I want to wish those in the U.S. a very Happy Thanksgiving this coming week. It’s hard to believe Turkey Day is about here and we’re nearing Christmas. Already there’s quite a few Christmas lights up in our neighborhood. We won’t be traveling anywhere this time for U.S. Thanksgiving but are excited to be joining relatives in California for Christmas. So that’s the agenda so far.
Also this week I want to congratulate the 2016 National Book Award winners, notably Colson Whitehead for his novel “The Underground Railroad,” which won for fiction. I heard Colson speak at the BookExpo in May in Chicago and plan to read his novel soon. It’s about a runaway slave named Cora who escapes a Georgia plantation and travels north via a literal underground subway. Judy over at the blog Keep the Wisdom has read and liked it as have other bloggers, so I’m keen to try out my first book by him.
Interestingly another novel given out at BookExpo — George Saunders’s book “Lincoln in the Bardo” — has been hailed by author Zadie Smith as “a masterpiece” in this week’s New York Times’ By the Book interview. Saunders’s book (his long-awaited first novel) is not due out till February but you might want to take note of it, if you don’t already have an advance copy. It’s said to be a “mesmerizing historical novel that’s also a moving ghost story.” It combines a tale of Lincoln with the supernatural. Hmm.
In my reading this past week, I finished Paulette Jiles’s historical novel “News of the World,” which was a finalist for the National Book Award. I have not read a lot of westerns, but this one captured my imagination so I might like to read more in the future. It’s about an elderly widower, a captain in the Civil War, who in the 1870s makes his living traveling around North Texas giving public readings from far-away newspapers to paying customers.
It’s at one of these stops that the Captain is offered a sum of money to deliver an orphan girl to her relatives outside San Antonio. The girl, just 10, had been captured by Kiowa Indians four years earlier when her family was killed. She’s been rescued but now no longer remembers the English language or the white settlers’ ways of life. But the Captain agrees to take her and the two embark on a 400-mile journey south in a wagon with two horses.
It’s not a journey you’d think they could likely make. He’s a 70-plus aged grandpa and she’s a feisty young girl who refuses to act “civilized” and wants to escape back to the Indians. The terrain, too, is unforgiving and the state quite lawless in the 1870s. The towns they come upon often spell trouble, and the threat of attacks on the remote road is high. I was on full alert the whole time, fearing they’d be robbed and their throats would be slit. Maybe I’ve been watching a little too much of the Walking Dead, but they seemed to be sitting ducks on the open road.
As the miles go by, the girl and old man eventually form a bond that helps them endure. Both are appealing. And I liked how a lot of the narrative deals with how different the former-captive girl is — and how she can never fully go back to the ways of the white world. She thinks of herself as an Indian. Apparently this was true of most child captives on the Texas frontier — “they rarely readjusted when returned to their non-native families,” so writes the author in a note at the back of the book. The captain’s character, too, is based on a real person, a friend of the author’s great great grandfather, who traveled around reading the “News of the World” to paying customers in 1870’s Texas. The story of these two combined had me easily hooked to see how it would end — if they would make it to San Antonio, and how the two would part there.
It surprised me how short the novel was. Just 209 pages. This is no epic “Lonesome Dove.” “News of the World” could almost be a novella. It wasn’t a fully expanded drama, but I liked the book’s brevity. The wagon wheels kept turning so to speak. If you’re looking for something short, you might want to throw it into your travel bag. It’ll transport your imagination to the dusty frontier days in no time.
Also this week I finished the audiobook of Wilson Rawl’s 1961 children’s classic “Where the Red Fern Grows,” which I hadn’t read since elementary school. I knew as a dog lover I had to revisit this story about a boy and his two redbone coonhound hunting dogs. Most know the story about Billy and how his family is poor and they live in the remote Ozark Mountains of Oklahoma. And how Billy saves up two years to buy two coonhound pups and train them. Oh yes, Old Dan and Little Ann, how can anyone forget these dogs?
