Tag Archives: Postcards from faraway

Wanderlust Reading List: Kansas City, MO

Today’s post, dear readers,  come to you from Kansas City, Missouri, where I am kicking around this week for a conference.

And before anyone makes a joke about corn or hayseeds, hold off.  I can almost guarantee you, I’ve heard them all (some of them from the good people of Kansas City!)

But, to be honest, it’s a really lovely city, that is gradually, but very clearly recovering from the economic collapse of 2008, with small businesses, breweries, and restaurants taking up residence in vacated movie theaters and industrial sites, and theaters up and down Main Street.  Closer to the river, there is plenty of diverse and fascinating architecture, and, across the city, from everything I’ve seen, a genuine community spirit.  One of the first indications of this I found was in my walk to the nearest Library:

It’s pretty rainy here, sorry for the dour nature of the photo!

One of the first things that strikes visitors from the Northeast to the midwest is how much space there is.  That may not be true in all places, but here, it is.   One of the academic libraries at this conference has enough open floor space that I was tempted to perform an impromptu gymnastics routine, just because I could without bumping into anything.  The Kansas City Public Library Plaza Branch is a city block in size, with big, wide windows, and a whole bunch of comfy chairs positioned by them.   A quick browse of their website shows that they have spaces designated specifically for community events and book groups, as well as film screenings, exhibit space…and a coloring space.  I fell in love as soon as I saw that.

For all the fun that is poked at the midwest, this is very clearly a library system that is devoted to their patrons from the very start.  This branch in particular prides themselves on their children’s room and the wide array of programs they put on for babies, toddlers, and school-aged patrons.

But I haven’t got to the best part yet.  For anyone who has ever despaired of the parking situation in downtown Peabody, get a look at this:

The Library.  It has it’s own parking garage.  For patrons only. 

For those of you who might want to explore Kansas City a bit more from the comfort of their own reading nook, here are a few books set in and around the city that will give you some different perspectives on the area and what it means to live here:

Dark Places: Gillian Flynn’s complex murder mystery was one of my favorite reads of last year, and provides a haunting view of Kansas City and its surroundings, reflected through the eyes of Libby Day,  Libby was seven when her mother and sisters were murdered while she hid nearby, and her testimony helped send her brother to prison for the crime.  Twenty-five years later she’s still struggling to get through each day, but when she starts to sell off family artifacts to make some money–the buyers, a group of obsessed true crime fanatics, also push her to look into the murders, which eventually forces her to question her memories.  Libby herself is like an abandoned building–stuck in the past and pretty unappealing at first glance, but as this story goes on, and she finds herself with a purpose, Libby turns out to be a fascinating and surprisingly sympathetic character.  Her trip throughout Kansas City and its surroundings is a tour of its abandoned and forgotten places, giving this book a pretty bleak outlook, but one that is so clearly drawn you’ll want to wash the dust off your hands when you’re done.

An American Tragedy: On one level, Theodore Dreiser’s classic novel is the story of the corruption and destruction of one man, Clyde Griffiths, who forfeits his life in desperate pursuit of success. On a deeper, more profound level, the novel represents a massive portrayal of the society whose values both shape Clyde’s tawdry ambitions and seal his fate: It is an unsurpassed depiction of the harsh realities of American life and of the dark side of the American Dream.  Based on a true murder case that fascinated Dreiser, this novel doesn’t move quickly, and there isn’t a great deal of action, but it’s a wonderfully complex novel that can be read in a number of ways.  Our Classics Book Group read this book some time ago, and I don’t remember a book that prompted so much debate.  The Kansas City here is an historic one, when the midwest was seen by many as the last bastion of ‘civilization’, as so much of the West was still being ‘settled’ and industrialized.  It is the model of the ‘American Dream’, and thus a place where anything is possible…but not for everyone.

Take Up the Black Man’s BurdenUnlike many cities farther north, Kansas City, Missouri—along with its sister city in Kansas—had a significant African American population by the mid-nineteenth century and also served as a way station for those migrating north or west. “Take Up the Black Man’s Burden” focuses on the people and institutions that shaped the city’s black communities from the end of the Civil War until the outbreak of World War II, blending rich historical research with first-person accounts that allow participants in this historical drama to tell their own stories of struggle and accomplishment.  Impressively, this isn’t just a book of famous biographies, though it does feature famous citizens such as activists Ida M. Becks and Josephine Silone Yates, and state legislator L. Amasa Knox, but it also focuses on ordinary laborers, domestics in white homes, and railroad porters. It tells how various elements of the population worked together to build schools, churches, social clubs, hospitals, the Paseo YMCA/YWCA, and other institutions that made African American life richer. It also documents the place of jazz and baseball, for which the community was so well known, as well as movie houses, amusement parks, and other forms of leisure.  This is a book about race, but also about a city, and is a rich and unique way to look at the history of the midwest and the United States.

