Letter From Peking by Pearl S. Buck was written in 1957. The heroine, Elizabeth narrates the story of her love for her husband Gerald. It is told in simple prose but with PSB’s characteristic wisdom. Elizabeth is back in Vermont with her son Rennie. Gerald, half Chinese has decided to stay in Peking in loyalty to his people. He has however pledged his love for Elizabeth. Elizabeth misses him deeply but keeps order to her days on her farm which produces maple syrup and writes this story in the evenings as a way to stay close to Gerald. Then a letter arrives… Marital love, interracial marriage and loyalty to one’s country are the themes. PSB was liberal and forward thinking for the time period. There is much to ponder in her books. Have you read this? Would love to know. #letterfrompeking #pearlsbuck #midcenturyliterature
“The whole point of crying was to quit before you cornied it up.” — Richard Yates, “Revolutionary Road” Whew, there is nothing quite like midcentury American ennui. I first read this somewhere in the “Mad Men” era & the film adaptation, & it’s stayed with me ever since. It’s a bold & painful tale of the toll of thwarted ambition, infidelity, & reproductive injustice. April & Frank, like so many generations of American dreamers, make moral compromises in the name of comfort & tell themselves they’re smarter & more clever than their peers, to their ruin. (It reminds me of a friend once observing that at some point we have to accept that we’re not enfants terribles) At times startlingly funny, this book is also one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve ever read. Yates never got enough of his due in his lifetime, & it’s likely that if not for Don & Betty a lot of might never have found Frank & April. That would be a shame, because I suspect he was a damn genius. I think it’s time to read “Easter Parade.” #bookstagrammer #bookstagram #booklovers #booksbooksbooks #bookaddict #literaturelover #bookreader #bookworm #bookshelf #bibliophile #bookrecommendations #americanliterature #richardyates #revolutionaryroad #midcenturyliterature
#bookreview Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote. Thankfully this was only a little over two hours to listen to. Having not watched the movie, I went in with minimal knowledge, just a vague recollection of a racist portrayal of a Chinese man. The wider racism, the homophobia, the casual mention of child abuse… that was all new to me. I found Holly unlikeable and the narrator blank. Is the movie really worth watching? Am I missing something deeper in the plot? #book #books #booksbooksbooks #bookstagram #bookstagramuk #bookstagrammer #booklife #booklove #bookaddict #bookstaexplore #readersofinstagram #readersofinsta #readersofig #readergram #readersgonnaread #readerlife #audiobook #audiobooks #audiobookstagram #audiobooksarebookstoo #audiobooksarereading #breakfastattiffanys #trumancapote #modernclassic #americanliterature #midcenturyliterature #booksidisliked
Potted review of this 1931 locked-room mystery: Firstly, I guessed how it was done! A triumph! And not at all just evidence of the fact that I've read faaar too much Agatha Christie. Secondly: the men are much more real than the women in this book, despite the fact that the women and their relationships drive all the action. Though it has to be said, even the men are described more according to types - Highlander, Irish, Lowland Scots, and each expected to live up to the characteristics of 'their race'. With the women it goes further - they are also defined by being a mother and a wife - or indeed, by not being these things (which obviously makes them warped and bitter). I don't really think this is so much a fault of Wynne as a writer, but reflective of the society he lived in. I kept feeling that it must have been downright exhausting to live in a society where you were judged so much on what rather than who you are... Oh wait. It still is. Thirdly: rather unusually for a book set so consciously in the Highlands, this book doesn't dwell much on the landscape, or culture, or what people do all day, or really on anything beyond the castle walls. These things are just backdrops for those 'types' to play out. It is a closed and claustrophobic world - very like the locked room at its heart. #bookreviewer #bookreview #bookish #britishlibrarycrimeclassics #anthonywynne #murderofalady #bookstagrammer #bookstagram #midcenturyliterature #crimeclassics #readersofinstagram
The Trouble with Happiness & Other Stories by Tove Ditlevsen $11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #read #readmorebooks #books #bookstagram #bookshop #bookstore #nola #neworleans #toveditlevsen #thetroublewithhappiness #shortstories #hardcover #danishliterature #thecopenhagentrilogy #hardcover #fsg #fiction #michaelfavalagoldman #womenwhowrite #midcenturyliterature
Though not as rich as 'O the Brave Music' or 'Proud Citadel' - a book on a smaller canvas - this 1962 novel has that wisdom and humanity which I've come to see as the hallmark of D.E. Smith's writing. It begins when Maureen, excited all day at the prospect of wearing her new blue dress to the Red Cross dance, is late leaving the shop she works in. After a hard day's toil, she misses the bus and has to run half way home. Her dress is a surprise for her almost-betrothed, Eddy. But Eddy, not knowing of the dress, hasn't worn his dress suit, for fear of putting Maureen to shame. And so, when she arrives, Maureen is just a tiny bit disappointed. She is tired, a little wrong-footed, and Eddy too can feel that the night hasn't got off to the hoped-for start. From that moment of disconnect the book springs. The clothes are a symbol of their youthful misunderstanding - reality coming to replace daydreams. And clothes can make us feel right, and part of things, or not. But, as this kind wee book shows us, we'd be pretty daft to let those unspoken things come between us and those we love. Speak, even stumbling, difficult words, and heal. I think the thing that always stays with me from Smith's books is that... You know those moments... Those moments when it's as though your vision suddenly clears, and it feels like you can see into the truth of life, in all of its pain, and change, and worry, and it all just falls away and you can just be, and there's such joy... Those moments? She has a talent for capturing them, simply and clearly. Here, she writes: 'Suddenly the sun broke through the mist and all the world shone and sparkled. Eddy felt a surge of sanity. Common sense, that was all it wanted. You either married the girl you loved or you didn't marry her. Life went the way you wanted it to go or it went some other way. The important thing was life. Just living. Just being you.' Just living. I try to hold onto that feeling... And I might just try to do it in a blue dress that makes me feel joyful. #bookreviewer #bookish #desmith #dorothyevelynsmith #midcenturyliterature #womenwriters #bookreview #bookstagrammer #bookstagram #yarnsandfrocktales #booksandclothes
