11 Classics, Old Books, & Cult Classics of 2010

It's chilly.  There's snow on the ground.  Christmas is almost here.  It's ALMOST too late to shop. We're cozily hanging out at home.  

A few days ago I compiled my Best of 2010 list, strictly culled from new and recent books. That isn't quite representative of me, though.  Because I also read a lot of "old" books, I've selected 11 "Best" Classics, Old Books, & Cult Classics of the year, complete with blurbs from my absurd book journal.  

1.  Home Life, Home Life Two, & Home Life Three by Alice Thomas Ellis.  A novelist, mother, editor, friend of writers and artists, and a conservative Catholic, Ellis wrote brilliant domestic comedy about state-of-emergency plumbing in Chelsea and personal hygiene in a cold house in Wales. In Home Life Two, she muses on the absurdity of bank cards and credit cards (money is faster); building on to her house; struggles with faulty dishwashers; and the ridiculous prevalence of love in the lyrics of pop music. She also wryly catalogues the eccentricities of her family: the laconic husband (referred to as Someone), four sons (who like bad pop music and leave dangerous, ominous-smelling camping equipment around) , “the daughter” (12 and incomprehensible), and a sensible live-in housekeeper/nanny/friend, Janet.

2.  Dangerous Ages by Rose Macaulay.  I spent several refreshing hours reading   Dangerous Ages, an overlooked novel that perhaps is best appreciated in middle age. This gently humorous, sometimes very painful examination of three generations of women charts the sad sense of loss as choices narrow for women in middle- and old age,  contrasted with the confidence and sense of immortality of youth.    Despite the fact that some of the characters are unlikable, I feel sympathetic to their very different plights.   Macaulay’s writing here is plain, less perfect than in her award-winning novel, The Towers of Trezibond, but her ideas are first-rate.

3.  The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot.  Eliot is my latest passion. The Mill on the Floss is a luminous tragicomedy, a page-turner, and a masterpiece. Really, I can hardly put it down. Book Second, “School Time,” is Eliot’s fascinating account of Tom’s classical education with the smug Rev. Walter Stelling, an unimaginative materialist and social-climber to whom Mr. Tulliver sends Tom because he wants him to become a professional, perhaps an engineer. Alas, this system of education does not suit outdoorsy Tom, who scarcely understands that Latin is a language or why he is to learn Euclid’s geometry. It is Maggie who perks up over the language during a visit, and Philip Wakem, a crippled pupil who arrives after Tom’s first term, who helps Tom to learn enough to justify the education. Absolutely absorbing, and very, very sad when Mr. Tulliver loses all his money to Philip’s father.

4.  The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury.  Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles has the empire-questioning pessimism that somehow makes the "future" seem like the past. Not only is it good science fiction, but the experience of reading is like time travel to the 1950s and 60s. Bradbury writes about Americans landing on Mars and being trapped by illusion and disillusionment: a crew of Americans who land on Mars is dismissed as psychotic by Martians who are used to lunatics projecting visual and sensory hallucinations; others land on Mars and encounter their dead relatives walking about in what seem to be their midwestern hometowns; and a lone astronaut rebels against American colonization of Mars.

5.  Tam Lin by Pamela Dean.   I love science fiction and fantasy. One of my favorites is Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin, a charming, humorous, all-ages classic that deserves a wider audience. Janet, the intellectual heroine, adores reading and spends four years studying English at a small college.  Romance and friendship overlap with the supernatural.  Classics majors are all considered crazy, a ghost throws books out the windows, some Shakespearean actors turn out to have a very strange background, and Janet regularly discusses literature and philosophy with her friends. These discussions are very exciting, by the way.  They’ll make you want  reread all of Shakespeare and Keats and read several books you've never read.  Tam Lin, a Scottish ballad, is woven into the novel.

6.  Homer's Daughter by Robert Graves.  Best known for I, Claudius, Graves is one of those writers who could not write badly.  In his feminist novel, Homer's Daughter, The Odyssey is not the work of Homer, but of Nausicaa, an intellectual princess known to us as rescuer of the shipwrecked Odysseus in Book VI of The Odyssey.  She has listened all her life to bards’ poems about Odysseus’ homecoming.  Nausciaa reshapes the narrative to accommodate her own experiences and to invigorate the characters of women like Penelope.

7.  David Copperfield by Dickens.  It’s 727 pages of delight. The narrator, as everyone knows, begins, “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”  Of course David does turn out to be the hero of his own life, but since he’s such a charming, intelligent observer of people, he draws unforgettable characters, like Peggotty, the kind, loyal, hard-working servant who throws her apron over her head when she laughs at her suitor, Barkis; Mr. Micawber, who is always in debt..., and more.

8.  The Vera Wright Trilogy by Elizabeth Jolley.  Jolley, an award-winning Australian writer whose work was briefly feted in the U.S. in the '80s and early '90s, was praised by Robert Coover, Peter Ackroyd, and Frederich Busch.  Persea has reissued the award-winning trilogy and what a pleasure it is to find these stunning novels, My Father's Moon, Cabin Fever, and The Georges' WifeJolley's style is Virginia-Woolf-meets-D.-H.-Lawrence, a poetic yet blunt stream-of-consciousness mixed with erotic strangeness and lies.

9.  Forty Plus and Fancy Free by Emily Kimbrough.  I love humor writing, and Emily Kimbrough's travel adventures are hilarious.  When her employer, CBS Radio, agrees to give her time off if she will also cover the Coronation in England, she and her friend Sophy recruit three other widow-grandmothers for a trip to Italy.  Kimbrough insists that she and Sophy must take Italian lessons at the Berlitz school.   I burst out laughing over her account of her linguistic incompetence.  They are supposed to learn words from pictures on the wall and cards, but she mixes up “table” with “ceiling.”  There is not a single English word in their textbook....

