Reading Novels

We're in Salt Lake City on our way home - hope to be there on Sunday night. I'll write some more about our travels and post some pictures after we get back. In the meantime, here are a couple things about reading novels.

I mentioned A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cossé in my last post. I am finally about finished with it. It is a terrific read. It's about a bookstore called The Good Novel, and part of the plot is figuring out who their detractors are. At one point the owner writes a letter to a newspaper describing why there should be good novels. It is worth sharing. Her name is Francesca, and you should know that she had a little daughter who was killed in an accident. Here is the piece:

For as long as literature has existed, suffering, joy, horror, grace, and everything that is great in humankind has produced great novels. These exceptional books are often not very well known, and are in constant danger of being forgotten, and in today’s world, where the number of books being published is considerable, the power of marketing and the cynicism of business have joined forces to keep those extraordinary books indistinguishable form millions of insignificant, not to say pointless, books.

But those masterful novels are life-giving. They enchant us. They help us to live. They teach us. It has become necessary to come to their defense and promote them relentlessly, because it is an illusion to think that they have the power to radiate it all by themselves. That alone is our ambition.

We want necessary books, books we can read the day after a funeral, when we have no tears left for all our crying, when we can hardly stand the pain; books that will be there like loves ones when we have tidied a dead child’s room and copied out her secret notes to have them with us, always, and breathed in her clothes hanging in the wardrobe a thousand time, and there is nothing left to do; books for those nights when no matter how exhausted we are we cannot sleep, and all we want is to tear ourselves away from obsessive visions; books that have heft and do not let us down when all we can hear, over and over, is the policeman saying gently, You will not ever see your daughter alive; we you can no longer stand looking all over the house, all over the garden, in a mad frenzy for little John, when fifteen times a night you find him again in the little pond lying on his stomach in ten inches of water; books you can take to your friend whose son hanged himself in his room, two months ago, two months that seem like an hour; books you can take to a brother who is so sick you no longer recognize him.

Every day, Adrien opens his veins, Maria gets drunk, Anand is knocked down by a truck, a twelve-year old Chechen or Turkoman or Darfurian is raped. Every day, Véronique dries the eyes of a condemned man, an old woman holds the hand of a horribly disfigured dying man, a man takes in his arms a dazed little child from among the corpses.

We have no time to waste on insignificant books, hollow books, books that are here to please.
We have no time for those sloppy, hurried books of the “Go on, I need it for July, and in September we’ll give you a proper launch and sell one hundred thousand copies, it’s in the bag” variety.

We want books that cost their authors a great deal, books where you can feel the years of work, the backache, the writer’s block, the author’s panic that he might be lost, his discouragement, his courage, his anguish, his stubbornness, the risk of failure he has taken.

We want splendid books, books that immerse us in the splendor of reality and keep up there; books that prove to us that love is at work in the world next to evil, right up against it, at times indistinctly, and that it always will be, just the way that suffering will always ravage hearts. We want good novels.

We want books that leave nothing out: neither human tragedy nor everyday wonders, books that bring fresh air into our lungs.

From A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cossé, pp. 278-280

In a similar vein, see Richard Powers' (The Time of Our Singing) fiction piece in the October 18 New Yorker.

Re-read a favorite novel!

New Orleans

We'll be leaving New Orleans this morning after a quick two-night stay. I had never been here before, but had certainly heard many rave reviews from friends.

On our first night, I wasn't sure if I would like it here. We're in a nice hotel in a quiet corner of the French Quarter, but we had a bit of a rocky beginning at the hotel with some misunderstandings about the room. Then we walked around a bit, and I didn't really take to it all. Really noisy, not very clear as to where you were, way too touristy. But we had a wonderful dinner at Brigtsen's in the Garden District.