Barbara Pym has become one of my desert island authors. I would be so happy to read her novels over and over again. Crampton Hodnet is one that is not often mentioned, but it is Pym in high form. I found it to be one of her more humorous novels. Pym is a magic worker who takes barely any plot with stock characters and somehow convinces you to stay up way past your bedtime to find out what happens in the end when you already know. #tbr24in24 1/24 #barbarapym #cramptonhodnet #britishliterature #midcenturyliterature
"For the artist, I think, as for the public, no such thing as art exists; it only exists for the critics and those who live in the forebrain. Artist and public simply register, like a seismograph, an electromagnetic charge which can't be rationalized. One only knows that a transmission of sorts goes on, true or false, successful or unsuccessful, according to chance. But to try to break down the elements and nose them over -- one gets nowhere. (I suspect this approach to art is common to all those who cannot surrender themselves to it!) Paradox. Anyway." -Mountolive, Lawrence Durrell
[1953] 6/5⭐️ Starting 2024 off strong over here. Gorgeous, poetic, heartbreaking…heartwarming. Brooks creates a full and beautiful portrait of one Maud Martha, from childhood to motherhood - her dreams, desires, her realities, the people in her life and those in her apartment building - each movement needing no more than a wisp of a chapter to tell us everything we need to know. Can’t recommend highly enough. 📚 📚 📚 #maudmartha #gwendolynbrooks #thirdworldpress #nypl #blackauthors #womeninliterature #midcenturyliterature #poet #blackpoets #fivestarread #fiction #bookworm #alwaysreading #read2024 #bookstagram
This is my first Elizabeth Taylor. Looking through her books I can see she is a writer with quite a range. Angel is not for you if you prefer your characters sympathetic. She is self absorbed and inflexible. I found her interesting because I have met some Angels. Many comment how this novel is very humorous. I did not see that, but this is not the first time I have been in this situation. What I did find interesting is how Taylor never tried to make you feel sorry for Angel. She was just who she was, and the small clique around her just accepts her. Without them her life would be a tragedy. I do want to read more Taylor, what do you recommend? #midcenturyliterature #modernclassicliterature
There is so much that I love in D.E. Smith's writing - her northern English landscapes, the right-feeling use of dialect, her complex and human characters, her exploration of what it means to find your freedom, and be kind, and love, and the many different shapes those things take. Huffley Fair, written in 1944, is the intergenerational tale of three women - Lou, her daughter Belle, and granddaughter Nancy. We first meet Lou as dawn breaks over Huffham Hill, as she walks behind a 'tinker's cart' to the fair. Her life is changed forever after she encounters Abel Gurney - a carpenter and preacher - on the moor. She is frightened into marriage with this implacable man - an infuriating portrait of the tyranny of virtue. But not real virtue. He is a man of grudges, respectability, rigidity, a man who cannot look at himself. Appropriately for #spinsterseptember, one of my favourite characters is Hilda Berridge, the much-mocked woman who loses her chance to marry Abel, and gives thanks for it. The journey of her character, though she stays in the same house, is glorious - from terrorised daughter, to marriage-hopeful, to whisky-comforted spinster, to something like a matriarch. I also love that she and Lou become such friends. And to return to my theme of clothes, as ever, the use of clothes perfectly echoes the themes of the book. Take this passage, when Belle asks Lou '"Why do you wear such ugly hats, Mother?" "Do I, luv?" Lou stared at the offending article in surprise... she did not like hats; but Eliza had said she must wear one, so she gave as little thought to the matter as possible. It was the same with all her clothes and possessions. She greatly admired richly tinted silks and velvets, bright feathers, swinging earrings of gold and jet and silver, bracelets that jangled, heavy rings set with coloured stones. She was allowed none of these things, so what did it matter what she wore?' And herein lies our lesson - for these are moral tales, if gentle ones: be true to yourself. Find your freedom. Take your road. Be kind. Don't destroy moors. And if you can try to have a sense of humour while you're at it, it'll make the kindness come all the more easily.
I had high hopes for this 1941 detective novel by Christianna Brand, knowing that other readers have loved her books reissued in the #britishlibrarycrimeclassics series... but I really struggled with it. The casual misogyny and homophobia was remarkable, the detective rather stupid, police practices deeply unethical and the solution a bit of a cop out (pardon the pun). The setting is the boutique of Christophe et Cie in London - design genius provided by Cecil, who's obviously gay and whose "girlishness" is mocked throughout by characters we're supposed to like (though I didn't). When their store manager - Doon, a single woman - is poisoned, suspicion falls on the cast of staff at the shop, mainly sales girls and mannequins who are referred to throughout as 'the lovelies'. Chief inspector Charlesworth is young, and eager to prove himself, but is constantly diverted by a pretty face. An early scene of his is particularly sickening. Looking at Doon's recently-deceased body, he comments on the loveliness of her contours, before asking 'was she a whatsaname?'. The immediate assumption that a beautiful, single woman making her own living must be a prostitute is rather typical of attitudes in the rest of the book. In terms of my interest in clothes, I'd say they're used throughout as a symbol of the surface show women put on, their deceptive layers. I know though that this is an early book of Brand's - the first Inspector Charlesworth novel. Does she get better? @myownbookjourneys I remember you really liked her work. Are the later ones less problematic? I wouldn't recommend this one except as a portrait of attitudes of the time, and it was certainly an interesting read for @pear.jelly's #spinsterseptember. #bookreviewer #bookreview #bookstagrammer #bookstagram #midcenturyliterature #detective #womenwriters #20thcenturyliterature #bookish #mybookishlife