Safe travels, dear readers!

Saturdays @ the South: Celebrating Rabbie Burns Night*

Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a’ that,)
That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an’ a’ that.
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
It’s coming yet for a’ that,
That Man to Man, the world o’er,
Shall brothers be for a’ that.

(From: “A Man’s a Man for a’ That” by Robert Burns)

Sign for Alloway Village depicting the features of it’s favorite son.

This is a slightly belated birthday post for Robert Burns, the beloved National Poet of Scotland. Born in Alloway on January 25, 1759, the Bard of Ayrshire, affectionately known as Rabbie started his career as a tenant farmer like his father and later in life became an excise collector in Dumfries. Throughout most of his life, however, whatever job he held, Burns was a poet and a poet in a particularly interesting time in Scotland (and Europe in general).

 

The Scotland of Burns’s time was that of a national identity crisis. After merging Scotland’s crown into Great Britian with James I in 1603, the British and Scottish Parliaments merged in 1707, resulting in a period in which the Scots were facing an identity crisis. How do they retain their distinctive culture amidst the English hegemony overtaking the nation? The Scots language was fading, morphing into strongly-accented English, traditional dress was increasingly frowned upon in polite society and many of the cultural songs, poems and folk traditions were fading, giving way to English traditions. Burns became a man in a time when what it meant to be a Scotsman was in question.

Quote on the wall inside the Burns cottage in Alloway

Burn’s poetry started off commonly enough. When he was 15, he fell in love and began writing love poetry, but his repertoire soon expanded into pastorals about the farm life he grew up in and nature in general (noted particularly in his famous “Ode to a Mouse”)

This mouse stands over 6′ tall on the path to the birthplace museum, commemorating “Ode to a Mouse.” It is either supremely cool or oddly creepy, depending on your view. I have the first line of the poem on a magnet on my fridge, so you can guess where I stand on this one…

and in doing so became a pioneer of the Romantic movement. Burns is now often studied among the likes of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Keats. Burns was more than a prolific Romantic poet, however. He was also a champion of Scottish culture, eschewing more widely-read English and writing most of his poems in the Scots language or a Scottish dialect. In 1786 Burns published Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect to a first edition of 612 copies, but it became popular and was run in a section edition in Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh.

The Tam o’ Shanter pathway in Alloway is lined with with signs like this depicting scenes from the narrative poem.

This success allowed him to travel throughout Scotland (though his travels were, at least in part, to gather information about crops) and he increasingly saw himself as “Scotia’s bard.” He published his narrative masterpiece Tam o’ Shanter in 1788, but after that he spent the rest of his poetic career using his travels to collect Scottish folk songs and poems that were quickly becoming lost.  He contributed two more large collections of traditional songs and poetry in his lifetime: the Scots Musical Museum and A Select Collection of Scottish Airs.

The Writers Museum in Edinburgh celebrates some of Scotland’s greatest writers, including Burns, and continues to support emerging Scottish writers today.

Burns was charismatic and extremely popular during his lifetime, both in literary circles, particularly in Edinburgh, and also throughout the country, hailed as a champion of traditional Scottish culture, including traditional dress (i.e. kilts; though it is often argued that Burns himself is unlikely to have worn one because he was from the Lowlands and kilts are more a tradition of the Highland clans). Five years after his early death in 1796 (he was 37), a group of friends gathered to celebrate his life and accomplishments, calling it the Burns Supper. The tradition continued among the friends for many years, but Burns’ popularity in Scotland, Great Britain and throughout the world grew, morphing from a group of friends gathering to an international celebration. The date changed from July 21st (the date of Burns’ death) to his birthday, January 25th, presumably to make it more a celebration of his life (though also, possibly, because the traditional Burns Supper is full of heavy, warm, rich foods that are much more palatable on a winter’s night). Burns is a highly respected cultural and literary figure and his influence on groups and individuals worldwide (he has the 3rd highest number of statues across the glob of any non-religious figure after Queen Victoria and Christopher Columbus) is quite possibly unparalleled.

