The Cue Card

We’ve had Arctic temps here this past week. It’s been about -10F or -23C outside. Ouch! Luckily I’ve worn my trusty big gloves and snow boots, which have worked well on my early morning dog walks. Yes, my dog still wants to go out and chase her ball. Yikes, she’s pretty oblivious to the cold and to me trudging through it after her. Next week, the cold snap should break and it’s supposed to hit 15F, which should feel easy peasy by then. But it’s still a good thing I’ll be in California over Christmas week. I’m looking forward to de-thawing then and visiting with family.

Meanwhile this past week I finished Camilla Gibb’s 2010 novel “The Beauty of Humanity Movement,” which was a read for my book club. It’s my second novel about Vietnam this year, but it’s a bit different than the other one I read — Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel “The Sympathizer.”

The title of Gibb’s book “The Beauty of Humanity Movement” is a bit of a mouthful, but it refers in the novel to a group of Vietnamese dissident artists who meet during the war at Hung’s cafe in Hanoi and put out a few underground publications before the cafe is shutdown by the Communists and the artists are hauled away to re-education camps.

Now decades later Old Man Hung is a soup vendor, peddling his popular and delicious “pho” on the streets and living by a dirty pond in shantytown. His most faithful pho customer is Tu, who is the grandson of one of the artists, and a tour guide in the city. One day Old Man Hung is visited by a Vietnamese-American woman (Maggie) who is working in Hanoi to catalogue an art collection for the Hotel Metropole. She is searching for clues to her father, a dissident artist who disappeared during the war after she and her mother fled to the U.S. But offhand Hung can’t seem to remember her father, or what happened to him.

The story follows these three intersecting characters as they dig into the past to try to find out more. Tu develops a crush on Maggie and wants to help her, as does Hung who treasured the dissidents and is haunted by what happened to them and his family during the war. He begins to reflect back to those days, and it’s Hung’s life story that makes the novel so compelling. He gives a glimpse into the violent Communist crackdowns, the U.S. bombing raids, and the sheer poverty of the war years, surviving on trees and what little else he could find by the pond. It’s the making of “pho” for his small community that propels him to live — as well as the dissidents’ publications and his love for a girl named Lan. You’ll want to read on to find out what happens.

It’s quite a bittersweet tale, about lost love and changing times, which by the end might make you hungry for a Vietnamese bowl of pho — Old Man Hung’s specialty. I have not eaten pho in a long while, but in honor of the story I’d like to. What I also liked about the novel was how it brought Hanoi’s past and present together. You really get a glimpse of what it’s like there today and what the people in the North went through many decades ago. I think this is the first novel I’ve read set in Hanoi, as opposed to Saigon, so it was new and interesting to me. The city is still a bit of a mystery to many Westerners. I didn’t find the novel a fast read, but I didn’t mind slowly meandering over its pages. The ending seemed a bit too tidily rendered for the main and secondary characters. Still I thought it was definitely a worthy read, which touched on a number of themes, such as the redemptive powers of community, art, and love.

I wondered a bit how the author wrote about Vietnam so well being from Britain and Canada. I hadn’t heard of her before this book, which a member of my book group picked to discuss. But apparently Camilla Gibb has a PhD in social anthropology from Oxford and seems well adept at traveling the world and writing about other cultures. This is her third novel. Her prior one “Sweetness in the Belly” is about a Muslim girl in Ethiopia. I hope to read that one sometime next year.

As for movies this week, I didn’t make it out to the theater, but we did rent the 2013 TV movie “Burton and Taylor,” about the last work collaboration between the two legendary actors and former married couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. In 1983, they starred in the Noel Coward play, “Private Lives,” together, which is what this movie is about. While making the production, Liz, played by Helena Bonham Carter, comes across as a bratty diva squandering her talents, while Burton, played by Dominic West, seems resigned and conflicted by her. Neither are in good health, or easy much to like. And their relationship is a bit all over the place — with their intense bond and history together eventually pulling them apart. It’s a bit sad really, but an interesting look into their lives. Who knew Burton would die the following year. Till then, apparently he and Liz spoke every few days although they were no longer together. What they shared was quite a connection.