So, I've grabbed a headstart on my reading for @pear.jelly's #spinsterseptember (clearly breaking the definition of September now, as well as the definition of spinster) and have begun with Barbara Pym's 'Less than Angels'. Written in 1955, the book follows a cast of characters, centred around the writer Catherine Oliphant. For a number of years Catherine has been living with 'her present love', anthropologist Tom Mallow. There has been no question of marriage, and it seems they've had few conversations about the nature of their relationship, so when Tom takes up with a 19-year-old anthropology student, Dierdre, Catherine takes it in good grace. We also follow the lives of Dierdre, her widowed mother, spinster aunt, the aged academics of the anthropology department, and the other students - all with their follies and foibles. Like Austen, Pym is adept at allowing her characters to hang themselves through their own words, raising an acerbic eyebrow at patriarchy, hubris, hypocrisy. Take this exchange: ''He lives with Catherine?' Dierdre's voice faltered a little, for she could not believe that Mark and Digby could mean what they seemed to. 'You mean, he is her lover?' She went on in a high unnatural voice. 'Well, we haven't actually asked him, but one presumes that is the arrangement.' 'It would be a reciprocal relationship - the woman giving the food and shelter and doing some typing for him and the man giving the priceless gift of himself,' said Mark.' On the whole, the men depicted are fairly useless, requiring women to look after and motivate them, while the women are eminently capable and ill-respected. I loved that there was no female rivalry here, but a low-key sympathy and solidarity. I was shocked by the book's ending, and delighted by its twists and turns - Pym wonderfully combines the mundane and dramatic in a way that feels very close to life, but often makes you wince where she cuts close to the bone. Highly recommended, and a great start to the month's reading. #bookreviewer #bookish #bookstagrammer #bookstagram #barbarapym #lessthanangels #womenwriters #20thcenturyliterature #midcenturyliterature
Antonia White's Frost in May definitely doesn't technically count as spinster literature - nuns are Brides of Christ afterall, and the pupils in their charge at the convent school are so young - but I'm treating it as a prelude to my reading for #spinsterseptember because it is chock full of unmarried women, and their choices reflect such an interesting light on those of other women in other situations. Nanda is 9 when she arrives at the convent school. It's the timeless glamour of it that captures her first - the stark colours, the plaintive music, the sweetness of incense, the ritual and poetry of prayer. She embraces all of it - except the instruction about not having close friends. Over the years, we see her friendships and thoughts develop, her relationship with religion change. I feel like this book has given me a greater insight into Catholicism than anything else I've read. Thinking about how this 1933 book sheds light on our spinster topic, I think what matters most here is choice. The nuns have chosen their vocation. They have power and agency. The girls though... Not so much. Their futures are still unknown and unpredictable, yet taking the veil of marriage or holy orders seem to be the only options they know of - the question of conformity different within this quiet world, in which marriage and worldliness are looked on as rebellious. This is a wonderful 'coming of age' book, but here the relationship at the crux of it is between the self and God, rather than a romantic one. Nanda's passions and friendships reminded me very much of Jane Eyre at Lowood School - though this is much less bleak - and I was just as interested to find out where she might go next. I believe Antonia White wrote more books in this series, and I'm really looking forward to exploring the rest. #antoniawhite #frostinmay #bookish #bookreview #bookreviewer #bookstagrammer #bookstagram #womenwriters #20thcenturyliterature #midcenturyliterature
[1965] Nothing makes me happier than falling in love with a character and voice from the very first paragraph and that's exactly what happened here: “My career has always been marked by a strange mixture of confidence and cowardice: almost, one might say, made by it. Take, for instance, the first time I tried spending a night with a man in a hotel. I was nineteen at the time, an age appropriate for such adventures, and needless to say I was not married. I am still not married, a fact of some significance, but more of that later." The story unfolded in a way that I found interesting and unexpectedly compelling, but it was the character and voice that really made the novel for me. 📚 📚 📚 #themillstone #margaretdrabble #harperperrenial #thriftbooks #fiction #womenauthors #womeninliterature #midcenturyliterature #britishliterature #literaryfiction #womenwriters #bookworm #alwaysreading #read2023 #bookstagram
Whenever I dye something, I think of this passage from Dodie Smith's 1949 novel, I Capture the Castle... 'When I came down from the attic yesterday, I found that Rose and Topaz had dyed everything they could lay their hands on, including the dishcloth and the roller towel. Once I had dipped my handkerchief into the big tin bath of green dye, I got fascinated too – it really does make one feel rather godlike to turn things a different colour. I did both my nightgowns and then we all did Topaz’s sheets, which was quite an undertaking and exhausted our lust.' This is undoubtedly one of my favourite books. The impoverished family growing up in the dilapidated castle, the excitement of that moment when life expands with new people and possibilities, and SUCH charming, eccentric, loveable characters. It's a book that creates a strong sense of place, reflecting on ideas of home and identity, and I come back to it again and again, like one returning home. Wouldn't you just love to be dying clothes green in a tin bath in that wonderfully-illustrated kitchen? The a-line skirt and jeans pictured here are the two things I've dyed most recently - both such vast improvements (I can't imagine what I did without dark brown jeans in my wardrobe - the perfect colour! They go with everything!). But, like for Cassandra in the book, however much you wear them, however useful the result, the point of dying clothes - the most exciting thing - is that moment when you pull an item out of the bath or machine to see what transformation has taken place. Magical. #booksandclothes #yarnsandfrocktales #bookstagram #readersofinstagram #midcenturyliterature #womenwriters #dodiesmith #icapturethecastle #dailyoutfit #dyingclothes #slowfashionmovement #slowfashion #outfits #outfitdiary
Ez da erreza Erein argitaletxeak kaleratuko duen Marlen Hausoferren HORMA liburuko aipu bakarra aukeratzea baina hor dihoa bat: 🦌”Ametsetan umeak munduratzen ditut, eta ez dira soilik pertsona umeak; tartean badira katuak, zakurrak, txahalak, hartzak eta oso arrotzak diren izaki iletsuak. Hala ere guztiak ateratzen dira nigandik, eta ez daukate beldurrarazi edo higuinarazi diezakedan ezer. Harrigarria dirudi hemen idazten dudanean, gizakien idazkeran eta gizaki hitzez. Beharbada, amets horiek goroldio gainean marraztu beharko nituzke hartxintxarrez, edo makila batez elur gainean adierazi. Baina oraindik ez naiz halakorik egiteko gauza. Ziur aski ez naiz horrenbesteraino eraldatzeko adina biziko. Jeinu batek lortuko luke eraldaketa hori beharbada, baina ni gizaki arrunta naiz, bere mundua galdu duena eta mundu berri bat bilatzeko bidea egiten hari dena”🦇 🦉🦅🐦⬛🐕🦌🫏🐈🐈⬛🐑🐇 Erein narratiba @uxue.razqueen Itzulpena: Naroa Zubillaga #marlenhaushofer #marlenhaushoferdiewand 🦔 No es fácil elegir una sola cita de LA PARED de Marlen Haushofer que será publicada en euskera por la editorial Erein pero allá va: “En sueños doy a luz a bebés y no solo bebés humanos; también hay gatos, perros, terneros, osos y criaturas peludas de lo más extrañas. Esto solo resulta chocante al escribirlo con caracteres humanos y palabras humanas. Quizás debería dibujar esos sueños con guijarros en el verde musgo, o bien trazarlos en la nieve con un palo. Pero aún no puedo. Y seguramente no viviré lo bastante para transformarme tanto. Es probable que un genio pudiera hacerlo, pero yo solo soy una persona normal que, habiendo perdido su mundo, está en proceso de encontrar uno nuevo.” De la traducción de Claudia Toda Castán 🐿️🐀🐇🪿🦆🐆🐃🦬🫏🐈⬛🕊️ . . . . #cifi #cienciaficción #ciencefiction #sixties #midcentury #midcenturyliterature #años60 #cover #coverart #illustration #illustrationartists #editorial #editorialillustration
𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤? 𝖨'𝗆 𝗐𝗋𝖺𝗉𝗉𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗎𝗉 𝗈𝗇 𝗆𝗒 𝖼𝗎𝗋𝗋𝖾𝗇𝗍 𝗋𝖾𝖺𝖽 (𝗌𝖾𝖾 𝖻𝗂𝗈) 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖨'𝗆 𝗍𝗋𝗒𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗋𝖾𝖺𝗅𝗅𝗒 𝗁𝖺𝗋𝖽 𝗇𝗈𝗍 𝗍𝗈 𝖻𝗎𝗒 𝗍𝗈𝗈 𝗆𝖺𝗇𝗒 𝗆𝗈𝗋𝖾 𝖻𝗈𝗈𝗄𝗌 𝗐𝗁𝗂𝗅𝖾 𝗍𝗋𝖺𝗏𝖾𝗅𝗂𝗇𝗀... 𝖻𝗎𝗍 𝖨'𝗏𝖾 𝖺𝗅𝗋𝖾𝖺𝖽𝗒 𝗉𝗎𝗋𝖼𝗁𝖺𝗌𝖾𝖽 𝖺 𝖿𝖾𝗐, 𝗌𝗈 𝗐𝖾'𝗅𝗅 𝗌𝖾𝖾 𝗁𝗈𝗐 𝗐𝖾𝗅𝗅 𝖨 𝗌𝗍𝗂𝖼𝗄 𝗍𝗈 𝗍𝗁𝖺𝗍😂 𝖧𝗈𝗉𝖾 𝖾𝗏𝖾𝗋𝗒𝗈𝗇𝖾 𝗁𝖺𝗌 𝖺 𝗐𝗈𝗇𝖽𝖾𝗋𝖿𝗎𝗅 𝖥𝗋𝗂𝖽𝖺𝗒! . #bookstack #academia #lovebooks❤️ #darkacademia #academiaaesthetic #bookcollection #classicliterature #midcenturyliterature #books #classicbooks #reading #literature #booksofinstagram #bookstagram #bookish #booklover #booknerd #booknerd #bookaddict #vintagereads #bookaholic #travel #bookphotography #booklover #fictional #booktok #traveldays #booksaremagic
[1959] What happens when you assess a person, impulsively act accordingly with dire consequences, and then realize you were wrong? That’s the psychologically troubling journey the narrator takes us on as he tries to figure out who exactly his best friend is. Taking place in 1942, the war is a real presence so there was some, what feels to me like, learning through the backdoor, which I love. I see why this has become the classic that it is (even though it has a surprisingly low rating on goodreads). 📚 📚 📚 #bookworm #alwaysreading #read2023 #bookstagram #aseparatepeace #johnknowles #bantambooks #chaptertwobooks #williamstownmass #comingofage #classicnovels #midcenturyliterature
Thoroughly enjoying this terrific collection of short stories. All banger, no clanger, as the kids almost certainly do not say. #ADifferentSound #PushkinPress #LucyScholes #ShortStories #WomenWriters #MidCenturyLiterature #FrancesBellerby #ElizabethBowen #ElizabethTaylor #DaphneduMaurier #DianaGardner #StellaGibbons #InezHolden #AttiaHosain #ElizabethJaneHoward #PenelopeMortimer #SylviaTownsendWarner
I love this cover by Wilson McLean, a Scottish artist/illustrator, who created it for the 1969 Ballantine Books edition of Enderby, by Anthony Burgess. Its Pop art, psychedelic swirls, Warholian references (see the pork and beans can), and bold colors buoyantly reflect the era #anthonyburgess #enderby #paperbackbooks #bookcollection #bookcoverart #wilsonmclean #ballantinebooks #literaryfiction #booknerd #booknerdsofinstagram #1960sstyle #popartstyle #psychedelicart #britlit #midcenturyliterature
An unfussy, visually powerful cover. Interestingly the name of the author is more prominent than the title. Find out what else I am reading through the link in my bio. #irismurdoch #irismurdochthebell #thebell #literaturelover #englishliterature #vintagepaperbacks #vintageclassicsbooks #currentlyreading #amreading #readingjournal #readinglife #bookblogger #bookstagramuk #bookjournal #midcenturyliterature
[1962] This, my second Penelope Mortimer, covers similar emotional territory to the first, mid-century housewife/mother on the verge of a breakdown. Wouldn’t have thought this would be subject matter for me, but Mortimer rocks it once again in this semi-autobiographical novel. I find it sharply written and fascinating. 📚 📚 📚 #thepumpkineater #penelopemortimer #nyrbclassics #nyrb #nypl #midcenturyliterature #womenauthors #britishauthor #womeninliterature #fiction #britishliterature #20thcenturyliterature #modernclassic #bookworm #alwaysreading #read2023 #bookstagram
Things we love: Literature from the same period as the music that inspires us. #jazz #jazzmusic #jumbalumba #georgeorwell #ernesthemingway #hemingway #johnwyndham #grahamgreene #raymondchandler #midcenturyliterature #nineteeneightyfour
Parcels wrapped in Penfold Press’ delicious paper and heading out - Chips Channon, the miraculous, dreamlike novella ‘Baron Bagge’ by Alexander Lernet-Holenia, newly translated, the enormous Phaidon ‘Fashion Book’, ‘Aesop’s Fables’ illustrated by Agnes Miller Parker, du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’, a sheaf of paperbacks… ‘Baron Bagge’ has a short introduction by Patti Smith, who, it turns out, is an ardent admirer of Alexander Lerner-Holenia. A cavalry officer rides through a hail of Russian bullets into a world of enchanted love… #penfoldpress #agnesmillerparker #independentbookshop #ribbons #screenprinting #midcenturyliterature #alexanderlernetholenia #pattismith
After years of hearing #TransitofVenus recommended, I’m taking my time with it, and it really is wonderful. The characterization is so arch and weird, it’s almost mannerist, but the prose is so charismatic, I’ll follow these Aussies as far as they’ll take me. #shirleyhazzard #australianliterature #bookstagram #midcenturyliterature #astronomybooks
James Baldwin has been, since my first reading, one of my favourite authors. And every time I read another one of his novels or essays I am furthered assured. Accessiblity: a brown backing with the cover of The Fire Next Time (James Baldwin, 1963) with various quotes. 🔖 #jamesbaldwin #thefirenexttime #nonfictionnovember #nonfiction #essay #bookfeature #bookreview #midcentury #midcenturyliterature #classicliterature #bookquotes #jamesbaldwinquote
In Elizabeth Taylor’s A Game of Hide And Seek we follow Vesey and Harriet, who fall in love as teenagers, then lose touch and meet some twenty years later (after marriage, and kids) to discover that their love for each other has not faded. This was written in 1951 meaning that Harriet was morally in another situation than women nowadays are. The stifling pressure to do "the right thing" was very much there. The book centers around this inner turmoil and seemingly invisible but ice-cold pressure from her husband and her daughter's own struggles with making sense of what her mother is doing. The writing style takes time to get used to but when you do it is a beautiful thing. It is one of the rare books where the plot and the sheer quality of the writing are both there. I was eager to know what will happen to Harriet and Vesey just as much as I was under the spell of Taylor's beautiful prose. There were some scenes that were quite unforgettable - two lovers in a park, wrapped in the blue dusk, or secretly meeting in foggy London, fine mist forming pearls on a fur coat. There was such a strong ambiance throughout the book. It reminded me Graham Greene's The End of the Affair but also Dorothy Whipple, who is a great favorite of mine. This novel is not perhaps for everyone but for those who enjoy novels set in the midcentury era, that are slow-paced and have a certain vintage feel - it is perfect.
