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The Ice Storm
April 9, 2014 by rachelreadsfiction Leave a Comment
Right away in Rick Moody's The Ice Storm, I get a sense of what the author thinks of New Canaan, Connecticut — the novel's setting: It is "the most congenial and superficially calm of suburbs. In the wealthiest state in the Northeast. In the most affluent country on earth." And he places us in time: "Three years shy of that commercial madness, the bicentennial." Okay — 1973. And the next paragraph is a long list of things that don't yet exist in that time: "No answering machines. And no call waiting. No Caller ID. No compact disc recorders or laser disks or holography or cable television or MTV." The list goes on and on, but you get the picture — a very dramatic picture. I remember 1973 quite well but this novel plunks me back in that time so vividly that I almost have to remind myself that over forty years have passed since then. Moody does this in many ways throughout the book, but perhaps most effectively through his references to the music of the time — and not just the top ten pop songs but some of those songs that make me smile and think, wow, I forgot all about that one. Helen Ready singing Delta Dawn, Cat Stevens singing anything. Watch and listen to Delta Dawn here:
Turns out I'm close in age to the teenage protagonist, Paul Hood, who narrates this story of a disastrous ice storm which is the backdrop for his family's implosion. Of course his parents' marriage has been rocky for some time — his father, Benjamin Hood is having an affair with a neighbor and his mother, Elena, cannot get enough self-help books to find her way out of a deep depression. In the Midwest, in 1973, I didn't know of anybody's parents having "key parties" — where the men drop their car keys into a bowl as they walk in the door and at the end of the night, the women choose a set of keys randomly from that bowl. Here is the man she will go home with, have sex with, no strings attached. It might have happened. In New Canaan, in 1973, we learn, key parties happen all the time. And all this sexual promiscuity trickles down to the children — even the pre-teens are experimenting with alcohol and sex when they're not playing with dolls, eating junk food and watching endless television. Now that seemed very familiar to me.
Okay, the book is depressing. No doubt about it. But, too, it's darkly funny. It begins like this: "So let me dish you this comedy about a family I knew when I was growing up." So, you're expecting humor but right away Moody hits you with other emotions: nostalgia, embarrassment, fear of aging, desperation. Anyone who has been through adolescence can relate to Paul Hood's all-consuming crush on the most popular girl in school. And in the early seventies, in the middle of the sexual revolution, we were all still trying to figure out how to deal with "free love" and wanting all relationships to be "relevant." It wasn't the beginning of married couples having affairs, but it sure became a whole lot easier, after birth control became readily available and cheaper than it had been before. The collective consciousness was open and searching. Or so it seemed at the time.
The Hood family members are all searching too, trying to make sense of their comfortable suburban upper class lives. They're all pretty selfish, kind of hard to like — except for the voice of the teenage boy, Paul, Rick Moody's voice, which catches everyone with their pants down. Their individual self-absorption and petty concerns are magnified by the enormity of the ice storm, wreaking havoc and ultimately real disaster in their cushy neighborhood. As Mother Nature is powerful enough to destroy life through major events, ice storms and hurricanes and mudslides, so too is our flawed human nature capable of destroying lives and relationships and families. But, like the cleaning up and moving on that inevitably happens after natural disasters, human beings are resilient and can do the same.
In the Afterword to my edition of The Ice Storm is an essay by Rick Moody entitled: The Creature Lurches from the Lagoon: More Notes on Adaptation, I discovered that this novel was made into a movie. Of course, I couldn't wait to see it and really enjoyed reading the authors thoughts about that process. The thing that most interested me was that the film, by Ang Lee, has an original score. What? I wasn't going to hear all those old seventies tunes? But I trust the author when he says that the score, though it sounds kind of Eastern (lots of gamelan in it), it is mournful and for him brings up "waves of regret about the past."
So I watched it. I recommend it. But read the book first, especially if 1973 is stored in some of your own memory synapses. But, be warned. You may just be tempted to dust off some of your old vinyl.
Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: 1973, Delta Dawn, Rick Moody, The Ice Storm
Ghosts and Glass Slippers and Drugs — Oh My!
March 5, 2014 by rachelreadsfiction Leave a Comment
As Alice Hoffman's novel, Skylight Confessions, opens, Seventeen-year-old Arlyn Singer has just lost her father to a long illness. With no mother or siblings, Arlyn alone nursed him through his final days and listened to his stories about people he met during his career as a ferry boat captain. Her favorite story is about a tribe in Connecticut who looked like normal people until the boat went down or when they needed to escape — then they sprouted wings, flew away and saved themselves.
After her father's funeral, Arlyn stands on her front porch and looks out into the unknown distant future, promising herself that she will marry the next man she sees. Three hours later a young man, John Moody, pulls up in his beat-up Saab and tells Arlyn — still standing on the porch — that he's lost. He's a senior at Yale studying architecture on his way to a party. Arlyn looks at the directions and agrees that he is very lost — the party is four towns over. As in a fairy tale, the strange young man suddenly notices how tired he is and Arlyn invites him in to rest. He stretches out on the sofa and falls into a deep sleep. Arlyn watches him for a while then goes into the kitchen and rustles up the first meal she has eaten in the three days since her father's death. Then she tidies up the dishes, takes off all her clothes and waits for John Moody to notice. Now, although she's never even been kissed before, she takes John Moody to bed and knows he is her destiny. They stay in bed for three days. Early on the fourth morning, John realizes what he's done and slinks off in the dark to go back to Yale.
But Arlyn is not to be trifled with. She's a doer, driven to take control of her future. So she sells her father's house, packs up all her belongings and takes the ferry to Bridgeport and on to New Haven to track down her man. Shocked at her arrival, John tells Arlyn to leave, but she is so certain, so "young and insistent" that he lets her stay, "just for one night." But while he studies, she waits for him in bed and the sex is even hotter than he remembers: "he was in a fever, he was acting like a man in love." But when he falls asleep, he has nightmares of "houses falling down, broken windows, women who hold on and don't let go." In a panic, he gets up early and leaves her a note: "Have a good trip home." He takes his exam and then stops for a couple of beers before driving to his parent's house near Madison, Connecticut. But Arlyn gets a ride to John's parents' house and arrives half an hour before he does. As John approaches the house, he sees Arlyn in the kitchen with his mother cutting up carrots for their dinner. Third time's the charm — John surrenders to his destiny.
http://online.wsj.com/
