BOOKPATHS

December 2009 Literary Events

To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company. -- Andre Gide

United States

California

There’s a Mystery There: Sendak on Sendak Exhibition
Through January 19, 2010
Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco
http://www.thecjm.org/index.php?option=com_ccevents&scope=exbt&task=detail&oid=42

New York

A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy Exhibition
Through March 14, 2010
Morgan Library and Museum, New York
http://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/exhibition.asp?id=22

Too Many to List
Enjoy the Christmas Carol and other book-related holiday performances in communities near you. Look for them.

Read books. They are good for us. -- Natalie Goldberg

Stevenson House, 530 Houston Street, Monterey, California, U.S.

The adobe where Robert Louis Stevenson stayed while courting Fanny Osbourne is now part of Monterey State Historic Park.  Stevenson memorabilia is on display, including furniture, first edition books, manuscripts, and personal belongings of the author.  The Stevenson House is open 1:30-4:00 p.m. Sunday to Wednesday and 1:00-4:00 p.m. Saturday; the garden is open daily.  Guided tours, however, are currently canceled due to state budget cutbacks.

(Photograph from California State Parks website.)

Patmos Island, Greece

The Summer of My Greek Tavérna: a Memoir, by Tom Stone (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002)

Tom Stone’s recollection of his initial excitement and eventual disillusionment operating The Beautiful Helen, a tavérna on the Greek Island of Patmos, is told with humor and style, while his love and knowledge of the island further enriches the pages.

In years past, my favorite time of day had always been late afternoon until sunset.  At four, people would begin leaving the beach, so by five, it was almost entirely deserted.  With the sun low in the sky behind the tavérna, the shadows of the tamarisk trees would lengthen across the beach, reaching out toward the sea, whose metallic-blue surface was gradually taking on the changing hues of the sky.  If there were clouds to reflect the rays of the setting sun, the effect was magical, particularly with the wind dropping as it usually did in the evening.  Then the surface of the sea would seem to float above itself on nearly imperceptible swells, iridescent with contrasting layers and swirls of turquoise, violet, and pink.  That there could be such beauty – and such stillness – was almost incomprehensible.

For those of us in the restaurant business, however, this period was incontestably the most anxiety-ridden of the day – the calm before the storm – in which you frantically raced against the clock to clear away the debris of lunch while simultaneously trying to prepare dinner. – from The Summer of My Greek Tavérna: a Memoir, by Tom Stone

Related Websites

Tom Stone’s Website

Publisher’s Website

The Morgan Library and Museum, New York, New York, U.S.

The exhibition, A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy, is at the Morgan Library and Museum through March 14, 2010.

This exhibition explores the life, work, and legacy of Jane Austen (1775–1817), regarded as one of the greatest English novelists. Offering a close-up portrait of the iconic British author, whose popularity has surged over the last two decades with numerous motion picture and television adaptations of her work, the show provides tangible intimacy with Austen through the presentation of more than 100 works, including her manuscripts, personal letters, and related materials, many of which the Morgan has not exhibited in over a quarter century. – from The Morgan Library and Museum Website

Manhattan, New York, U.S.

Manhattan, New York, U.S.

Jeffrey Brown talks with Jonathan Lethem, whose new novel Chronic City is set in a Manhattan “that is very recognizable…while also surreal.”

Finland

Ali Smith applauds Finnish Novelist Tove Jansson’s The True Deceiver, published in English for the first time.

Jansson's own texts are always honed to perfection, given a lightness that proves deceptive, an ease of surface which, like ice over a lake, allows you rare access to something a lot riskier and more profound. 'Rarely do books give as clear an impression as yours that they have simply matured to the point of inevitability,' Jansson's editor at Bonnier, her Swedish publisher, wrote to her when she was struggling with difficult work; in many ways, 'The True Deceiver 'is a book about artistic maturation as well as human coming of age. – from “A Winter’s Tale,” by Ali Smith, The Guardian

Rome, Italy

Stefanie Marsh searches for the “spirit” of John Keats “in the city in which he died.”

Where are we? In one of Rome’s “better kept secrets” as the travel guides like to refer to the third-floor apartment where John Keats spent the final months of his life. Officially this is a sort of a museum, but it feels more like a sanctuary, a place of literary pilgrimage where Keats-lovers have been known to shed tears when they are confronted by the tiny wooden sleigh-bed where the great Romantic poet finally succumbed, at the age of 25, to tuberculosis. – from “A Window to the Soul of John Keats,” by Stefanie March, The Times

Alaska

Pico Iyer writes about “Alaska’s Great Wide Open” in this month’s Smithsonian.

I've lived in the American West for more than four decades, but I began to wonder if I had ever really seen—or breathed—true American promise before. Every time I stepped off a boat or plane in Alaska, I felt as if I were walking back into the 19th century, where anything was possible and the continent was a new world, waiting to be explored. – from “Alaska’s Great Wide Open,” by Pico Iyer, Smithsonian

Worthington, Minnesota, U.S.

“Novelist Tim O’Brien revisits his past to come to terms with his rural hometown.”

A few months ago, when I paid a return visit to Worthington, a deep and familiar sadness settled inside me as I approached the town on Highway 60. The flat, repetitive landscape carried the feel of eternity, utterly without limit, reaching off toward a vast horizon just as our lives do. Maybe I was feeling old. Maybe, like my father, I was conscious of my own lost youth. – from “From Brooklyn to Worthington, Minnesota,” by Tim O’Brien, Smithsonian Magazine

Germany

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006; first published in 2005)

This beautifully written, heart-wrenching, novel, narrated by “human haunted” Death, introduces readers to young Liesel, her family, friends (who will ever forget Rudy?), and other citizens of Molching, Germany during Hitler’s rise and reign.  One leaves the pages with a sense of their daily lives, the horrors and random joys, along with renewed respect for both the danger and salvation of words.

While Liesel walked the streets of Molching, picking up and delivering washing and ironing, Nazi Party members were accumulating fuel.  A couple of times, Liesel was a witness to men and women knocking on doors, asking people if they had any material that they felt should be done away with or destroyed.  Papa’s copy of the 'Molching Express' announced that there would be a celebratory fire in the town square, which would be attended by all local Hitler Youth divisions.  It would commemorate not only the 'Führer’s' birthday, but victory over his enemies and over the restraints that had held Germany back since the end of World War I.  ‘Any materials,’ it requested, ‘from such times – newspapers, posters, books, flags – and any propaganda of our enemies should be brought forward to the Nazi Party office on Munich Street.’  Even Schiller Strasse – the road of yellow stars – which was still awaiting its renovation, was ransacked one last time, to find something, anything, to burn in the name of the 'Führer’s' glory.  It would have come as no surprise if certain members of the party had gone away and published a thousand or so books or posters of poisonous moral matter simply to incinerate them.

Everything was in place to make April 20 magnificent.  It would be a day full of burning and cheering.

And book thievery. – from The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak

Related Websites

Markus Zusak Website

Publisher’s Website