicular garage door repair; however, we visit George Wilson’s garage, a morally and socially decayed auto body shop proudly serving the morally and socially decayed Valley of Ashes since... Dr. T. J. Eckleburg was fitted for spectacles. And while
Fitzgerald makes no mention of blinking red lights, we learn soon enough
that Jay Gatsby—soldier, entrepreneurial bootlegger, tormented house party host— believes in the green light, the orgastic future that
year by year recedes before us.
The Double Bind by Chris
Bohjalian.
Shaye Areheart Books,
2007. 368 pages.
Fiction Favorites
The story of Jay Gatsby and
his consummate yet impracticable love for Daisy Buchanan provide
character, ambiance, and plot machination for this literary thriller. Reviewed by the Cellar Door Book Society in Fiction Favorites, the novel double-spellbindingly
toggles between Fitzgerald's fictional Roaring Twenties West Egg, Long Island, and Bohjalian's fictional Rural Twenty-first Century New England.
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly into the past....
Not done. Just. Yet. Garden State Door Guy lumbers across the cold concrete floor. Now we gotta change the angle of
the safety reversing sensor and reconnect the current. This residential vehicular garage door opener, it's all f-ed up. We nod solemnly, appreciating continuing employment of technical jargon in an incomparable moment of crisis.
Madame Bovary by Gustave
Flaubert.
Signet Classics, 2013 (1856, in serial form). 441 pages.
Oldies But Goodies
The great French auteur Gustave Flaubert solipsistically declared, Emma Bovary, c’est moi. Le Emma qui est Flaubert, bien sûr, is a romantic dreamer from the French countryside, full of hope and great expectation when she marries tediously respectable doctor Charles Bovary. Wedded bliss proves barely blissful, however; encouraged by a steady diet of incomparable sentimental fiction, Madame Bovary retreats from bucolic banality, straight into the arms of—gasp—adulterous love affairs and—gasp—accompanying financial ruin. A century-and-a-half later, a blissful bit of historical coincidence inspires the fictional encounter between real-life Flaubert qui est Emma and real-life social reformer-heroine qui est Florence Nightingale...
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly into the past....
Signet Classics, 2013 (1856, in serial form). 441 pages.
Oldies But Goodies
The great French auteur Gustave Flaubert solipsistically declared, Emma Bovary, c’est moi. Le Emma qui est Flaubert, bien sûr, is a romantic dreamer from the French countryside, full of hope and great expectation when she marries tediously respectable doctor Charles Bovary. Wedded bliss proves barely blissful, however; encouraged by a steady diet of incomparable sentimental fiction, Madame Bovary retreats from bucolic banality, straight into the arms of—gasp—adulterous love affairs and—gasp—accompanying financial ruin. A century-and-a-half later, a blissful bit of historical coincidence inspires the fictional encounter between real-life Flaubert qui est Emma and real-life social reformer-heroine qui est Florence Nightingale...
The Twelve Rooms of the Nile
by Enid Shomer.
Simon & Schuster, 2012. 449 pages.
Historical Fiction
Who knew? Before Gustave Flaubert put Madame Bovary-producing pen to paper—and before Florence Nightingale illuminated the darkness of war and founded modern nursing—the French author and The Lady with the Lamp floated the Nile at the same time and, in this incomparably imagined fiction, become first friends and finally soul mates.
In 1850, twenty-nine-year-old
Miss Nightingale-- lovely, restless and radical, a voluntary spinster-in-waiting
from a prominent English family-- sets sail on the Nile, attended by family
friends and Trout, her somewhat sphinxlike maid. Meanwhile, twenty-eight-year-old
Monsieur Flaubert and bien buddy Maxime Du Camp embark on an expedition to
explore the monuments of ancient Egypt. Tormented
by the death of his père and his sœur, troubled
by inexplicable seizures, and traumatized by negative creative feedback from his
closest amis, Gustave is, like Florence, physically, emotionally and
spiritually adrift. When Gustave meets Florence: the two
travelers, one a notorious womanizer and the other a sexually naïve woman, forge a
passionate friendship, marked by intellectual exchange, humorous repartee, passionate
gestures, genuine affection, and transformative connection.
Simon & Schuster, 2012. 449 pages.
Historical Fiction
Who knew? Before Gustave Flaubert put Madame Bovary-producing pen to paper—and before Florence Nightingale illuminated the darkness of war and founded modern nursing—the French author and The Lady with the Lamp floated the Nile at the same time and, in this incomparably imagined fiction, become first friends and finally soul mates.
 |
| The Lady with the Lamp |
 |
| Miss Havisham's Old Cake, It's What's for Dinner. |
Great Expectations by
Charles Dickens.
Knopf, 1992 (1861, in three
volumes). 469 pages.
Oldies But Goodies
We changed again, and yet
again, and it was now too late and too far to go back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and
the world lay spread before me. Ah,
yes, beloved Pip: plucked from a life of
poverty, educated, groomed as a gentleman, educated again and again on the
mean streets of Victorian England. Great
Expectations is one of the greatest coming of age
stories in English literature, and it inspires another coming of age story, this one penned by a
New Zealand author...
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones.
Finished, interjects Garden State Door Guy, triumphantly descending the step ladder, mopping his brow, eyeballing the shredded paper bag and the hideously deformed hardcover copy of Runaway with newfound respect. Talk about the power of
great literature! That short story collection really did a number on your residential vehicular garage door opener. It was...
We bestow upon him an incomparable look.
Dial Press, 2008
(2006). 256 pages.
Fiction Favorites
On the remote tropical
island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea, thirteen-year-old Matilda survives the
depredations of war and the ravages of rebel fighting through the sheltering
guidance of her strict Christian mother and the somewhat eccentric inspiration of
Mr. Watts, the white school teacher who introduces her to Great
Expectations. Mister Pip is a novel about
the potency of reading and the power of great literature: Matilda’s connection with Pip helps her endure
the practically unendurable loss of her mother, her teacher, and her island way
of life...
We bestow upon him an incomparable look.
We know, we know. It was all f-ed up.
I'll be preparing the invoice now, he says, backing away slowly toward the idling van.
I love the literary connections, but mortified about the garage door!
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