Flash forward and the couple have a baby and live in graduate student housing at Columbia University. Eventually they move to John's parents' house in Connecticut — the Glass Slipper. It's a famous house built by John Moody's father, an acclaimed architect whose reputation John can never live up to. But John and Arlyn's marriage is lonely. John is not interested in his son while, for Arlyn, it seems Sam is the only thing she is interested in. Not a great combo. The boy turns out to be a strange solitary child with no friends besides his mother and a baby squirrel he finds and carries home in his pocket. Soon Arlyn falls into an affair with the window washer (this glass house needs window washing every week!) and John with the next door neighbor. Arlyn conceives a child with her lover, quickly develops breast cancer, and dies within months.
Flash forward again and John Moody is visiting a psychic medium in New York because he's being haunted by Arlyn. Enter a young woman, Meredith, who can see the ghost of Arlyn following behind John Moody. She's intrigued enough and lost enough herself to want to know more about this man and his ghost so she shows up unannounced at the Glass Slipper. When Meredith arrives, Sam is standing on the flat part of the roof, as if he will jump or thinks he can fly. (Remember that strange flying Connecticut tribe?) And now, in another of the more and more difficult points in the novel when the reader is asked to suspend disbelief, this twenty-eight-year-old, Brown University educated young woman decides to stay with the Moody family and become the live-in nanny for Sam and his half sister Blanca. Sam Moody is now sixteen — a difficult, messed up teenager who has a problem with drugs and with life. The story moves forward, Meredith develops a deep relationship with the Moody children, John marries the next door neighbor. But no one can save Sam from himself and his eventual addiction. And Sam, apparently not being from that tribe that can fly away, cannot save himself either. But Meredith does meet a young physicist with whom she can discuss her experiences with Arlyn Moody's ghost.
By now, I've lost interest in this story and I'm not sure why. Maybe because of all that not-so-willing suspension of disbelief I've engaged in throughout; maybe because none of these characters is likeable or believable enough for me; or, maybe because I keep waiting for Sam Moody to fly away and save himself or for Arlyn's ghost to stop haunting the man she didn't love in life and to intercede with the son she loved so desperately. But, apparently, ghosts haunt the person who can't let them go and for some inexplicable reason, John Moody can't let the dead Arlyn go when it seemed he couldn't wait to get rid of her in life.
Turns out Sam does believe that he belongs to the Connecticut race who can fly, but for him flight means escaping through drugs. His end is tragic, as it was predestined to be. Blanca escapes from Connecticut to run a bookshop in London that sells only fairy tales. Of course. The themes of fairy tales and ghosts, especially confronting one's ghosts, is a theme that Hoffman plays with throughout this novel. For me, though, the story covers so much ground in so few pages that I don't feel connected enough with any of the characters and it ends up feeling more Grimm than hopeful.
http://phoebecorreli.com/
Sadly, too, I do not get any real sense of Connecticut through Skylight Confessions. I that many of the characters in this story can't wait to leave — that it's a place in which it's easy to get stuck, just as Arlyn's ghost has been stuck. I know that "The lanes here in Connecticut were winding, green, shadowy. There were fields with stone walls . . . built a century earlier when cows roamed the pasture." Sam Moody sums it up for Meredith as "green and boring" but she stays on in Connecticut for exactly that reason, she says, "Connecticut felt safe, a bubble floating above the real world." She wants "The bubble. The green lawn. The blackbirds. The quiet." One can stay in the bubble for a while but ultimately, like Meredith, we must all confront our own ghosts.
Connecticut and R. J. Julia Booksellers
December 11, 2013 by rachelreadsfiction 2 Comments
From Inside Madison http://insidemadison.com/photos/
I know Connecticut is beautiful — from the countryside to the shore. I've seen it myself. My online search for an independent bookstore here pulls me to the shore and specifically to Madison, Connecticut, home of R. J. Julia Booksellers. Find them here: http://www.rjjulia.com/ I fell in love with this bookstore as soon as I saw their website. The masthead of the shop is a quaint rendering of the storefront in summer — all old-fashioned window panes, gas lamps and tables of books out front. And their motto: A Great Place to Meet Books — I love that! I find myself clicking around to find out about the store's history. R. J. Julia has been around for over twenty years. The owner Roxanne Coady and her husband Kevin purchased an abandoned old brick building on the main street in Madison, Connecticut which, in an earlier life, was home to Nick's Bar & Grill. With the goal of moving permanently to Connecticut and turning the old building into a place where words matter, where writer meets reader, where the ambiance and selection and merchandising of books creates an atmosphere that is welcoming and presents the opportunity for discovery. Nice. And when I read this: We are fiercely committed to putting the right book in the right hand, I give them a call.
The woman who picks up the phone is pleasant and courteous. I explain my project and she's interested but asks if she can call me back since there's is a line at the checkout. I hear convivial murmuring in the background and imagine myself in that line. Of course, I say, and give her my number. When she calls back, I'm at the office and a little distracted. Nevertheless, she's excited about my project and quite clear about the books she's recommending. First, she mentions Wally Lamb's I Know this Much Is True and I think about that but reject it because I tried and rejected an earlier novel of his a few years ago as too depressing. I'll probably give this acclaimed author another chance, but not right now. Next, she mentions Alice Hoffman and I perk up — I have read something by Hoffman and ask which one she's recommending. It's called Skylight Confessions (haven't read it) it takes place right in Madison, Connecticut where R. J. Julia is located, and that sounds great to me. Next, she recommends The Ice Storm by Rick Moody. Another author I have not read but feel I should know, since this novel of his has also been made into a movie. We agree that she will send those two along and we chat briefly about her community, Madison, which she enthusiastically suggests I visit. You'd love it! She assures me and I believe her. When I look at a map of Connecticut, I discover that Madison is right next to Guilford and realize that I must have passed very near to this place a few years ago when my brother and his new wife took us to the shore not too far from their house. Funny how the longer I live, the more I feel like a character in a Russian novel — all those chance meetings and coincidences.
I find myself returning to R. J. Julia's website frequently as I wait for my package of books to arrive — it's filled with recommendations, lists of events (over 350 per year) and bios of the booksellers. Now I'm sorry I didn't ask the name of the person I spoke with. Note to self — in the future, find out who you're talking to! The owner of the shop, Roxanne Coady, also writes a column, Dear Reader, and I find myself returning to that more than once because I like the tone of her writing and because it makes me feel a little more connected to this place which is almost three thousand miles from where I'm writing. Now for the best part — unpack those books and get reading!
Filed Under: Bookstores Tagged With: Alice Hoffman, independent bookstores, Madison Connecticut, R. J. Julia Bookseller, Rick Moody, Skylight Confessions, The Ice Storm
Reluctant to Leave Georgia
