Page Reprint: The Duel by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (Дуэль на Антон Павлович Чехов)

It is through his plays that I best know Anton Chekov. The Duel is the first prose work of this Russian writer that I’ve read and the impetus for the reading was the adaption of the novella into a film, which I recently viewed. Although The Duel (1891) was written four years before Chekhov’s first play, The Seagull (Чайка), a four-act play structure, preferred by Chekhov, can be seen in this prose piece with the addition of a Prologue and Epilogue. Chekhov wrote the piece in twenty-one sections and the following is my break down of the prose work into a play format. This is one approach to the reading of The Duel. The titles given to the sections/scenes are mine.

Prologue – Section I – Summer Morning in the Caucasus
Here on an early Summer morning in a small town located in the Caucasus, the reader is introduced to two men swimming in the sea and later having coffee In the pavilion. First is the main character of the story, Ivan Andreich Laevsky (hereafter, Laevsky), a young government official whose unhappiness with his life away from Moscow and Petersburg has come to a crisis point and he longs to escape “To the pines, to the mushrooms, to people, to ideas…” (page 122). And the second man is Alexander Davidych Samoilenko (hereafter, Samoilenko), older and an army doctor who is the focal character of the narrative, the person others seek out and who willingly gives them his advice.

Act I – Summer Afternoon
During the afternoon of the morning in the Prologue, lunchtime is presented in two households. The first is the one that Laevsky shares with Nadezhda Fyodorovna (hereafter, Nadezhda), the married woman Laevsky ran away with from Petersburg to the Caucasus and the second is Samoilenko’s, who provides lunch for the zoologist Nikolai Vassilievich von Koren (hereafter, von Koren), who is hostile to Laevsky “’…everything comes down to drink, cards, slippers, and women. Women play a fatal, overwhelming role in his life.’” (page 137) and for the deacon Pobedov (hereafter, the deacon).
Scene 1 – Section II – Lunch with Laevsky and Nadezhda
Scene 2 – Section III – Samoilenko’s Table d’Hôte
Scene 3 – Section IV – Von Koren Discusses Laevsky with Samoilenko

Act II – Sunday and Monday
The reader meets more inhabitants of the small Caucasus town during an evening picnic in the countryside. Three of them are Marya Konstantinovna Bitiugov (hereafter, Marya), who provides the moral compass for Nadezhda; the police chief Ilya Mikhailych Kirilin (hereafter, Kirilin), Nadezhda’s discarded lover; and young Atchmianov, Nadezhda’s would-be lover. And Laevsky’s opinion of von Koren is voiced “’Despotism is a strong in science as in war. And he’s living for the second summer in this stinking little town, because it’s better to be first in a village than second in a city. Here he’s a king and an eagle; he’s got all the inhabitants under his thumb and oppresses them with his authority. He’s taken everybody in hand, he interferes in other people’s affairs, he wants to be in on everything, and everybody’s afraid of him. I’m slipping out from under his paw, he senses it, and he hates me’” (page 169).
Scene 1 – Section V – Nadezhda and Marya at the Shore
Scene 2 – Section VI – Picnic at the Black and Yellow Rivers
Scene 3 – Section VII – Nadezhda Talks with Kirilin and Atchmianov
Scene 4 – Section VIII – Von Koren Dismisses Nadezhda to Samoilenko
Scene 5 – Section IX – Laevsky Discusses von Koren with Samoilenko

Act III – Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
Revelations come forth over the course of three days. Marya was the only woman of the town to receive Nadezhda “You horrified me from the very first day, but I was unable to treat you with scorn, like everyone else. I suffered for dear, kind Ivan Andreich as for a son.” (page 173); some of the money for Laevsky’s “escape” would come from von Koren; and Kirilin is actually repulsive not respectable.
Scene 1 – Section X – Nadezhda and Marya Speak of Domestic Issues
Scene 2 – Section XI – Roubles for Laevsky
Scene 3 – Section XII – Kostya’s Birthday Celebration
Scene 4 – Section XIII – Laevsky’s Nervous Breakdown
Scene 5 – Section XIV – Nadezhda Meets Kirilin and Misses Atchmianov

Act IV – Friday and Saturday
Resolutions are made between persons: the affair between Nadezhda and Kirilin; the love of Laevsky and Nadezhda; the philosophies of von Koren and the deacon; and the hate between Laevasky and von Koren “…coming back from a cemetery where they had just buried a difficult, unbearable man who had interfered with all their lives.” (page 231).
Scene 1 – Section XV – The Challenge and the Betrayal
Scene 2 – Section XVI – Philosophy of the Strong Versus the Weak
Scene 3 – Section XVII – Duel Day Dawns
Scene 4 – Section XVIII – The Deacon’s Journey
Scene 5 – Section XIX – Duelists Arrive, Duelists Fire
Scene 6 – Section XX – Duel Dénouement

Epilogue – Section XXI – Autumn Night in the Caucasus
It is three months after the events and von Koren is taking his leave of the town. So on the night of a storm-filled day and before he is rowed out to the waiting steamer, von Koren says good-bye to some of the people of the town. As he has always been von Koren’s friend, Samoilenko sees him off at the shore with a fond farewell into the dark “’Don’t forget me, Kolya…Write…We’ll expect you next spring.’” (page 236).


Note: The adage has always been “to not judge a book by its cover”. However, I propose that a book cover can be judged by its art. The cover of the short novel collection in which I read The Duel can be seen above right. I don’t like the dots that go across most of the cover (they don’t add anything positive to the overall image) and the red rectangle should be higher on the cover so that there is space between it and the heads of the people in the photograph. Actually, my suggestion for a revision of the elements on this cover would be to eliminate the dots; to keep the photograph; to put Chekhov’s name across the top (above the heads!) in red lettering (no rectangle); to move the title down a little to below the man’s hand; and to keep the white lettering as is for the title, et.al.


Book Facts: Title: The Complete Short Novels, Author: Anton Chekhov, Translators: Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky, Table of Contents: Introduction, Select Bibliography, Chronology, The Steppe, The Duel, The Story of an Unknown Man, Three Years, My Life, Notes, Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, Book Division: Borzoi, Book Series: Everyman’s Library, Book Format: Hardcover with dust jacket, Year: 2004, Pages: 600, Language: English, ISBN: 1-4000-40249-3


Images:
Left: Anton Pavlovich Chekhov from the website upload.wikimedia.org
Center: Graphic interpretation of The Duel by Adrean Darce Brent
Right: Front cover of The Complete Short Novels

Vis-À-Vis: “Writing On The City, Writing On The Margins”

The G2 Gallery in Venice, California was the setting for the second Vis-À-Vis panel of the day. On the second floor of this venue, the audience was seated in the “Visions of the Arctic” color photography exhibition area. It was a larger space than the first panel’s venue and the established seating was adequate. However, the event was running behind schedule and the panel session began about a half hour later than expected. Before the panel began, copies of “Fiction France: A Selection of French Contemporary Fiction To Be Read And Translated” dated March 2009 were handed out to the audience.