Burns’ desk in the Birthplace museum. This display is one of the many original, entrancing setups in this fantastic museum.

Should you like to commemorate the poetry and life of Rabbie Burns with your own (albeit belated) Burns Night, you can do so in any number of ways. Bagpipe music would be a delightful, traditional accompaniment. You can also settle in with a warming glass of whisky (in Scotland, it’s just referred to as whisky, without the “e”, though we call it Scotch, stateside). You can also read a collection of Burns’ work (ideally out loud to others). There are many delicious options for hosting a Burns Supper delineated here (even if haggis isn’t your particular bag). But if you’d prefer to settle in for a Burns Night of reading books that take place in Scotland and celebrate a modern version of  the culture that Burns sought to preserve, here is a selection of Scottish series to help you out:

Inspector Rebus series by Ian Rankin

Multiple Edgar Award winning Edinburgh native Rankin has written John Rebus to be a complex, flawed character who is immediately intriguing, but the city of Edinburgh is almost as much a character as Rebus. Rankin’s mysteries are taught and fast paced, but you’ll also get a little literary tour in his prose as well. My favorite is The Falls, but you can also start with his first book, Knots and Crosses.

Hamish Macbeth series by M. C. Beaton

The beloved bachelor “bobby” (police officer) is the star of the long-running Hamish Macbeth series, sharing a name with a famed Scottish King and “The Scottish Play.” Beaton reportedly spent some time in the north of Scotland and found the Highlands captivating, so she decided to set a classic mystery series in that beautiful setting. The series titles are usual ripe with wonderful puns, like Death of a Bore, so feel free to pick one you like and tuck in.

Isabel Dalhousie series by Alexander McCall Smith

Though he was born in what is now Zimbabwe, McCall Smith has several ties to Scotland where he earned his Ph.D in Law and serves as a Medical Law Professor Emeritus at the University of Edinburgh where his expertise lies in bioethics. We know him better as the prolific author of several well-loved series including the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie (also known as the Sunday Philosophy Club) mysteries. This series often has delightfully philosophical titles like The Forgotten Affairs of Youth and promise a classic cozy with a strong Scottish flair.

Kilts and Quilts series by Patience Griffin

While there are many classic romance “bodice rippers” (for which you can get great reviews from Kelley in The Romance Garden features here on the Free For All) that take place in Scotland with tartan-strewn covers, this is a less intense series that is more about second chances and healing hearts in a tiny, rural Scotland town. This RITA award-winning series full of charm and hope, starts with To Scotland with Love, but the series is linked by the town and not necessarily by the main characters, so you can start anywhere and still enjoy them.

Till next week, dear readers, let’s all “take a cup o’ kindness yet, for days of auld lang syne.”

Bust of Robert Burns at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum

*All photos in this post (except the book covers) were taken in 2011 during your friendly Saturday blogger’s trip to Scotland. 

Five Book Friday!

Today’s post, beloved patrons, comes to you from Ames, Iowa, home of Iowa State University, and birthplace of Sara Parestsky, author of the V.I. Warshawski mysteries, and U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser (and also where a historical conference is being held, which is why I am here, but anyways….).

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Story County, Iowa

Ames is a major college town situated within the charmingly-named Story County, pretty much at the very center of the state.  And, imagine my joy when, while walking down the street near Iowa State University, I saw this Free Little Library, looking well-used and much-loved:

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Yay for Tiny Libraries!

And seeing those books, eagerly awaiting the new friends who would come and take them home, naturally got me to thinking about the new books that have clambered up onto the shelves at our (not so little) Library this week!  So feel free to drop by and find a new tale to take with you on your weekend adventure.  It’s a season for fiction, so please enjoy this week’s selections!

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3787982And The Trees Crept In Teen literature has become one of the fastest-growing, most progressive in publishing today–and also feature some of the most arresting cover-art to be found anywhere.  Dawn Kurtagich’s newest release is no exception, providing a stunning cover, and a thoroughly creepy, novel that can be enjoyed by teen readers and non-teen readers alike.  When Silla and Nori arrive at their aunt’s home, it’s immediately clear that the “blood manor” is cursed–and it’s far more than the creaky floors,  and ominous, foreboding woods surrounding the estate.  It’s the fact that Silla is haunted by visions of a beautiful boy out in the woods; her sister can see a man that no one else can…and the fact that the trees seem to be creeping, inexplicably, ever closer.  This thoroughly immersive gothic novel earned a star review from Kirkus, which said that it “Will haunt readers with its raw emotions, palpable pain, and consistent character voices… Frightening and compelling, this gothic will easily sweep fans up into its creeping sense of hysteria.”