December 4, 2013 by rachelreadsfiction Leave a Comment
I know this is a book blog. And yet… Whenever I mention books set in Georgia, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt,
comes up. I didn't choose to read that book while passing through Georgia because it's not, strictly speaking, a novel — it's based on the true story of the shooting of a male hustler by a wealthy antiques dealer and the subsequent murder trials. But I knew that a movie had been adapted from the book, so I looked it up. Turns out it has two of my favorite actors in it — John Cusack and Kevin Spacey. How can I resist? I can't, of course, so I rented it and watched it the other night. What a great film! Right away, I'm fascinated by the atmosphere of Savannah's rich and famous at play — the magnificent Mercer House, home of the antiques dealer character Jim Williams (Kevin Spacey) the way the journalist Berendt (John Cusack) is taken in by it all. And I'm taken in too by the colorful characters — Minerva, the "root doctor" who is inextricably connected to the characters and their stories and the drag queen, Lady Chablis, is fabulous playing herself in the movie.
The book spent an unprecedented 216 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and won the Southern Book Award for Nonfiction. See: The New Georgia Encyclopedia: http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/midnight-garden-good-and-evil Of course, this book is now added to my must-read list.
That said, I'm so glad I saw the movie before reading the book. Everyone I've talked with who read the book first thought the movie was a big disappointment. I get how that can happen since I usually find books are better than the movies adapted from them. Once I've visualized those characters and scenes in my imagination, the actors and cameras usually fall short. But I love both books and films and appreciate the impossibility of any filmmaker flawlessly transferring book to screen. But that misses the point. A film can stand alone and sometimes even rise above a book in the hands of a brilliant director and talented actors. Okay, now I'm going off on a tangent.
Suffice to say, I think the movie got bad reviews because readers wanted it to be just like the book and so many people read that book. According to The New Georgia Encyclopedia article, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil sold more than three million copies, has been translated into twenty-three languages, and has brought hundreds of thousands of tourists to Savannah. But I haven't read it and so for me, the movie was brilliant. All that Johnny Mercer music, the visual opulence of Savannah and its quirky characters were fascinating. I'm highly recommending it.
But it's time to leave Georgia for my next stop — Connecticut. I have been to Connecticut. My brother lives in Guilford, but I have only been there once — because the way in which my family is unhappy is that my brother no longer speaks to me. But that's another story.
Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Georgia, John Cusack, Kevin Spacey, Mercer House, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil movie, Savannah
Be Careful What You Wish For – Ravens by George Dawes Green
November 5, 2013 by rachelreadsfiction Leave a Comment
The Boatwright family is in trouble. Creditor's send bills to their workplaces, they're in danger of losing their house to foreclosure, the mom, Patsy, has a drinking problem, the dad, Mitch, is religious, passive and ineffectual and their youngest son, Jase, is just a kid — clueless and mostly tuned into video games. There may be some hope for their eldest daughter, Tara (yeah, like the plantation) she's going to night school and taking organic chemistry with the dream of finding a way out of Brunswick, Georgia. And then the worst possible thing happens – they win the Georgia mega-millions lottery. That's three hundred and eighteen million dollars.
Turns out Patsy Boatwright has been buying lottery tickets for years, parking herself on the sofa on Wednesday nights to watch the drawing with a steady flow of gin & tonic's. Chapter one ends with Patsy holding the winning ticket, yelling "GRACE OF GOD! GRACE OF GOD! GRACE OF GOD!" while rocking back and forth in front of the television. Enter Shaw and Romeo, young tech support workers from Dayton, Ohio, driving through Brunswick on their way to Florida. On their way, that is, until they stop at a convenience store, the very store which has sold Mitch Boatwright the winning lottery ticket. When a pretty young clerk rebuffs Shaw's advances, and lies to him about knowing who won the jackpot, "a shaft of anger" opens up inside him, into which the seed of a plan begins to germinate. It's a plan to terrorize the Boatwrights into giving him and his buddy Romeo half of the jackpot.
The plan seems far-fetched at first – Shaw overhears the convenience store
Courtesy www.zimbio.com
clerk talking about who bought the winning ticket, then he does a little online sleuthing to find out who the family might be. Of course, it's frighteningly easy for anyone with a little bit of knowledge to find out a whole lot about anyone over the internet – that's the point here. Shaw is quickly on the scent of the Boatwrights. He scares up the most information from Tara's MySpace page. Shaw's character is well drawn – multi-faceted and increasingly frightening. He's strange at first and angry and says some weird things: "Here's this universe filled with power, right? These energies, all around us, in every molecule. And you and me, we're smart, we're capable, we're clever. . . . But we might as well be ghosts. We can't seem to get hold of a fucking thing. . . Everything goes to someone else." So Shaw decides it's time he gets hold of the Boatwright's windfall.
After cleverly inveigling his way into their home by pretending to be from the Lottery Commission, Shaw sets forth his scheme: he will take half the winnings and leave them alone once he has it. In the meantime he will live with them, they will concoct a believable story about how he came to know them and bought the winning ticket with Mitch but if anyone tries to stop him or tip off the police, he will kill their loved ones one by one. For emphasis he has them turn out the lights and look out the window at his partner, Romeo, skulking under the chestnut tree in the front yard, lit by a streetlight. He's the partner and designated killer should anything go wrong. And right then, just after threatening them, Shaw tells the Boatwrights about his dream, "all this love; I want to bring kindness and truth and virtue to the world. But I've never had the tools before, and here a tool is set down before me—." The tool, of course, being the Boatwrights' windfall.
The cover story is that Shaw met Mitch Boatwright when Mitch was in Greenville, SC at a training course for work. Mitch volunteered at a crisis center through his church, Faith Renewal, and Shaw was a desperate suicidal man. Mitch had saved his life. They convince everyone that Mitch and Shaw were buddies, that Shaw came to Brunswick to visit Mitch and they bought the lottery tickets together. And here's where things get all Southern Gothic. The Boatwrights are, of course, good church going Christians. At the press conference announcing the winners, Shaw tells the bogus story about their meeting, how Mitch saved his life and then Shaw stuns the crowd by saying he plans to give most of his share of the money away.