This second panel’s authors were James Frey (Bright Shiny Morning), Richard Lange (This Wicked World), and Jean Rolin (Christians in Palestine) and the panel moderator was Olivier Barrot. Once again the panel focus was on the reading of excerpts from the authors’ works. James Frey read an excerpt from his book Bright Shiny Morning. Frey, who used to live in Venice, California from 1995 to 2002, said that his book has no single protagonist or story. He also revealed that about seventy-five percent of the statistics in the book are accurate with the remaining twenty-five percent being inaccurate (he made them up to serve his own purposes with the novel). The question then becomes, does Frey tell the reader which of the statistics are accurate and which are inaccurate?

Next, instead of from This Wicked World, Jean Rolin read in French, an excerpt from “Culver City”, a short story from Richard Lange’s Dead Boys. Then Lange read that same excerpt in English. Lange had attended film school at the University of Southern California, but discovered he did not enjoy the collaborative nature of film making and turned to writing. Los Angeles is the city that Lange really loves.

Finally, Jean Rolin read his entry in “Fiction France” (mentioned above), which is an excerpt from Un Chien Mort Après Lui (A Dead Dog After Him), while the French-reading people in the audience followed along in the publication. Rolin is in Los Angeles learning how to get around using the public transportation system. He recounted his travels from Los Angeles to Calabasas and from Long Beach to Malibu via bus and rail, remarking on the length of time it took to complete those two journeys. Rolin is doing this public transportation activity as part of his preparation for his next work. Besides, the only car he can drive is a Renault Ford and there probably aren’t too many of them in Los Angeles.

It was Jean Rolin’s book Christians in Palestine that I bought at the end of the session. This is a new subject for me, but sure to give a perspective on the Middle East not usually known. Unfortunately Jean Rolin had left by the time I bought the paperback, so I was unable to have him sign the book or talk to him. As I am also a taker of public transportation, I wanted to share my views of the bus traveler’s life in Los Angeles. Oh well, perhaps someday we’ll meet on a, sometimes inaccurately named, Rapid bus. Until then – Bon Voyage!


Images:
Left: Front cover of Bright Shiny Morning from the website visavisla.blogspot.com
Center: Front cover of This Wicked World from the website visavisla.blogspot.com

Right: Front cover of Christians in Palestine from the website visavisla.blogspot.com

Vis-À-Vis: “The Novel Vs. Cinema And Television”

The venue for the first panel of Vis-À-Vis was located in the entry area of the Consortium Gallery in Venice, California. Surrounded by large, colorful abstract paintings and a couple of black and white photographs, the audience patiently waited for the session to begin. Actually more seating had to be added as more people than had been anticipated arrived for the session. Of course that took time and the panel began later than its scheduled start hour. The front door to the Consortium remained opened during the panel readings and discussion, which allowed not only more people to enter, but also outside noises as well. It was a drawback to the ambience to hear the sounds of car engines and cell phone conversations jolt into the space and compete with the voices of the authors.

The authors for this initial panel were Philippe Djian (Impardonnables), Steve Erickson (Zeroville), and Norman Klein (The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory) and the panel moderator was Laure Murat. The majority of the time was devoted to the reading of excerpts/notes from a work by each author. An excerpt from Philippe Dijian’s Impardonnables (Unforgivable) was begun in English by an actor, continued in French by Djian, and finished, once again by the actor, in English. Then Steve Erickson read excerpts, in English, from the beginning of Zeroville. Finally, instead of reading an excerpt from The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory, Norman Klein chose to present notes and ideas from a work he is in the process of writing.

From the short discussion that followed, Djian offered, in regard to cinema, “change the angles, change the view of the world.” Some of Djian’s works have been made into films, but he does not feel betrayed if the film is not an exact reflection of his words. That was unexpected – I know that I would want any writings of mine to be filmed accurately. If there were to be changes, then I would want to be the screenwriter and make them myself. Erickson mentioned The English Patient as an influence, while for Klein it was Tristram Shandy (complete title: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman). The consensus distinction between cinema and the novel is that film making is a collective endeavor, while writing is a private one - the team versus the individual. Even though one of them had been a film student (Erickson), obviously working individually won out, though films are the centerpiece of his novel Zeroville. Perhaps having an actual filmmaker as part of the panel would have added another insight into the discussion.

After the panel ended, books by the authors were for sale and I bought a paperback copy of Steve Erickson’s Zeroville. And before he settled into videotaping an interview, Erickson signed my newly purchased book. I do know that before reading Zeroville I will have to watch “A Place in the Sun” again, as that is the protagonist’s core film – in fact the faces of the two lead actors are inked on his head for all to see. Now that’s one way to start a dialogue – têtes à tête!


Images:
Left: Front cover of Impardonnables (Unforgivable) from the website visavisla.blogspot.com
Center: Front cover of Zeroville from the website visavisla.blogspot.com
Right: Front cover of The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory from the website visavisla.blogspot.com

Fay Weldon – Tuesday 22 September 1931 – still living as of this post

Introduction

The first literature festival I ever attended was The London Festival of Literature 2000 and it was where I first experienced poetry as performance. However, it was Fay Weldon’s appearance on Wednesday 27 September 2000 that was the spark of the festival for me. I was familiar with Fay’s writing through her short story collection, Wicked Women. At the festival Fay talked about her novel, Rhode Island Blues. There was a book signing and Fay wrote the following in my copy of the novel – “To Adrean, with best wishes, Fay Weldon London ‘The Word' – Sept. 2000”.

Excerpt from Chapter 1 in Rhode Island Blues

“My grandmother Felicity had seldom refrained from speaking the truth out of compassion for others, but I was too tired and guilty to argue, let alone murmur that actually she was only eighty-three not eighty-five. Felicity spoke from her white clapboard house on a hillside outside Norwich, Connecticut, with its under-floor music system and giant well-stocked fridge, full of uneatable doughy products in bright ugly bags, Lite this and Lite that, and I listened to her reproaches in a cramped brick apartment in London’s Soho. Her voice echoed through an expensive, languid, graceful, lonely, spacious, carpetless house: she kept the doors unlocked and the windows undraped, squares of dark looking out into even blacker night, where for all anyone knew axe murderers lurked. My voice in reply lacked echo: here in central London the rooms were small and cluttered and the windows were barred, and thick drapes kept out the worst of the late-night surge of noise as the gay pubs below emptied out and the gay clubs began to fill. I felt safer here than I ever did when visiting Felicity on her grassy hillside. A prostitute worked on the storey below mine, sopping up any sexual fury which might feel inclined to stray up the stairs, and a graphic designer worked above me, all fastidious control and expertise, which I liked to think seeped downwards to me.