3736571Here I AmFew books have been more highly anticipated than this one–Jonathan Safran Foer’s first novel in over a decade and, by all accounts, well worth the wait.  Set in present-day Washington, D.C., the novel traces, on one level, the experiences of  Jacob and Julia and their three sons, as they cope with a word growing increasingly frightening and strange.  By invoking Abraham’s quote in the Book of Genesis (when God called him to make a sacrifice of his son), Foer explodes the scope of this novel, making it not only about one family, but about the nature of being a father, a son, a Jew, an American–and, ultimately, human, in a book that NPR called “Dazzling . . . A profound novel about the claims of identity, history, family, and the burdens of a broken world.”

3747070Lady Cop Makes TroubleAmy Stewart’s first Kopp sisters novel was an unexpectedly smash hit, and now the intrepid Constance Kopp has become one of the nation’s first deputy sheriffs, and is at work in New Jersey and New York, on the hunt for a German-speaking con man who not only threatens her dreams for a new life and career, but also the honorable Sheriff Heath.  But even as this case grows in danger, Constance knows she has the support of her sisters Norma and Fleurette–that is, when they aren’t training pigeons for the war effort or fanning dreams of a life on the stage.  Based on a true story, Stewart’s books are full of terrific historic detail, including a number of real-life (and larger-than-life) personalities, making this a must-read series for mystery and history fans alike!  Library Journal gave this book a starred review, saying “Constance and her sisters are every bit as enjoyable in this outing as their first. Stewart deftly combines the rough-and-tumble atmosphere of early 20th-century New York City with the story of three women who want to live life on their own terms. The addition of supporting female characters who are also pushing societal boundaries is a welcome touch to the series.”

3747071Mischling: Here’s another huge release that has been on a number of “Best of” lists recently.  Affinity Jones’ novel opens with twin sisters, their mother and grandfather arrive at Auschwitz in 1944.  Pearl and Stasha Zagorski find hope in the midst of darkness through the private language and shared games, but it isn’t long before they find themselves a part of Mengele’s Zoo, where horrific experiments are performed on twins to allegedly understand their unique bond. When Pearl disappears at a concert arranges by Mengele, Stasha is devastated, but clings to the possibility that Pearl remains alive. When the camp is liberated by the Red Army, she and her companion Feliks–a boy bent on vengeance for his own lost twin–travel through Poland’s devastation.  This epic journey of a novel is harrowing and heartbreaking, yes, but, as Publisher’s Weekly noted in their review, “Konar makes every sentence count; it’s to her credit that the girls never come across as simply victims: they’re flawed, memorable characters trying to stay alive. This is a brutally beautiful book.”

3737415Razor Girl: Carl Hiaasen is back with another darkly comic, rollicking mystery set in the murky work of the Florida Keys.  When Lane Coolman’s car is bashed from behind, what appears to be an ordinary accident quickly turns into something much more dangerous.  Behind the wheel of the offending car is Merry Mansfield–the titular Razor Girl–so named for her unique, eye-popping addition to what might be an otherwise unexciting scam. But the scam is only the very beginning of a situation that’s going to spiral crazily out of control while gathering in some of the wildest characters Hiaasen has ever set loose on the page.  Kirkus gave this latest installment in Hiaasen’s growing cannon a starred review, cheering, “Rejoice, fans of American madness who’ve sought fulfillment in political reportage. South Florida’s master farceur is back to reassure you that fiction is indeed stranger than truth. . . . [Hiaasen’s] plotting is so fine-tuned that preposterous complications that would strain lesser novelists fit right into his antic world. Relax, enjoy, and marvel anew at the power of unbridled fictional invention.”

Until next week, beloved patrons–happy reading!

A (Belated) Postcard from Far Away: Where the Wilde Things Are

via Shadowgate
via Shadowgate

I am among the world’s dorkiest tourists.  I don’t go where the tour books recommend…I perform book pilgrimages, often to some genuinely remote and not-very-picturesque places.  Once, I wandered around a rural Dublin neighborhood for two hours trying to figure out in which house Bram Stoker was born.  I gagged down an egg cream in New Mexico, because I was reading Harriet the Spy at the time, and wanted to taste her favorite drink (Harriet and I have very different tastes in soda-fountain faire…)

So during this trip, I decided to make another book pilgrimage.  The Eurostar–that train that links England to mainland Europe via a tunnel under the English Channel–was having a sale, so I decided to visit Oscar Wilde’s grave.