The rest of the novel plays out with Romeo stalking the Boatwright's loved ones while an old cop, Burris Jones, nicknamed Deppity Dog, who has been in love with Tara's Grandma, Nell, since they were in high school together, continues to sniff around and investigate, like a dog on a bone. And Deppity Dog smells a rat. The family becomes more and more terrified and yet strangely drawn to the charismatic and clearly crazy Shaw as he achieves rock star status in their little town and especially in the Faith Renewal church community. He begins to have followers, pilgrims, so many want to hear Shaw speak about the miracle of winning the mega-millions lottery and his dream to use the money to make the world a better place that they have to set up camp out at the local fairgrounds. Then Diane Sawyer interviews Shaw, asks him about all these disciples he's attracted — does he think the Lord is calling him? Is his winning the jackpot some kind of divine intervention? Shaw knows that the pilgrims love him, that he has "woven this whole world out of pure faith. It's a kind of magical tapestry of faith and love and power and it's come alive now."
brunswickga-wikipedia.png
Ravens is suspenseful and well-written — a page turner. Occasionally I had trouble suspending disbelief — how long could these guys really hold this family hostage with all the media attention they were getting? But Shaw's deeply flawed, twisted character, his apparent belief in divine intervention, the unhinged scenarios that play through his mind as the action plays out on the page kept me reading and wondering how the Boatwright's could possibly get out of this mess. And the religious aspect kept me fascinated. It's absurd that Shaw can so easily exploit the Boatwright's and the larger community's belief in a personal God, right? These salt of the earth, church-going Southern folk know that God controls the lives of ordinary humans and are thrilled to experience the miracle of the mega-millions jackpot personally, right here and right now in the twenty-first century, in their own town. God has sent his prophet Shaw to Brunswick, Georgia to walk among them, to heal the sick and feed the poor. The author explores this theme throughout the novel as the community and most everyone in the family begins to believe. Mitch Boatwright goes from believing that his family has been blessed by God with all this money, to blaming their own greed for what is happening. Finally Mitch concludes that Shaw and Romeo have been sent from God to test their strength and that they have been found wanting. Except for Tara. Tara's the one who's going to college, who has read books other than the bible. Keep your eye on Tara as you read this book, and on Deppity Dog. Love and education are more powerful than blind faith and ignorance, even in South Georgia.
Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: Brunswick, George Dawes Green, Georgia, mega-millions lottery, Ravens, Southern Gothic
Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
October 24, 2013 by rachelreadsfiction 1 Comment
Wise Blood by Flannery O'Conner is a strange book. In the Author's Note to the Second Edition, she describes it as a comic novel dealing with matters of life and death, wherein protagonist, Hazel Motes, struggles with his faith in Jesus "like a monkey swinging back and forth in his brain." I found little comic in the novel.
At the outset, Hazel is on a train going to "the city" later identified as Eastrod, Tennessee. He's wearing a brand-new suit which is a "glaring" blue and still has the $11.95 price tag stapled to the sleeve. His hat, noticed by everyone he meets, looks like a "preacher's hat." Haze has nowhere to go after serving in the army for four years and losing his family one by one. He is preoccupied by the deaths of his younger brothers and his mother, especially wondering where they go as their coffins are closed over them. He says he wanted to put his elbow into his mother's coffin to keep it from closing her into the darkness. Everyone he meets seems to be attracted to his eyes, trying to see into their impenetrable depths. Like his name, which reflects the protagonist's state of mind, there's a lot of imagery around "seeing" in this novel. And, while everyone takes Hazel for a preacher, he insists that he is not now, and never will be, a preacher. Methinks he doth protest too much.
When Hazel reaches his destination, he decides to prove that he's a sinner by visiting a prostitute and then proclaiming himself a preacher for The Church Without Christ. Much of the action of the novel takes place between Hazel and a simple young man, Enoch Emery who follows him around and tries to befriend him "because there's nothing worse than having no friend in the world." I think that many scenes involving Enoch and his wanderings around the zoo and his fascination with a mummy encased in glass in a museum there are meant to be comic. But for me, the portrayal of this simple, uneducated man is less funny and more pitiful. When Enoch hears someone preach about "a new Jesus" he decides that the mummy is this new Jesus so he steals the mummy and gives it to Hazel.
Try as he might to avoid the role of preacher, Hazel cannot stop himself from preaching or from thinking about Jesus. This is not surprising since the bible is the only book he's ever read, and "when he did he wore his mother's glasses" which tired his eyes. Nor can Haze avoid the scammers who try to hook up with him to make a buck — a charlatan who shows up while Hazel is preaching and makes fifteen dollars and some change for his trouble; another preacher who pretends to be blind and his bizarre daughter who decides she wants to marry Hazel. But Haze becomes more and more tormented and deeply withdrawn. In desperation, he blinds himself with a bucket of lye, then wears barbed wire under his shirt to add to his suffering and stays mostly in his room. When his landlady, who has been caring for him, suggests that they get married, Hazel runs out into the icy rain with his cane wearing his now threadbare suit, preacher's hat and shoes lined with broken glass and rocks. The next day he's found unconscious in a ditch by two policemen who take him back to his landlady to pay his rent even though Hazel tells them, "I want to go on where I'm going." Hazel dies in the back of the squad car but no one realizes he's dead. His landlady remarks that she "has never seen his face more composed." The more she looks into it, the more she sees him "moving farther and farther away, farther and farther into the darkness until he was the pin point of light." Whew. I close the book and am glad it's over.
Okay, I know Flannery O'Conner is considered one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century. And I've read some terrific short stories she's written, but Wise Blood leaves me cold. There, I wrote it out loud! It's always hard for me to admit that I don't like a novel which is considered by literary critics to be genius — it makes me feel ignorant. That said, I now understand why O'Connor only wrote two novels. The long form is not her strength. Or, more likely, it's just me. I'm not interested in reading about the quest for religious belief. But that's not entirely true. I'm simply not interested in reading about that quest when it involves an absurd and twisted set of characters, self-mutilation and martyrdom.
Flannery O'Connor's Andalusia Farm – Georgia southernliterarytrail.org
What have I learned about Georgia as a place through reading Wise Blood? Sadly, not much. I imagine that in the Bible Belt during O'Connor's time there were plenty of circuit riding preachers – fake ones as well as true believers, and maybe some individuals who, like Hazel Motes, had been taught to read and write "but that it was wiser not to." And I know that O'Connor was interested in faith — Catholicism v. Fundamentalism particularly, and, while this story sets forth one side of that equation, it feels mean-spirited to me. Flannery O'Connor once said: "Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic." (Mystery & Manners: Occasional Prose by Flannery O'Connor.) I know the characters in Wise Blood are not meant to be realistic — they just might be too grotesque to speak to this Yankee.
Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: Andalusia Farm, Flannery O'Connor, Georgia Fiction, Wise Blood