Mine was a fashionable, expensive and desirable address for London. I could walk to work, which I valued, though it meant pushing my way through crowds both celebratory and perverse: the tight butts of the sexually motivated and the spreading butts of gawking tourists an equal nonsense. Was there no way of averaging them out, turning them all into everyday non-loitering citizens? But then you might as well be living in a suburb, and for my kind of person that meant the end.”


Yesterday’s writer – Maria Tatar

Source: Weldon, Fay: Rhode Island Blues. Flamingo, 2000. ISBN 0 00 225849 8. Excerpt: pages 1-2

Images:
Left: Front cover of my personal copy of Rhode Island Blues
Center: Fay Weldon from the website redmood.com
Right: Signed title page of my personal copy of Rhode Island Blues

Zadie Smith – Saturday 25 October 1975 – still living as of this post

Introduction

Here’s the last author that I met at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2001. White Teeth is Zadie Smith’s first novel. And from my journal I wrote: “Zadie read three pieces – part of a letter, excerpt from her next novel, and some writing on her book tour of the States. Really liked the letter. Then the usual Q & A session.” – personal journal, Saturday 25 August 2001. Of course, Zadie signed the copy of White Teeth that I bought.


Dedication in White Teeth

“To my mother and my father And for Jimmi Rahman”

Excerpt from Teething Trouble in White Teeth

“But Archie did not pluck Clara Bowden from a vacuum. And it’s about time people told the truth about beautiful women. They do not shimmer down staircases. They do not descend, as was once supposed, from on high, attached to nothing other than wings. Clara was from somewhere. She had roots. More specifically, she was from Lambeth (via Jamaica) and she was connected, through tacit adolescent agreement, to one Ryan Topps. Because before Clara was beautiful she was ugly. And before there was Clara and Archie there was Clara and Ryan. And there is no getting away from Ryan Topps. Just as a good historian need recognize Hitler’s Napoleonic ambitions in the east in order to comprehend his reluctance to invade the British in the west, so Ryan Topps is essential to any understanding of why Clara did what she did. Ryan is indispensable. There was Clara and Ryan for eight months before Clara and Archie were drawn together from opposite ends of a staircase. And Clara might never have run into the arms of Archie Jones if she hadn’t been running quite as fast as she could away from Ryan Topps.”


Yesterday’s writer – Dorothy L. Sayers
Tomorrow’s writer – Gloria Steinem

Source: Smith, Zadie. White Teeth. Penguin, 2000. ISBN 0-140-27633-5. Excerpt: page 27

Images:
Left: Front cover of my personal copy of White Teeth
Center: Zadie Smith from the website villagevoice.com

Right: Signed title page of my personal copy of White Teeth

Dorothy L. (Leigh) Sayers – Tuesday 13 June 1893 – Tuesday 17 December 1957

Introduction

I became acquainted with the works of Dorothy L. Sayers, specifically her character Lord Peter Wimsey, through PBS (Public Broadcasting Service). Now I don’t remember if the broadcasting station was WGBH or KCET, but in any case it was an introduction to a detective with a different style in approaching crime. And that style can be seen to great effect in Busman’s Honeymoon (spoiler alert).

Dedication in Busman’s Honeymoon

“To Muriel St. Clare Byrne, Helen Simpson and Marjorie Barber”

Excerpt from Chapter II Goosefeather Bed in Busman’s Honeymoon

“Under the circumstances, Harriet made no attempt to change her dress. The room, though spacious and beautiful in its half-timbered style, was cold. She wondered whether, all things considered, Peter would not have been happier in the Hotel Gigantic somewhere-or-other on the Continent. She hoped that, after his struggles with the woodshed, he would find a good, roaring fire to greet him and be able to eat his belated meal in comfort.

Peter Wimsey rather hoped so, too. It took a long time to clear the woodshed, which contained not very much wood, but an infinite quantity of things like dilapidated mangles and wheelbarrows, together with the remains of an old pony-trap, several disused grates and a galvanized iron boiler with a hole in it. But he had his doubts about the weather, and was indisposed to allow Mrs. Merdle (the ninth Daimler of that name) to stand out all night. When he thought of his lady’s expressed preference for haystacks, he sang songs in the French language; but from time to time he stopped singing and wondered whether, after all, she might not have been happier at the Hotel Gigantic, somewhere-or-other on the Continent.”


Yesterday’s writer - Michèle Roberts
Tomorrow’s writer – Zadie Smith

Source: Sayers, Dorothy L. Busman’s Honeymoon. HarperPaperbacks, April 1995. ISBN 0-06-104351-6. Excerpt: page 55

Images
Left: Front cover of my personal copy of Busman’s Honeymoon

Center: Dorothy L. Sayers from the website sayers.org.uk

Michèle Roberts – Friday 20 May 1949 – still living as of this post

Introduction

My favorite literary form is short fiction. I appreciate the skill in writing an effective piece within a limited number of pages or words. I have a number of short fiction anthologies, but few single author short fiction collections. At the 2001 Edinburgh International Festival, I bought several single-author collections of short stories, including Michèle Roberts’ Playing Sardines. She was on a panel with Elena Lappin and in my journal I wrote: “Michèle was more animated than Elena, but both were interesting women. Michèle comes to her writing from a feminist perspective and Elena from a Jewish one. They did readings from their latest works. Both of the excerpts had wit, though Michèle’s turned dark at the end. Both bring a sense of identity to their writings.” – personal journal, Friday 24 August 2001. Michèle signed my copy of Playing Sardines as follows: “dear Adrean with best wishes Michèle”.


Dedication in Playing Sardines

“In memoriam Lorna Sage”

Excerpt from Fluency in Playing Sardines

“It is odd, now that I think about it, that I have never considered Paris as a possible home. Yet I’m sure it could have been perfectly feasible. As a photographer I could have worked anywhere. My French is not as fluent as I’d like, but I speak well enough to get by. My French always improves, anyway, when I’m actually in France, surrounded by French sounds; soaked in them; saturated. Perhaps I’ve simply hung on to holiday cliché, a wornout dream of romance, wanted to keep Paris as my special Somewhere Else, my paradise, the golden city in which I experience life as intensively and ecstatically as though I were on acid. This visionary bliss is not designed to survive daily reality. If I lived in Paris then I’d have to become a tourist to somewhere else instead. London, probably.

