Time Castaways by Liesl Shurtliff
Goodreads Review
review by Christina Francis-Gilbert
Their Eyes were watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
I can see why this novel is placed in the category of 'enduring American literature.' I loved this coming-of-age 1937 novel. I loved its structure, its characters, its imagery and beautiful language, its observations and comments on important issues like race, relationships, self-accountability, travel, learning from experience, grief and so many more.
In each chapter, there is an opening image allowing the reader to pinpoint thoughts on the significance of the events and movement of that stage in Janie, the protagonist's story.
The lyrical, poetic nature of Neale Hurston's descriptions gives the novel and its black vernacular dialogue such strength. The cohesive patterns of stories and didactic experiences from her characters flows in a powerful, authentic, knowledgeable way and proves to me how much of a classic this novel is.
"Love is lak de sea. It's uh movin' thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it's different with every shore."
Just like Pheoby, the character to whom Janie conveys her marriage experience and the travels she has had away from home, 'Ah ain't satisfied wid mahself no mo'."
My favourite images from the novel are the references to memories and the way the characters told stories to each other on the porch. This concept is introduced in the opening chapters when Old Nanny rocks Janie as an infant. We learn that 'Mind-pictures brought feelings, and feelings dragged out dramas from the hollows of her heart." Then in Chapter 6, Janie feels her comfort, 'When the people sat around on the porch and passed around the pictures of their thoughts for the others to look at and see, it was nice. The fact that the thought pictures were always crayon enlargements of life made it even nicer to listen to."
Plot-wise, the story is an epic one, representative of greater journeys and breaking away from the norm than is shown in this concise novel. Janie Crawford, who is African-American leaves her hometown and her grandmother, Nanny, on a quest to find identity. She's married three times, her last loving partnership ending in sickness and tragedy. She learns of grief, true love and equality.
Hurston has been described as 'our prime symbol of "racial health - a sense of black people as complete, complex, undiminished human beings, a sense that is lacking in so much black writing and literature."
Loved. Will cherish my copy and read again.
review by Christina Francis-Gilbert
Passionate Nomad: The Life of Freya Stark by Jane Fletcher Geniesse
I read this biography on recommendation from a lifelong fan of Freya Stark and her intrepid life of exploration.
A writing retreat is planned for September this year near to Asolo in Italy where Freya returned for the final ten years of her life. More to come on this!
I had expected there to be a great deal more detail and description of Asolo in Italy, for some reason, yet the majority of Stark's life, as explained by Jane Fletcher Geniesse is occupied with her travels in the Middle East. Her ambition is fascinating. She drove her way into situations and managed to gain support and favours from many along the way. She is described as 'difficult', driven, 'a fighter', and 'Freya learned to give no quarter to anyone or anything that stood in her way or threatened her fragile self-esteem. Her competitiveness became her strength.' Her letter writing 'the fat pile bearing exotic stamps was waiting in her mother's desk' is considered of huge cultural significance and an extensive knowledge base for civilization in the Middle East.
I can't say I liked what I was led to learn of Freya Stark. Her methods for getting her own way are eye-opening. 'She cultivated people if she thought they could be useful...'
Yet, her endeavours, what she achieved in cartography of the regions, her craving for 'ataraxia, a Greek concept meaning the attainment of perfect peace or transcendent calm,' and her determination to encourage true understanding between cultures is admirable.
This biography is an elegant and coherent presentation of her life, both personal and professional. The narrative has many hints towards her obsession with her appearance and her troubled love connections and she comes across as a vulnerable figure in places, in spite of her ruthless ambition.
I have missed out so much about her attitudes towards and actions of all that she did on her travels and missions. There's a lot to be learned here of 20th century Middle Eastern history.
review by Christina Francis-Gilbert
The Writer's Voice by A. Alvarez
This book is based on three lectures A. Alvarez gave at the New York Public Library in October 2002. Each chapter covers discussion and literary analysis linked with the importance of 'finding a voice' in writing, as well as 'listening' when reading the works of others. Interestingly, the final chapter is entitled 'The Cult of Personality and the Myth of the Artist' and provided some engaging thoughts on the career requirements of an author.
Found this to be a most interesting reference read with many reminders of lectures and tutorials from my English Literature degree. There is mention of the Romantics, the Beat poets, New Criticism, psychoanalysis, Modernism amongst others, to reduce the content to a few topics. There are gaps in the literary periods discussed, yet overall an interesting network literary response.
Some points I've drawn from these essays which connect with my own experience and learning include:
"Freelance writing is a precarious trade, not least because shifting from one literary form to another may mean you end up mastering none. But for a writer, even precariousness has its uses: if nothing else, it makes you constantly alert to the way your voice comes off the page."
"...there is only one thing the four disciplines have in common: in order to write well you must first learn how to listen. And that, in turn, is something writers have in common with their readers..."
"...Reading well...is as much an art as writing well and almost as hard to acquire."
"the story matters less than how it is told."
"According to Isaac Babel, 'Your language becomes clear and strong, not when you can no longer add a sentence but when you can no longer take away from it.' "
"Rudyard Kipling...said that when he finished a story he locked it away in a drawer for a few weeks, then went through it again, blacking out with Indian ink all the bits he had been most proud of the first time around."
"Style...is different from voice, and sometimes the style you have labored to achieve - your stylishness - gets in the way of what you have to say."
"There is of course, no necessary or obvious correlation between an artist's physique and his work although Hemingway clearly thought otherwise. When starting out - a young man who fished and hunted and boxed as well as wrote - he honed his prose as rigorously as an athlete in training hones his body in order to create, as it were the literary equivalent of an athlete's purity and asceticism."
review by Christina Francis-Gilbert
Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro
I am so happy I bought my own copy and I will treasure this diamond of a novel. Thank you @daniwriter.
I dropped everything to spend time with this novel's characters and Shapiro's beautiful way of telling her characters' stories. As I finish 'Signal Fires', I know that my heart will not settle for some time.
This novel gives us the chance to empathise with opinions and attitudes from different generations. The duties of parenthood are central but so is filial responsibility and all that is required from our roles in being part of a family, a community and a society at large.
Dani Shapiro's characters don't let us forget how differently we all think. Yet, our sense of humanity and emotional capability, regardless of our personalities, upbringing and character choices connects us all.
The storylines shift from a tragic opening car incident in 1985 to the repercussions of characters' choices through the '90s and on to 2020.
I found the significance and symbolism of the tree and all the secrets it held to be so strong. Reminded me of the importance of the tree in Wishtree by Katharine Applegate.
I want you to read this book. I urge you to read this book. It's a magnificent read and one which will help you with closure around the full pandemic situation we have been through, as well as one you will wish to read again at other points in your life.
review by Christina Francis-Gilbert