Writing a paper may not be an easy to do thing for most students. In fact, a number of students feel inferior about their writings. Some think that the research part is difficult, and some of the students get stuck right in the middle of their term paper. The tips that I am going to share here can help all of the students who take essay writing as a burdened homework. Whether it is a research-based dissertation or a mini-thesis, you can get through in no time by following the few simple steps mentioned below.
You may be given a topic and if not then you must think about the topic most emphasized by your teacher in class. You can either write about it or about something that relates to it.
The topic of your writing could be about anything. So keep it focused and talk about facts and figures. Do not beat around the bush just to increase the length of it.
Think of the structure of your paper you are going to write. Create an order for all the points to be discussed step by step in your mind or on an extra piece of paper.
Discuss facts in detail to support your argument about the topic.
Make sure to give solid examples to support facts you described in your writing.
It is important to write in paragraphs. No one likes a monotonous, long writing with no breaks and no twists and turns in an essay.
There must be a relation or link between all of your paragraphs. You can easily link them by reading your previous written paragraph that will give you ideas about what to write in the next paragraph.
Write those sentences that show the need and importance of it to be discussed in the paragraph. Do not just write something that makes no sense being in the whole discussion.
Always start and close your writing with an introduction paragraph and a conclusion based ending paragraph.
Make sure to use proper punctuation. Do not leave any room for grammatical or spelling mistakes.
Essay writing can be really beneficial and sometimes more challenging than you think. Those students taking on these challenges can utilize their positive skills in a good way. Most students nowadays benefit from their quality writings by working online for various websites and cash out via freelancing easily. This freelance technique not only polishes their writing skills but gives them a good amount of rewarding money as well.