I’ve carefully kept Paris as my place of pilgrimage by associating it with the pursuit of particular beloved artist or writer ghosts, tracking down their flats and studios and favourite cafés, or with epiphanies of various sorts: those four small Vuillards I discovered in the Musée d’Orsay last year, for example, on that June day smelling of hot dust, lime blossom and vanilla, that day when I wandered into the little gallery in the rue de Seine and met Pierre for the first time. I’ve gone to Paris with all my lovers, for doomed or magical or awkward weekends. Each different lover provided a different view of the city, different museums and art galleries for us to frequent, dawdling hand in hand or arm in arm, different cafés and bars for us to lounge in while we talked. And because I haven’t always had the courage of my convictions and desires, and so haven’t had all that many lovers, I cannot claim to know Paris very well. I need a map, a bus guide, a plan of the metro, to get me around. A few metro stations shine for ever with my lovers’ names superimposed on them, written up above the entrances to those labyrinthine underworlds in loops of stars.

I had assumed I was finished with Paris as a site of assignation. That I could return to it as just another destination and get to know it properly. No more secret passions. No more mad fantasies. I certainly never intended to fall in love again. All that was over and gone. The pain and suffering and loss – all finished. Now I would learn to love Paris as I loved London, with a modicum of calm. Now I’d visit Paris simply as a reasonable adult, as a professional photographer happily trawling the streets.”


Yesterday’s writer - Anaïs Nin
Tomorrow’s writer – Dorothy L. Sayers

Source: Roberts, Michèle, Playing Sardines. Virago, 2001. ISBN 1-86049-814-0. Excerpt: pages 61-62

Images:
Left: Front cover of my personal copy of Playing Sardines
Center: Michèle Roberts from the website michèleroberts.co.uk
Right: Signed title page of my personal copy of Playing Sardines

Anne McCaffrey – Thursday 1 April 1926 – still living as of this post

Introduction

I want to be a Dragonrider of a Golden queen and lead my Weyr in the fight against Thread! From the first novel, Dragonflight, I have loved the tales of Pern penned by Anne McCaffrey. They just touch something in my imagination. How wonderful it would be to ride a dragon and have such absolute connection with another living creature. Even though I prefer my science fiction located in space and with extra-terrestrial interaction, the Pern Series is a wonderful, different perspective. And Anne’s book, Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern, is a part of the Pern story.

Dedication in Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern

“This book is dedicated to my daughter Georgeanne Johnson with great affection and respect for her courage”

Excerpt from Chapter I of Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern

“Once the Pass was completed…In the act of pulling on a clean undertunic, Moreta paused in surprise. Why, this Pass would end in another eight Turns. No, seven if one counted this Turn a quarter gone. Moreta sternly corrected an optimistic attitude. The Turn was barely seventy days old. Eight Turns then. In eight Turns, she, Moreta, would no longer have to fly with Orlith against Thread. The Red Star would have passed too far to rain the devastating parasitic Thread over Pern’s tired continent. Dragonriders would not have to fly because no Thread would blur the sky.

Did Thread just stop, Moreta wondered as she slipped on her soft brown shoes, like a sudden summer storm? Or did it dribble off like a winter rain?

They could use some rain. Snow would be even better. Or a good hard frost. Frost was always a Weyr ally.

She slipped into the dress now, smoothing it over her rather too broad shoulders, over breasts firm rather than large, a waist that was trim, and buttocks flat from long hours of riding astride. The gown hid muscled thighs that she sometimes resented, but they, too, were the legacy of twenty Turns riding a dragon and little enough inconvenience for being a queen’s rider.”

Yesterday’s writer – Ursula K. Le Guin
Tomorrow’s writer - Anaïs Nin

UPDATE: Anne McCaffrey died on Monday 21 November 2011 in Ireland.

Source: McCaffrey, Anne. Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern. Ballantine Books, June 1989. ISBN 0-345-29873-X. Dedication: page v. Excerpt: page 4.

Images:
Left: Front cover of my personal copy of Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern
Center: Anne McCaffrey from the website annemccaffrey.net

Ursula K. (Kroeber) Le Guin – Monday 21 October 1929 – still living as of this post

Introduction

Not sure how I came across Ursula K. Le Guin, but I first read The Left Hand of Darkness (spoiler alert) in college. Though-provoking presentation of changing gender reality. What would be the ramifications here if one could switch back and forth from one gender to the other? Self-perception?


Dedication in The Left Hand of Darkness

“For Charles, sine quo non"

Excerpt from the Introduction in The Left Hand of Darkness

“In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we’re done with it, we may find-if it is a good novel-that we’re a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have been changes a little, as if by having met a new face, crossed a street we never crossed before. But it’s very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed.”

Excerpt from A Parade in Erhenrang in The Left Hand of Darkness

“I’ll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact my fail or prevail in the style of its telling: like that singular organic jewel of our seas, which grows brighter as one woman wears it and, worn by another, dulls and goes to dust. Facts are no more solid, coherent, round, and real than pearls are. But both are sensitive.

The story is not all mine, nor told by me alone. Indeed I am not sure whose story it is; you can judge better. But it is all one, and if at moments the facts seem to alter with an altered voice, why then you can choose the fact you like best; yet none of them are false, and it is all one story.

It starts on the 44th diurnal of the Year 1491, which on the planet Winter in the nation Karhide was Odharhahad Tuwa or the twenty-second day of the third month of spring in the Year One. It is always the Year One here. Only the dating of every past and future year changes each New Year’s Day, as one counts backwards or forwards from the unitary Now. So it was spring of the Year One in Erhenrang, capital city of Karhide, and I was in peril of my life, and did not know it.”


Yesterday’s writer – Madeleine L’Engle
Tomorrow’s writer – Anne McCaffrey

Source: Le Guin, Ursula K. The Left Hand of Darkness. Ace Books, 1976. ISBN 0-441-47812-3. Excerpt from A Parade in Erhenrang: pages 1-2

Images:
Left: Front cover of my personal copy of The Left Hand of Darkness

Center: Ursula K. Le Guin from the website ursulakleguin.com

Madeleine L’Engle – Friday 29 November 1918 – Thursday 6 September 2007

Introduction

I don’t remember the first time I read Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, but the last time I read it was for a reading group discussion held on Thursday 6 January 2005 at The Talking Stick in Santa Monica (The Talking Stick has since moved to Venice). I so enjoyed reading A Wrinkle in Time again, that I went on and read the other three books that collectively make-up the Time Quartet – A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and Many Waters. Time travel is one of my favorite literary devices and the idea of traveling in time just blows me away. When would you go? One of the minor characters in the book I like is Mrs. Who and her appropriate quotations sprinkled throughout the novel. One such quote is by Pascal “Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point.” Which is translated by Mrs. Who as “The heart has its reasons, whereof reason knows nothing.” (page 35).