I hadn’t forgotten but I wanted to see what I had recalled of the story from childhood. The good news is after quite a few decades (no one’s counting) I can tell you: the magic of the book still holds up! The love Billy and his dogs have for one another feels very real, and the picture of their lives and the hunting of raccoons they do together at night in the remote woods along the river is very vivid. I was captured by the story once again.
It’s a tale that’s based on the hunting of “coons,” so if you’re sensitive to this topic you might not find it as favorable. But for the most part the scenes are not graphic, they depict more about the dogs’ chase of the critters and the adventures Billy has in the woods with them. There’s one axe scene between Billy and the area bully that scared me as a kid and that still looms large. But compared with today, it’s quite an old-fashioned story that is wonderful for being so. The boy’s narration is pitch perfect and the story of his days with his dogs rings true.
From my youth I had recalled the book as having one of the saddest endings of all time. But luckily I was able to “handle” it a bit better this go-around. It was still very sad, but I reasoned that Billy and his dogs had happily spent the best period of their lives together. That’s all most of us can ask for, right? As a dog person, this book still remains in my Top 10 of canine tales of all time. Children’s book or not.
Lastly this week, I saw the Amy Adams-alien movie “Arrival” at the theater and the Viggo Mortensen movie “Captain Fantastic” on rental. They were both sort of different. “Arrival” seemed to have a slower pace and was more ponderous than I expected. (It would probably be better as a rental.) I liked the scenes where Adams’ character is trying to communicate with the aliens, which are interesting looking things with elephant-like limbs. But perhaps there wasn’t enough in the movie besides the visual. Though there is a time element aspect of “Arrival” that makes you question the sequence of the story. If you like these kinds of “Interstellar” – time sorts of films, you might like this one as well. It makes you wonder about the connectedness of events, and the sequence of them.
As for “Captain Fantastic” — about a father trying to raise his six kids by hunting and gathering in the remote woods of the Pacific Northwest — whoa. It seems a cross between “Swiss Family Robinson” and “The Mosquito Coast,” if you’ve seen those. It’s an engaging film — all the kids are intellectually astute from reading books and being self-taught by Dad — and the first half in the woods is pretty cool, but it gets a bit crazy in the second half as the father and kids reenter society to attend the mother’s funeral. Some parts might stretch one’s believability but still the movie (as a rental) is appealing and at times amusing, especially with Viggo Mortensen as the father, one of my sister’s all-time favorites. “Wherever V-goes, she goes,” apparently.
What about you — have you read any of these books, or seen these movies, and if so, what did you think?
I’m not sure I’ve ever read a western. The News of the World sounds like a good one to start with.
Yeah Kathy, I can’t recall many westerns I’ve read either. I still need to get to Lonesome Dove before I kick the bucket. How I’ve missed this I don’t know, but it’s long!
I also do not read a lot of Westerns. I should read more. I think that there many quality Westerns out there well worth the read.
It sounds like News of the World is a very worthy character study with an interesting plot.
Yep Brian, I think I should give more westerns a chance too. I still want to read Lonesome Dove among others. Hmm.
Thanks again for the shout out! I am happy for Colson Whitehead that he won. I was curious though why all the winners were men. I thought we were getting over that.
You have convinced me to read The News of the World. Nothing I had read about it before appealed to me, but you got to the heart of what the novel is about. Great review.
Last night husband and I finished watching all the foreign films nominated for an Oscar last year by watching Embrace of the Serpent. We talked it over and decided each of the 5 nominated was great in its own way. Talk about news of the world!
Happy Thanksgiving to all at your house!
Oh thanks Judy. News of the World is a small little thing. It’s sort of a 3.5 star read but still was worth it. I’m really impressed you’ve seen all the foreign nominated films from last year, wow! I’m still gathering my courage to rent Son of Saul. Maybe soon. Happy Thanksgiving to you all too.
I’m not much of a western reader either (except for Wallace Stegner), but a short book like New of the World sounds tempting. My reading has been all nonfiction this month. Finished Sisters in Law, a dual biography of Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, on Saturday and then impulsively picked up My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor. We haven’t been to the movies in a while, but will probably see one over the Thanksgiving weekend… if we can all agree on something 😉
I’m impressed with all your nonfiction reading & Supreme Court expertise (now). I’d like to read more on the S.C. I should read more Wallace Stegner too. I liked his novel Crossing to Safety but haven’t read more of his. Enjoy your Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving, Susan!