[1958] 5⭐️Cold and sparse, stifling and oppressive. Taught, teetering. Emotionally heightened; emotionally flat. Writing to die for. 📚 📚 📚 #daddysgoneahunting #penelopemortimer #mcnallyeditions #nypl #britishliterature #womenauthors #midcenturyliterature #britishauthor #fivestarread #novel #modernclassic #20thcenturyliterature #domesticfiction #bookworm #alwaysreading #read2022 #bookstagram
I’m arriving late to #bipoctober 🎃with an underrated midcentury novel. James Baldwin is better known for Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time, but Giovanni’s Room is equally excellent. Also it’s set in 1950s Paris so there are lots of scenes with handsome brooding men smoking cigarettes at cafes and talking philosophy if you’re into that sort of thing :) 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 #lgbtreads #jamesbaldwin #20thcenturyliterature #blackauthors #giovannisroom #thefirenexttime #notesfromanativeson #midcenturyliterature #bookstagram #instabook #booksbooksbooks #readmorebooks #readersofinstagram #bipocinstagram #bipocauthors #bookrecommendations #bookquote #annotated #readbipocbooks #readqueerallyear #diversereads #fall #autumn
I believe it wise to keep in mind that a person can be capable of both great good and great evil at the same time. Remember, however, that no amount of good erases the perpetualisation of imperialism, colonialism, and violence experienced by communities and nations. This is the end of an era, truly. #books #bookstagram #booksofinstagram #booksofig #reading #nonfiction #biography #marioncrawford #queenelizabeth #princessmargaret #royals #thewindsors #midcenturyliterature #memoir #thelittleprincesses #britishhistory #booksandcoffee #openbook #bookworm #booknerd #bibliophile
[1949] We know from the first few pages that there’s a landslide that kills some of the guests in the hotel below. What we don’t know is which of the guests, of the twenty or so we’ll get to meet, it will be. With this setup, I was expecting it to be much more psychologically suspenseful than it actually was. I think that was a real missed opportunity. Without that, it was a collection of various personalities interacting, which was fine, but lacking some depth which I think some good suspense would have made up for. 📚 📚 📚 #thefeast #margaretkennedy #faberandfaber #blackwellbooks #blackwellsbooks #nypl #midcenturyliterature #womenauthors #womeninliterature #fiction #bookworm #alwaysreading #read2022 #bookstagram
In no way a domestic goddess! But as a Part2LoveLife woman I visualise my home as the background to the rest of my life. 🏡 If home looks and feels good to me there are mental benefits. 😌 It sets me up to good effect to venture out into the rest of my life. ⚔️ Sometimes having the right clothes helps get me in the right mood to tend to it. 👚 So I'm enjoying my new apron from #SeasaltCornwall. #seasaltcornwallclothing #apronstyle #domesticlife #domesticnovel #midlifewomen #midlifedating #persephonebooks #dorothywhipple #midcenturyliterature #20thcenturywomen #midcenturywomen #domesticgoddess #notadomesticgoddess #part2lovelife #part2life
The personal life struggles are killing me today but at least there are still good books and strong cups of coffee in the world. #books #bookstagram #booksofinstagram #booksofig #reading #nonfiction #biography #marioncrawford #queenelizabeth #princessmargaret #royals #thewindsors #midcenturyliterature #memoir #thelittleprincesses #britishhistory #booksandcoffee #openbook #summerreads #bookworm #booknerd #bibliophile
Really loving the nonfiction this summer! Memoirs, especially. Please drop your memoir/biography recommendations!!! #books #bookstagram #booksofinstagram #booksofig #reading #nonfiction #biography #marioncrawford #queenelizabeth #princessmargaret #royals #thewindsors #midcenturyliterature #memoir #britishhistory #bookworm #booknerd #bibliophile
Little life update: didn't get either of the Library Services Assistant positions - literally the only one who didn't get to move up at work lol... But I'm now the only shelver so I can pick up all the extra shifts! Unfortunately summer hours are sparse and I make minimum wage but it's fine, we're fine, everything is fine. #books #bookstagram #booksofinstagram #booksofig #reading #nonfiction #biography #marioncrawford #queenelizabeth #princessmargaret #royals #britishmonarchy #history #thewindsors #midcenturyliterature #twentiethcenturyliterature #booksandcoffee #icedcoffee #bookworm #booknerd #bibliophile
Found this selection yesterday at Tacoma Book Center and @kingsbooks. Check out that Roald Dahl cover. 👀🤣 I need to head back down to Tacoma Book Center and spend literally all day there. It is an insane place to look through, with books floor to ceiling, incredible prices, and very eclectic titles. #books #bookcollector #bookcollection #bookcollectors #bookcollecting #kingsbooks #tacomabookcenter #supportsmallbusiness #supportindependentbookstores #cslewis #paperbacks #russianliterature #patrickdennis #midcenturyliterature #kathyacker #anaisnin #ottessamoshfegh
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann If you start this book, you won't be able to put it down. It is over the top and full of excess, like one big soap opera. It stretches over 20 years, from the mid 1940s and focuses on three women and their rise to fame. Dolls are a reference to the pills they take to help them cope with the pressure of life in the spotlight. Beware there are numerous triggers in this book: drugs, eating disorders, mental health, alcoholism and I'm probably missing some out. Apparently this book paved the way for the big 'blockbuster' books by the likes of Jackie Collins, who isn't somebody I would have thought of reading before but after this one, you never know. #valleyofthedolls #floralbouquet #floralarrangement #jacquelinesusann #paperbacks #bookandflowers #instagrambooks #bookishthoughts #booksofinstagram #bookishchat #letstalkbooks #letsreadbooks #alwaysreading #alwayswithabook #alwaysreadingbooks #timeforreading #timetoread #readmorebooks #readmorebooks📚 #readbooks #showmethebooks #bookstagram #booksta #bookishlove #booksbooksbooks #booksofig #booksonsunday #booksforever #literaturelovers #midcenturyliterature
My sinuses are in full revolt. So I am reading this book. So far, it's pretty good. But I love Rona Jaffe. It was pretty famous in its day--people kept copies for the office and had her sign theirs for the whole floor. #midcenturyliterature #whatrachelisreadingrightnow
Obsessed with the author Shirley Jackson at the moment. A really multi-faceted writer, she wrote pioneering psychological horror alongside wry, witty articles about her domestic life as a mother of four in mid-century America. #shirleyjackson #shirleyjacksonbooks #midcenturyliterature #gothicliterature