Dedication in A Wrinkle in Time

“For Charles Wadsworth Camp and Wallace Collin Franklin”

Excerpt from An Introduction By The Author in A Wrinkle in Time

“In the Time novels, Meg and Polly ask some big questions. Many of us ask these questions are we’re growing up, but we tend to let them go because there’s so much else to do. I write the books I do because I’m still asking the questions. One physicist says that the big question is: Are we alone in the universe or not? I go out at night and look at the stars, hundreds of billions of stars, and think that there are surely other galaxies whose solar systems include planets with thinking life. I don’t believe that we are alone, and that brings up more questions. When I look at the night sky I’m looking at time as well as space, looking at a star seven light-years away, and a star seventy light-years away, or seven hundred or seven thousand or…”

Excerpt from The Tesseract in A Wrinkle in Time

“There was a gust of wind and a great thrust and a sharp shattering as she was shoved through-what? Then darkness; silence; nothingness. If Calvin was still holding her hand she could not feel it. But this time she was prepared for the sudden and complete dissolution of her body. When she felt the tingling coming back to her fingertips she knew that this journey was almost over and she could feel again the presence of Calvin’s hand about hers.

Without warning, coming as a complete and unexpected shock, she felt a pressure she had never imagined, as though she were being completely flattened out by an enormous steam roller. This was far worse than the nothingness had been; while she was nothing there was no need to breathe, but now her lungs were squeezed together so that although she was dying for want of air there was no way for her lungs to expand and contract, to take in the air that she must have to stay alive. This was completely different from the thinning of atmosphere when they flew up the mountain and she had had to put the flowers to her face to breathe. She tried to gasp, but a paper doll can’t gasp. She thought she was trying to think, but her flattened-out mind was as unable to function as her lungs; her thoughts were squashed along with the rest of her. Her heart tried to beat; it gave a knifelike, sidewise movement, but it could not expand.

But then she seemed to hear a voice, or if not a voice, at least words, words flattened out like printed words on paper, “Oh, no! We can’t stop here! This is a two-dimensional planet and the children can’t manage here!”

She was whizzed into nothingness again, and nothingness was wonderful. She did not mind that she could not feel Calvin’s hand, that she could not see or feel or be. The relief from the intolerable pressure was all she needed.”


Yesterday’s writer – P. D. James
Tomorrow’s writer – Ursula K. Le Guin

Source: L’Engle, Madeleine. A Wrinkle in Time. Bantam Doubleday Dell, April 1973. ISBN 0-440-49805-8. Excerpt from The Tesseract: pages 79-80

Images:
Left: Front cover of my personal copy of A Wrinkle in Time

Center: Madeleine L’Engle from the website madeleinelengle.com

P. D. (Phyllis Dorothy) James – Tuesday 3 August 1920 – still living as of this post

Introduction

It was on the first day (Monday 5 March 2001) of my attendance at the Bath Literature Festival that I met P. D. James. She and Frank Delaney were the two-person panel titled “Facing the Music”. They primarily discussed their different types and modes of writing. There was a book signing afterwards and, although there were copies of her various mystery/crime novels available for purchase; I opted for a different type of book and bought P. D.’s The Children of Men, a novel with a science fiction/futuristic slant to the story. P. D. James signed and dated my copy of her book.

Dedication in The Children of Men

“Again, to my daughters Clare and Jane who helped”

Excerpt from Omega of The Children of Men

“Friday 1 January 2021

Early this morning, 1 January 2021, three minutes after midnight, the last human being to be born on earth was killed in a pub brawl in a suburb of Buenos Aires, aged twenty-five years two months and twelve days. If the first reports are to be believed, Joseph Ricardo died as he had lived. The distinction, if one can call it that, of being the last human whose birth was officially recorded, unrelated as it was to any personal virtue or talent, had always been difficult for him to handle. And now he is dead. The news was given to us here in Britain on the nine o’clock programme of the State Radio Service and I heard it fortuitously. I had settled down to begin this diary of the last half of my life when I noticed the time and thought I might as well catch the headlines to the nine o’clock bulletin. Ricardo’s death was the last item mentioned, and then only briefly, a couple of sentences delivered without emphasis in the newscaster’s carefully non-committal voice. But it seemed to me, hearing it, that it was a small additional justification for beginning the diary today; the first day of a new year and my fiftieth birthday. As a child I had always liked that distinction, despite the inconvenience of having it follow Christmas too quickly so that one present — it never seemed notably superior to the one I would in any case have received – had to do for both celebrations.”

UPDATE - P. D. James died in Oxford, England on Thursday 27 November 2014


Yesterday’s writer – Katharine Hepburn
Tomorrow’s writer – Madeleine L’Engle

Source: James, P. D. The Children of Men. Faber and Faber, 2000. ISBN 0-574-20465-1. Excerpt: page 3

Images:
Left: Front cover of my personal copy of The Children of Men
Center: P. D. James from the website faber.co.uk
Right: Signed title page of my personal copy of The Children of Men

Edith Hamilton – Monday 12 August 1867 – Friday 31 May 1963

Introduction

I have always enjoyed the mythology presented in various cultures around the world, but I have especially loved the stories of the Greek and Roman Gods and Goddesses. Not exactly sure what about them appeals to me. Perhaps it is the adventures and exploits they have with each other and humans; or their amazing abilities and recognizable flaws; or maybe it is simply that they are immortal and I found that completely intriguing. In any case, Edith Hamilton’s Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes, is a wonderful book full of the myths surrounding the deities of an earlier time and in a fantastical place.

Excerpt from The Lesser Gods of Olympus in Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes

“THE GRACES were three Aglaia (Splendor), Euphrosyne (Mirth), and Thalia (Good Cheer). They were the daughters of Zeus and Eurynome, a child of the Titan, Ocean. Except in a story Homer and Hesiod tell, that Aglaia married Hephaestus, they are not treated as separate personalities, but always together, a triple incarnation of grace and beauty. The gods delighted in them when they danced enchantingly to Apollo’s lyre, and the man they visited was happy. They “give life its bloom.” Together with their companions, the Muses, they were “queens of song,” and no banquet without them could please.