Seeing “Burton and Taylor” made me a bit wistful for their happier “Cleopatra” days.

What about you — have you read Camilla Gibb’s books — or seen this movie? And if so, what did you think?

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?

Well it’s been a fairly calm week. I am behind on carving pumpkins and getting the candy stocked for Halloween, but wait, there’s still time! The snow is gone here but most of the leaves are down. I raked them into bags for a couple hours this week and was able to finish the audiobook of Delia Ephron’s 2016 novel “Siracusa,” which is a doozy of a story about two married couples that vacation together in Italy along with the enigmatic 10-year-old daughter of one of the couples. They go to Rome first and then on to the city of Siracusa on the coast of Sicily, where things quickly unravel and something happens that changes their lives forever.

Narrated from the two wives’ and two husbands’ perspectives, this story is pretty hard to put down. There’s Lizzie and Michael who are writers from New York, and Taylor and Finn, who own a restaurant in Portland, Maine and have a daughter named Snow. Lizzie and Finn had once dated back in their 20s, but now that’s over and this is the second vacation in later life they’ve taken together with their spouses. I’m not sure that this would necessarily happen in my household but … I was willing to go with it.

I think I heard about the novel “Siracusa” from Catherine over at The Gilmore Guide to Books, who liked it quite a bit, and I found it didn’t disappoint. I particularly recommend the audio because the four parts are read by four different actors who do a heck of a job with these different characters. You’ll find them an interesting mix with each their own secrets. Taylor, for one, is a helicopter mom from hell who cares only for her shy, beautiful daughter, Snow. And Finn still holds a flame for Lizzie, while Michael’s affections have turned cold towards her. Lizzie though is looking to win Michael back in Italy and jump-start her career as a journalist. But then in Siracusa all goes to hell in a handbasket.

The descriptions in the book and the characters make it an enticing read, but the story is pretty dark and cynical. It reminded me slightly of Herman Koch’s eerie novel “The Dinner,” which is also about two couples in Europe whose families go through something disturbing. But the stories also differ a bit. “Siracusa” is not totally without flaws, you likely will be able to forecast what will happen long before it does, though I still liked hearing how the characters played out their parts, and the ideas they came away with.

I had not read much from Delia Ephron before, though I knew of her from from her 1998 movie “You’ve Got Mail” and of course her famous sister Nora Ephron whose books often made me laugh. I had read parts of Delia’s nonfiction book “Sister, Mother, Husband, Dog: Etc.,” which for some reason I had put down, but nothing like “Siracusa.” It is much darker than I would’ve guessed of her fiction. It’s not exactly fit for an early Meg Ryan type of role: such as “You’ve Got Mail” and “Sleepless in Seattle.”

Speaking of which, I dragged my husband to the movie “The Girl on the Train” this week. (He said when we were leaving the theater he was the only guy in there. Ha ha ha, gotcha.) But “The Girl” was good, if you like this kind of movie. It followed Paula Hawkins’s blockbuster-selling novel closely.

Luckily Emily Blunt starred in it, which made all the difference. She made one hell of a messed-up Rachel Watson, hooray. Just like Rachel is in the book. I’m not sure the movie was all that suspenseful since I already knew what was going to happen — even my husband figured it out pretty early on without having read the book — but still I’m glad I went. Come on, I wasn’t going to miss it.

And the fact that they change the novel’s setting from London to New York for the movie didn’t seem to make much difference. Blunt pares down her English accent quite a bit, and there’s a couple of beautiful shots of the train along the Hudson River, which seemed good to me. While “The Girl on the Train” might not be as good as “Gone Girl,” it still was entertaining in a wacky thriller kind of way.

What about you, have you read “Siracusa,” or seen the movie “The Girl on the Train,” and if so, what did you think?

This past week I’ve been busy attending Wordfest, the annual weeklong book festival here. I went to eight events and heard more than 20 writers give readings and interviews.

See authors: Peter Behrens, C.C. Humphreys, Steven Price, and Peter Robinson at left. It’s been great, listening to a wide variety of authors, from such well-known fiction writers as: Emma Donoghue, Yann Martel, Affinity Konar, Lisa Moore, and Madelein Thein, who’s novel is on the short list for this year’s Man Booker Prize, to many lesser-known authors as well. The talks have been interesting, and one thing’s for certain: I need to read more “CanLit” among other things.