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Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde the Irish writer, playwright, and poet

We all have stories that save us, and Oscar Wilde provided many of those stories for me.  His poems taught me how to feel poetry;  I still am not good at the academic analysis of verse, but Oscar didn’t much care if you “got” it, as long as you felt something…and feel something, I did.  His plays made me laugh during my high school years when nothing else seemed particularly funny at all.  But most of all, his life story taught me that it wasn’t just ok to be different–that you had an obligation to be honest with yourself, and be the person you want to be–and to respect others for being honest, as well.  That hypocrisy was the worst crime, and beauty was the highest achievement, whether that was a beautiful piece of art, a beautiful friendship, or a beautiful life.  I was, and continue to be inspired by Oscar’s bravery and intellect and sense of humor–I named by cat after him, for Heaven’s sake, is there any higher honor?

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Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde the cat, slayer of bluejays and lover of mashed potatoes.

So, anyways, I have made a number of pilgrimages to Oscar…I creeped out some nice London residents when I was in high school by lurking outside the house he once owned on Tite Street.  I convinced by really very kind cousin to take me up to Portora School in Enniskillen so I could see the school he attended as a child.  And this time around, I made it to his grave.

unnamedWhy Paris?  Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two years’ hard labor in 1895 for the crime of ‘gross indecency’ (homosexual activity, which was illegal in England until 1967).  The trial was such an overwhelmingly large media event that it destroyed Wilde’s name and reputation.  His wife was forced to divorce him by her family; his young children had their surnames legally changed to distance themselves from their father; many of his former friends refused to have anything to do with him.  When he was released from prison in 1898, Wilde left England forever and moved to Paris where he could live in relative anonymity.  He died in Paris in 1900, and his best friend, Robbie Ross (another of my personal heroes) arranged for him to be buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery.  Eight years later, Ross had received some two thousand pounds from an anonymous donor to build a marker for Wilde’s grave.  He chose American sculptor Jacob Epstein, who moved in the same circles as Ross.

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Epstein encountered any number of difficulties in completing his assignment; the French government refused to recognize it as “art”, and therefore charged £120 before Epstein could transfer his work to Wilde’s grave.  He had to bribe police officers to look the other way as he worked at the grave site, because he was crafted a nude, and was constantly running the risk of being prosecuted for lewdness.  The officials at Père Lachaise kept trying to cover up bits of his nude figure so as to avoid offending the public, making Epstein so furious he refused to attend the unveiling.

..So, back to my story: Père Lachaise itself is an enormous (110 acres), and very well-known cemetery, serving as the resting place for a number of very famous people (other than Oscar), including Frederic Chopin, Jim Morrison, Marcel Proust, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, and Eugène Delacroix.  I know about Delacroix, especially, since a not-very-happy Frenchman chastised me for walking right by Delacroix’s grave without paying him proper attention (I apologized to Delacroix, by the way).

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Oscar Wilde is buried towards the Porte Gambetta side of the cemetery (number 1 in the map above), and, for all the trouble Epstein had in crafting his monument, the thing itself is remarkable, and makes the gravesite a visually arresting one, surrounded as it is by very traditional late-19th century monoliths and tablets.  I should have been expecting the big plexiglass barrier around the grave; for years, people have been coming up and kissing the monument, leaving big lipstick marks all over it, and the chemicals in the cosmetics were actually damaging the stone of the grave irreparably, making this “kiss proof guard” a necessity in 2011.

What surprised me most of all, though, were the number of people who were there.  There wasn’t a throng by any means, but I had brought my lunch with me to eat with Oscar, and in the 45 minutes or so that I sat on the stump near his grave, I was never alone.  One man even came up with a bunch of flowers and dropped a red rose over the kiss barrier so it lay on the grave.  People came, just to sit near Oscar’s grave, to talk with their companions about his works, or his life, or what those things meant to each person, specifically.

For decades after Oscar’s death, his plays were not performed, his poems were not read, and it was assumed by many that his name would fade away eventually, or remained forever tainted by the scandal that surrounded his imprisonment.  It was for that reason that a quote from his poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol was carved onto the back of his grave:

And alien tears will fill for him
Pity’s long-broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.