▪“Those who hope, by retiring from the world, to earn a holiday from human frailty, in themselves and others, are usually disappointed.” ▪“... he felt himself to be one of them, who can live neither in the world nor out of it. They are a kind of sick people, whose desire for God makes them unsatisfactory citizens of an ordinary life, but whose strength or temperament fails them to surrender the world completely...” ▪“When I am told that a person is happy, I know that he is not. Of really happy people this is never said.” ― Iris Murdoch, The Bell Iris Murdoch's The Bell starts with Dora, a very young, flighty woman who has decided to return to her older, bullying husband whom she left "because she was afraid of him" and decides to return "for the same reason." Written and set in 1958, The Bell takes place in a small Anglican lay community alongside Imber Abbey an abbey for Benedictine nuns. Dora's husband Paul isn't part of that community but is working there as a historian. The community is made up of people who have failed themselves or others or find themselves ill-equipped for real life. Everyone is searching for meaning in life through God. The book seems to be about the struggle to find meaning as well as the differences between human love and the love of God. Murdoch is an expert at character development. You feel her characters' motivation. Like Dora, you come to the community as an outsider, but soon become immersed in it. Everyone is looking forward to the upcoming christening of the new bell they purchased for the Abbey tower. As you begin to learn the community's secrets, you realize that things are going to go horribly wrong. This book was excellent. I loved her writing and the slow build. Have you read any Iris Murdoch books? If so, what should I read next? Photo background: Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash. #thebell #thebellirismurdoch #irismurdoch #midcenturyliterature #classiclit #classicliterature #bookishthings #bookishaesthetic #storybook #Ilovetoread #bookloversalways #bookwormproblems #bookishlife #readerlife #bookishgirl #cozyreading #readingismagic #bookwormsunite #booksandtea
안녕하세요 2021년 11월 10일 오픈한 국내 유일 영어원서 대여 도서관입니다. 2022년 4월 1일부터 6월 30일까지, 미드 센츄리 빈티지 도서들을 중점적으로 소개 합니다. 국내에서 뿐만 아니라 미국에서도 쉽게 접하실 수 없는 소중한 문학서적들을 예전 그 모습 그대로 만져보고 소장해 보세요. 카탈로그 문의는 오로지 전화와 인스타그램 디엠으로만 받습니다. 많은 관심 부탁드리고요. 재고가 매일 다른 관계로 문의는 신속히 해 주세요. #midcenturyliterature #hemingway #gatsby #vintagebooks #novels #worldwar2 #postwarmodern #postwarliterature #johnsteinbeck #edithwharton #virginiawolf #rothschild
Midcentury fiction writer Flannery O'Connor and some of the birds she raised at Andalusia, the Georgia farm where she lived. I like the serious way she's looking at them, like they're all four talking something over. Photo: Atlanta History Center, Floyd Jillson Collection #FlanneryOConnor #MidcenturyLiterature #AndalusiaFarm #Milledgeville
Do you read middle grade novels? I’ve found so many favorites in that genre. I find that once books totter off into the realm of “teen” and “YA” they begin to take themselves altogether too seriously and end up feeling oppressively dramatic. On either end we have the books that are content to be simply readable. What’s your favorite reading level for a cozy read? ✨ . . . . . . . . . . . . #books #reading #bookreviews #bookstagrammer #classicliterature #literary #bookish #bookaesthetic #warmtones #booklover #muddycolors #academia #academiaaesthetic #readgoodbooks #bookstagram #writeraesthetic #classicliterature #academiastyle #darkacademiaaesthetic #readtheclassics #darkacademia #tolkienaesthetic #bookrecommendations #library #mylibrary #middlegradebooks #midcenturyliterature #cottagecore #childrensbooks #middlegradefiction #bookreview
“Apart from the church tower, there were five clocks in the village that kept reasonable time, and my father owned one of them.” . Sometimes the first line of a book pulls you into another world by making something ordinary seem strange. The first time I read the Tripods Trilogy by John Christopher I had to stop and reread the first sentence to make sure I’d got it right. These books are exciting and well-paced, and wonderfully written. I read them a few years back, and recently listened to the audio and it was like experiencing them for the first time again. Just as exciting, as nail-bitingly tense. A classic fight for freedom tale with the perfect blend of sci-fi and real-world. 100% recommended! ✨ . . . . . . . . . . . . #books #reading #bookreviews #bookstagrammer #classicliterature #literary #bookish #bookaesthetic #warmtones #booklover #muddycolors #academia #academiaaesthetic #readgoodbooks #bookstagram #writeraesthetic #classicliterature #academiastyle #darkacademiaaesthetic #readtheclassics #darkacademia #tolkienaesthetic #bookrecommendations #library #mylibrary #scifibooks #midcenturyliterature #cottagecore #tripodstrilogy #johnchristoper #bookreview
I still remember when I finished reading John William's Stoner and had this overwhelming feeling of sadness about all the exceptional novels that once got attention, were forgotten but will never be rediscovered - that I will never read. Stoner was rediscovered and it broke my heart, it was simply brilliant in its quiet despair. Now Thomas Savage's The Power of The Dog, originally published in 1967 is enjoying newfound readership. A novel many have not heard about and can't believe they haven't after reading it. It was rediscovered perhaps mainly thanks to the Jane Campion movie based on it, which will be released on Netflix soon. I finished the book a few days ago and honestly, it is the best novel I've read this year. I just can't get it out of my head. It's about two brothers, Phil and George, who are rich ranch owners in 1925 Montana. They are complete opposites and when George marries and brings his wife to live on the ranch, this is, where the plot thickens, as they say. It is a story that works best if you don't know much of the plot before going in. It was one of those literary novels that are perfect, the way The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The Loneliness of Judith Hearne or, as I mentioned, Stoner is. It doesn't matter much what the plot is or what the characters do, because the construction of the work itself is faultless. The way tension slowly builds and the characters open up. The way the author peels off layers from them so you end up confused and have to reevaluate your initial judgement on their motives and behaviour. Characters that have many dimensions, many opposing qualities. Characters that are humane and vulnerable. On a broad scale, this novel deals with the sadness of a man not fitting to his era/surroundings. A man not being able to be his true self. It shows us the result, that is toxic masculinity and the way this destroys everything around it. The way this simple idea is tied around the clever plot, that is actually inspired by Savage's own life is fantastic. ◾️Continued in the comments ◾️
Time to make some additions? Unfortunately, I’ve already bought everything under four figures. #bookhabit #firsteditions #travismcgee #midcenturyliterature #johndmacdonald #books #pulpfiction #whatthehellitsnotlikeivebeentraveling
Have you read Barbara Pym, a mid-century British novelist who Philip Larkin declared “the most underrated writer of the century”? I only just heard of her this spring when reading a chapter about her in the food historian Laura Shapiro’s book What She Ate. I enjoyed reading Pym’s description of bad macaroni and cheese from her 1952 novel Excellent Women. THEN by sheer luck, I spotted said novel in a Little Free Library and snagged it for a time I felt like reading about bland 1950s English food. WELL, let me confess, I am NOT returning this book to the little library. I am keeping it to re-read at my pleasure, to be my cozy friend on my bookshelf or bedside table, a stand-in for its protagonist Mildred Lathbury, an everyday thirty-ish spinster in 1950s London, who herself prefers to keep cookbooks on her bedside table for when she has trouble sleeping. Mildred’s voice is so specific, so self-deprecating and funny, so insightful about the foolishness big and small she encounters, so wistful and so resistant to the box the world wants to put her in as a single woman of modest means - she’ll be your best friend in about two chapters. I LOVE discovering lesser-known authors from the past, especially when their characters and stories read so contemporary. Mildred’s voice, through Pym’s, carries through the decades, feeling as immediate as any modern day romcom heroine. I hope you’ll find your own copy and be completely charmed. Just please don’t ask for mine! Are you a Barbara Pym fan? -Honor R. #excellentwomen #barbarapym #englishliterature #midcenturyliterature #1950slondon #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #readingwomen #femaleauthors #feministliterature #cozyreads #femaleheroines #romcom