I would love to read Lincoln in the Bardo. While I read your post I remembered that Lincoln had paranormal experiences throughout his life; he even dreamed of his own death by a shot. If the book is about that facet of his life I bet I will like it. News of the World sounds good too. I don’t read Westerns but I like the premise of this one, thus I could make an exception…
This weekend I saw three movies: Cafe Society, Nerve, and Anthropoid. I think you wrote about Anthropoid; I found its plot intriguing but wanting in execution. It probably would have benefited from better known actors with some gravitas.
Thx Carmen. Happy Thanksgiving to you too. Thx for the word on Anthropoid; I had seen it listed but then it didn’t get very favorable ratings so I didn’t get it. Too bad, such an intriguing premise too. I didn’t realize Lincoln had paranormal experiences; I think this book touches on the death of his son. I’m keen to get it and find out more. Enjoy your week.
I’ve been eyeing The Underground Railroad…maybe I should read it sooner rather than later.
Thanks for sharing and for visiting my blog. Looking forward to Thanksgiving with my daughter and her husband…at his parents’ house.
Enjoy your week!
Happy Thanksgiving Laurel. Have fun. Yeah I think I will read The Underground Railroad sometime in the near future. We can compare notes!
I picked up a copy of News of the World at BEA and I’ve been hearing lots about it among those who choose big reads for our part of the world, so, after hearing your thoughts, I am definitely going to read it in 2017.
I read Where the Red Fern Grows every year to my class when I was a fifth grade teacher. Those subdivision kids were wild about the adventures of this boy and his dog. Such a powerful read. I loved how the boy saved his money for two years to buy his dogs.
Hi Deb, I know you’re a big fan of Lonesome Dove; reading News of the World made me want to go back and read that great epic. It just could take me awhile to get through it. And thanks for letting me know about teaching Where the Red Fern Grows. It’s quite incredible how popular the book still is! It is powerful and quite visual. I’m glad I returned to it.
I don’t think I ever read Where the Red Fern Grows, and now I think maybe I should. But you know I’ll cry. If there are dogs and a child. Have you ever read A Dog’s Purpose?
Oh Naomi, Where the Red Fern Grows is quite worth it! It might be a bit dated since it is quite an old book but it still is a touching story. I have not read A Dog’s Purpose but since you have raised it, I’ve now put it on hold at the library. I’m #45 on the hold list! I will get to it, hopefully before the movie of it comes out in January.
It must be popular right now because of the movie!
I haven’t read many westerns, and most of what I have read are more romance, or novelty Christmas books from when I was into that sort of thing. I would like to read what I would now call a ‘real western’.
I am glad that you made time to revisit Where the Red Fern Grows. I haven’t gone back to that one yet, but I have reread several of the books from my youth. It’s interesting what we take away as adults vs. children.
Yes Toady, I agree regarding adults vs. children. As kid readers we often are wildly more imaginative and naive than we are later in life. So it’s interesting to see how we compare our reading experiences over time. WTRFG is a book that held up really well for me but felt a bit different too. Thanks for stopping by.
I love westerns, not that I read that many, but I really enjoy the genre and am looking forward to News of the World, as well as The Underground Railroad. I still have never read Where the Red Fern Grows, but feel I should. So many children’s books are such tear-jerkers but so memorable too.
Thanks for your comment Jane. I think I need to give westerns more of a chance after this book. And WTRFG certainly made and impact on me as a kid. I’ll look forward to seeing your reviews.
Hi Susan,
I don’t read many westerns either, but can recommend The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt (if you haven’t already read it) – dark and funny!
Hi Jillann, thanks for the tip! I’ve always been a bit intimidated by a Patrick DeWitt novel — for perhaps no good reason. So I should rectify that. I haven’t read it — and I’m curious about its humor. I will put it on my list for 2017. thx! & Happy Holidays to you, David, and the boys.