But what I saw, instead, were a lot of other people whom Wilde had saved, paying their respects out of love and respect, not pity.  And that made the whole pilgrimage worthwhile.

Everything Old Is New Again…

With apologies for missing a few posts, dear readers.  We have now returned to The Land of Reliable Internet!

IMG_0803This poster was spotted in a number of London Underground stations this past week–namely, a young person, who I think to be a young lady, sitting in a large leather chair in a fancy waistcoat and jacket, looking very pleased.  The ad is for “The Sherlock Holmes Experience”…at Madame Tussauds Museum.

Now, first and foremost, Madame Tussauds is within walking distance of Baker Street, so, as a purist, I would argue that if you want a ‘Sherlock Holmes Experience’, you should go to the Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221B Baker Street, but that is beside the point…

Buster-Keaton-Sherlock-Jnr-2-reading-287x162Seeing this poster made me realize just how popular Sherlock Holmes has become once again.  When I was a younin’ (you know, before cell phones and the high-speed internet and the wheel), and told people that I wasn’t as impressed by The Hound of the Baskervilles as I was by The Sign of the Four, or that I cried while reading “The Final Problem” and “The Case of the Dying Detective”, I got funny looks.  When I told people that my favorite part of going to London was visiting Baker Street, I was asked “Oh, is that, like, a real place?  How funny (you are!)!”  Now, thanks to Mr. Cumberbatch and Sherlock, in addition to Mr. Downey, Jr. and Sherlock Holmes, among a number of other things, to be a Holmesian is to be cool once again.  And while I would highly, highly, encourage everyone to read the original books, because they are terrific, or listen to the audiobooks, as read by David Timson, because they might actually improve upon the originals at times, it’s also pretty interesting to see how Holmes has made it into the 21st century, and shows no signs of tiring.

But Jeremy Brett was the best. The end.
But Jeremy Brett was the best. The end.

Part of the reason for this is because Holmes is such a perfect character to be spoofed, pastiched, and re-invented time and time and time again.  Fun fact: Did you know that the first Sherlock Holmes pastiche was written by James Barrie, who was a good friend of Conan Doyle’s?  Barrie and Doyle wrote a play together  that bombed spectacularly (partly because it wasn’t about Holmes, and no one wanted Doyle to write anything else), and, as a result, Barrie wrote “The Adventure of the Two Collaborators“, in which an irate writer confronts Holmes, who has managed to confound his attempts at fame.  It actually gets pretty creepy at the end, as the writer threatens Holmes with destruction unles he goes to see the play:

 

“I would rather melt into air,” replied Holmes, proudly taking another chair. “But I can tell you why the public don’t go to your piece without sitting the thing out myself.”

“Why?”

“Because,” replied Holmes calmly, “they prefer to stay away.”

A dead silence followed that extraordinary remark. For a moment the two intruders gazed with awe upon the man who had unravelled their mystery so wonderfully. Then drawing their knives —

Holmes grew less and less, until nothing was left save a ring of smoke which slowly circled to the ceiling.

The last words of great men are often noteworthy. These were the last words of Sherlock Holmes: “Fool, fool! I have kept you in luxury for years. By my help you have ridden extensively in cabs, where no author was ever seen before. Henceforth you will ride in buses!”

The brute sunk into a chair aghast.

The other author did not turn a hair.

Plenty of other pastiches and parodies followed this one, and the Sherlockian genre is alive and well today, as witnessed by the sheer number of Holmesian references on our own shelves.  Here are just a few titles to get you into the spirit of things.  But, you know, we also have the originals.  Just so you know….

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3751896A Study in BrimstoneI will admit, it takes a lot to get me to laugh at a book, and even more to get me to laugh at a parody, especially if it is a parody of something as sacred to me as Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson.  But G.S. Denning’s new book had me giggling so loudly that I may have frightened another reader (for which, hearty apologies).  This book may not be for everyone, but if you are one of those good people who have read Doyle’s stories time and again, have passages inscribed on your heart, and who roll your eyes when someone uses the word “Elementary” inappropriately, then this book is comedic gem.  Whereas Sherlock Holmes is a genuis, Warlock Holmes is a rather hopeless, hapless git, whose only use is being a beacon for dark magic, demons, and other nasty supernatural entities.  If it weren’t for his stalwart companion, Watson, he would probably be in prison–actually, one of my favorite aspects of this book is how much credit it gives to Watson throughout for helping Holmes survive in the real world.  I know this won’t be everyone’s brand of humor, but it was absolutely mine.  And I hope it’s yours, so I have someone with whom I can giggle.