Before moving to Canada full-time over six years ago, I didn’t really know much about CanLit other than reading Margaret Atwood and Carol Shields. But since then I’ve read a sprinkling of novels that fit the mold from across this vast country (including a few from the great Alice Munro), but I need to get to a lot more.

I picked up some Canadian books from the festival and had signed: Lynn Coady’s fiction “Hellgoing” and “The Antagonist,” Lisa Moore’s novel “Caught,” Julie Salverson’s book “Lines of Flight: An Atomic Memoir,” and Jowita Bydlowska’s memoir: “Drunk Mom,” which looks pretty harrowing. (Unfortunately Jowita was sick and did not speak at the event or sign books.) I also heard from and picked up copies of Rowan Hisayo Buchanan’s debut novel “Harmless Like You” (she’s from England) and U.S. authors: Jim Lynch’s novel “Before the Wind” and Alexander Maksik’s “Shelter in Place.” So I have a new pile of books, which I’m sure wasn’t totally necessary on top of my other piles, but it’s good nonetheless so I can read some new voices. Have you read or heard of any of these?

Meanwhile I finished Andria Williams’s debut novel “The Longest Night,” which came out earlier this year. Any military brats out there? This one is set in Idaho Falls, which was a remote military town in the late 1950s when the book begins. It’s based on the true story of the only fatal nuclear reactor accident to occur in the U.S.

It’s about a married couple that moves to the town with their two young kids. The husband Paul is there to help oversee one of the country’s first nuclear reactors, but soon finds out that the reactor is compromised and the higher-ups would rather delay fixing it. Meanwhile his wife Nat is struggling to adjust to their new life, which is stifling amid the societal mores of the times. As troubles mount with the reactor, so too do cracks surface in their marriage.

I completely fell into this novel and could feel the Army base lives of these characters and the remoteness of where they were and the staid times in which they were living. The mores and gender roles of the late 1950s and early ‘60s are pervasive in the story and feel suffocating. I felt particularly thankful not to be a woman living there at the time, and sympathized with the wife, Nat, for having trouble fitting in. I liked how the book alternated chapters between the husband Paul, Nat, and Jeannie, the wife of Paul’s boss. You get a wide range of perspective and feeling for their lives and situation.

“The Longest Night” is quite a believable story and one that I did not want to put down despite it being a slow-burn of a read. The story and characters develop and develop until finally at the book’s end things boil over (quite literally with the accident and aftermath). I hadn’t heard of this historical event — the 1961 nuclear reactor accident near Idaho Falls — so I was very interested to read the novel and look up the accident online. Among other things in the story, it’ll make you think twice about nuclear energy.

I also finished the audiobook of Suzanne Rindell’s 2013 novel “The Other Typist,” which is set at the height of Prohibition in New York City. It’s about a police department stenographer (Rose) who becomes obsessed with a newly hired glamorous typist named Odalie. They become friends and soon Odalie lures Rose into the underground world of speakeasies and jazz, which ultimately has dire consequences.

Oh where to begin with this one?! I was engaged in the story, but it also wore me out quite a bit. I tired of the narrator Rose, who describes herself as a pretty insular woman who grew up an orphan and was lucky to get a job with the police, typing crime reports and confessions. She waxes on about Odalie, the stylish well-off woman whom she has met from the typing pool.

You wonder what’s going to happen to these two — and if their lives at the police department will catch up with their underworld parties. The story has some vibrant touches, but I also thought it rambled extraneously at times, was repetitious, and piles on a heavy dose of foreshadowing. I thought the Big Reveal in the book was quite drawn out and when it finally came at the end it was confusing. Perhaps a couple realities could be possible of what happens at the end, but I know what I think happens. It’s one of those switcheroozy types of novels, which you can’t say much about without giving stuff away. In this respect it reminded me a bit of Dennis Lehane’s novel “Shutter Island,” but that story had more action and suspense. There’s still plenty for me to think about with “The Other Typist,” but I guess I’m not a huge fan of this type of book twist. Maybe it depends on the novel. What about you? If you like such twists, you might like this one.