Started reading my third Muriel Spark novel... The Ballad of Peckham Rye 1960 "The story of a working-class London neighborhood that is turned upside down by Dougal Douglas, who may or may not be in league with the Devil. He is hired by a firm to do "human reaearch" into the lives of its workers, however no one is prepared for the mutiny and murder he stirs up" Love this edition by @ndpublishing #amreading #currentlyreading #readersofinstagram #igreads #igbooks #bibliophile #newbook #booksofinstagram #murielspark #theballadofpeckhamrye #midcenturyliterature
Undeniably all great movies, right? Well, we aren't showing any of them this week. You’ve seen them all, right? BUT you haven’t seen this! We ARE showing TRUMAN AND TENNESSEE: AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION, a film about the mid-century literary giants who wrote these compelling stories about American culture! This revelatory look at the lifelong friendship between legendary fellow gay Southern writers Truman Capote & Tennessee Williams is now on the big screen at select Landmark Theatres. @zacharyquinto & @therealjimparsons lend their voices to this film directed by @lisaimmordinovreeland #landmarktheatres #trumancapote #tennesseewilliams #playwright #author #writer #writerslife #gaywriter #americanliterature #lgbt #audreyhepburn #marlonbrando #elizabethtaylor #paulnewman #vivianleigh #breakfastattiffanys #incoldblood #astreetcarnameddesire #catonahottinroof #trumantennessee #gaypride #drama #americanculture #hollygolightly #classicfilm #midcenturyliterature #modernclassics #gaysoutherner #zacharyquinto #jimparsons
Calling all Southern collectors! Truman Capote 1st wrote this “The Thanksgiving Visitor “ to be published in Mc Call magazine in 1967. It was then published as shown here in 1968. Now you can own a copy, and they are not widely available. Buy it here for $18 insta friends price plus media mail 📦DM for details! #southern #southernlife #southernliterature #trumancapote #vintagebooks #vintagebooksforsale #midcenturyliterature
Undeniably all great movies, right? Well, we aren't showing any of them at Landmark's Nuart Theatre this week. You’ve seen them all, BUT you haven’t seen this! We are showing TRUMAN AND TENNESSEE: AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION, a film about the mid-century literary giants who wrote these compelling stories about American culture! Starting Friday, June 18 you can see this revelatory look at the lifelong friendship between legendary fellow gay Southern writers Truman Capote & Tennessee Williams. And, on 6/18 & 6/19 producer Matt Lee (E.P., Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel) is coming IN PERSON to talk to YOU about the film at the 7:30 pm shows. @zacharyquinto & @therealjimparsons lend their voices to this film directed by @lisaimmordinovreeland #nuarttheatre #landmarktheatres #trumancapote #tennesseewilliams #playwright #author #writer #writerslife #gaywriter #gayauthor #americanliterature #lgbt #audreyhepburn #marlonbrando #elizabethtaylor #paulnewman #vivianleigh #breakfastattiffanys #incoldblood #astreetcarnameddesire #catonahottinroof #trumantennessee #gaypride #drama #americanculture #hollygolightly #classicfilm #midcenturyliterature #modernclassics #gaysoutherner
SOLD. Just landed at camp: This fictional memoir of two lusty young stewardesses, originally presented as factual. (Paraphrased from Wikipedia.) #coffeeteaorme #midcenturyliterature #pulpfiction #madisonantiques #antiquesdealersofinstagram #antiquesmallofmadison #campvintagepines
I have been reading bits from Cheever’s journals and have this sweet anticipation how memorable of a reading experience the whole book will be. Probably will read it in full in summer as I’m big on “seasonal reading” and Cheever is definitely a writer whose work best suits summer. But here is a bit he wrote in 1954: ▪️I do not seem able to call up, at will, this sweet flavour of compassion, but I think I can conclude that life, as it passes before our eyes, is a creative force - that one thing is put usefully upon another - that what we lose in one exchange is more than replenished by the next, that it is only us, only our pitiful misunderstandings that make for crookedness, darkness and anger. There are times when I seem to see nothing but that world that lies in the corner of the eye: the leering stranger, the flick of a mouse in the hammered-brass woodbox, the prostitute in the drugstore. An there are times when the juices of understanding and love seem to flow freely through my arms and legs and all my parts. ▪️
I doubted that I’d see her again; it was the atmosphere of negation she moved in; it clung to me all the way home. I wondered what the illness was she’d spoken of. I supposed it had something to do with her going to the doctor. It must have been an illness of special kind: it seemed to me only that could have driven her to consult a doctor of the sort Ritter was. Then I shrugged. It didn’t really concern me, and the sympathy I felt was limited. I was quite sure that I wouldn’t call her again. What I’d forgotten was the I knew very few girls in town, and that I was, after all, quite lonely too. *** Sometimes you have little hidden gems waiting in your shelves for their time to shine. Written in first person and with a narrator that reminds us of Hayes himself, My Face for the World to See is the account of a well-known story: a screenwriter frustrated with his family life in New York travels often to Hollywood for work, where he leads a more animated life and meets all sort of people, including the aspiring, beautiful actress with a complicated life. From here it’s easy to imagine the rest. Two lost people that will be invariably brought together by the mutual recognition of their need to be saved from their own reality by someone, anyone. Both know it’s an illusion, it cannot work out. She’s more trouble than he can handle, the fun will be over in a matter of weeks and when it happens, he’ll feel again all the weight of his own existence. She knows this is a mistake, that he will never leave his wife, they never do, she’s been there before, but in the meantime she can pretend this time will be different. This combination can only lead to a tragic outcome, one that we can predict from the beginning. This, however, doesn’t prevents us from reading the story of two doomed souls and discovering in Hayes a really fine writer who has skilfully captured the dream of possibility in the 50’s Hollywood combined with the frustration and loneliness that eventually took hold of the characters who inhabited it. If F.S. Fitzgerald and Richard Yates had had a child, he would have been Alfred Hayes. That’s all I can say. • • • • •
Vintage classics ❤️ #vintagebooks #oldbooks #midcenturyliterature #wizardofoz #snowwhite #harlowlaneboutique