3718381 A Study in Charlotte: This teen novel is set in a Connecticut boarding school, where two students named Holmes and Watson set about solving a murder mystery.  You know what makes it great?  Holmes is a young woman named Charlotte.  Charlotte has all of Holmes’ observational skills, gifts for math and science, and anti-social tendencies towards rudeness.  Which is simply sensational, not only because of the somewhat problematic way in which woman are treated in the original Holmes works, but because those problematic assumptions are still with us today.  But Charlotte is a gem of a character, with strength and nerve and akwardness aplenty, making this book–and the series to come, something that every Holmes fan should check out.

3658794 Mycroft Holmes: It turns out, Holmes fans are a worldwide group, representing not only Library Staff and patrons, but internationally-renown NBA stars, as well!  It turns out that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has been a long-time fan of The Great Detective, and used Holmes’ own skills to overcome opponents on the basketball court.  And now that he is retired, he took it upon himself, with help of writer Anna Waterhouse, to write a novel about Sherlock’s big brother, Mycroft.  I love this for so many reasons: first, because anyone who loves Holmes is cool with me.  Second, everyone forgets about Mycroft, who is a fascinating character, even if he only shows up twice in the whole canon.  Third, Abdul-Jabbar takes Mycroft off the shores of England and involves him in a case in Trindad, which not only gives him a terrific back-story, but also involves so much historic detail, real-world issues, economic, racial, and social, that are so often overlooked in our study of Holmes, and fourth, it’s a pretty darn good book, with some great character development, plotting, and atmosphere, making this a super selection for any fellow Holmesian devotee.

Postcards From Far Away: Belfast Again

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It’s that time of year again, beloved patrons, when your favorite Blogger heads off to get some research done…and I know we’ve been to Belfast before, but I’m working on the same Dissertation, so we are heading back to the same city.

I’ve tried to make thing a bit interesting for you, dear readers, by going on some new adventures, however.  This time around, I trekked out to Falls Road, in West Belfast, to visit the only operational Carnegie Library in Belfast.

IMG_0724Originally, the area that became the Falls Road was a petty kindgom known in Irish as Túath na bhFál, or Territory of the Enclosures.  It was incorporated into Belfast by the British government in the 19th century, and today, the Falls Road is very much a working-class area of Belfast.  Since the late 1960’s, has been a bedrock of Socialist and Irish Nationalist politics.  The worldwide Civil Rights movement united Northern Irish Catholics into a political group that rallied for better housing and voting rights (it’s a complicated system, but essentially, business owners had more say in elections, and the economy was structured to favor Protestant business owners).  This prompted Protestants in power to fear a Catholic uprising that would unite Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and resulting in a backlash against protestors that, to many, seemed very excessive.  The result was what has become known as The Troubles in Northern Ireland, and, in many ways, the Falls Road was at the center of the conflict.

In 1970, the British Government imposed what was called “The Falls Curfew”, during which some 3,000 British troops sealed off the Falls Road neighborhood–home to about 10,000 people–with arms and tear gas.  For those who were not already die-hard Republicans (who believed in a united Ireland), this was the final straw.  Even today, the area is marked out by garlands of the Irish national flag, and a huge number of murals that demonstrate allegiance to political prisoners around the world, as well as those who are victims of violence, like this one that commemorated the shooting in Orlando, Florida in June.

Apologies for the atrocious picture--I was trying not to get mowed down by a bus while taking this one.
Apologies for the atrocious picture–I was trying not to get mowed down by a bus while taking this one.

One of the most prominent and famous murals is the one dedicated to Bobby Sands.  In 1981, Bobby Sands, who grew up in the Falls Road area, was a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and became the leader of IRA who were being held in the Long Kesh Prison at the age of 26.  Sands was in his sixth year of a fourteen year sentence when he led a hunger strike that was intended to force the British Government to give IRA prisoners special status (effectively recognizing them as prisoners of war, rather than common criminals).  He died 66 days later,  the first of ten men to die on the strike.  The Hunger Strike itself garnered worldwide attention, radicalized Irish politics, and was instrumental in getting Sinn Fein, until then a fringe political party, into mainstream politics.  This is the 35 anniversary of those hunger strikes, and, in additional to being commemorated all around the Falls Road, a new documentary has been released about Sands himself, and the movement he led, which is getting a huge amount of attention, praise, and criticism, particularly from families of IRA violence.