THE MUSES were nine in number, the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, Memory. At first, like the Graces, they were not distinguished from each other. “They are all,” Hesiod says, “of one mind, their hearts are set upon song and their spirit is free from care. He is happy whom the Muses love. For though a man has sorrow and grief in his soul, yet when the servant of the Muses sings, at once he forgets his dark thoughts and remembers not his troubles. Such is the holy gift of the Muses to men.”

In later times each had her own special field. Clio was Muse of history, Urania of astronomy, Melpomene of tragedy, Thalia of comedy, Terpsichore of the dance, Calliope of epic poetry, Erato of love-poetry, Polyhymnia of songs to the gods, Euterpe of lyric poetry.”


Yesterday’s writer – Mollie Gregory
Tomorrow’s writer – Lorraine Hansberry

Source: Hamilton, Edith. Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes. Mentor Books, 1963. Excerpt: page 37

Images:
Left: Front cover of my personal copy of Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes
Center: Edith Hamilton from the back cover of my personal copy of Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes

Marilyn French – Thursday 21 November 1929 – Saturday 2 May 2009

Introduction

Marilyn French’s novel was one of the first feminist themed books I read. Sometimes it’s a struggle to remain self-defined and to know exactly who you are and where you should be. Or what you should do. The Women’s Room presents these wonderings in an era of awakening for women.

Dedication in The Women’s Room

“TO ISABEL, TO JANET- SISTERS, FRIENDS”

Excerpt from Chapter 1 of The Women’s Room

“Mira was hiding in the ladies’ room. She called it that, even though someone had scratched out the word ladies’ in the sign on the door, and written women’s underneath. She called it that out of thirty-eight years of habit, and until she saw the cross-out on the door, had never thought about it. “Ladies’ room” was a euphemism, she supposed, and she disliked euphemisms on principle. However, she also detested what she called vulgarity, and had never in her life, even when handling it, uttered the word shit. But here she was at the age of thirty-eight huddled for safety in a toilet booth in the basement of Sever Hall, gazing at, no, studying that word and others of the same genre, scrawled on the gray enameled door and walls.

She was perched, fully clothed, on the edge of the open toilet seat, feeling stupid and helpless, and constantly looking at her watch. It would all have been redeemed, even translated into excitement, had there been some grim-faced Walter Matthau in a trench coat, his hand in a gun-swollen pocket, or some wild-eyed Anthony Perkins in a turtleneck, his itching strangler’s hands clenching and unclenching-someone glamorous and terrifying at any rate-waiting for her outside in the hall, if she had been sitting in panic searching for another way out. But of course it that were the case, there would also be a cool and desperate Cary Grant or Burt Lancaster sliding along the walls of another hallway, waiting for Walter to show himself. And that by itself, she thought mournfully, feeling somehow terribly put upon, would have been enough. If she had one of them, anyone at all, waiting for her at home, she would not be hiding in a toilet booth in the basement of Sever Hall. She would have been upstairs in a corridor with the other students, leaning against a wall with her books at her feet, or strolling past the unseeing faces. She could have transcended, knowing she had one of them at home, and could therefore move alone in a crowd. She puzzled over that paradox, but only briefly. The graffiti were too interesting.”


Yesterday’ writer – Fannie Flagg
Tomorrow’s writers – Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubor

Source: French, Marilyn. The Women’s Room. Jove/HBI, October 1978. Dedication: page 4, Excerpt: pages 7-8

Images:

Left: Front cover of my personal copy of The Women’s Room

Center: Marilyn French from the website washingtonpost.com

Fannie Flagg – Thursday 21 September 1944 – still living as of this post

Introduction

Well here’s another novel - Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg - that I haven’t read, but I did see the movie. My reading list keeps getting longer and longer and longer… I suppose I’d have more time to read if I stop going to the movies. Stop going to the movies?? Nah!

Excerpts from Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café

“THE WEEMS WEEKLY (WHISTLE STOP, ALABAMA’S WEEKLY BULLETIN) JUNE 12, 1929
Café Opens

The Whistle Stop Café opened up last week, right next door to me at the post office, and owners Idgie Threadgoode and Ruth Jamison said business has been good over since. Idgie says that for people who know her not to worry about getting poisoned, she is not cooking. All the cooking is being done by two colored women, Sipsey and Onzell, and the barbecue is being cooked by Big George, who is Onzell’s husband.

If there is anybody that has not been there yet, Idgie says that the breakfast hours are from 5:30-7:30, and you can get eggs, grits, biscuits, bacon, sausage, ham and red-eye gravy, and coffee for 25¢.

For lunch and supper you can have fried chicken; pork chops and gravy; catfish; chicken and dumplings; or a barbecue plate; and your choice of three vegetables, biscuits or cornbread, your drink and dessert-for 35¢.

She said the vegetables are creamed corn; fried green tomatoes; fried okra; collard or turnip greens; black-eyed peas; candied yams; butter beans or lima beans.

And pie for dessert.

My other half, Wilbur, and I ate there the other night, and it was so good he says he might not ever eat at home again. Ha. Ha. I wish this were true. I spend all my time cooking for the big lug, and still can’t keep him filled up.

By the way, Idgie says that one of her hens laid an egg with a ten-dollar bill in it.

…Dot Weems”


“FRIED GREEN TOMATOES

1 medium green tomato (per person)
Salt
Pepper
White cornmeal
Bacon drippings

Slice tomatoes about ¼ inch thick, season with salt and pepper and then coat both sides with cornmeal. In a large skillet, heat enough bacon drippings to coat the bottom of the pan and fry tomatoes until lightly browned on both sides.

You’ll think you died and gone to heaven!”



Yesterday’s writer - Noël Riley Fitch
Tomorrow’s writer - Marilyn French

Source: Flagg, Fannie. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café. McGraw-Hill, 1988.
ISBN 0-07-021257-0. Excerpts: pages 3-4, 403

Images:
Left: Front cover of my personal copy of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café.
Center: Fannie Flagg from the website flixster.com

Anne Fine – Sunday 7 December 1947 – still living as of this post

Introduction

I met (in the casual, one-of-a-crowd way that occurs at book signings) Anne Fine at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2001. She gave a talk before the obligatory signing and this is what I wrote in my journal. “…Anne Fine…talked about each of the adult books she has written (…mainly known as a children’s writer). Anne was funny – she says her books have a dark humour to them…will enjoy reading her…has an open and easy personality.” – personal journal, Monday 20 August 2001. Anne signed my copy of her book, Taking the Devil’s Advice, as follows: “For Adrean, With all good wishes Anne Fine.”

Dedication in Taking the Devil’s Advice

“For Tik Enif”

Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Taking the Devil’s Advice

“Look at this. Look! What a cheek. Look what I’ve found hidden away at the back of the bloody airing cupboard.