On Saturday we went to Croissant d'Or for breakfast and had really good fruit, quiche, and good coffee and just hung out in a neighborhood place. We'll go there again this morning before we leave. Then we went on a two-hour walking tour of the French Quarter with a tour guide from the the Cabildo, which is a volunteer organization that supports the Louisiana State Museum (which is in a building called the Cabildo). It was fabulous. We learned so much about the history and the architecture. The guide was a retired dentist, a native of New Orleans (a Cajun - we learned what all those words mean), and really excellent at telling the story of this place. He lives in the Quarter, and we even got to sit for a while in the courtyard of the building in which he lives. He lost his house in another neighborhood in Katrina, and it was very interesting to hear him talk about that whole disaster.

After the tour we walked around some more and did some shopping. I felt much different about the city, and I am sure I would enjoy returning here some time. We had another excellent meal at Mr. B's Bistro, walked around a little more, and then just relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Now we're off to West Monroe, LA, to visit Larry's brother and family, then on Monday to Texas to visit various people. I'm not sure what kind of internet options I'll have for the next three or four days, so I'm getting this one in for now.

Happy 10/10/10!

On the Mississippi

This is a picture of Larry from yesterday at Meriwether Lewis' grave at Grinder's Inn on the Natchez Trace Parkway.

Tonight we're right on the Mississippi River in Vidalia, Louisiana, right across the river from Natchez. We had a great meal in Natchez tonight at a place called Cock in the Walk - catfish, cornbread, hush puppies, slaw, marinated onions, fried shrimp. Very good stuff.

We finished the Natchez Trace Parkway today. There was a lot more traffic, as it seemed more people used the Parkway as part of their regular daily route. This Parkway is very popular with bicyclists (not much up and down at all) and we saw many of them today. It has been very interesting to learn more about the Native Americans of this area - Chickasaw, Choctaw, Natchez, Cherokee, and others. We saw many burial mounds and the remains of villages, and learned too much about the sad history of how they were removed from their lands.

Tomorrow we'll head down the river to New Orleans. We have the Paul and Carol Hinderlie self-guided eating tour in hand, and are looking forward to it! Larry has been there briefly, and I never have. So it will be fun to explore and see as much as we can in about 36 hours. (Nice that the New York Times travel section publishes those little "New Orleans in 36 hour" pieces - a good guide!)

Tomorrow's blog will be from New Orleans!

On the Road

Well, it's been almost four months since I've written this blog, so it's time to start again.

Tonight I'm writing from Tupelo, Mississippi, where Larry and I are staying during our drive on the Natchez Trace Parkway. We left this afternoon from the north end just south of Nashville, and we'll complete the 444 mile drive tomorrow afternoon in Natchez, Mississippi. It is very beautiful, and amazing driving. There are absolutely no cars, no commercial vehicles, and, unless you choose to turn off the Parkway, no stops. We have stopped along the way to see the historical sites, which today included the grave of Meriwether Lewis, who committed suicide on October 11, 1809, at Grinder's Inn, one of the stands, or inns, along the original Trace. The original Trace was basically an indented path worn over the decades that was used for personal and commercial travel in the 19th century.

On Monday we started driving the Blue Ridge Parkway, which was equally beautiful in Virginia and North Carolina. It was amazing to drive along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains at about 3500 feet the whole way. Another wonderful drive, and again, not many cars or anything else!

Before that we visited friends and family in Virginia, Chicago, and St. Louis. Larry's been on the road since September 12, and I joined him on the 24th in St. Louis.

On Friday we go to New Orleans for two nights, then to West Monroe, Louisiana to visit Larry's brother and family, and then to Texas for a few visits with friends.

Right now I'm reading a wonderful novel - A Novel Bookstore, by Laurence Cosse (that last "e" has an accent - anybody know how to get to symbols in blogspot?) Anyway, it is a wonderful story and I highly recommend it. The other thing I have to report on the reading front is that I bought a Kindle. I've subscribed to the New Yorker and am enjoying that access. It does all work very seamlessly. I haven't actually read a book yet, and that will be the real test. But, so far I'm impressed. It certainly is easier than carting around a pile of books while traveling - although there is a pile in the car!

That's all for today. More travel and reading observations tomorrow - really.