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The Bobby Sand mural, right next door to the Falls Road Library

The Falls Road Library was opened in 1908, and was the first of three libraries built in Belfast with money from the Carnegie Foundation, which also built the Melrose Library (as well as a number of others that are not on the NOBLE network).   Carnegie Libraries were all built with money donated by Scottish-American businessman Andrew Carnegie, who didn’t always treat his workers terribly well (see the 1892 Homstead Strike, for example), but who built over 3,000 libraries around the world.  Like George Peabody, Carnegie wanted people to have access to libraries, and beautiful libraries, at that.  His natural-born curiosity made him an active learner all his life, and he wanted to share that sense of intellectual adventure around the world.  However, these buildings aren’t always easy to keep-up, or to run, so the number of Carnegie Libraries is falling away (many are being turned into larger municipal buildings or private residences, and many more have been demolished or have burned down and never replaced).  So the chance to visit one–and a thriving one, at that–is always a treat.

On the outside, The Falls Road Library is a stunning turn-of-the-century building, as you can see from the photo at the top of this post.  On the inside, though, it’s been beautifully renovated, with lots of room for books, meetings, and programs (you can check out their website here, if you like).  I must also comment on their super-comfy chairs, from which I took this not-very-good picture of the ground floor reading room:

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If you want to learn more about the Falls Road, its legacy, and the people who call it home, here are a few books you can check out today!

indexShattering SilenceBegoña Aretxaga spent a year living with the community in the Falls Road during the height of The Troubles in the 1970’s, and her descriptions of living conditions and activism there is extraordinarily powerful.  The premise of her book, however, is how women, specifically, gained power and political agency through their activism, in a way that men couldn’t.  It focuses on motherhood and women’s health, on public protests and education, and is as helpful a book on gender studies as it is on modern Irish history.  You’ll have to order this book from the Boston Public Library, but, believe me, it is completely and totally worth the wait.

2353761Nothing But an Unfinished Song : Bobby Sands, the Irish Hunger Striker who Ignited a Generation: Originally released to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 1981 hunger strikes, Denis O’Hare’s book not only deals with Bobby Sands himself, but of the movement he helped lead within Long Kesh prison, a deeply Socialist movement that was as much cultural as it was political, and the world in which he operated–a world of deep economic deprivations, particularly in Northern Ireland, and a time of enormous change within the Irish Republican movement.  He also deals with the worldwide implications of this strike, from the speeches made in Peru to the hunger strike that Nelson Mandela held in support.  Without shying away from the more idealistic and unsavory aspects of Sands and the movement as a whole, O’Hare’s book is a well-rounded and very engaging piece of work that will really help those looking for a good introduction, or follow-up, to this crucial moment in Northern Irish history.

2880607Hunger: Alexander McQueen’s first film is enormously powerful for a number of reasons–many of the actors in the cast are Northern Irish or Irish natives, whose own memories of The Troubles and the 1981 Hunger Strikes influenced their performances; Michael Fassbender’s performance as Bobby Sands is a truly remarkable example of dedication (and the truly terrible nature of a hunger strike); perhaps, most of all, McQueen was very dedicated to showing how conditions for prisoners and prison workers alike was a unique form of hell, making this a remarkably balanced–though not easy to watch–film.

Carnegie Libraries; Their History and Impact on American Public Library Development: Just like the title says…here is a history of America’s Carnegie Libraries, and the way in which they changed our national Public Library system.

 

The Iliad: An Update

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Hi Homer!

Remember that time I told you about the 16-hour marathon reading of The Iliad that I attended in London?  For those of you who haven’t been forced to listen to me go on incessantly about how this was perhaps the coolest thing I have ever witnessed, you might want to consider yourselves lucky…..but for those of you who might have liked to have been there, I am happy to inform you that The Almeida Theatre is a great institution.

They have put the entire marathon reading online for your viewing pleasure!  Yay!

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In case you don’t have 16 hours to devote right now to seeing the entire presentation, you can also read the Introduction that was delivered by Professor Simon Goldhill of the University of Cambridge, and watch this five-minute trailer that gives an overview of the whole day, as well as some insight and reactions by those involved in the production (you can, apparently, also see my Big Giant Head around 3:16).

The full set of readings will be available online until September 21, 2016, so enjoy!  And to the Almeida, should you ever read this, thank you, not only for the event, which was unforgettable, but for letting me share it!

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