She has been writing in my autobiography again. She so annoys me. Why must she poke her nose in everything, meddling and prying, forever insisting on her right to be taken into account? Sometime I think my last few waking hours of Perfect Privacy must have passed by, unnoticed and unvalued, the day before I met Constance. How long is it since we parted – three years? Four? Yet here she is, snooping around my room whenever I’m out, leafing through papers on my table, reading the (few) bits that interest her and scribbling her irritating little comments and additions down the margins and over on the back. I can’t put up with this for three more months. I should never have agreed to spend the summer here in the first place. It was a foolish idea, and I’m not sure it’s even very good for the children. I’ll have to move out and find somewhere else. Or buy a large tin box with a good lock.

And yet, let’s face it, I’m not here by accident, am I? I did choose of my own free will not to spurn Constance’s offer of a place to stay, and I can’t argue that I didn’t live with her long enough to know exactly what she’s like. I must have realized Constance could no more stay peacefully and incuriously outside a room in which her former husband is writing anything of a remotely personal nature than she could fly unaided to the moon. I must have known that she’d be in and out all the time, rooting through, checking, complaining, criticizing; that even the most casual attempt to pin down a few simple dates would turn one mealtime after another into great atavistic wrangles about the reasons for this move, that baby, those blinding arguments; that it would be three months of pure hell. It isn’t even as if what Constance remembers is of any relevance. I’m not writing that sort of autobiography, and if I were, this is the last place on earth I’d choose to write it. I’m here because all my philosophical papers are still in the attic. Why else would I suffer the indignity of living and sleeping up in my old study while this great shambling amiable Ally sleeps in my old bed with my old wife?”


Yesterday’s writer – Colette
Tomorrow’s writer - Noël Riley Fitch

Source: Fine, Anne. Taking the Devil’s Advice. Black Swan, 1999. ISBN 0-552-99826-5. Dedication: page 5, Excerpt: pages 11-12

Images:

Left: Front cover of my personal copy of Taking the Devil’s Advice
Center: Anne Fine from the website annefine.co.uk

Right: Signed title page of my personal copy of Taking the Devil’s Advice

Colette – Tuesday 28 January 1873 – Tuesday 3 August 1954

Introduction

Since today is International Women’s Day, I thought it would be the perfect time to present a woman who wrote in a language other than English. The language is French and the woman is Colette. I have read translations of her first Claudine novel, Claudine à l'école, and of her novel Chéri. If my French skills were better, I would read all French works in the original language. So for today, L’entrave, a novel written in French. Read about Colette in English by clicking here.

Excerpt from L’entrave

"Le peu qu'une femme puisse apercevoir d'elle-meme, ce n'est pas la calme et ronde lumiere d'une lampe, allumee tous les soirs sur la meme table, qui le lui rnontre. Mais, a changer de table, de lampe, et de chambre, qu'ai-je acquis? Le soupcon, bientot la certitude, que tous les pays vont se ressembler, si je ne trouve le secret de les renouveler, en me renouvelant, moi. Le temps est passe ou je comptais sur ma solide raison! La solide raison d'une femme... Si nous parlions un peu des « fondations inebranlables » d'une maison japonaise, aux murs en papier ? Ni solide, ni raisonnable, mais bien emue et bien tremblante, pour une banale rencontre tout a 1'heure, sur la Promenade des Anglais.

C'est tout simple, pourtant, cela devait arriver, cela aurait du arriver deja... La, tout a 1'heure, a cote de moi, il a passe sans me voir, I'homme qui voulait me donner son nom, son amour, 1'appui de son ferme coeur. II avait d'un cote une jeune femme et de 1'autre un tres petit enfant tout rond, qui marchait a peine. II ne m'a pas vue, parce qu'il donnait toute son attention, sa touchante et solen-nelle attention un peu bete, a 1'enfant qui trebuchait. « Grand serin!» il a passe si pres, j'ai vu ses longs cils durs, et sa cravate sanglee comme pour la vie. Il etait si pareil a lui-meme que j'aurais, comme autrefois, etendu la main pour desserrer un peu cette cravate et enfoncer, dans la poche du veston, un coin de mouchoir trop visible. J'ai peur, a present, du geste que j'aurais pu faire. Il m'a si peu sentie, si peu devinee, que j'ai eu 1'impression d'etre supprimee du nombre des vivants, le fantome d'air qu'il allait traverser. C'est singulier, je n'ai pas songe a regarder sa femme ni son enfant. Us ont continue tous les trois leur promenade le long de la mer.

Ce n'est pas d'amour que je tremble, ni de chagrin. Quelle est, dans mon trouble, la part du regret ? Je ne sais. Le choc, 1'eclair, viennent de me dormer la sensation de ma fragilite, bien mieux que la reverie maniaque, ou quoti-diennement je m'abuse sur ma sagesse. Meditation, si vous voulez... D n'y a pas de meditation sage. Toute meditation habituelle contient un principe de delire. Elle confine a la crise, a 1'extase provoquee, douloureuse ou non...

Et me voila partie a generaliser, bien femininement. Tant mieux! Il y a comme cela des heures ou je me plais assez en femelle. C'est comme si je constatais que je peux encore servir a quelque chose, amoureusement parlant.

Aurais-je aime qu'il me vit?... Non, je n'y tiens pas. Je redis son nom, malaisement, son nom encombrant: Maxime Dufferein-Chautel... Je suis sure de ne pas 1'aimer. Mais, tout de meme, cet homme-la, il represente 1'amour dans ma vie, et 1'aventure, et meme la volupte... C'est sans doute cela qui me tient tremblante et vague-ment revoltee. Cette bouche-la, ces mains-la, ce grand corps chaud, tout cela, ensemble, a ete bien pres de me composer un amant, il y a trois ans... S'il avait ete seul, tout a 1'heure, et qu'il m'eut parle, l'aurais-je nomme Max, ou « mon cheri» ou « vous » tout court ? Il avait son air le plus marie, mais c'est un air qu'il a, si j'ose dire, de nais-sance. Sa femme et son enfant, il les affichait comme des denrees neuves qu'il eut achetees place Massena...

Tachons d'etre sincere. Je ne 1'ai pas fui, mais je me suis cachee dans une immobilite qui seule pouvait me derober a ses yeux - le lievre surpris se terre et n'ignore pas qu'il est couleur de sillon... Le moindre geste, sur ma robe sombre, de ma main gantee de blanc, eut attire son regard - j'ai craint jusqu'a la volte brusque qui pouvait lui porter tout a coup mon parfum, toujours le meme... Je ne voulais pas, non, je ne voulais pas. J'ai rougi comme une femme surprise en bigoudis. Et puis il avait, lui, un air si riche de tant de choses nouvelles: un enfant tout frais, une femme en fourrures et en plumes, une canne que je ne lui connaissais pas; tandis que moi... Il m'humiliat, son air d'avoir fait fortune...."