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Full Text - PDF (10.9 MB)
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Admittedly 'fast cars and videotape' may be a little misleading but 'Porsche-sponsored event streamed using Real Time Messaging Protocol' just didn't have the same ring to it.
The Media Technology programme's Outside Broadcast truck was off the road tonight for a livestream from Popham Airfield. The high-profile event, jointly sponsored by Porsche and Denon, featured a couple of techno DJs headlining inside of one of the airfield's hangers.
There were plenty of challenges for the crew including watching how much current they drew as the three hangers had limited power available – at least the air conditioning wasn't required being such a chilly winter's evening. The crew rigged and operated three system cameras and a DSLR to be livestreamed over social media platforms to an expected audience of 13.5 million people. An audio feed was taken directly from the DJ, which proved to be a challenge in itself as the interconnects and signal formats differ from those used in traditional broadcast systems. Fortunately the students were able to put their knowledge and soldering skills to good use to connect the unbalanced output from the DJ to balanced inputs on the truck's audio interface.
Engineering the cameras was also difficult given the vast dynamic range produced by the dark environment and bright lights. This really tested the raw ability of the camera sensors as well as the operational skills of the racking engineer who was tasked with balancing the pictures from the various camera feeds.
The event organisers seemed impressed with the quality of the output and have proposed another livestream from Germany on the strength of this event. On top of that another large organisation have also expressed an interest in arranging something similar. Our involvement came from a third year BA (Hons) Television Studio Production student. The lead is testament to the professionalism and awareness of Solent students and also demonstrates the combined strength of production- and technology-focussed students from within the School of Media Arts and Technology.


