Month: September 2011

Saturday Snapshot

Published on by Margaret18 Comments

Earlier this year we visited Conundrum Farm:

We walked the farm trail where you can feed the animals. Our granddaughter liked the pygmy goats:

I wasn’t too keen on this somewhat larger goat that apparently often jumps over the fence and wanders around the farm:

There’s also a Battle Trail, which we didn’t do, across the battlefield of Halidon Hill, where the English recaptured Berwick-upon-Tweed from the Scots in 1333. We’re saving that for another visit.

See more Saturday Snapshots on Alyce’s blog At Home With Books.

My Life as a Book: a Meme

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

I am way behind with writing about the books I’ve read recently but when I saw this on Margot’s blog who found it on Pop Culture Nerd’s blog I decided to postpone writing about any of them today and do this instead. It’s My Life as a Book – a meme in which players complete sentences about themselves with titles of books. Here are my answers:

  • One time at band/summer camp, I: (was) Betrayed in Cornwall (Janie Bolitho) – at Girl Guide camp for me!
  • Weekends at my house are: (spent) Drawing Conclusions (Donna Leon)
  • My neighbour is: The Private Patient (Ruth Rendell)
  • My boss is: The Doctor of Thessaly (Anne Zouroudi)
  • My ex was: Once a Biker (Peter Turnbull)
  • My superhero secret identity is: The Blood Detective (Dan Waddell)
  • You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry because: (I’m) An Expert in Murder (Nicola Upson)
  • I’d win a gold medal in: The Art of Drowning (Frances Fyfield)
  • I’d pay good money for:  The Janus Stone (Elly Griffiths)
  • If I were president, I would : (take) A Ticket to Ride (Janet Neel)
  • When I don’t have good books, I(‘m):  No Longer at Ease (Chinua Achebe)
  • Loud talkers at the movies should be: (sent to) The House of Silence (Linda Gillard)

What’s In a Name 4 Challenge – Completed

Published on by Margaret1 Comment

I’ve  finished the What’s In a Name Challenge, hosted by Beth Fish Reads, reading a book from each of the set categories. Apart from Evil Under the Sun, which was a new purchase the books were all from my To-Be-Read books. They are listed below with links to my posts on them:

1. A book with a number in the title ‘“ One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
2. A book with jewelry or a gem in the title ‘“ The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
3. A book with a size in the title ‘“ Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
4. A book with travel or movement in the title ‘“ Exit Lines by Reginald Hill
5. A book with evil in the title – Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie
6. A book with a life stage in the title ‘“ Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden

I had read Little Women several times before, many years ago and I read it this time prior to reading a biography of Louisa May Alcott and her father – Eden’s Outcasts by John Matteson. I think re-reading Little Women has taught me to leave well-loved books in my memory.  Although some of the magic was still there I thought it was a dated, sentimental tale.

Four of the books are crime fiction, which seems to be my preferred genre this year. The book I enjoyed the most was Reginald Hill’s Exit Lines, which is an excellent crime fiction novel which kept me guessing until the end.

Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates: a Book Review

Published on by Margaret9 Comments

Blonde is a work of fiction, not a biography of Marilyn Monroe. I had to keep reminding myself of that as I was reading, because it was so easy to believe in the characters.

Joyce Carol Oates makes it crystal clear in her Author’s Note:

Blonde is a radically distilled “life” in the form of fiction, and, for all its length, synecdoche is the principle of appropriation. In place of numerous foster homes in which the child Norma Jeane lived, for instance, Blonde explores only one, and that fictitious; in place of numerous lovers, medical crises, abortions and suicide attempts and screen performances, Blonde explores only a selected, symbolic few.

… Biographical facts regarding Marilyn Monroe should not be sought in Blonde, which is not intended as a historic document, but in biographies of the subject.

As you would expect it’s a tragic story, intense and shocking in parts. It begins with a Prologue – 3 August 1962 with Death hurtling along towards 12305 Fifth Helena Drive, Brentwood, California. It then follows Norma Jeane Baker’s life in chronological sections from The Child 1932 – 1938 to The Afterlife 1959 – 1962. It switches from one narrator to the next, and from third person to first person perspective throughout. It’s brutal, tender and both lyrical and fragmented.

It focuses on need, on Norma/Marilyn’s need for love and acceptance – to be loved as a person and acknowledged as an actress. She wanted to be good. ‘Marilyn Monroe’ was a role she had to play:

A light must have shone in Norma Jeane’s eyes. An electric current must have run through her supple, eager girl’s body. She was “Marilyn” – no she was “Angela” – she was Norma Jeane playing “Marilyn” playing “Angela” – like a Russian doll in which smaller dolls are contained by the largest doll which is the mother … (pages 256-7)

She took drugs to help her sleep, and drugs to give her energy.She couldn’t cope with ordinary life, it baffled her without a script to follow and no guidance about what was happening, or why. She was driven, desperate to have a baby, desperate to know her father, calling her husbands ‘Daddy’, moody, childlike, fragile, always wanting to do and be better.

Joyce Carol Oates has got really inside this character, so much so that I could believe she’d had access to Norma/Marilyn’s thoughts and feelings. The other characters are intriguing, sometimes just given initials, Mr Z, W, C and so on, others are recognizable through their nicknames – The Ex-Athlete, The Playwright, The Prince and the President for example. But Marilyn is the star. In the Author’s Note Oates lists the sources she has consulted, not just biographies but also books about American politics, Hollywood and books on acting. Marilyn had kept a journal and also written poems, two lines of which are included in the final chapter; the other poems apparently by her are invented. Some of the text is taken from interviews and some is fictitious. But it’s all woven together so skilfully that it’s hard to tell what is from real life and what is not.

For me this ranks as one of Joyce Carol Oates best books, although I have by no means read all her books. The ones I’ve read have all had the power to move me. In addition to the ones I’ve written about on this blog I’ve also read The Tattooed Girl, Middle Age, Solstice and The Falls.