Yesterday’s writer – Agatha Christie
Tomorrow’s writer – Anne Fine

Source: Colette. L’entrave. Flammarion, January 1997. Excerpt: pages 9-11

Images:

Left: Front cover of my personal copy of L’entrave
Center: Colette from the website centre-colette.com

Agatha Christie – Monday 15 September 1890 – Monday 12 January 1976

Introduction

Have read numerous Agatha Christie mysteries; in fact have probably read more of her mysteries than the works of any other mystery writer. But then again she has written a great number of them. It was due to one of her two main detectives, Hercule Poirot, that I learned a country by the name of Belgium existed. Although I have lived among the Belgians, I never met anyone quite like Hercule; though of course I never became involved in murder mysteries. It was more pleasurable activities (drinking Leffe, eating Callebaut, carrying umbrellas) with the Belgians that I was happy to experience. Agatha’s other main detective is Jane Marple, an Englishwoman. At Bertram’s Hotel (spoiler alert) is a Miss Marple mystery. The little grey cells work well in a little grey lady. On another English note, it was Agatha Christies’ play “The Mousetrap” (spoiler alert), performed at St. Martin’s Theatre that was my initiation to London’s West End theatre district.

Dedication in At Bertram’s Hotel

“FOR HARRY SMITH because I appreciate the scientific ways he reads my books”

Excerpt from Chapter 1 of At Bertram’s Hotel

“In the heart of the West End, there are many quiet pockets, unknown to almost all but taxi drivers who traverse them with expert knowledge, and arrive triumphantly thereby at Park Lane, Berkeley Square, or South Audley Street.

If you turn off on an unpretentious street from the Park, and turn left and right once or twice, you will find yourself in a quiet street with Bertram’s Hotel on the right-hand side. Bertram’s Hotel has been there a long time. During the war, houses were demolished on the right of it, and a little further down on the left of it, but Bertram’s itself remained unscathed. Naturally it could not escape being, as house agents would say, scratched, bruised, and marked, but by the expenditure of only a reasonable amount of money it was restored to its original condition. By 1955 it looked precisely as it had looked in 1939-dignified, unostentatious, and quietly expensive.

Such was Bertram’s, patronized over a long stretch of years by the higher echelons of the clergy, dowager ladies of the aristocracy up from the country, girls on their way home for the holidays from expensive finishing schools. (“So few places where a girl can stay alone in London but of course it is quite all right at Bertram’s. We have stayed there for years.”)

There had, of course been many other hotels on the model of Bertram’s. Some still existed, but nearly all had felt the wind of change. They had had necessarily to modernize themselves, to cater for a different clientele. Bertram’s, too, had had to change, but it had been done so cleverly that it was not at all apparent at the first casual glance.”


Yesterday’s writer – Pearl S. Buck
Tomorrow’s writer - Colette

Source: Christie, Agatha. At Bertram’s Hotel. Pocket Books, December 1967. ISBN 0-671-43379-2. Dedication: page 5, Excerpt: pages 7-8

Images:

Left: Front cover of my personal copy of At Bertram’s Hotel

Center: Agatha Christie from the website en.wikipedia.org

Pearl S. (Sydenstricker) Buck – Sunday 26 June 1892 – Tuesday 6 March 1973

Introduction

Pearl S. Buck was my introduction to China and Eastern perspectives. Through The Good Earth I had my first understanding of an Asian culture. My limited travels have not brought me to the Orient yet, but I do envision someday walking on the Great Wall of China. Walking on, not falling off.

Pearls S. Buck quotation in The Good Earth

“I am always glad when any of my books can be put into an inexpensive edition, because I like to think that any people who might wish to read them can do so. Surely books ought to be within the reach of everybody.”

Excerpt from Chapter One of The Good Earth

“It was Wang Lung’s marriage day. At first, opening his eyes in the blackness of the curtains about his bed, he could not think why the dawn seemed different from any other. The house was still except for the faint, gasping cough of his old father, whose room was opposite to his own across the middle room. Every morning the old man’s cough was the first sound to be heard. Wang Lung usually lay listening to it and moved only when he heard it approaching nearer and when he heard the door of his father’s room squeak upon its wooden hinges.

But this morning he did not wait. He sprang up and pushed aside the curtains of his bed. It was a dark, ruddy dawn, and through a small square hole of a window, where the tattered paper fluttered, a glimpse of bronze sky gleamed. He went to the hole and tore the paper away.

'It is spring and I do not need this,' he muttered.

He was ashamed to say aloud that he wished the house to look neat on this day. The hole was barely large enough to admit his hand and he thrust it out to feel of the air. A small soft wind blew gently from the east, a wind mild and murmurous and full of rain. It was a good omen. The fields needed rain for fruition. There would be no rain this day, but within a few days, if this wind continued, there would be water. It was good. Yesterday he had said to his father that if this brazen, glittering sunshine continued, the wheat would not fill in the ear. Now it was as if Heaven had chosen this day to wish him well. Earth would bear fruit.

He hurried out into the middle room, drawing on his blue outer trousers as he went, and knotting about the fullness at his waist his girdle of blue cotton cloth. He left his upper body bare until he had heated water to bathe himself. He went into the shed which was the kitchen, leaning against the house, and out of its dusk an ox twisted its head from behind the corner next the door and lowed at him deeply. The kitchen was made of earthen bricks as the house was, great squares of earth dug from their own fields, and thatched with straw from their own wheat. Out of their own earth had his grandfather in his youth fashioned also the oven, baked and black with many years of meal preparing. On top of this earthen structure stood a deep, round, iron cauldron.

This cauldron he filled partly full of water, dipping it with a half gourd from an earthen jar that stood near, but he dipped cautiously, for water was precious. Then, after a hesitation, he suddenly lifted the jar and emptied all the water into the cauldron. This day he would bathe his whole body. Not since he was a child upon his mother’s knee had anyone looked upon his body. Today one would, and he would have it clean.”


Yesterday’s writer – Maeve Binchy
Tomorrow’s writer – Agatha Christie

Source: Buck, Pearl S. The Good Earth. Pocket Cardinal, May 1965. Excerpt: pages 3-4

Images:

Left: Front cover of my personal copy of The Good Earth

Center: Pearl S. Buck from the website en.wikipedia.org