text:
Храм Святого Серця (, ) — римо-католицька парафіяльна церква та мала базиліка у Барселоні на горі Тібідабо.

Будівля є роботою іспанського архітектора Енріка Саньє і була завершена його сином Хосепом Марією Саньє і Відалем. Будівництво церкви, присвячена Найсвятішому Серцю Ісуса, тривало в 1902—1961 роках.

Історія
Ідея побудувати католицьку церкву на вершині гори Тібідабо виникла наприкінці 19 століття серед чутки про будівництво у цьому місці протестантської церкви та готелю-казино.

Це спонукало «Раду католицьких лицарів» придбати терен у власність і передати його святому Івану Боско в 1886 році, коли він відвідував Барселону на запрошення , великого покровителя і промоутера проекту. Звідси виникла ідея споруди, присвяченої Найсвятішому Серцю Ісуса, посвята, дуже популярна в той час завдяки поштовху, здійсненому Папою Левом XIII, і відповідала церкві, побудованій в Римі власне Боско () і знаменитого Сакре-Кер у Парижі.

В 1886 році була побудована неоготична крипта, а за два роки до відкриття  дорогу Вальвідрера було урбанізовано, а поруч із криптою був побудований павільйон у стилі мудехар, що служив оглядовою точкою (для міста внизу).
Проте проект будівництва церкви зазнав значної затримки в основному через розробку нового проекту побудови астрономічної обсерваторії на вершині Тібідабо, яка врешті була побудована на сусідньому пагорбі (Обсерваторія Фабра).
Нарешті, 28 грудня 1902 року перший камінь був покладений на церемонії, яку очолив єпископ Барселони Сальвадор Касаньяс-і-Пажес .

Крипта була побудована в 1903—1911 роках, а головна церква була побудована в 1915—1951 роках.
Церкву освятив єпископ Грегоріо Модрего Касаус під час 35-го , що відбувся в Барселоні в 1952 році. Після цього вежі були завершені, а роботи були офіційно завершені.
29 жовтня 1961 року церква отримала від Папи Івана XXIII титул малої базиліки.

Екстер'єр

Зовнішній вигляд церкви нагадує романську кам'яну фортецю з Монжуїка (крипта), увінчану монументальною неоготичною церквою, до якої можна потрапити двома грандіозними відкритими сходами.
Верхня церква має центральний поверх із восьмигранним куполом на восьми колонах .
Купол увінчаний зображенням Святого Серця;
оригінальна робота була написана Фредеріком Маресом (знищена в 1936 році) і замінена в 1950 році іншою, створеною Жозепом Міре.

Верхня церква квадратна з трьома апсидами, великою центральною вежею і чотирма нижніми вежами, що позначають чотири кути площі, і статуями Дванадцяти апостолів, виліпленими Жозепом Міре. Головний фасад має три секції, центральну ширшу, на чолі якої стоїть фігура Архангела Михаїла в арці головного входу та Івана Боско на фронтоні вище. Над лівими дверима розташована статуя Терези Авільської, а над правими — Маргарита Марія Алякок. Над дверима відкрита галерея арок з орнаментом.

Фасад крипти має багато оздоблений тимпан зі скульптурами Альфонса Жуйола і Баха за проектом Євсебі Арнау. Скульптури зображують , Святого Георгія та Святого Якова, святих покровителів Барселони, Каталонії та Іспанії відповідно. Фасад крипти складається з трьох напівкруглих арок на колонах, вставлених під більшу напівкруглу арку, оригінально прикрашену мозаїкою Святої Трійці роботи  (знищена в 1936). В 1955 році її реконструювала майстерня Бру в Барселоні; у творі зображено алегорію набожності Іспанії, представленої її святими покровителями.

Інтер'єр

Інтер'єр розділений на наву та два нефи з напівкруглими апсидами, з вітражами та чотирма вікнами-трояндами на фасадах. У головному вівтарі стоїть велике розп'яття, робота Джоан Пучдоллерс. Вікна пресвітерію присвячені Пію X, Івану Євангелісту, Маргариті Марії Алакок, апостолу Павлу та Іоанну Боско.
На лівому вівтарі є п'ять вітражів, присвячених різним маріанським набожностям: Діві Антиполо (Філіппіни),  (Аргентина), Внебовзяттю Марії, Богоматері Гваделупської (Мексика) і Богоматері Милосердя (Куба). Правий вівтар очолює Воскреслий Ісус, твір Джоан Пучдоллерс, а його вітражі присвячені іспанським маріанським поклонам:  (Мадрид), Діві  (Каталонія), Богоматері Надії,  (Валенсія) і  (Країна Басків).

У вікнах чотирьох веж міститься латинське словосполучення tibi dabo («Я дам тобі»), з посиланням на назву гори.
На рівні хору входять святі-засновники:  і  по обидва боки пресвітерію, а також , Йосип де Каласанс, Джон Боско і Марія Мадзарелло біля головного фасаду.
Вікна чотирьох фасадів присвячені Франциску Салезькому, Пію XI, Ігнатію Лойоли, Франциско Ксав'єру, Пію IX, Розі Лімській, Леву XIII і Пію XII.
Вісім вітражів купола зображують сцени з життя Ісуса.