ICYMI, our first #BOTM for November is The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, published in 1963 📖💜 . A semi-autobiographical work, it is also the only novel written by Plath, and was originally published under a pseudonym, “Victoria Lucas” . This is a relatively short read and we’ll be discussing it this weekend, at ARC Session 10💜 So #readwithus 💁🏻♀️ . #thearc📖 #thebelljar #bookofthemonth # #bookclubsofinstagram #bookstagramindia #november2020 #sylviaplath #femaleauthors #ardentreaders #community #bookswelove #romanaclef #semiautobiographical #20thcenturyfiction #1950samerica #1950s #fiction #ebookstagram #arcsessions #bookclubmeeting #midcenturyliterature #feministliterature #femaleidentity #womeninliterature
I have limited patience with Cecile the teenaged narrator of Bonjour Tristesse. She and her father are summering in their vacation villa 🙄 and the addition of her father’s lover is a bit scandalous. Cecile is used to partying with her dad, drinking in Cannes casinos, and being treated like an empty headed kitten and her father’s partner in crime. 🙄 Enter Anne, elegant, and cool, and suddenly engaged to Cecile’s father. In a series of high society shenanigans Cecile tries to prevent the marriage. At times it seems like a poorly plotted Victorian melodrama. Nevertheless, I liked this novella, written by the author in her teens. Cecile almost casts herself as the villain. She is torn between her love, and admiration for Anne, and seeing Anne as an obstacle to her lifestyle which she acknowledges as frivolous and selfish. I’m curious about the second novella, A Certain Smile. I wanted to read this book after it was mentioned as a sensational bestseller in Minor Characters, Joyce Johnson’s memoir about women during the Beat Generation. . . #francoisesagan #bonjourtristesse #frenchliterature #womenintranslation #midcenturyliterature #modernclassics #penguinmodernclassics #novellas #bookreview
In all honesty picked this up from the shelf merely based on the cover alone and then bought it because of the blurb. On the cover is a painting from 1986 by Claudio Bravo, a Chilean artist who died in Morocco. Paul Bowles himself also lived in Morocco. He settled in Tangiers in 1947 and lived there until the end of his life. For this novel, his debut, he travelled in the Sahara alone whilst writing. The Sheltering Sky is the kind of a book where the setting - the desert in this instance - is a character itself. Always looming in the background, almost unbearably visceral. I could feel the fine dust in my nose, the dizziness from the relentless heat, the bright light reflecting from the houses making you squint your eyes and the sudden drop of the temperature at night. And the odd silence. I've never been to the desert nor do I have any wish to but I felt like I did after finishing Bowles novel. Written in 1940's it is on the surface, a sort of travelogue about an American couple Port and Kit Moresby who, joined by a friend named Tanner, go to explore North Africa in the aftermath of World War II. They are aimless, quite ignorant to the cultural difference and therefore quite carefree. They feel that the singularity of their destination is a thing itself and makes them better, more special. But soon the cracks in the marriage gone stale between Kit and Port appear and from there it is one bleak spiral downwards. I can't say this novel will become a firm favourite because the paranoia, psychological terror and the suffocating atmosphere is not something I enjoyed, or can imagine anyone find enjoyment in. But it is definitely a book I will remember for a long time. The style, setting and subject matter created a hypnotic journey, almost like a high. I rarely come across books that do this this well. It was about so many things - existential dread, the failure to connect with another person, the cliched perceptions we have about cultures different from our one and the illusions we have that we understand merely by travelling. A very peculiar, shocking and so different form anything I’ve read before. Not for everyone but for the curious reader, definitely.
I’ve spent most of the unfortunate non-event that the summer of 2020 has been, with John Cheever's collected stories. They are aligned chronologically in the book and the sweep of this universe took me completely, wholly and I let myself be taken gladly. . I find it difficult to add anything new to the canonic praise that surrounds John Cheever. He has taken a part of history, a certain time an period and made it more alive than it perhaps was in reality. Similarly to Carver, he gave voice to the muffled suburban agony of mid-century America, to the false siren of the American Dream. His is not raw and merciless though, it is not without hope. It is edged with otherworldliness and taut irony, whiskey on rocks glistening in the mute October sunshine with occasional detours to Italian small towns. He sees the unfulfilled dreams and inadequateness of the sad man who always finds someone better to compare himself to. He sees the wife who has a GT way before a decent cocktail hour. He knows the false mantra of the mistress who says "I have never done anything like this before". . Story after story the same themes reoccur, about the controversies of his characters and the times they are trapped in. Yet the depressiveness - so often attributed to his work - remains in the readers head. It isn't there on the page. His work gives you space to see it the way you please, use the lens you prefer to see yourself through. It is you, only in mid-century America, trying to do your best while society presses on you from whichever direction you are running towards. . And then there are the cultural references that are so timeless that you almost want to cry at their accuracy and hide under a fluffy duvet with a stiff martini, quit your job and watch all the seasons of Mad Men all over again. You just want to live in this perfectly constructed world, for it to never end and to nudge away the knowledge that all this was created by a man who spent 40 years of his life drinking and still managed to make something like this. A book to revisit and a book to celebrate. Literature hardly gets better than this.
Today I started with the annual clean-up of my book shelfs... Between my approx. 3500 books I found this beauty in the A-section: a poem collection by Hans Andreus with this great COBRA cover by Lucebert. De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam 1953. #hansandreus #lucebert #cobraart #dutchart #midcenturyart #modernistart #debezigebij #bookcovers #midcenturyliterature
Diving into my first Muriel Spark's novel with Memento Mori. #amreading #currentlyreading #readersofinstagram #igreads #igbooks #bibliophile #newbook #booksofinstagram #murielspark #mementomori #booknerd #bookworm #midcenturyliterature
Reading has been all over the place with this reading slump and life in general. Was taking weeks to finish a book..but started to get my momentum back. After finishing a few of my #bookofthemonth selection I am feeling back in the swing of things. Next up...at least next book I'm starting is Something to Answer For by P.H. Newby. This was the first novel to win the Booker Prize in 1969. #amreading #currentlyreading #igreads #igbooks #bookerprizewinner #phnewby #somethingtoanswerfor #midcenturyliterature #readersofinstagram #booksofinstagram #bibliophile #paperback #bookstagram #faberandfaber #bookerprize
Sounds about right. #quarantinereads #barbaracomyns #femaleauthors #midcenturyliterature #tragicomiclife