Finally last week, my husband and I saw and both liked the movie “Deepwater Horizon.” Wow I almost had to be picked up off the floor afterwards. This one is much better than I had expected going in. My husband wanted to see it as he’s an engineer and I was glad I tagged along. The movie is not your typical fluff Hollywood reenactment but rather takes a gripping look into the 2010 disaster of the offshore drilling rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in the deaths of 11 people. It’s a hair-raising movie. I couldn’t believe most of the 126 workers on the rig made it off alive. Kudos to those who made the movie — amid all the legal maneuvering that had to be done just to bring it to the Big Screen. It may not honor every single detail accurately but shows that when human beings with various incentives interact with complex systems, sometimes bad things happen. It’s also a moving tribute to those who died on the rig and is well worth seeing.

What about you, have you read either of these books or seen the movie “Deepwater Horizon,” and if so — what did you think?

We had our first snow day on Friday, which is always a bit of a shock to a Californian living in Canada. On Thursday I had been out raking leaves for hours, which aren’t all down yet. Then Friday it dumped a couple inches. The snow should melt away this week, but we could be in store for a long winter. Gripes, I guess it’s best to stay in and curl up with a book near the fireplace. While I do, my thoughts go out to all the people in the path of Hurricane Matthew. What a monster storm. It’s going to take quite awhile to recover. I remember Hurricane Isabel from 2003, which I experienced while living in Virginia, and I think it took about a week to get my power back on. So stay safe and hang in there.

This week I finished the audiobook of Lindy West’s 2016 nonfiction book “Shrill: Notes From a Loud Woman.” Admittedly I didn’t know much about the book or the author before starting it, other than reading that it included feminist essays, and Shannon over at River City Reading had praised it back in May. What I did know was “Shrill” had come up on my queue at the library and I was game to check it out.

And oh my, the author Lindy West, 34, is quite a force. I had no idea, and hadn’t thought about some of these issues like she has. It’s perfect that she reads her book — a collection of personal essays about her life and what she believes — for the audio as she enlivens it and adds perspective. In “Shrill,” Lindy details the derision she grew up with as a “fat person” and her move to become an advocate for fat acceptance and other issues. She talks about her family, self-esteem, boyfriends, stints in stand-up comedy, and jobs in journalism, and how she came to speak out about: fat shaming, anti-abortion views, internet harassment, misogyny, and rape jokes. It’s all told in a way that seems incredibly open, honest, and quite funny as well. I couldn’t help but laugh in places.

I don’t think you have to agree with every opinion or thing Lindy West does in “Shrill” to be open or agreeable to the book. At first, I wasn’t sure it was the type of book for me, and I almost set it aside, but I’m glad I stuck with it. All in all, I commend Lindy for her courage and fight, and found her book to be thought-provoking and different than what I typically read. While some bits of “Shrill” might take one out of his or her comfort zone, other parts shine on its humanity.

Meanwhile, I’m midway through reading Andria Williams’s 2016 debut novel “The Longest Night,” which is based on a true story in 1961 of the only fatal nuclear reactor accident that took place in the U.S. It’s about a young couple who move to a remote army base, whose marriage is tested, and a cover-up that ensues at the base. I’m loving the story so far and plan to review it next week. I’m also midway through reading Hope Jahren’s 2016 nonfiction memoir “Lab Girl” about her life as a scientist studying trees and plant life in her laboratories. It’s interesting and enjoyable in a unique way. I’m liking her quirky sensibility so far. Lastly, I’m listening to the audiobook of Suzanne Rindell’s 2013 debut novel “The Other Typist,” which is set in 1920s New York. Keira Knightley is reportedly set to produce and star in the movie adaption of it, but apparently it’s still in the development stages.

Also last week, my hub and I saw and liked the movie “Sully.” You might have already seen it about the pilot who landed the damaged plane on the Hudson River in 2009 to save the passengers and crew. I found the structure of the movie — how it goes back and forth in time from the investigation to the flight to be quite interesting. You find out details you might not have already known about the crash and the pilots. And despite already knowing what happens from history, the movie is still quite a heart-pumping — and thankfully pleasing — watch.

What about you have you read any of these books, or seen “Sully,” and if so, what did you think?