Статуя Христа

Церкву увінчує величезна бронзова статуя Святого Серця, виготовлена Хосепом Міретом в 1950 році.
Вона замінила оригінал Фредеріка Мареса, який був виготовлений в 1935 році та знищений наступного року, коли почалася громадянська війна в Іспанії.
Підйом із крипти, що проходить через церкву і закінчується біля скульптури, відображає піднесення й очищення людського стану шляхом жертви та спокути.

Крипта
Крипта була спроектована у неовізантійському стилі, поєднуючи готичні та класичні елементи, а також оздоблення, близьке до модернізму. Простір склепу складається з п'яти нефів, розділених колонами, центральна з яких ширша, усі з напівкруглими апсидами. Стіни та склепіння облицьовані алебастром або прикрашені мозаїкою, зі сценами, пов'язаними з освяченнями вівтарів: Марії Помічниці, Святого Антонія Падуанського, Пресвятого Причастя, Святого Йосипа та .

Поліхромний алебастр також використовується для Via Crucis (Хресна дорога), створеного Жозепом Міре. Вікна, які вносять природне світло всередину, доповнюються вітражами з наступною тематикою: найбільші в арці, по кутах, представляють  та навернення короля Реккареда I в католицтво; Святий Фердинанд і Святий Герменегільд представлені в двох великих вертикальних вікнах; а маленькі, розташовані над дверима, присвячені Йоакиму, Ісидору Мадридському, святому Антонію та св Ізабелі Арагонській.

Із крипти є вихід до каплиці, присвяченої Неустанному Поклонінню, викопаної в горі наприкінці 1940-х років, що складається з трьох нефів, розділених колонами. Інтер'єр прикрашений мармуром, мозаїкою на тротуарі та картинами Мікеля Фарре-і-Альбажеса в склепіннях, виконаних в 1947—1949 роках.

Зовні крипти, по обидва боки від головних дверей, є дві сходи, що ведуть на рівень самого храму.

Примітки

Література

Посилання
 Sagrat Cor official site
 http://welovebarcelona.de/die-kirche-sagrat-cor-auf-dem-tibidabo/

Споруди Барселони
Культові споруди, побудовані 1961

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
PKK abducts two Turkish soldiers: Army
An operation is under way to find the Turkish soldiers, who were off-duty when they were kidnapped by suspected PKK militants
A woman mourns over the coffin of her relative at a funeral of a police officer in Turkey who was killed in a PKK attack in September 2015 (AA)
MEE and agencies
Published date: 15 October 2015 10:30 UTC | Last update: 4 years 3 months ago
Suspected militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) abducted two Turkish soldiers in eastern Turkey amid a flare-up of violence between Kurdish rebels and security forces, the army said on Saturday.
The militants seized the soldiers late Friday after stopping a passenger bus on a highway between the Tunceli and Erzincan provinces, the army's high command said in a statement on its website.
An operation was under way to find the soldiers, who were off-duty when they were kidnapped, it added.
Abductions by the PKK are relatively common and usually end peacefully.
There were no further details about the situation of the soldiers, but the Hurriyet newspaper said on its website that the two conscripts were taken by the rebels into the nearby mountains of the Pulumur region.
The Turkish government has been waging a relentless offensive against strongholds of the PKK in the southeast of the country and in neighbouring northern Iraq, while the PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and much of the international community, has killed dozens of police and soldiers in almost daily bomb and gunfire attacks.
Overnight air raids against PKK
Turkish warplanes struck PKK targets in northern Iraq and eastern Turkey overnight, in a new air operation against the Kurdish militant group, the army said on Sunday.
Turkish F-16 fighters hit 17 PKK positions in northern Iraq, destroying shelters used by the militant group, the army said on its website, listing three locations.
The army said in a separate statement that the jets had destroyed fuel and ammunition depots in Hakkari province on the border with Iraq as well as in eastern Kars province.
More than 150 soldiers and police have been killed in attacks since July blamed on the PKK.
The government, for its part, claims to have killed more than 1,000 militants, figures that have been treated with scepticism in the independent media.
The renewed violence shattered a two-year ceasefire which had stoked hopes of an end to the PKK's three-decade militancy, in which more than 40,000 people have died.
Turkey killed 'instigator' of diplomat's assassination, state news agency says
Turkey launches 'Operation Claw' against PKK in Iraq's Kurdish region
'Joint operation'? Why Iran is in denial about working with Turkey against PKK
Turkey: For peace to succeed, PKK and HDP must part
Gulnur Aybet
Why the PKK will lose this round too
Basheer Nafi
Western media's hypocrisy in covering Kurdish militancy
Tallha Abdulrazaq


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Identifying the stumbling blocks in Jewish-Christian encounters, from Antiquity over Reformation and the Shoah to the post-war European dialogue between Jews and Christians—characterized by an unsurpassed mutual respect and candor.
Israel Yuval is a professor of Jewish History at the Hebrew University. He is the Director of the Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and has served as Academic Head of the Scholion Interdisciplinary Research Institute in Jewish Studies.