10.  The Second Coming by Walker Percy.  In this funny, beautifully written existentialist novel, Will Barrett is the anti-hero, a middle-aged lawyer who has retired early in New York and moved back to North Carolina to play golf and…what? He isn’t sure.  He is hallucinating on the golf course, falling down repeatedly, blacking out, and having flashbacks to his childhood.  Death is on his mind, and no wonder. His wife has died, and he is living alone.  What is the meaning of life?  What is God?  Why are non-believers just as obnoxious as believers?  And more...

11.  An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott.  An Old-Fashioned Girl is my favorite book by Louisa May Alcott. I know: everyone prefers Little Women, but An Old-Fashioned Girl holds up surprisingly well. I love Polly, the main character, a country girl with a sense of humor and a sensible attitude who spends the first half of the book on an extended visit to her sophisticated city friend. Far from a fashion plate, this brisk, charming heroine has inner resources and more skills than her friend, Fanny, who is sometimes ashamed of Polly's childish quality and simple clothes.

More Science Fiction: Ray Bradbury and Katherine Fisher

Officially this is Science Fiction Week. In my world, probably not yours. I have three weeks off from work and thought it would be fun to sit inside with the heat blasting, drink pina coladas, and read books about other planets. I've read part of a mermaid novel, In Great Waters, and am also perusing Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles.

Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles has the empire-questioning pessimism that somehow makes the "future" seem like the past. Not only is it good science fiction, but the experience of reading is like time travel to the 1950s and 60s. Bradbury writes about Americans landing on Mars and being trapped by illusion and disillusionment: a crew of Americans who land on Mars is dismissed as psychotic by Martians who are used to lunatics projecting visual and sensory hallucinations; others land on Mars and encounter their dead relatives walking about in what seem to be their midwestern hometowns; and a lone astronaut rebels against American colonization of Mars.

How did I discover Ray Bradbury? Did I simply find the books at the library? Reading was much more random as a child. No book reviews: you just slouched around the shelves and grabbed what looked interesting. I can remember being scared to death reading some of Bradbury's stories when I was alone in the house as a child. Perhaps the '60s films introduced me to his books: The Illustrated Man with Rod Steiger and Fahrenheit 451 with Julie Christie and Oskar Werner.


I am also reading a fast-paced, well-written YA novel, Incarceron, which came to my attention because it has been reviewed in the L.A. Times and the Washington Post. Incarceron is a sort of underworld/prison which was established, closed, and locked more than a century ago: the hero and heroine are Finn, a 17-year-old prisoner who believes he was born "outside," and Claudia, the daughter of the terrifying warder of Incarceron. Claudia's "outside" world is trapped in a time warp: a king decided it was easier to rule if his subjects were caught in a very formal 17th century world in which things are either "era" or not. Both Finn and Claudia want to escape.

Hmm. Amazing how many of these good all-ages YA books are being reviewed these days. Is it my imagination, or are they selling these to the young AND to adults these days? Change the characters to adults and this would simply be a good adult novel.

Zero Spending: Why I Can't Do It: Coffee & Books

Zero spending! I love the proposition. I admire radical groups of non-consumers who vow not to spend money for an entire year.

Can I get through a single day without spending? No.

I spent $1.60 today on a cup of coffee and it was entirely worth it. The cinnamony warm atmosphere of the coffeehouse, the kindness of the barista (who made a special blend for me because I was in too great a hurry to wait for a new pot), and the group of long-haired Peggy Fleming figure-skater types and half-shaved barbarian lads who mill around the latte station, laughing. I drank my coffee at leisure outside in the sun. Remember that story in The Martian Chronicles where it rains every day and a bullied boy is locked in a closet in school during the only hour of sunshine in several years? Well, that's how I feel about the sun. I can't miss a minute of it. If only I lived in the South! North Carolina, anywhere. My skin is dry and itching from the eternal winter, fifteen-inch banks of snow intimidatingly line the sidewalks, and a cold miasma rises from the snowbanks. Zero consumerism in coffee is impossible this time of year, because it warms me up.

Books: now there's an area I could save on. Zero spending! But would that be a good thing? Aren't booksellers and publishers THE most important people to support? And don't they need somebody like me to buy books? I own stacks and stacks of books. Do I want to read Plutarch's Lives? Or The Picture of Dorian Grey? Or perhaps Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna? They're all right here, people!

I buy a LOT of books.

I'm not like dovegreyreader or random jottings of an opera--bloggers who announce their packages of free books almost daily and apparently get thousands of readers every day to whom they can SELL the books (though my husband, who is very funny about blogging, suggests the thousands of readers they get are themselves clicking on their blog over and over. He thinks blogs are worthless)!

I can't accept free books: I don't know what to do with them. I have a huge stack of books from a very good publisher who were kind enough to supply me last summer. I didn't expect so many books--and they haunt me. I've reviewed three or four. I stare at them gloomily from time to time, wondering if I'll ever get around to them. And then I realize, scandalized, that I should probably send them back. But they're review copies, and it's too late now. One feels like such a whore when one writes a paragraph or two about the book, not reading it, but just doing a little publicity. I'm writing a book journal, not running a book news bureau. But perhaps I should do some of those paragraphs because I ACCEPTED the books. Or I could write a review of one of them for a small mag I used to write for. They're printing shorter and shorter reviews, so it COULD work out.

I can't even read all the books I've bought, and these are generally the books I really want to read. So zero spending is not the way for me to go in books. I'm committed to the rich selection on my coffee table.

As for zero spending, I've got it down in one area: Isn't it better to spend zero on clothes than zero on books? That's my current practice. A couple of pairs of black jeans and I'm fine.

So let's do zero spending on fashion and call it a day!